Rhino killed as poaching attempts increase amid India virus lockdown

MAY 11, 2020

A rare one-horned rhino has been killed as poaching attempts increase in one of India's best-known national parks during the coronavirus lockdown, officials said Sunday.

The lack of vehicles on the highway near Kaziranga National Park in Assam state—home to the world's biggest population of one-horned rhinos—amid the lockdown has seen animals move towards the boundaries, making them vulnerable to poachers.

"It is suspected that the rhino was killed at least two to three days ago," the park's director P. Sivakumar told AFP, adding that the rhino's horn was also missing.

Hunters can earn as much as $150,000 for one rhino horn or around $60,000 per kilo on a black market according to media reports, serving foreign demand for its use in traditional Chinese medicine.

"We have also recovered eight rounds of empty cartridge of AK 47" automatic rifle, Sivakumar said.

The rhino carcass was found near a water body inside the park, he said, adding that it was a confirmed poaching incident.

Officials said it was the first poaching case in the UNESCO-listed heritage site in a year. Previous years had seen numerous poaching incidents.

Continued

Rare turtles saved from shrinking waterholes-Wildlife experts are moving rare Manning River turtles from rapidly drying waterholes to help save the ancient species. (Australia) - via Herp Digest

2/3/20, NSW Government, Press Release

Department of Planning, Industry and Environment (DPIE) spokesperson, Kylie Yeend, said she was pleased expert teams have begun moving these precious animals to larger waterholes to help them get through the drought.

"The Barnard River is one of the waterways in the Manning River Valley which is home to these rare turtles that have been around for 50 million years," Ms Yeend said.

"The Barnard River is now largely dried up with only a series of small, shrinking waterholes left for the Manning River turtles and other aquatic wildlife.

"Our experts are taking urgent action, working with Aussie Ark to monitor and relocate turtles from small waterholes into larger ones until rainfall replenishes the waterways.”

Director of Aussie Ark Tim Faulkner said they have established a world-first 'insurance population' for the Manning River turtle, where three turtles rescued from the waterholes have been taken into care for conservation and breeding.

"The 3 collected turtles are the first founders of the insurance population. By March this year, 12 turtles will be collected from across its range, for genetic reasons, to complete the insurance population," Mr Faulkner said.

Ms Yeend said we are now in a position to intervene and protect Manning River turtles from extinction.

"We can all do our bit in these unprecedented situations by going down to rivers and waterholes affected by drought to check for sick or dying turtles," Ms Yeend said.

The public should not take animals out of the environment but report anything significant to the Enviroline on 131 555.

For more info on helping wildlife visit: https://bit.ly/39EBqgt

Four rare mountain gorillas 'die in Uganda lightning strike'

8 February 2020

Four rare mountain gorillas, including a pregnant female, have died in Uganda after being hit by lightning, a conservation group says.

The three adult females and a male infant were found in Uganda's Mgahinga National Park with "gross lesions" on their bodies indicating electrocution.

The Greater Virunga Transboundary Collaboration (GVTC) called this a "big loss for the species".

There are just over 1,000 mountain gorillas in existence.

The species is restricted to protected areas in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda and Uganda.

The four that died were part of a 17-member group, which has been called the Hirwa family by the authorities.

Read on

Rare sand lizards reintroduced to Eelmoor Marsh, UK - via Herp Digest

September, 23 2019

Image caption

Sand lizards are protected under the Wildlife & Countryside Act 1981

Eighty juvenile sand lizards - one of the UK's rarest reptiles - have been released into the wild in Hampshire.

Conservationists from Marwell Wildlife released the creatures at Eelmoor Marsh, near Farnborough.

The animals were tagged with tiny radio transmitters as part of the group's three-year research project.

The programme has so far brought the number of lizards reintroduced at the site to 240, with the aim of creating a self-sustaining population.

Once common in heathlands across southern England, habitat loss means sand lizards are now only found in a handful of sites.

PhD student Rachel Gardner, who led the scheme, said: "It's been a privilege to work on this project and observe the sand lizards in such detail.

"We hope the research will help inform and make recommendations for the reintroduction protocol in the future, and therefore help optimise its conservation success."

