National Affairs and Environment Committee Archives - Outdoor Writers Association of America

Acidification threatens oceans

OWAA Developer — Wed, 01 Feb 2017 23:26:54 +0000

BY PAULA DEL GIUDICE
Most of the news surrounding too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is aimed at our changing climate. But there’s another issue when it comes to carbon in the atmosphere that threatens to harm the oceans and disrupt the food chain. It’s ocean acidification.
The oceans cover 71 percent of the Earth’s surface. They act as huge “sinks” for carbon dioxide, but when carbon dioxide is absorbed by seawater, chemical reactions occur that reduce the potential for hydrogen, carbonate ion concentration and the saturation state of biologically important calcium carbonate minerals which are essential for forming shells and bones for many ocean organisms. This is ocean acidification.
Our oceans are 30 percent more acidic since the Industrial Revolution began. If trends continue, by the end of this century our oceans will be 100-150 percent more acidic, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
That will create a chemical imbalance the oceans haven’t experienced in 20 million years.
Some plants in the ocean, such as algae and seagrasses, can make use of that extra carbon dioxide to accomplish photosynthesis, similar to plants on land.
However, the dramatic effect increasing acidity can have on calcifying organisms, such as oysters, clams, sea urchins, corals, calcareous plankton and pteropods is devastating.
Pteropods are tiny mollusks that are eaten by a wide variety of ocean creatures from krill to whales. They are a major source of food for Pacific salmon. When placed in ocean water with the predicted acidity for the year 2100, their shells dissolve after 45 days. According to Richard Feely, a senior scientist with NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory a 10 percent decrease in pteropod production leads to a 20 percent drop in mature salmon body weight.
No one knows the evolving situation of ocean acidification better than Bill Dewey, director of public affairs for Taylor Shellfish Farms in Shelton, Washington. In 2006, oyster seed hatcheries on the West Coast began experiencing massive die-offs of their stock.
In 2009, Taylor Shellfish had a major die-off of the wild oyster larvae in its facility. Down in Netarts, Oregon, a major die-off occurred at the Whiskey Creek Hatchery the previous year. It was at first, attributed to larvae-eating bacterium called Vibrio tubiashii raging through their tanks, but the die-offs continued, even when Vibrio tubiashii wasn’t present any longer.
The shellfish industry is responsible for a combined $110 million of income to the states of California, Oregon and Washington. In some places, shellfish aquaculture is the No. 1 employer.
Oyster farmers throughout the country depend on seed stocks from hatcheries to begin their growing cycle. With this massive die-off, not only were seed farmers and their businesses devastated, but so were the hundreds of farms they supply. While this was happening scientists noticed that the water entering the hatcheries was more acidic than normal. A strong ocean upwelling was the culprit.
Upwelling is when more carbon dioxide fills the air and it is absorbed by phytoplankton on the surface.
As those phytoplankton die and begin to decompose, they release carbon dioxide into the water column. This is when the carbonic acid develops. Cold water can hold more carbon dioxide so it sinks to the bottom of the ocean. It might not be so bad if the carbon dioxide-filled water remained at the bottom of the ocean, but it doesn’t. Particularly along the West Coast it rolls back to the surface. The water that wells up from the bottom of the ocean today was actually absorbed about 30 to 50 years ago, when increased industrialization began pushing more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Just think about what will happen in 30 to 50 years from now since we’ve pushed past 400 parts of carbon dioxide per million in the atmosphere.
In 2007, Feely and an international team of scientists conducted the first large-scale carbon dioxide survey of waters along the West Coast from Canada to Mexico. Their work showed what occurs when the winds blow from the north causing the upwelling of cold, carbon dioxide-laden waters to reach very near the shore.
Those studies allowed hatchery managers, who operate in controlled environments, to experiment with adaptive management strategies.
At Taylor Shellfish, when they see the weather shifting to more northerly winds, staff hurries to fill their tanks and then shut off the intake. They know they have about 24 hours before the upwelling brings acidic waters through their intake pipes.
They also wait to fill the tanks until the afternoon when the phytoplankton and eel grasses have had a chance to complete photosynthesis, pulling some of the carbon out of the water. Taylor Shellfish is experimenting with growing seagrass refuges near the hatchery to pull additional carbon out of the water.
The company also injects calcium carbonate into the hatchery water system to assist in reducing the acidity. Some of the seed production has been shifted to Hawaii where production is easier during the winter and waters are not impacted by upwelling.
While adaptive management strategies can assist the production of shellfish in controlled situations short-term, they do little to address the long-term health of our oceans.
“Ocean acidification is a big deal,” Dewey said. “Sea water chemistry is going to change in dramatic ways in our lifetime. We are going to watch all the organisms shift in the ocean in ways we can’t fully understand.”
— Circle of Chiefs articles are written by those who have received the Circle of Chiefs Award for conservation reporting and coverage. The Circle of Chiefs are considered OWAA’s conservation council. The article reflects the opinion of the author. If you’d like to add to the discussion, please send a letter to the editor.
— Paula J. Del Giudice is the executive director of the nonprofit Pacific Northwest Pollution Prevention Resource Center. Her articles have appeared On GreenBiz.com. She has been a member of OWAA since 1980 and is a member of OWAA’s Circle of Chiefs.

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Mountain bikes in wilderness?

