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For Immediate Release:
May 31, 2006
Note: A PDF of the petition has been posted on
Save the Manatee Club’s website at
http://www.savethemanatee.org/fwcc_petition.pdf
GROUPS PETITION FLORIDA
ON BEHALF
OF IMPERILED WILDLIFE
Today, conservation and animal welfare groups from Florida and around the
nation, including Save the Manatee Club, Animal Welfare Institute, The Ocean Conservancy,
the Florida Chapter of the Sierra Club, The Humane Society of the United States, Defenders of
Wildlife, In Defense of Animals, National Environmental Trust, Environmental
Defense and the Sea Turtle Survival League
announced they were filing a legal petition with the Florida Fish & Wildlife
Conservation Commission (FWC) urging the state to revise its imperiled species
classification system. Using what the petitioners say is a flawed system, the
FWC has already downlisted the red-cockaded woodpecker despite opposition from
many scientists. If the current classification system is not changed, the groups
fear that many of Florida’s at-risk species, such as the manatee, northern right
whale, Florida panther, and Florida black bear could suffer the same fate as the
woodpecker, resulting in less protection and misleading the public into thinking
these species have recovered.Florida is
rapidly being developed, increasing the threats to wildlife and making
not only survival, but also the state’s goal of endangered species
recovery, an enormous and difficult challenge. According to the U.S.
Census Bureau, in five years Florida will surpass New York in
population, making it the third most populous state in the nation.
In 1999 the FWC modified its
classification system to incorporate the listing criteria of theWorld
Conservation Union (IUCN), a world authority on endangered species,
except for one critical difference, the groups say. Modifications were
made in 2005 but the changes failed to fix the major flaw. The FWC did
not properly align the IUCN’s risk categories with the IUCN’s category
names and definitions. Therefore, the IUCN’s “Critically Endangered”
category became the FWC’s “Endangered” category. The IUCN’s
“Endangered” category became FWC’s “Threatened” category. The IUCN’s
third category of “Vulnerable,” is considered the FWC’s “Species of
Special Concern.” A species losing nearly 30% of its population over
ten years probably would not even make it onto the “Species of Special
Concern” list.
Until the FWC adopts a classification
system that matches IUCN’s or develops a new system that adequately
protects wildlife from habitat loss, the groups want the state agency
to delay any species’ reclassifications that recommend a lesser status
of imperilment.Manatees,
injured and killed by human activity each year - especially from boat
strikes - are presently listed as “Endangered” under both federal and
state law. However, after a state review was conducted using the
present flawed classification system, the FWC is set to downlist
manatees to “Threatened” status in June. State biologists have said
the manatee population could decrease by half in the next 45 years
from rising threats to its long-term survival. “If the FWC had
actually adopted the IUCN’s classification system, the manatee would
continue to meet the criteria for ‘Endangered’ status,” said Patrick
Rose, Director of Government Relations for Save the Manatee Club.
The groups asked that the FWC’s
decision to uplist the gopher tortoise and other species whose risk of
extinction is rising, not be delayed. “Since the gopher tortoise meets
the exceedingly high threshold for upgrading in the state’s current
classification system, it is clearly in need of greater conservation
attention,” said Laurie Macdonald, Florida Director of Defenders of
Wildlife. “The tortoises’ upland habitat is quickly being converted to
development around the state. Thousands of tortoises have been
entombed below ground as subdivisions and shopping malls cover them
over.”
As an example of one of the
criteria, under the current classification system a species would have
to undergo, or be at risk of undergoing, at least an 80% decline in
its population in order to be listed as “Endangered.”
“For slow-maturing species, such as sea
turtles that take up to 35 years to reach reproductive age,
recovering a population that has declined by 80% would be extremely
difficult. Animals such as these warrant full protection long before
an arbitrary 80% threshold is reached; by then the situation would be
critical, and saving species in emergency situations is nearly
impossible,” said David Godfrey, Executive Director of the Sea Turtle
Survival League.
The classification system was created
to guide the management efforts of the state in order to conserve and
recover imperiled species. “As species like the manatee are
reclassified to a less imperiled status before their populations have
actually recovered, state funding for research, management, and law
enforcement will likely be directed elsewhere, preventing full
recovery,” said Martha Collins, attorney for the groups. “Many of
Florida’s species will be downlisted or even delisted, not because
their biological status has changed, but simply because the listing
criteria used by the FWC has changed. All we are asking through our
Petition is for the FWC to reconsider their listing criteria and
afford Florida’s imperiled species the proper protections they
deserve.”
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The following are the organizations that signed onto the
petition:
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