Sand lizard facts:

•                 They live on protected heathland sites in Surrey, Dorset, Hampshire and in the protected Merseyside dunes
•                 They grow up to 20cm (7.8in) long and weigh about 15g (0.5oz)
•                 Both sexes have brown patterns down their backs with two stripes
•                 Their diet is mainly insects, spiders and grasshoppers

Source: Amphibian and Reptile Conservation

In the remote Cambodian jungles, we made sure rare Siamese crocodiles would have enough food

JULY 11, 2019

by Paul Mcinerney, The Conversation

For nine hours, my colleague Michael Shackleton and I held onto our scooters for dear life while being slapped in the face by spiked jungle plants in the mountains of Cambodia. We only disembarked either to help push a scooter up a slippery jungle path or to stop it from sliding down one.

With our gear loaded up on nine scooters—200 metres of fishing nets, two inflatable kayaks, food for five days, hammocks, preservation gear for collection of DNA, and other assorted scientific instruments—we at last arrived at one of the few remaining sites known to harbour the critically endangered Siamese crocodiles.

The Siamese crocodile once lived in Southeast Asian freshwater rivers from Indonesia to Myanmar. But now, fewer than 1000 breeding individuals remain.

In fact, during the 1990s the species was thought to be completely extinct in the wild. Then, in 2000, scientists from Fauna and Flora International found a tiny population in the remote Cardamom Mountains region of Cambodia.

We travelled to this remote wilderness in 2017 to determine habitat suitability for the reintroduction of captive-bred juvenile Siamese crocodiles. We wanted to understand the food web there to see whether it contains enough fish to sustain the young crocs.

Our journey would not have been possible without the help of Community Crocodile Wardens—local community members who patrol the jungle sanctuaries for threats and record crocodile presence. Wardens also conduct crocodile surveys further afield to discover new populations or to identify new areas of potential suitable crocodile habitat for juvenile releases.

Read on

2 rare Barbary lion cubs born in Czech zoo

JULY 8, 2019

Two Barbary lion cubs have been born in a Czech zoo, a welcome addition to a small surviving population of a rare lion subspecies that has been extinct in the wild.

The pair, one male and one female, were born on May 10 in the Dvur Kralove park. Under the guidance of mother Khalila, they have taken their first steps in their enclosure in recent days. They have not yet been named.

The biggest lion subspecies, which once roamed its native northern Africa, was completely wiped out due to human activities. Many were killed by gladiators in Roman times while hunting contributed to their extinction later.

It's believed Barbary lions went extinct in the wild in the 1960s.

Fewer than 100 are estimated to live in captivity.

Read on

Two rare white tiger cubs find new home in Nicaragua

MAY 28, 2019

Two white tiger cubs have been taken to their new home at the Nicaragua National Zoo, where the playful pair will join a menagerie of rare big cat species.

The siblings, named Osman and Halime, are both five months old and the only animals of their kind in Central America, zoo director Eduardo Sacasa said on Monday.

They were donated from a Mexican zoo, home to their parents, and are the third generation of tigers born in captivity in that country, he added.

White lions and tigers are both extremely rare, numbering only a few hundred worldwide, and owe their appearance to a recessive gene. They are not albino or a separate tiger subspecies.

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) estimates that the number of wild tigers has plunged from 100,000 in 1900 to around 3,900 today.

Numbers have risen in recent years but the species is still vulnerable to extinction, the WWF says.

"In their natural habitat they are almost extinct... there's more living in zoos (than in the wild)," Sarcosa said.

Read on

Colombian breeds rare frogs to undermine animal traffickers - via Herp Digest

By Manuel Rueda and Cesar Garcia, AP 5/24/19

CUNDINAMARCA, COLOMBIA

In a small farmhouse surrounded by cloud forest, Iván Lozano inspects dozens of glass containers that hold some of the world's most coveted frogs.

The conservationist has been fighting the illegal trade in rare tropical frogs for years, risking his life and his checkbook to save the brightly colored, poisonous amphibians whose population in the wild is dwindling

.

But Lozano doesn't hunt down poachers and smugglers. He's trying to undermine them by breeding exotic frogs legally and selling them at lower prices than specimens plucked by traffickers from Colombia's jungles. His frog-breeding center Tesoros de Colombia, which translates to Treasures of Colombia, is among a handful of conservation programs around the world that are trying to curtail the trafficking of wild animals by providing enthusiasts with a more eco-friendly alternative: specimens bred in captivity.

"We can't control the fact that in some countries it is legal to own these animals," Lozano said. "But we want to make sure that collectors buy animals that are raised in captivity and are legally exported."