OWAA Developer — Wed, 01 Feb 2017 23:17:50 +0000

Proposed bill changes management of wild places

BY KATIE MCKALIP
A new Congress and a new presidential administration may be underway, but heated debates over natural resources management in America continue.
Some things never change.
Outdoor recreationists of all stripes, however, are keeping a close eye on legislation introduced last year in the 114th Congress that could drastically change public access to, and the use of, federally designated wilderness, among the nation’s most important public lands.
The Human-Powered Travel in Wilderness Areas Act, sponsored by Sens. Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee of Utah, would open wilderness areas to mountain biking by leaving this decision in the hands of individual land managers. Following its introduction the bill elicited a negative response from many public-lands users, even those who enjoy mountain biking and advocate on its behalf, due to precedents it would set and the potential impacts of unleashing millions of bikers on these special landscapes.
Under the 1964 Wilderness Act, bikes and other forms of “mechanical transport” are explicitly banned in wilderness areas, which are set aside to preserve their pristine waters, fish and wildlife habitat and opportunities for solitude. Today, hikers, anglers and hunters on foot and with traditional pack stock treasure wilderness areas for those same values.
Access opportunities to both private and publicly owned lands are a critical issue for recreationists in the United States. Inadequate public access has emerged as a defining factor in our ability — or inability — to enjoy the outdoors, and sportsmen cite declining public access as the No. 1 reason why we stop pursuing our passions.
Given the priority many of us place on expanding access to our lands and waters, why shouldn’t we support an effort that would introduce a degree of flexibility in the ability of managers to open up places currently designated off limits to “mechanical” recreation?
It’s worth considering the relative rarity of our wilderness lands. Designated wilderness in the Lower 48 encompasses less than 3 percent of our land mass. Yet it comprises the last bastions of pristine fish and wildlife habitat in the United States. These areas are highly vulnerable to human disturbance and encroachment, and bikes can affect fish and wildlife habitat in ways that are by no means insignificant. Numerous studies, for example, demonstrate the outsize impact of mountain bikes on areas frequented by big game.
“Mountain biking is an increasingly popular form of quiet and healthy recreation — one that has a place on public lands,” said Jay Banta, a sportsman and biologist from St. George, Utah, who serves on the national board of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, which focuses on public-lands issues. “But wilderness designations work well as currently stipulated in the Wilderness Act. “Furthermore, wilderness encompasses some of our rarest, most precious lands and waters. Their existence prevents the fragmentation of irreplaceable areas of fish and wildlife habitat.”
Mountain biking has a large and growing following, and it can be enjoyed in appropriate places that often can be easily accessed by members of the public. Wilderness management should minimize the impacts of mountain biking and other growing recreational demands. Opening our wilderness areas to bikes would disrespect the very tradition of wilderness.
While the Hatch-Lee bill failed to gain traction in the last Congress, those of us who care about the responsible management of public lands must be alert to future attempts to dilute the spirit of the Wilderness Act. We should carefully consider the motives and values of a bill’s proponents. While Sens. Hatch and Lee insist that they introduced their legislation simply to open up more public lands for enjoyment by Americans, we can’t ignore the fact that their decisions are frequently influenced by special interests such as the oil and gas industry. How would this segment benefit from increased access to and permissiveness in the management of lands that have traditionally been strictly off limits to development?
From Alaska to Florida, wilderness areas provide us with unmatched backcountry adventures that are part of the fabric of the American experience. While a range of interests, including the mountain biking community, energy companies and non-motorized users such as hikers and hunters, deserves to have a voice in helping determine and shape future wilderness area proposals, the bottom line is that bikes and wilderness don’t really go together.
Luckily we have plenty of public lands that are open to mountain bikes —and to motorized use, industrial development and other uses, both competing and complementary. This gives all us of places to experience and enjoy the outdoors. Ultimately, however, management of our wilderness areas should be closely guarded and rigorously defended. The spirit and letter of the Wilderness Act as currently drafted must be upheld.
— Katie McKalip is national communications director of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers. BHA, a national sportsmen’s group focused on conservation, access and fair chase issues, is committed to defending traditional use of wilderness areas. Visit www.backcountryhunters.org.

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100 years of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act

OWAA Developer — Thu, 01 Dec 2016 20:43:27 +0000

BY ASHLEY PETERS
You’ll never see a heath hen, Labrador duck or great auk. These migratory birds went extinct by the early 1900s. Even the passenger pigeon, once plentiful in North America, saw its numbers dwindle as people overhunted it. The once abundant species went extinct in 1914 when the last of its kind died in the Cincinnati Zoo.
Wood ducks and snowy egrets almost disappeared as well, but thanks to the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, their numbers have rebounded. There are now millions of wood ducks and more than 140,000 snowy egrets in North America.
This year marks the 100th anniversary of the United States and Canada signing the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. It was one of the first pieces of environmental legislation designed specifically to help birds and led the way for later laws like the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act, which also addressed major threats to birds.
The Migratory Bird Treaty Act addressed the biggest, most immediate threat to our birds at the time: overharvesting. However, one of its lasting accomplishments was simply making people in North America think about how our birds are doing.
A century later while we celebrate the treaty’s accomplishments and the birds it’s benefited, we should still be asking this question as we try to understand the biggest threats birds face today and how we can help them thrive.
Background
During the late 1800s and early 1900s, feathers were en vogue, used for creating entire dresses and hats in the United States. The booming plume trade lasted for decades, causing birds to be overharvested to the brink of extinction. Americans started to see a marked decrease in the numbers of birds like wood ducks, snowy egrets and willets and more than 40 other North American species. Plume hunters killed nearly 95 percent of Florida’s shore birds.
Various public campaigns tried to make feather fashion a faux pas. Audubon’s Christmas Bird Count, started in 1900, encouraged people to switch from shooting as many birds as possible in a day to recording the greatest number of bird species seen. Yet these efforts weren’t enough.
The Migratory Bird Treaty Act made it illegal for “anyone to take, possess, import, export, transport, sell, purchase, barter, or offer for sale, purchase, or barter, any migratory bird, or the parts, nests, or eggs of such a bird except under the terms of a valid permit issued pursuant to Federal regulations.”
Birds still need help
A century later we can tout the successes of the act, as well as other laws like the North American Wetlands Conservation Act, which according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, raised more than $4 billion for 30 million acres of wetland conservation projects in the past 20 years, but certain bird species are still struggling.
According to The State of North America’s Birds 2016 report, the last half century has seen a severe decline in quality habitat and 37 percent of North American bird species are “of high conservation concern and at risk.” Seabirds, waterbirds and neotropical migrants have seen huge population crashes over the past 50 years, despite benefiting from the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, mostly due to habitat loss. Marine ecosystems are in crisis, tropical forests are disappearing and rising sea levels threaten coastslines.
Federal laws, like the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, need to be adjusted and viewed in conjunction with national and international habitat protection efforts. Management of whooping cranes, an endangered species, exemplifies this.
Despite the protections afforded under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, the whooping crane population crashed to fewer than 30 birds by the 1940s due to habitat loss. The species narrowly escaped extinction and is still very much at risk with population estimates around 600. For these birds, habitat protection was, and still is, needed in addition to federal laws. The establishment of a national park in Canada and the Texas’s Aransas National Wildlife Refuge in the early part of the 20th century helped keep the birds from complete extinction.
Even after 100 years of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, there are still stories like this that need to be told, in addition to the success stories of the law.
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Tell the story

