EARTHJUSTICE E.BRIEF OKT 2014

I have been a supporter of +Earthjustice for years and am thankful for the work they do. Here's their October 2014 eBrief with updates on issues and campaigns, victories and new environmental concerns.....

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After 150 Years, Maui’s Streams Flow Again Private corporations that diverted Maui’s streams for more than 150 years agreed to finally restore water flows—courtesy of an Earthjustice campaign. READ MORE

Climate Change Threatens Rare Wolverines The famously feisty creature will take on grizzly bears in a fight, but its biggest threat now is the acute loss of habitat due to receding snow pack in the mountains of Idaho, Montana, Washington, Wyoming and northeast Oregon. READ MORE

WOLVERINES NEED LAWYERS TOO We’re fighting in court to save the last 300 wolverines in the lower 48! Join our fight. DONATE NOW

  IN THE WIN COLUMN

	Havasupai Celebrate Ban on New Uranium Mining A million acres of Grand Canyon watershed is less threatened by uranium poisoning, thanks to a court order upholding a 20-year ban on new uranium mining claims. READ MORE
Other recent court victories include: Federal court paves the way for better monitoring of Alaska's industrial groundfishing fleet. Spruce No. 1 Mine—one of the most destructive mountaintop removal mines ever proposed in Appalachia—won’t be allowed to destroy more streams or nearby communities.

  NEWS

EPA Approves Deadly New Herbicide Without bothering to consult the expert agencies about the herbicide’s effects on endangered plants and animals, the EPA is giving the green light to massive increases in the use of 2,4-D, one of the ingredients in ‘Agent Orange.’ READ MORE

Acting to Sidetrack Explosive Trains Earthjustice is suing to prevent a nightmare scenario of mile-long trains—filled with explosive crude oil—rumbling daily into California’s Central Valley. READ MORE

These Aspens Should Tremble Aspens have reason to quake in some roadless areas of Colorado, where the Forest Service is pushing major fossil fuel development, along with miles of scarring roads. READ MORE

A Nation Poisoned by Incinerators When toxic metals like mercury and cadmium poison your favorite lake, it’s time to regulate the local industrial incinerator. Yet the EPA has allowed thousands of such polluting incinerators across the nation to continue fouling our waters. READ MORE

  SPOTLIGHT

The Toxic Secret of California's Salad Bowl The only thing that stands between Maria Aguilara and dangerous pesticides is her scarf. Read her story and others to learn the realities of working in farm fields in the U.S. and why pesticide exposure protections need to be strengthened. READ MORE

  HOW YOU CAN HELP

Act Now on Climate Power plants are the single largest source of carbon emissions. Tell the EPA it's time carbon polluters cleaned up their act. TAKE ACTION

Everyone Has the Right to a Healthy Environment Vice President of Litigation for Healthy Communities Lisa Garcia discusses how Earthjustice is fighting to protect families and communities from pollution-caused health risks they confront on a daily basis. LISTEN

You've been reading e.Brief, Earthjustice's monthly e-newsletter. Having trouble viewing this email? Read it online: earthjustice.org/newsletter Earthjustice. Because the earth needs a good lawyer. Earthjustice is the premier nonprofit environmental law organization. We wield the power of law and the strength of partnership to protect people's health; to preserve magnificent places and wildlife; to advance clean energy; and to combat climate change. Learn about our work: earthjustice.org Photo Credits (top to bottom): OHA, Erik Mandre, Koji Hirano / Istockphoto, Denton Rumsey / Shutterstock, Chris Jordan-Bloch, Jared Loftus, Samantha Bornhorst, Dave Getzschman, Vadim Petrakov / Shutterstock, Dave Getzschman

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Why Is the Government Killing Bald Eagles? 11MAI12

THIS is sad and disgusting, and it isn't only creatures as glorious as Bald Eagles being killed....consider the slaughter of Gray Wolves in the Northern Rockies. From Mother Jones / MOJO....

—By Tim McDonnell

Sighthound/Flickr

It's a sad fact of life in wildlife management: Every now and then, wild animals have to be killed for the sake of ecological or agricultural protection. "Culling," as it's known, is often a last resort and is usually carried out with a grim sense of necessary duty. After all, most wildlife professionals aren't big on the idea of killing wildlife.
Right?
An unsettling new investigation by the Sacramento Bee found that the federal Wildlife Services agency, an obscure bureau within the USDA tasked with "resolving wildlife conflicts," has in the last decade accidentally killed over 50,000 animals that posed no threat to people or the environment (in addition to nearly a million coyotes killed intentionally). The execution roster would make John Muir roll over in his grave: wolverines, river otters, migratory shorebirds, bald and golden eagles, and more than a thousand dogs (averaging eight a month!), including family pets. According to the Bee:

In most cases, [employees of the agency] have officially revealed little or no detail about where the creatures were killed, or why. But a Bee investigation has found the agency's practices to be indiscriminate, at odds with science, inhumane and sometimes illegal…because lethal control stirs strong emotions, Wildlife Services prefers to operate in the shadows.
"We pride ourselves on our ability to go in and get the job done quietly without many people knowing about it," said Dennis Orthmeyer, acting state director of Wildlife Services in California.

Officially, Wildlife Services exists to take care of things like aggressive bears, coyotes that eat a rancher's sheep, geese that won't get off the tarmac, etc. But the Bee reports that the methods the agency uses, like traps with spring-loaded poison cartridges, leave a grisly wake of bycatch, sometimes of federally protected species, that has been deliberately hushed up by top officials. Even people are at risk: 18 employees and "several members of the public" have been exposed to cyanide from the traps.

Carol Bannerman, a Wildlife Services spokesperson, said that 80 percent of the animals the agency goes after are "dispersed," meaning chased away, rather than "lethally removed," meaning (you guessed it) killed. But she admitted that the agency's methods were sometimes sloppy. She described a recent incident where a team was dispatched to remove arctic foxes from an area where there were nesting endangered shorebirds. Traps were set, but instead of foxes, they caught snowy owls. There was nothing to do but return to the drawing board and try again.
Bannerman insisted such mishaps were accidental and regrettable.
"No one goes into this profession because they want to kill animals," she said.
That may be true, but it doesn't explain the behavior of one agency official who, according to a former employee interviewed by the Bee, instructed that employee to cover up an accidentally killed golden eagle:

"I called my supervisor and said, 'I just caught a golden eagle and it's dead,' " said Strader. "He said, 'Did anybody see it?' I said, 'Geez, I don't think so.'
"He said, 'If you think nobody saw it, go get a shovel and bury it and don't say nothing to anybody.' "
"That bothered me," said Strader, whose job was terminated in 2009. "It wasn't right."

Bannerman declined to confirm or deny this report, saying it was "a complex personnel situation" that she couldn't comment on. Still, she defended the basic premise of the agency, saying, "It benefits the species as a whole by providing a response and giving people help with problems they're having."

Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2012/04/28/4450678/the-killing-agency-wildlife-services.html#storylink=cpy

Okay. But if you see a USDA pickup rolling up the road, consider locking Fido in the house.

Tim McDonnell

Climate Desk Fellow

Tim McDonnell is a Climate Desk fellow. For more of his stories, click here. Follow him on Twitter or send him an email at tmcdonnell [at] motherjones [dot] com. RSS | Twitter

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  http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2012/05/wildlife-services-sacramento-bee