Lozano's efforts to replace illegally captured poison dart frogs have made him well known among collectors in the United States, who are increasingly seeking legally traded specimens.

"Before there was no way you could get a histrionica legally," said Julio Rodríguez, an experienced New York City collector, referring to the Harlequin Poison Frog by its scientific name. "If you saw one in a collection, it most likely came from the black market.”

Rodríguez said that since Tesoros de Colombia began exporting frogs to the United States six years ago prices for some coveted species have dropped significantly. The price tag on the Harlequin Frog dropped by 50 percent, he said. 

The Golden Dart Frog, another much-sought species, went from around $150 a few years ago to $30.

"We want prices to go down so much that it's no longer profitable for traffickers to sell these frogs," Lozano explained.

He said his company also helps collectors breed their own frogs, so they can flood the market with legally raised specimens, taking pressure off those living in the wild. The frogs raised in captivity by Lozano are no longer poisonous, because they have a different diet than wild specimens. But collectors still seek them for their brilliant color patterns.

"We make ourselves sustainable by moving on to new species," said Lozano, who already has permits to export seven species, including the Red Lehmanni, a frog so rare collectors refer to it as "the Holy Grail." Lozano is currently seeking permission from Colombia's government to export another 13 species that are under pressure from animal traffickers.

But while some breeding efforts have helped to tackle the illegal trade, others have had unintended consequences.

Indonesia allows the export of 3 million captive-bred Tokay Geckos to global pet markets each year. But weak regulation has given corrupt companies the opportunity to sell off wild Geckos as Geckos bred in captivity, said Chris Shepherd a conservationist who worked in South East Asia for two decades with TRAFFIC, an environmental group.

Laura Tensen, a zoologist at the University of Johannesburg, said in South Africa, private game reserves that breed lions for hunting have created a new market for lion bones. South Africa now exports lion skeletons to Asia, where they are used for traditional medicine, and this has given poachers in remote regions an additional incentive to go after wild lions.

"For some species captive breeding might help" to reduce trafficking, Tensen said. "But one market does not always replace the other.”

In a 2016 study, Tensen concluded that captive breeding programs are more likely to work when animals bred in captivity are just as desirable to customers as those taken from the wild. These programs are also more successful with species that are relatively cheap to breed and in countries where authorities are arresting traffickers.

"In countries where the risks of being caught are low, the prices for wild caught animals are always less than those of captive bred animals," Shepherd said.

Lozano assigns ID numbers to his frogs, to make it harder for traffickers to sell wild frogs as frogs bred in captivity. But he has struggled to keep prices low because of the costs associated with securing export permits from the Colombian government.

It took Lozano three years to secure his first export permit, exasperating two business partners, who eventually gave up on the venture. Lozano continued on his own and acquired a debt of hundreds of thousands of dollars to keep the breeding center afloat.

He has also battled online critics who have tried to undermine his business by spreading rumors on social media that he is illegally exporting frogs. Lozano believes the criticism comes from animal traffickers.

"For our own safety, we try not to disclose details of our location," he said.

Lozano now wants to start a program to repopulate some forests with frogs bred in his lab.

Colombia is home to 734 frog species, more than any other country except Brazil. The Humboldt Institute, an environmental research group, says at least 160 amphibian species in Colombia are critically endangered.

"This is an urgent situation," Lozano said. "If we don't persist some frogs could become extinct.”

Rare UK butterflies enjoy best year since monitoring began

Hot summer of 2018 boosted large blue, and black hairstreak, but small tortoiseshell declined

Patrick Barkham

Mon 8 Apr 2019 06.30 BSTLast modified on Mon 8 Apr 2019 11.48 BST

The golden summer of 2018 saw two of the UK’s rarest butterflies, the large blue and the black hairstreak, enjoy their best years since scientific monitoring began.

More than two-thirds of British butterfly species were seen in higher numbers last year than in 2017, but despite the ideal butterfly weather, it was still only an average season – the 18th best in 43 years of recording.

Species whose caterpillars feed on grasses struggled as grass withered in hot weather, while there were mysterious ongoing declines for the small tortoiseshell and the peacock, both garden favourites. Despite the warmth, both butterflies had their third-worst year since the UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme – the longest-running scientific insect monitoring project in the world – began in 1976.

Prof Tom Brereton of Butterfly Conservation said: “There were not as many butterflies around as we might have expected given the fabulous weather over much of the butterfly season, and overall, 2018 ranked as barely better than average.