Make it personal. Find someone who can tell their personal story about helping birds. Emotion and the human element are the ever-important “spoon – ful of sugar” for stories about policy and natural resources management. When your audience sees how birds or bird conservation have inspired someone else, they are more likely to empathize and digest the meaning of the story.
Make it local. Depending on your outlet, focus on a bird or a destination in the region that inspires people. Recommend popular parks or public lands where people can go to see the birds you write about. Talk to local experts, from state bird biologists to area Audubon members.
Make it actionable. When some – one can see how they fit into the big picture of conservation, they are more likely to be motivated to get involved. Tell readers about local groups they can join, a law they can vote on or a change they can make in their own backyard, like planting native plants.

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— Ashley Peters joined OWAA in 2014. She is the communications manager for Audubon Minnesota. For nearly a decade, she has worked to communicate and advocate for environmental conservation. She can be contacted at apeters@audubon.org.

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Find stories in park service’s centennial celebration

OWAA Developer — Fri, 01 Apr 2016 16:40:51 +0000

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BY DANIELLE TAYLOR
The National Park Service’s 100th anniversary this year is the biggest event in a century for America’s public lands, and although the actual date won’t roll around until Aug. 25, the park service has planned a yearlong celebration to mark this milestone.
With 410 sites and more than 305 million visitors in 2015, there are countless ways to cover the park service and the lands it manages. Add in a centennial anniversary as a news hook and you could stay busy the rest of the year.
To begin, note that the objective of the anniversary celebration goes beyond just commemorating a landmark date.
“The official goal for the Centennial campaign is to ‘connect with and create the next generation of park visitors, supporters and advocates,’” said Beth Stern, public affairs specialist for the National Park Service’s Centennial office. “The next generation is the key thing — we’re expanding on that concept to reach new audiences. We’re looking at people from all backgrounds and asking how we connect with everyone. We want the parks to reflect everyone’s story, to make everyone feel welcome and so they know they have a place.”
To help make that happen, the agency and the National Park Foundation, the official nonprofit partner of the National Park Service, developed “Find Your Park,” a public awareness campaign that encourages Americans from all walks of life to engage with their public lands in ways that are most meaningful to them. It’s important to remember “park” can mean many things, Stern said. While for some it means nature and recreation, for others it may mean places with cultural significance, historical importance or connections with their heritage.
An important part of the Centennial campaign is encouraging that broad range of uses so the parks remain relevant and supportive of American ideals now and into the future.
You can find stories in the different and more unique ways people connect to the parks. If you are looking for sources, the park service has been encouraging the hashtags #FindYourPark and #EncuentraTuParque for social media. Searching these could lead you to passionate park explorers, and using these hashtags is a great way to promote your stories.
When thinking of coverage, it’s easy to immediately think of the big, well-known parks, like Yellowstone or the Grand Canyon. But don’t forget about the smaller and lesser-known sites. These are places your readers and editors might not have explored or even heard about. They offer great untapped story fodder.
You can also use the park Centennial to cover public lands on a broader scale.
“Another big goal and message of this Centennial campaign is that we’re encouraging people to explore all public lands, even beyond the National Park Service,” Stern said. “There are lots of community-based programs that cultivate and encourage stewardship of all landscapes. A number of state park systems have joined the Find Your Park campaign, and the Centennial has been a great opportunity to increase awareness of all parks, not just those under the NPS umbrella.”
If you haven’t already, it’s a good idea for outdoor media to develop relationships with the park managers and staff in your area. The parks’ public information officers can be vitally useful resources, and they can add you to email lists so you’ll be on top of planned events and new developments at the parks as soon as they’re announced. Also, many parks partner with friends groups that contribute with fundraising campaigns and volunteer efforts, and these can be excellent information sources as well. In addition, the National Park Foundation can also be a great source for information on programs that support the parks.
The parks wouldn’t be able to do the work they do without the contributions of corporate partners and philanthropic donors. There’s a newsmaker session at the OWAA conference this year that will cover the continuing problem of deferred maintenance on public lands, and federal dollars alone won’t make up the deficit. There are stories in the collaborations of sponsors and the projects they help fund.
There’s a lot to talk about in this Centennial year, and as you do so, go beyond the surface and consider the road that led to here as well as the future prospects for the parks. Weigh the future significance of current events affecting the public lands in your area, and be mindful of challenges and threats facing these valuable resources that provide opportunities for all Americans.
Most of all, encourage your readers, viewers and listeners to bring their kids to the parks. These are their public lands. By exposing kids to nature, history and the other opportunities offered by our parks, we can naturally engage and inspire the next generation of stewards and outdoor enthusiasts.
–Danielle Taylor, founder of Adventure Editorial, is a freelance writer focusing on outdoor recreation, conservation, public lands and travel. In celebration of the National Park Service’s Centennial, she’s currently on a long-term road trip to visit all 59 national parks and as many other park service sites and public lands as possible, and she’s actively looking for freelance writing, editing and partnership opportunities. To contact Taylor, or keep up with her journeys and work, follow her on Twitter @adventureedit and Facebook @adventureeditorial, and visit www.adventureeditorial.com
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Teaching future hunters to shoot — with a camera

