Lynx critical habitat increases

Funny how some people complain about “vermin” taking over there yard, but human encroachment of land is the worst thing that can happen to a species that can cause extinction. Who’s the worst vermin you know?

It’s like that lady complaining about the bears crossing her yard to get food, when her home is in the original path of the bears original habitat!

Lynx critical habitat increases

The amount of land designated as critical habitat for the Canada lynx, a cat federally classified as a threatened species, will increase more than 20-fold under a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decision announced Tuesday.

The designation will apply to about 39,000 square miles in six states, up from a total of 1,841 square miles in three, the agency said. Lands in Maine, Idaho and Wyoming are being added to the critical-habitat map that was adopted in 2006 and consisted only of some national parklands in Minnesota, Montana and Washington. The amount of land designated in those states will expand.

The habitat reconsideration, influenced by a court ruling, followed allegations that Deputy Assistant Interior Secretary Julie MacDonald interfered with some decisions by the Fish and Wildlife Service. MacDonald resigned in 2007 after the Interior Department’s inspector general concluded she pressured federal scientists to alter findings on certain matters before the agency.

“This (lynx habitat) was one that we decided she may have inappropriately influenced,” Shawn Sartorius, the Fish and Wildlife Service’s lead lynx biologist, said Tuesday from his Helena office.

Sartorius, who said he knows of no terrestrial critical-habitat designation larger than the 39,000-square-mile plan, added that not all the same people were involved in the lynx decisions of 2006 and Tuesday. That two such widely different outcomes were reached may not be attributable entirely to MacDonald’s involvement or lack of it, he said.

Critical habitat identifies places with features essential for conservation of threatened or endangered species. For lynx, it includes forests with features such as woody debris for denning; habitat for the snowshoe hare, on which lynx prey; and extended periods of deep, fluffy snow, through which lynx move with relative ease.

The critical-habitat designation applies to about 10,000 square miles in northwestern Montana and a small portion of northeastern Idaho, and about 9,500 square miles in Yellowstone National Park and surrounding areas in Montana and Wyoming. The designated lands in Maine total about 9,500 square miles, followed by Minnesota with about 8,000 and Washington with roughly 1,800. Some of the land is public and some private. [read more]

Fish and Wildlife was forced to admit that Bush administration political appointees like disgraced former Interior official Julie MacDonald had tampered with the science behind the paltry lynx designation. The Center is currently challenging dozens of other unjust Bush administration species listings and critical habitat decisions stemming from improper influence by political appointees.

MORAL VALUES

"The greatness of a nation and it's moral progress can be judged by the way it's animals are treated." - Gandhi Cruelty is a the precursor to more evil deeds, so if a country treats it's animals inhumanly, it's evidence of other serious issues.