Continued

1,500 live turtles found wrapped in duct tape at Manila airport

Four suitcases abandoned in arrivals area contain rare and protected varieties of tortoises

Hannah Ellis-Petersen South-east Asia correspondent

Mon 4 Mar 2019 08.52 GMTLast modified on Tue 5 Mar 2019 00.40 GMT

Police in the Philippines have discovered 1,529 live turtles wrapped in duct tape inside suitcases abandoned in an airport.

The customs bureau seized four suitcases in Manila on Sunday and found they were filled with rare and protected varieties including star tortoises, red-footed tortoises, sulcata tortoises and red-eared sliders.

Officers said the cases had been brought on a flight from Hong Kong by a passenger from the Philippines and left unclaimed in the arrivals area of Manila’s Ninoy Aquino international airport.

The reptiles were valued at up to 4.5m pesos (£60,000). There is a high demand for turtles as exotic pets, and they are valued for their meat and for use in traditional medicine in some Asian countries.

The Philippines has strict laws against animal smuggling and, if found, the carrier could face up to two years in jail and a fine of 200,000 pesos.

Wildlife smuggling is a problem throughout south-east Asia. The Philippine customs bureau seized 560 types of wildlife and endangered animals in 2018, including 250 geckos, 254 pieces of coral, and multiple species of reptile, and in 2019 it has already discovered 63 iguanas, chameleons and bearded dragons in parcels, airline baggage and international shipments.

The turtles have been transferred to a monitoring unit for safekeeping.

Read on

Red wolf: the struggle to save one of the rarest animals on Earth

Conservation groups say Trump administration plan that would scale the wolves’ protected area and allow people to shoot the species on private land will snuff out the species

Thu 7 Mar 2019 06.30 GMTLast modified on Thu 7 Mar 2019 06.33 GMT

Attempting to locate one of the rarest animals on the planet, US government scientist Joe Madison pointed an antiquated VHF tracking antenna at a tangle of thick vegetation and twiddled some dials on the receiver. A red wolf, judging by the beeps, was in the vicinity but well-hidden.

 “Did you hear that beep? That’s a six-year-old male we just heard,” said Madison, a Tennessean with a sandy-coloured beard who is manager of the US Fish and Wildlife Service’s (FWS) red wolf program. “I mean, obviously I don’t see anything.”

Sightings of red wolves are uncommon not only due to their elusive nature but also their plummeting population. Only around 30 of the creatures remain in the wild, in a corner of North Carolina, with 18 of them fitted with radio collars that Madison attempts to pick up with his antenna.

An FWS assessment in 2016 warned this vestige could completely vanish within eight years. The scenario now is even grimmer. “We’re already way ahead of where that projection was,” Madison said. “If we stay on the current trajectory it won’t be that long before we lose the population. In fact, we are down to one known breeding pair.”

Continued

Chasing The World’s Rarest Turtle (Yangtze Giant Softshell, Rafetuus swinhoei) - via Herp Digest

By Brent Crane, December 24, 2018, The New Yorker

A few months ago, on a sunny afternoon in northern Vietnam, I set off in a small fishing boat outfitted with a motorbike engine to find the world’s most endangered turtle. Of the planet’s four known remaining Yangtze giant softshells (Rafetus swinhoei), only two reside in the wild. Both occupy separate lakes in northern Vietnam. The other two, the world’s sole surviving couple, live in a zoo in southern China; for years, scientists have been trying to breed them, unsuccessfully. (The male has a damaged penis.) The two wild turtles represent the final hope for the species. I had boarded the boat hoping to glimpse one of them in Dong Mo, a fourteen-hundred-hectare lake an hour or so west of Hanoi. I was joined by a group of Vietnamese conservationists allied with the Asian Turtle Program (A.T.P.) of Indo-Myanmar Conservation, a U.K.-registered nonprofit organization. The odds were against us.

The Yangtze giant softshell occupies a regal position in national lore. Legend has it that, in the fifteenth century, in a Hanoi lake called Hoan Kiem, the turtle was the keeper of a mythic sword used to liberate the country from Chinese invaders. Sightings are said to bring good fortune. In 2016, when Hoan Kiem’s sole softshell—which was nicknamed Cu Rua, or “great-grandfather turtle” in Vietnamese—was found dead, it made international news. (Politically, it was bad timing: some joked that its death, which came on the eve of an important gathering of the Vietnamese Communist Party, signalled the regime’s demise.) The country mourned. “It was like losing part of our culture,” Hoang Van Ha, an A.T.P. conservationist, told me.