OWAA Developer — Tue, 02 Feb 2016 05:47:18 +0000

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BY STEVE MAANUM
In 2008, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reported that the trend in outdoor activities for the years 2001-2006 showed decreases in hunting (-10 percent) and freshwater fishing (-14 percent).
The Kaiser Family Foundation reported that the current trend shows kids are spending as much as seven and a half hours a day or 53 hours a week with television, computers, video games and cell phones. This is generally “inside time.”
On the surface, that data may paint a pretty bleak picture when thinking about connecting today’s youth with their natural world. But look deeper and the answer becomes clear. The Kaiser report demonstrates that our youth are captivated with technology. But the fish and wildlife service survey also shows an increase of 35 percent in nature photography. By combining those two facts, we can use technology, through digital media devices, as the catalyst to connect kids to nature through the lens of a camera.
I started hunting when I was 8 years old. In 1958 I was a third grader and that October I shot four pheasants and one mallard with my Stevens .410 double barrel.
My dad was my hunting and fishing partner and nature mentor. He taught me how to cast and how to tie a jig on my fishing line. He taught me how to arrange a set of decoys and blow the right notes on my duck call. He also taught me how to enjoy the beauty of a sunrise and the peacefulness that surrounds it.
I became interested in wildlife photography in high school. It didn’t replace my hunting; it extended it to 12 months a year. To a photographer, seasons never close and lands that may not be available to hunters are usually available to photographers. When I’m on a photo outing I use all the hunting skills my dad taught me as a kid. A background in hunting has made me a better photographer and a background in photography has made me a better hunter.
We can reverse the trend of kids losing interest in outdoor activities, by reversing the strategy. I became a hunter first and that led me to an interest in photography. What if we help kids become photographers first? Could it spark an interest in hunting and fishing?
I recently teamed up with a group of volunteers to conduct a Youth Bowhunting workshop at Itasca State Park. It may be best known as the headwaters of the Mississippi River or as Minnesota’s oldest state park, but it is also known for its programming initiatives. The diverse staff included a retired forester, three active Department of Natural Resources wildlife specialists, a former educator with 4-H and others.
The day’s schedule included a brief history of bowhunting and the changes in equipment, instruction in shooting safety and etiquette, target shooting on an official range, an elevated stand and from a ground blind. While one group was shooting, another group was instructed in scouting techniques before taking a hike to identify food sources and search for deer trails, tracks, rubs, scrapes, and beds. Because it was early August, we had to enhance the area with a mock scrape, a rub on a sapling, and even a fake blood trail. As the participants walked in search of deer sign, we talked about the value of trail cameras as we inventoried the trees along the trail. We let them select a good location and then attached a camera so they could see how to set the proper height and angle. As we continued our walk and they found the rub and scrape, they stopped to photograph them with their digital cameras and smart phones. I discussed how their camera can be an effective scouting tool. By photographing such things as deer droppings, rubs, scrapes and beds hunters can draw detailed maps of their hunting areas. It helps make wise choices for placing deer stands.
A wildlife photographer becomes a student of nature. Whatever the photo subject, paying attention to its habits – what it eats, when it eats, where it rests, and when and where it migrates are all taken into consideration when planning a successful camera outing. Hunters understand the value of the same information in planning a successful gun or bow hunt.
It all ties together so let photography be an important part of hunting throughout the seasons and make sure you fill the role as nature mentor for our youth.
Steve Maanum is a retired teacher who has used his backgrounds in science and language arts as a foundation for his nature writing and photography. As an outdoor communicator, he strives to help others make nature connections through his family-style nature photography workshops and his presentations in schools and at young writers’ and artists’ conferences.
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Endangered Species Act faces extinction

