Why Is So Much Money Spent on the California Condor?

The California Condor Recovery Plan is the most expensive project based on species conservation in American history and it has worked so far.

At the beginning of the project in 1987, there were 22 condors in the world and they were in captivity thanks to the recovery plan.

Today, close to 25 years after the project first began, there are 400+ known living condors with ~200 able to live out in the wild after being released.

So, the real question for many bird enthusiasts and supporters of the government: Is $35 million worth spending on saving a bird from going extinct?

San Clemente Island, CA 2004-2007

The San Clemente loggerhead shrike (Lanius ludovicianus mearnsi; SCLS) is endemic to San Clemente Island (SCI), California.

Due to its localized range, critically low population numbers, consistently low productivity, predation pressure from invasive species (feral cats and rats) and habitat degradation by feral goats (Capra hircus), this subspecies was listed as federally endangered in 1977.

Throughout the 1990s, the population size of wild SCLS remained extremely low, with estimates ranging from 33 individuals in 1994 to only 14 individuals in January 1998.

Recovery Measures Taken

• Wild birds brought into San Diego Zoo for Captive Breeding• All feral goats on the island were destroyed• Native vegetation was grown in greenhouses and re-planted• Feral Cat Control (spotlighting at night and shooting them)•Rat Control (live trapping and Rodenticide)•Monitoring of Wild Shrike population nesting and breeding success•Release of captive birds back into the wild, both as juveniles and as breeding pairs• Supplemental Food (crickets, mice, mealworms) provided at release sites

*** In total over $20 million has been spent to recover the San Clemente Loggerhead Shrike in the past 20 years.

Population of San Clemente Loggerhead Shrikes in the wild on San Clemente Island, CA.

In Environmental Science, we will continuously raise questions with moral or ethical content. • What is a “reasonable” risk to take in the release of a toxin?

• What methods for preserving ecosystems on private lands are “fair”?

• Do we have a moral obligation to preserve endangered species?

• Should resources be preserved for future generations?

• Why or why not?

As taught to Mr. Heath by Professor Donella H. Meadows, Dartmouth College

We will listen to opinions on different sides on the issues and learn to recognize the unspoken assumptions, values, and ethical choices behind each argument.

In many of these cases, you will be asked to explore your own ethics?

What do you think is the right way to decide on this issue?

Why do you think it’s right?

For the remainder of Environmental Science, we will encounter many specific environmental problems and case studies – real, ongoing problems that raise difficult ethical questions.

1. Just the FACTS……..FACT: (1) that which actually exists; reality, truth (2) something known to exist or to have happened (3) a truth known by actual experience or observation (4) something demonstrated by the scientific method

(Peer-reviewed SCIENCE)

We will define a “fact” as a statement that meets both of the following criteria:

- It is considered important by at least one side of the argument

- All sides of the argument would agree that its true (though some may think it’s irrelevant)

2. AssumptionsASSUMPTION: (1) act of taking for granted or supposing (2) something taken for granted (3) the supposition that something is true synonyms: hypothesis, conjecture, guess, postulate, theory

The best way to handle this section is to list the assumptions you think each side is making.

- Assumptions are usually about future consequences, about what would happen if ____________________

- The goal here is to separate beliefs about the world (assumptions) from beliefs about what is good, bad, preferable, better, worse (which go into the next section on values).

3. Values

Value: (1) something intrinsically valuable or desirable (2) in sociology: the ideals, customs, institutions, etc. of a society toward which the people of the group have an effective regard. These values may be positive (freedom, education )or negative (cruelty, crime)

VALUES are the big concepts that we haul out when we really want to slug each other. Freedom, Truth, Life, Diversity, Harmony, Peace, Prosperity, Self-esteem, Sustainability, Equity, Justice, Security, God, Motherhood. Patriotism (the Flag). The Free Market.

VALUES ARE ULTIMATE GOALS, ABSOLUTE ENDS, DESIRABLE IN THEMSELVES RATHER THAN AS MEANS TO SOMETHING ELSE.

New Battle of Logging vs. Spotted Owls Looms in West

  GALICE, Ore. — A 1990s’ truce that quieted the bitter wars between loggers and environmentalists in the Pacific Northwest is in danger of collapse.

With that truce, made final in 1994 by the Clinton administration, the northern spotted owl, a threatened species, seemed to be getting the breathing space it needed to regroup. While some land was opened to loggers, nearly twice as much was set aside for owls’ hunting grounds. But more than a decade later, their numbers continue to decline faster than expected.

Now the truce, the Northwest Forest Plan, is in jeopardy as one of the parties to it, the Bureau of Land Management, is rethinking its participation. It is proposing a threefold increase in logging on its 2.2 million acres in western Oregon, with greater increases in the old-growth stands that are the owls’ preferred territory.

An Old-growth obligate species

Umbrella Species

More than 70 members of Congress wrote to the Obama administration last week requesting that the gray wolf be removed from the endangered species list.

In a letter to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Friday, 66 Republicans and six Democrats argued that the wolves, which recently lost their endangered status in the western Great Lakes region, no longer merit protection in the lower 48 states under the Endangered Species Act.

The lawmakers wrote that the "unmanaged wolf population poses a threat to the communities and surrounding livestock and indigenous wildlife” and that state wildlife managers “need to be able to respond to the needs of their native wildlife without being burdened by the impediments of the federal bureaucracy created by the ESA.”

Lawmakers Push To Take Gray Wolf Off Endangered Species ListThe Huffington Post | By Lucia Graves

03/25/2013