The turtle in Dong Mo is estimated to be forty or fifty years old, which is considered quite young. For the past eleven years, A.T.P. volunteers have been doing near-daily patrols on the lake, keeping an eye on the turtle and observing its behavioral patterns. The species lives up to its name, with individuals growing to more than three hundred and sixty pounds. Though it used to be common in the region, a combination of hunting, environmental degradation, and rampant development has brought it to the existential brink. Dong Mo’s patrollers usually witness the reptile only once every few weeks, Ha told me, but observers had seen it surface several times in the hours before I arrived. It was the first clear day in weeks, and the turtle was basking.

Dong Mo is a soupy-brown color, and the lake is filled with bamboo-choked isles. It was formed in the seventies, when a dam was built on the Red River, the major waterway of northern Vietnam. Scientists think that the Dong Mo turtle was trapped there after the river’s damming.

(Historically, the turtle has lived in large rivers and channels.) 

Conservation-wise, this was a blessing. “If this animal were out in the Red River, there would be nothing we could do to monitor it or give it protection,” Tim McCormack, an A.T.P. program coördinator, told me. In 2008, heavy rains caused the dam to overflow. The turtle escaped, but only into a fisherman’s net. It took six hours of negotiation between N.G.O. volunteers, the police, local cadres, and the fisherman to rescue the animal. In 2013, conservationists successfully lobbied for a law that fully protects the turtle from capture or sale.

Since then, other safeguards have been installed. On Dong Mo, the A.T.P. conservationists showed me a mesh net, sixty-five feet deep, that was laid across a portion of the lake to prevent escapes. I asked if they ever worried that the turtle would become entangled. “Normally, when he encounters the net, it just swims away,” Ha said. The conservationists lifted the net out of the water and tossed caught branches to the side. Nguyen Tai Thang, a conservationist wearing a pith helmet, repaired a hole with some rope. The turtle was nowhere in sight.

Though the giant softshell’s future appears grim, there have been a few inspiring developments of late. In April, the existence of the second wild specimen was confirmed in a lake called Xuan Khanh. The discovery was made using a new method known as environmental DNA, or eDNA, which reveals the presence of animals by genetically analyzing water samples. eDNA could be used to confirm other softshell specimens across Asia.

Genetics are also coming in handy elsewhere. Last year, a paper published in Scientific Reports showed that, contrary to prior understanding, softshell turtles possess sex chromosomes, which means that they can be sexed using DNA analysis. Minh Le, an evolutionary biologist at Vietnam National University and a research associate at the American Museum of Natural History, told me that preparations were already being made for a test on the Dong Mo turtle. (DNA samples were procured during its escape and capture in 2008.) Assuming things go smoothly, they should have results early next year.

The sex of the two Vietnamese turtles will determine the next course of action. If both are male, plans may be made to transfer either a whole turtle or semen samples to the Suzhou Zoo, in southern China, where the only known female lives. In July, the Suzhou Zoo made a formal appeal to the Vietnamese government to do just this, but no decision has been made. Since 2008, the zoo has been trying to get its pair to produce offspring, but the male’s member, mutilated in a battle with another male some decades ago, produces shoddy sperm. (The other male died in the fight.) It is also very old, likely over a century, Gerald Kuchling, an Austrian turtle biologist who has overseen the Chinese breeding program since the early two-thousands, said.

Artificial insemination has been attempted three times on the Suzhou pair, but no eggs have hatched. If conservationists can change that, population numbers could rebound rapidly. “It only takes a couple of years of breeding success and there could be hundreds of individuals,” McCormack told me. But even hatchlings present new problems: when the population comes from the same family, inbreeding becomes an issue. Moreover, all of the structural problems that decimated the turtles in the first place persist. Dams continue to be built along southeast Asian rivers, wetlands are being developed, and demand for turtle meat still tempts hunters.

Perhaps Dong Mo can serve as an example of local conservation success. Through negotiation with land managers, the A.T.P. was able to create a no-fishing zone within two portions of the lake, giving the turtle its own hunting grounds. The organization has also educated local communities about the turtle. Conservationists give lectures at schools, hang up flyers in villages, and even host the Turtle Football Cup, an annual soccer tournament on the banks of Dong Mo. Winners get a large poster of the turtle.