OWAA Developer — Tue, 01 Dec 2015 21:26:21 +0000

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BY RUTH RUDNER

“Nothing is more priceless and more worthy of preservation than the rich array of animal life with which our country has been blessed,” Richard Nixon said on signing the Endangered Species Act in 1973. The goal of the act, to conserve species at risk of becoming extinct, requires protecting “critical habitat,” areas with the features necessary for survival of the listed species.
Or, it’s supposed to.
Not long after being sworn in, the 114th Congress began a focused attack on our vulnerable wildlife, and the public lands on which it depends. This Congress, the first ever to intervene in the listing process, seems generally blind to the connection between the health of the earth and the health of humans living on the earth. Willing to put politics above science, this Congress seems perfectly willing to put politics above everything. Since January 2015, Congress has introduced more than 45 bills that would undermine the Endangered Species Act, either by prohibiting listing a specific species, delisting specific species, requiring a governor’s approval before listing, or automatically delisting all species after five years. Because removing a species (or adding one) to the Endangered Species List isn’t Congress’s job, doing so means acting outside the law.
Is wildlife a legitimate political tool? And, if it is, how vulnerable is the landscape in which we hunt, fish, climb, hike, film, write? Who do anti-wildlife laws benefit? How sacred is the Endangered Species Act?
The act has been effective. Bald eagles, peregrine falcons, gray wolves, grizzly bears, Florida manatees, American alligators and black-footed ferrets are all species the act’s protections rescued from the brink of extinction.
I had my own small part in this when I spent a summer in Montana’s Gallatin Range as a peregrine falcon hack-site attendant. When 13 years later peregrines were officially removed from the list, it was not only a triumph for the falcon, but for the government agencies, state and provincial wildlife departments, private organizations, falconers, biologists and ordinary people who worked 30 years to recover this magnificent bird. At the celebration for this success, all of us who had a part in it were asked to stand and shout, “Victory!” It was a monumental shout coming out of the gut of a thousand people at once.
That pride remains palpable for me. I imagine it when I think of wolves, brought back from an edge of extinction in the Lower 48 states only to experience a tenuous hold on their right to exist.
The choice to protect our natural heritage, to preserve the wildlife and wild lands which are a source of our well-being, is a choice each of us can offer readers or viewers. Presenting glimpses of what is at stake, what it means when any part of an ecosystem is endangered, how every part is then affected, seems to me the job of the outdoor communicator. We need the science to be correct. We need to know that balanced ecosystems take nothing away from any of us. We need to value what is wild.
—Ruth Rudner is a Montana writer living in New Mexico, but on her way back to being a full-time Montanan. An OWAA member for over 30 years, she is the author of hundreds of articles and 13 books, most of which revolve around wild places and wildlife.
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Reporting tip sheet: Covering the greater sage grouse

OWAA Developer — Sun, 02 Aug 2015 05:46:50 +0000

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BY LAURA LUNDQUIST

In April, I was one of 22 journalists who toured five Western states and covered 1,900 miles to see firsthand the complex challenges of conserving the greater sage grouse. Talking to advocates, landowners, industry representatives and state administrators, we learned what various groups are doing to preserve sagebrush habitat and avoid an Endangered Species Act listing for the bird.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe will decide the bird’s fate in September, if Congress doesn’t continue to pass legislation that undercuts the ESA.
As the Sept. 30 deadline approaches, the potential listing, related reports and political maneuvering will gain more attention. For those reporting on what’s been dubbed by many involved as “the largest conservation effort in history,” the following details may be helpful when writing your stories.
BIOLOGY

An ancient species, the greater sage grouse is dependent on sagebrush and isn’t very adaptable. Males often return to the same breeding grounds, or leks, even if the surrounding sagebrush has been destroyed. However, the females won’t return if no habitat remains to protect their chicks, so subpopulations can wink out within a few years.
It’s estimated that 16 million sage grouse once existed across their historic range. Now, around 200,000 remain.
An April 2015 Pew Charitable Trust report showed sage grouse populations across the West declined 57 percent between 2007 and 2013.

HABITAT

Scientists estimate that the 275,000 square miles of remaining sagebrush represent just 44 percent of the bird’s historic habitat. Most of the rest has been lost in just the past 40 years. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services put special emphasis on saving “core areas” where sage grouse are found and habitat is still good.
Protecting the habitat helps 350 other species, including mule deer, antelope and elk. “What protects the bird protects the herd.”
Threats to sagebrush habitat include: Oil and gas development, open-pit mining, wind farms, urban development, certain agricultural practices (sodbusting and cattle ranching), wildfire and climate change. Related threats to the bird are: Roads, fences, crows/ravens, cheatgrass, continuous industrial noise and habitat fragmentation.
Eleven Western states harbor sagebrush habitat but different threats dominate each state. Wyoming retains the most habitat —37 percent of the state — where the main threat is oil and gas, although cattle ranching plays a part. Montana is next with 18 percent sagebrush habitat and sodbusting is the main cause of destruction. Nevada and Idaho have high-desert areas covered by sagebrush, but devastating wildfires fueled by invasive cheatgrass have left only 14 percent coverage in each state.
Sagebrush accounts for less than 7 percent of the remaining states — Washington, Oregon, California, Utah, Colorado and the Dakotas.
Sagebrush is difficult to reintroduce and takes decades to grow into effective cover for sage grouse, so it’s been called “a short old-growth forest.”

OVERSIGHT
Private vs. public land

Two-thirds of the surviving sagebrush grows on public land, managed mostly by the Bureau of Land Management. Unfortunately, the BLM’s multiple-use mandate allows more industrial and recreational development than on U.S. Forest Service land.
That could change at the end of August with the finalization of 15 regional sage grouse conservation plans. They amend 98 BLM land-management plans to require assessment of sagebrush habitat prior to granting land-use permits. But the plans are likely to face challenges from developers.
Sagebrush preservation is complicated by the fact that around a third of the remaining habitat is on private property, especially in Montana and Colorado. So over the past decade, the states have developed their own plans to preserve the bird, and some go further than others.
If the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decides even one state plan is insufficient, the sage grouse will be listed in all states. During the grey wolf reintroduction, a court ruling confirmed that the agency couldn’t list a species by state.
That’s where the Sage Grouse Initiative comes in. The U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service created the imitative in 2010 to promote sustainable ranching that doesn’t degrade sagebrush habitat. Sportsmen’s groups such as the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation anteed up to pay the salaries of on-the-ground representatives to work with landowners. Tools include voluntary conservation easements, rotational grazing and fence marking.
Citizen working-groups exist in many states, and more than 1,100 ranches have enrolled in the initiative, but many haven’t. Some conservationists question whether the gradual, small changes go far enough.
While states have been allocating funds and designing projects to protect the bird, representatives of some governors have threatened that such resources would be withdrawn if the bird were listed.

