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Defenders Magazine
Defenders in Action: Government Passes the Buck on Cross-Border Species
The Bush administration has a message for wolverines, jaguars and other animals whose territories cross America's borders: You're not our problem. Despite new evidence that the wolverine is in desperate straits, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently denied the species protection under the Endangered Species Act. The agency said it has no obligation to protect imperiled animals if their populations connect with larger populations in Canada or Mexico.
"This sets a new low in a long line of irresponsible, disturbing decisions made by the Bush administration," says Defenders' Executive Vice President Jamie Rappaport Clark. "The Endangered Species Act was designed to protect and preserve imperiled wildlife populations—not so that we can pass our responsibilities off onto our neighbors, who may not have the resources or protections that we have here."
Wolverines are stocky, muscular members of the weasel family. The bear-cub-sized forest predator once ranged across the northernmost states from Maine to Washington, and south into the Adirondacks of New York, the Rocky Mountains as far south as Arizona and New Mexico, and the Sierra Nevada, Cascade, and Siskiyou Mountains as far south as California. Today the wolverine is known to exist only in the northern Cascades of Washington and the Rocky Mountains of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. Despite their low numbers, they are still legally trapped in Montana. Snowmobiles and other recreational activities disturb their den sites—and a growing body of evidence suggests global warming poses an additional threat.
"Female wolverines select reproductive den sites only in areas that retain snow until late spring, and because of global warming, there will be far fewer such places in the northern Rockies," says Defenders' David Gaillard. "The wolverine was in bad shape eight years ago, but with global warming upon us, its plight is even more dire now."
The Bush administration has also shunned the jaguar—another species whose habitat crosses international borders—pushing it closer to extinction in the United States. Defenders filed a lawsuit against the administration in June after the Fish and Wildlife Service declared the jaguar a foreign species that doesn't require a recovery plan—even though there is evidence jaguars still roam the Southwest.
"The jaguar is as American a species as the bald eagle," says Defenders' Craig Miller. "When the eagle was in danger of extinction here, we didn't give up and say, 'There are plenty in Canada, we don't need them in the United States.'"
With so many other threatened and endangered species—from sea turtles to woodland caribou to grizzly bears—straddling America's borders, Defenders initiated the lawsuit to prevent a dangerous precedent from being set.
"Animals do not recognize man-made political boundaries," says Clark. "They do not know whether they are in the United States, Mexico or Canada, but they do know a good home when they see one. This cross-our-fingers-and-hope approach to conserving species along the U.S. borders could result in us giving up on keeping some of the most amazing species on the planet around for all Americans to enjoy."
For more information, please visit www.defenders.org/border.