Rare Sumatran tiger rescued from beneath shop in Indonesia

November 17, 2018

A rare Sumatran tiger that was trapped beneath the floor of a shop for three days has been rescued, an Indonesian official said Saturday.

The three-year old male was freed from the 75 centimetre (30 inch) crawl space on Burung Island in Riau province at about 1:50 am, the local conservation agency said.

"After the tiger was successfully put to sleep we opened up part of the shop's foundation to do the evacuation," Suharyono, head of the Riau conservation agency, told AFP.

The 80-kilo (180-pound) animal was treated by veterinarians for minor wounds on its legs and cracked canines, officials said.

The big cat became stuck between two buildings in the densely populated market area on Wednesday before freeing himself and then becoming trapped again beneath the building.

Video footage showed the tiger lying on its belly between two concrete foundations, unable to move.

The tiger has been transported to a rehabilitation centre.

Sumatran tigers are considered critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

There are fewer than 400 Sumatran tigers left in the wild and environmental activists say they are increasingly coming into conflict with people as their natural habitat is rapidly deforested.

Source  

Biologists rush to help Montreal snake species threatened by real-estate boom - via Herp Digest

Montreal -- A Quebec biologist is highlighting the need to save some of Montreal's open areas from development in order to protect a rare snake that is found nowhere in the province except in the Greater Montreal area.

The Ecomuseum Zoo recently finished installing hibernation caves and shelters in three nature parks in an effort to help the brown snake, whose grassy habitat is threatened by a real-estate construction boom.

Biologist Pierre-Alexandre Bourgeois said the 39 rock shelters and three caves will help the small reptile hide from predators, hibernate and catch its prey, which mostly consists of slugs, snails and earthworms.

But he says more action will be needed in the long term to protect Quebec's "most urban snake," whose habitat includes the open lots which are increasingly being snapped up for developers.

The brown snake's plight highlights the difficulty of drawing attention to species that are less cute and cuddly, and to the need to protect less scenic open areas that are often seen as 'vacant' or 'underused,' he said.

"It's a brown snake, it's not very appealing to many people," he said in a phone interview. "It's always a challenge to make people understand that the brown snake and its habitat are important.”

Because the snake is shy and good at hiding, Bourgeois said it's almost impossible to know how many are left.

While it's unlikely to be in imminent threat of extinction, what is clear is that its habitat has declined, he said, citing a study of the area's open lots that found that up to 20 per cent them disappeared in the ten-year period between 2002 and 2012.

"At the pace of destruction of uncultivated areas, we may end up in a situation where they will be concentrated in only the few protected areas where there are grasslands and a concentrated population," he said.

Unlike wetlands or mature forests, open fields have no protected status and are usually the first to be snapped up by developers, Bourgeois said.

But he said they still house important ecosystems that are home to not only snakes but also birds, monarch butterflies, small mammals and a slew of pollinating insects.

Bourgeois said awareness is increasing, and several municipalities including Montreal have expressed an interest in better protecting open spaces for the benefit of both animals and people.

The next phase of the Ecomuseum's project, he said, involves continuing to enhance the habitat for snakes in existing parks and working with municipalities to help them devise their own plans.

They've also published suggestions for citizens, which include not over-mowing grassy areas next to backyards, growing native flowers, helping sunning snakes get off the road safely and not throwing gardening residue into uncultivated ditches or fields.

Bourgeois is also hoping the species will be designated as threatened or vulnerable by the Quebec government, which would lead to funding for conservation efforts and habitat protection.

Currently, it is on a list of species "of special concern" that is considered likely to be designated in the future.

While the biologists studying the snake have recommended it be added to the imperilled species list, Bourgeois acknowledged that change may not be coming any time soon, noting that the last time Quebec designated a species to the list was in 2009.

Kavanaugh’s absence could affect rare frog's fate (Dusky Gopher Frog) – via Herp Digest

Ellen M. Gilmer, E&E News reporter Greenwire: Tuesday, September 25, 2018

The slowdown and potential derailment of Brett Kavanaugh's confirmation to the Supreme Court has immediate implications for Endangered Species Act litigation on the court's calendar.

On Monday morning, the high court will open its new term with arguments over habitat protections for the dusky gopher frog, an endangered amphibian in the South.

It's unlikely Kavanaugh will be there.