LISTING HISTORY

2002 – First petition to list the sage grouse as endangered throughout the West.
2005 – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined that listing wasn’t warranted but the decision was challenged a year later by Western Watersheds Project.
2007 – An Idaho federal district court ruled in support of Western Watersheds Project.
2010 – The service decided a “threatened” listing was warranted but other species had higher priority for protection. This time, WildEarth Guardians challenged the agency demanding a ruling.
2011 – A federal district court sided with WildEarth Guardians and set a Sept. 30, 2015, deadline for a sage grouse listing decision.
April 2015 – U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decided against listing a sage grouse subpopulation in Nevada and California, deferring to the collaborative work being done at the local level.

CONGRESSIONAL ACTIONS

As part of last November’s “Cromnibus,” Congress approved a rider that prohibits the use of Department of Interior money to “draft, write or issue any rules related to the Greater sage-grouse.” So if Ashe and the service decides to list the bird, the service can’t publish guidance for the decision. If that happens, environmental groups have said they’ll go to court.
Most recently, congressmen inserted language into the House version of the National Defense Authorization Act that would delay a sage grouse listing for 10 years and transfer management of the sagebrush habitat to the states. “Litigation is part of the game plan. We’re going to be litigated, doesn’t matter who wins out,” said San Stiver of the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies Sage Grouse Team. “We’re not talking just about sage grouse — we’re talking about culture, we’re talking about economics. It’s a huge issue.”

— Some reporting for this story was made possible with an Institute for Journalism & Natural Resources fellowship.
– After five years writing environmental stories for newspapers, Laura Lundquist has jumped into freelancing and hopes to join the incredible cadre of writers covering the environmental and outdoors stories of Montana and the Northwest.
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This land was your land: Federal transfers rob the American people

OWAA Developer — Tue, 02 Jun 2015 05:30:15 +0000

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BY MATTHEW COPELAND

Stacks of informative articles and level-headed opinion pieces have been written of late about our slinking progress toward wholesale public land transfer and the ongoing efforts to stop it. See Todd Tanner, Bob Marshall, Scott Willoughby, Ben Neary, Judith Kohler, Raph Graybill, and as always, Hal Herring for particularly eloquent examples. What follows here will not be as civil. I am angry, and I am frightened. I believe that anyone who isn’t angry and frightened, isn’t paying attention. And I believe the time for polite discourse has passed.
Open-minded, well-informed consideration of every issue is critical to the functional health of any democracy. In fact I think the erosion of such vigorous debate in our society explains many of our current ills. But public lands transfer is not a topic on which reasonable adults can disagree. It’s not a “topic” at all. It is an attempted robbery — a bald-faced, unabashed, mass swindling of the first order. And the crooks have damn near pulled it off already.
Which would be difficult enough to swallow if it were just land at stake. Our public lands are our most economically valuable national asset, responsible for raking billions of dollars directly into the national coffers each year and supporting far more lucrative free market economic activity. We are literally talking about selling off 28 percent of our country. But politicians’ hands have swept mankind’s pockets ever since we outbred the hunter-gatherer clan structure, maybe longer. What’s a few hundred million more acres pilfered from the people?
It’s not about the land or the money though. What’s ultimately at stake here is a way of life. Who we are as a nation, how we live as a people and what it means to be American have all sprouted from the public soil of our great republic. Public land is the bedrock on which our national mythology is built. The cowboys, mountain men and pioneers wouldn’t have existed without public land. “Huckleberry Finn” is a public land story, as are “Call of the Wild,” “Lonesome Dove” and “A River Runs Through It.” “Don’t Fence Me In” and “America the Beautiful” were written about a landscape with equal access for all. Public lands put the “Wild” in the Wild West. Our spirit of exploration and adventure is inexorably tethered to the distant horizon and predicated on the freedom to cross the ground in between. Without public land, hunting, fishing, hiking and camping are reduced to commercial transactions and restricted to those who can afford them. Are we still American without room in America to roam?
Surely, nothing so central to our economy, identity and lifestyle could be genuinely threatened by the people who represent us. Maybe in some backwater banana republic or former Soviet state, but such gross injustice, such shameless theft could never happen here, right?
One would think. But I’m here to tell you the barbarians are at the gate, they are coming for what you hold dear, and they are winning. With the passage of SA 838, 51 United States Senators have thrown down the gauntlet, spit in your eye and made their intentions clear. They are rewriting the laws to take your land. Their threat is real and it is really happening. We can probably count on the current administration to thwart a land grab for the next 18 months, but who knows after the next election? Particularly if such brazen disregard for the public interest goes unpunished.
And let us be clear. We are being disregarded. The Senators and state governments who’ve led us down this path to the brink of unthinkable calamity know exactly what they’re doing. They are not stupid and they are not misinformed. There has been no misunderstanding of American sentiment. They just don’t care. They don’t care because they’ve sized us up, taken our measure and deemed us impotent. Maybe they figure we’re scared enough of the long promised, but never quite materializing, gun-snatching boogeyman that we won’t dare abandon their protection. Maybe they figure we’re so absorbed in Netflix and “Clash of Clans” that we’ve lost track of the real world. Maybe they’ve just done the math and decided we’re already beaten.
Our Public Lands