The nominee appeared to be cruising toward Senate confirmation two weeks ago before sexual assault allegations surfaced. Now Kavanaugh and his first accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, are set to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday. 

Republicans have blazoned confidence they'll ultimately confirm Kavanaugh to the bench, but the vote count remains uncertain. And even with enough support, it would be nearly impossible to have him seated in time for Monday's Supreme Court arguments.

A fastest-case scenario would likely look like this: The panel could act on the nominee immediately after Thursday's hearing. After moving the nomination out of committee, lawmakers are required by chamber rules to invoke cloture and allow for 30 hours of post-cloture debate before a final vote. 

The Senate would have to stay in session through the weekend for a full Senate vote on Kavanaugh to occur before Tuesday. 

That means the ESA case and the rest of next week's arguments — including disputes over property rights and executive power — will likely be heard by an eight-justice court. 

A split vote?

Dusky gopher frog. John Tupy/Fish and Wildlife Service 

Environmental lawyers are trying to game out what the timeline means for the dusky gopher frog. 

The ESA case pits timber company Weyerhaeuser Co. against the Fish and Wildlife Service, which in 2012 designated a large swath of private land in Louisiana as critical habitat for the animal — even though the 100 or so frogs in existence live in Mississippi. 

Weyerhaeuser and property rights advocates say FWS's designation went too far. The Trump administration is defending the Obama-era designation.

Many environmentalists thought Kavanaugh would look askance at the habitat protection for the frog. They point to his record of skepticism in ESA cases he fielded as a judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. 

"From a wildlife point of view and from a public interest point of view, Kavanaugh absolutely does not value natural services," Center for Biological Diversity attorney Bill Snape said. "Never has, apparently never will.” 

Without Kavanaugh, FWS and environmental allies might have better odds.

If an eight-justice court splits 4-4 on the case, it affirms the lower-court decision at issue. In the ESA case, however, an ideological split between the conservative and liberal wings of the court is not guaranteed.

If a split on a final vote did occur, the justices would rely on the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision that upheld FWS's critical habitat designation. 

"A 4-4 tie would mean that the 5th Circuit decision prevails," said Snape, who added it's also possible FWS will secure a more clear-cut win by winning over conservative Chief Justice John Roberts. 

The dusky gopher frog's fate may not be that simple. 

Supreme Court procedure could yield a variety of outcomes, including the eventual participation of Kavanaugh or some other new justice.

Justices traditionally do not participate in cases argued before they joined the court, but there's no rule against it 

"I believe [Justice Neil] Gorsuch did not participate in cases argued before he was on the bench, but his vote was not needed to decide the outcome of them," said Bob Percival, head of the environmental law program at the University of Maryland. 

Harvard Law School professor Richard Lazarus said the justices make rare exceptions to their standard practice of voting only in cases whose arguments they attended. The late Chief Justice William Rehnquist, for example, voted in some cases after listening to recordings of arguments he missed due to cancer.

"But, unlike Kavanaugh, Rehnquist was a sitting justice at the time of argument," Lazarus said in an email. "Kavanaugh would not be."

The more likely path forward for the frog case, if the justices split 4-4, is for the court to set a case for reargument, he added.

Reargument means all the parties return to the courthouse for a do-over.

Mayer Brown attorney Timothy Bishop noted numerous instances in which the court has scheduled reargument to break a deadlocked vote.

After Rehnquist's death in 2005, the court scheduled reargument in cases involving freedom of speech, the death penalty and police searches.

"Presumably, the Court restored these cases to the calendar because an equally divided vote had resulted," Bishop, who was joined by some co-authors, wrote in a Supreme Court practice book.

If the eight current justices split on the dusky gopher frog case, Lazarus said the case would "very likely" take a similar path.

Reporter George Cahlink contributed.

Rare aquatic beetles: Species distribution models guide field surveys

Date:  June 4, 2018

Source:  University of Wyoming

University of Wyoming researchers are shedding light on a rare aquatic beetle native only to central Wyoming.

Lusha Tronstad, lead invertebrate zoologist with the Wyoming Natural Diversity Database, a service and research unit housed at UW, says the narrow-footed Hygrotus diving beetle has been petitioned for Endangered Species Act listing three times in the past 11 years by Wild Earth Guardians, an activist group.

"We have no idea how many there are," Tronstad says of the aquatic beetle she has studied since 2010. "We do know they have been found in 12 locations in central Wyoming and nowhere else in the world."

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