Acres of federal public land in the United States: 6.4 million
U.S. public land owners: 320,590,000
Hunters and anglers who rely on public land: 69 percent
Westerners who’ve used public lands in the last year: 95 percent
Annual outdoor recreation economy supported by public lands: $646 billion
Jobs supported by public lands recreation: 6.1 million
Sportsmen’s groups and outdoor businesses that oppose transfer: 114
Western voters (the supposed beneficiaries of transfer) opposing sell-off: 67 percent
Senators who voted to open the door to wide-scale divestment of public land: 51
State governments who’ve moved to “reclaim” federal public land: Seven
Politicians voted out of office for supporting sell-off efforts: Zero

I have to admit it. So far, from their perspective, the math looks pretty sound. I could pile-up reams of compelling numbers, in fact, the much more capable professionals at the National Wildlife Federation, Backcountry Hunters and Anglers and Colorado College already have. But at this point, there’s really only one calculation that carries weight. Unless the big fat zero at the end of the above list changes, the behavior of our elected officials won’t change either.
I was born in Charlottesville, Virginia, and with my first squalling breath I inherited 1-million square miles of the most beautiful real estate on planet earth — boom, a geo-genetic jackpot winner just like every other natural-born American citizen. I can wander where I choose, hunt in the hills, fish in the rivers, lose myself in the mountains or find myself in the desert. Millions of naturalized immigrants earned these rare and precious privileges with the sweat of their brow. Millions more Americans have defended them with the blood in their veins. Now, regardless of our previous paths, we’re all facing the same question. Will our kids know these same freedoms or will they become disenfranchised visitors on someone else’s property?
“Oh, say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave?”
It does for now. If we don’t start making a lot more noise though, we’ll need to rewrite that land part pretty damn quick.
“O’er the holdings of the corporations?”
“O’er the real-estate portfolios of the 1 percent?”
I don’t know, neither sounds like where the brave live to me.
So please, get on the phone. Tell your elected officials they need to fix this — all of them. Follow that call with a letter — or three. Then get back on the phone and ask your friends, family, neighbors and coworkers to do the same. Sign the Sportsmen’s Access Petition at http://sportsmensaccess.org/. Hold a rally. Wave placards. Go to the next town hall meeting and speak your mind. Demand to know where candidates for public office stand on our public lands. Keep score.
Then vote your conscience.
–Matthew Copeland served a six year corporate sentence in Major Metro USA before finding his way home to Wyoming and setting out to serve on his own terms. Today he writes for assorted magazines and helps clients tell their stories more effectively… when he’s not off playing in the mountains that is.
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Freelancer class action settlement update

OWAA Developer — Mon, 01 Dec 2014 15:31:50 +0000

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BY BILL POWELL

Author’s note: This is a requested distillation for OWAA members describing the status of a large class action lawsuit affecting tens of thousands of freelancers. The best resource for information about the lawsuit is the website www.copyrightsettlement.com. Of particular value is the “full notice” posted there. This article should be considered commentary only.
In 2001, the U.S. Supreme Court, in the “Tasini” case, declared publishers who made their publications available via online databases and included freelancer work, as well as the database publishers, had infringed the freelancers’ copyrights unless they had explicit permission to republish freelancer works in that way. In the absence of a written agreement granting such rights, this was copyright infringement, according to the Supreme Court. The Court suggested that some system be developed for compensation of freelancers whose works had been infringed in this way similar to the way recording artists are compensated for their recordings being replayed in public settings.
The settlement that recently became final in the federal court in New York City covers two classes of freelancers, those who registered their affected copyrights with the U.S. Copyright Office before Dec. 31, 2002, and those who did not. The first of these classes is divided as to how compensation under the settlement will be distributed into what are called “Category A” and “Category B.” Nearly all of those covered by the settlement have unregistered copyrights and are in the second class, called “Category C” under the compensation formulae. Under the settlement, freelancers who did not opt out of being included when an opportunity to do so existed in 2005 or when another opportunity was offered for a time ending May 9, 2014, will have no right to complain about the infringements of copyrights that are covered in the settlement. The copyright infringements covered occurred during the period of Aug. 14, 1997, through May 31, 2005, and were committed by any of the publishers who were defendants or who choose to participate in the settlement by paying into the $18 million-plus fund that will be distributed to freelancers. Approximately 50 publishers are known to be participating, and they include many of the most well-known publishers of newspapers and magazines.
No compensation will be paid to any members of the settlement classes of freelancers unless they filed a claim in this long-running litigation prior to Sept. 30, 2005. Thus those tens of thousands of freelancers defined as members of the plaintiff classes who did not either file a claim or opt out of the settlement will have publication of their works legitimized as to past and future use by the participating publishers without any compensation.
Payments to those who filed claims when they could do so nine years ago are expected to commence in early 2015. The formulae for compensation differs for the three categories of freelancers. Category A claimants are most highly compensated for the infringements. They are those who registered their copyrights before any infringement occurred or within three months of first publication, and thus they qualify for statutory damages under the Copyright Act. Category B claimants, who get much less compensation per infringement, are those who registered their copyrights before Dec. 31, 2002, but after infringement and more than three months after
first publication. Category C claimants, the bulk of those covered, who get the smallest amount of compensation per infringement, are those owning unregistered copyrights or copyrights registered after Dec. 31, 2002.
The rationale for unregistered copyright owners getting much less is that there remains some doubt under the Copyright Act whether they could get anything at all via the legal system for any infringement of their copyrights. A prior settlement of this same litigation was set aside by an appellate court on the theory that no such compensation could be approved for those holding unregistered copyrights, but the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that in a class action settlement this was permissible. The revised settlement now approved gives the Category C claimants (those with unregistered copyrights) 14 percent more than the meager amounts allowed them in the first settlement years ago, and also contemplates that perhaps some more will be added to the pool of dollars allocated among them.
This complex litigation ran over some 14 years through multiple federal trial courts, the federal Second Circuit Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court. The services of well-known mediator Kenneth Feinberg were employed throughout much of that time period, both for the earlier settlement and also for the settlement that is now finally approved. The Authors Guild, the National Writers Union, and the American Society of Journalists and Authors all have endorsed the settlement.
Under the math employed by the knowledgeable people who negotiated this agreement, oversimplifying considerably, it may be inferred that fair compensation for infringement of one’s copyright goes something like this: if the copyright is unregistered, it’s worth $X; if it’s registered, but not promptly, it’s worth 5.5 times $X; if it’s registered promptly, it’s worth 22 times $X. In the settlement being discussed here X equals $68.40.
The notion that an author or creator owns the copyright to his or her creation from the moment it’s created remains viable, but this settlement suggests that failing to register the copyright promptly with the Copyright Office drains nearly all of the value from your copyrights. Another thing that may be inferred from this settlement and other recent cases is that freelancers should almost always have written agreements about what rights are being granted. Some other cases (although none in the Supreme Court) suggest that unless you deny such rights in writing, those purchasing just one-time rights also are getting at least some online publication rights.
–Bill Powell has been OWAA’s Legal Counsel since the 1990s, and has been involved in OWAA’s legal affairs since his cum laude graduation from the University of Missouri School of Law in 1981, where he was an editor of the Missouri Law Review. In 1994, he was granted Life Member status for his service to OWAA, and in 2005 he was awarded the Ham Brown Award, OWAA’s highest award “for devoted past service to the organization over a period of continuous years.
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Hunters should have their choice of ammunition

OWAA Developer — Sat, 04 Oct 2014 22:29:04 +0000

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BY LAWRENCE G. KEANE
The National Shooting Sports Foundation, representing the firearms and ammunition industry, supports the right of hunters to choose ammunition products that best meet their personal requirements and budgets. For some, that will be traditional ammunition containing lead components; for others it will be ammunition with projectiles made of copper or other metals that substitute for lead.
Hunters have used ammunition containing lead for more than a century without adverse impact on wildlife populations, the environment or human health caused by eating game taken with such ammunition. Given that the push to ban traditional ammunition plays on emotion and misinformation, the foundation urges those who report on the issue to fully evaluate claims made by ban proponents and to consider their underlying motivations.
Some hunters might not realize that supporting a ban on traditional ammunition amounts to casting their lot with anti-hunting groups, most notably the Human Society of the United States. The Humane Society, which recently filed a petition with the Department of the Interior to eliminate hunting with traditional ammunition on public lands, is on record as committed to ending hunting.
In its recently exposed “playbook,” the Humane Society reveals its dominoes strategy of using California’s decision to ban traditional ammunition as a model to achieve restrictions in other states.
We must keep in mind that wildlife management policy is based on managing population impacts, not on preventing isolated instances of harm to individual animals in a species. Feral cats, power lines, wind farms and window strikes all rank far higher than traditional ammunition as causes of bird mortality. No evidence links the use of traditional ammunition with wildlife population-level declines. Rather, populations of bald eagles and other raptors have increased dramatically in recent decades—concurrent with hunters’ use of traditional lead ammunition.
California’s ban lacks the science to support it. For five years, the state banned the use of traditional ammunition in condor areas, yet even with 99 percent of hunters complying with the regulations, condor blood-lead levels didn’t fall. What’s not been acknowledged is that lead exposure can come from other sources such as landfills and industrial sites.
The scare-tactic claim that consuming game taken with traditional ammunition is a health risk is refuted by a 2008 study of North Dakota hunters. Conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the study shows that those who eat game taken with traditional ammunition do not have higher blood lead levels than the average American. Additionally, the Iowa Department of Public Health, a state agency that has tested the blood lead level of Iowa residents for over 15 years, reports, “IDPH maintains that if lead in venison were a serious health risk, it would likely have surfaced within extensive blood lead testing since 1992 with 500,000 youth under 6 and 25,000 adults having been screened.” Iowa has never had a case of a hunter having elevated lead levels caused by consuming harvested game.
The manipulative “We’ve banned lead in paint and gasoline, why not in ammunition?” is supposed to sound like common sense until you consider that lead compounds once used in those products were soluble and easily absorbed in the blood stream, while the metallic lead used in ammunition is different and relatively insoluble in digestive tracts.
Who would doubt that hunters forced to pay more for ammunition will buy less? Alternative ammunition can cost up to 190 percent more than equivalent traditional ammunition. A decline in sales will mean a reduction in conservation funding from the 11 percent excise tax collected on traditional ammunition. And alternatives in many hunting calibers can be difficult to find.
True intentions are exposed when groups try to force bans but ignore voluntary, educational, non-ban measures such as ammunition coupon programs and asking hunters to bury the entrails of field-dressed animals to reduce exposure. Such measures work, gain the cooperation of hunters and are not divisive.
For years, the Arizona Game and Fish Department and other groups have asked hunters to voluntarily switch to using alternative ammunition in northern Arizona, a condor reintroduction area. Not surprisingly given their traditional support of conservation, hunters showed an 80 to 90 percent participation rate. Utah plans a similar approach.
No ban is necessary.
Editor’s note: The use of lead ammunition continues to be a contentious national issue. This article was written in response to one in the August/September 2014 issue of OU advocating a ban on lead ammunition. Hunters should have their choice of ammunition
–Lawrence Keane is senior vice president and general counsel for NSSF.
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