Tag: Endangered Species

Red List calls out ‘perfect storm of unsustainable human activity decimating marine life’

/ activist360
Turtle at Sea. Photo by Jeremy Bishop

“As the world looks to the ongoing U.N. Biodiversity Conference to set the course for nature recovery, we simply cannot afford to fail,” said the head of the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

By Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams

During the United Nations biodiversity summit in Montreal, an international conversation group on Friday highlighted how humanity is dangerously failing marine life with illegal and unsustainable fishing, pollution from agricultural and industrial runoff, and activities that drive up global temperatures.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species now features 150,388 species, 42,108 of which face possible extinction. Of the 17,903 marine animals and plants on the list, more than 1,550 are at risk.

“Today’s IUCN Red List update reveals a perfect storm of unsustainable human activity decimating marine life around the globe. As the world looks to the ongoing U.N. Biodiversity Conference to set the course for nature recovery, we simply cannot afford to fail,” Bruno Oberle, the group’s director general, warned Friday. “We urgently need to address the linked climate and biodiversity crises, with profound changes to our economic systems, or we risk losing the crucial benefits the oceans provide us with.”

The primary aim of the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP15) of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)—which is hosted by China but kicked off earlier in Canada this week due to Covid-19 restrictions—is the development of post-2020 global biodiversity framework (GBF).

A top priority for many parties to the treaty—along with the United States, which has failed to ratify the CBD over the past three decades but is still participating in the summit—is to protect 30% of lands and waters by 2030. However, as activists and Indigenous leaders from around the world have noted, there are serious human rights concerns regarding implementation of the 30×30 goal.

COP15 comes after the fifth round of discussions about establishing a U.N. treaty for the high seas, or the two-thirds of oceans outside territorial waters. Those August talks failed to produce an agreement—which, as Laura Meller of Greenpeace’s Protect the Oceans campaign warned at the time, “jeopardizes the livelihoods and food security of billions of people around the world.”

“While progress has been made, particularly on ocean sanctuaries, members of the High Ambition Coalition and countries like the USA have moved too slowly to find compromises, despite their commitments,” Meller continued. “Time has run out. Further delay means ocean destruction. We are sad and disappointed. While countries continue to talk, the oceans and all those who rely on them will suffer.”

Similarly, urgent warnings came with the update Friday. Ashleigh McGovern, vice president of the Center for Oceans at Conservation International, said that “with this devastating IUCN Red List update on the status of marine species, it is clear that business as usual is no longer an option.”

“Human activity has had devastating effects on marine ecosystems and biodiversity, but it can also be harnessed to drive action as a matter of survival, equity, and climate justice,” she added. “If we are to secure a new future for the world’s oceans and the essential biodiversity they harbor, we must act now.”

Jon Paul Rodríguez, chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission (SSC), pointed out that “most of the Earth’s biosphere, 99% of all livable space on our planet, is underwater.”

“Humanity acts as if oceans were inexhaustible, capable of sustaining infinite harvest of algae, animals, and plants for food and other products, able to transform vast quantities of sewage and other pollutants that we pour in coastal areas, and absorb the CO2 generated by land-use change and burning fossil fuel,” he said. “This Red List update brings to light new evidence of the multiple interacting threats to declining life in the sea.”

According to the IUCN Red List, 20 of the 54 abalone species—some of the world’s most expensive seafood—are threatened with extinction.

“Abalones reflect humanity’s disastrous guardianship of our oceans in microcosm: overfishing, pollution, disease, habitat loss, algal blooms, warming, and acidification, to name but a few threats. They really are the canary in the coal mine,” said Howard Peters, a member of the IUCN SSC Mollusc Specialist Group and research associate at the U.K.’s University of York who led the abalone assessment.

“The most immediate action people can take is to eat only farmed or sustainably sourced abalones. Enforcing fishery quotas and anti-poaching measures is also critical,” Peters noted. “However, we need to halt the changes to ocean chemistry and temperature to preserve marine life including abalone species over the long term.”

The update also raised the alarm about dugongs, particularly in East Africa and New Caledonia. Populations of the large herbivorous marine mammals are threatened by fishing gear, oil and gas exploration and production, chemical pollution, and the destruction of seagrasses they rely on for food.

“Strengthening community-led fisheries governance and expanding work opportunities beyond fishing are key in East Africa, where marine ecosystems are fundamental to people’s food security and livelihoods,” said Evan Trotzuk, who led the region’s assessment.

Another focus of the list is the pillar coral in the Caribbean, given that its population has shrunk by more than 80% across most of its range over the past three decades.

Noting that it is just one of 26 corals now listed as critically endangered in the Atlantic Ocean, Arizona State University associate professor Beth Polidoro, Red List coordinator for the IUCN SSC Coral Specialist Group, said that “these alarming results emphasize the urgency of global cooperation and action to address climate change impacts on ocean ecosystems.”

Amanda Vincent, chair of the IUCN SSC Marine Conservation Committee, declared that “the awful status of these species should shock us and engage us for urgent action.”

“These magical marine species are treasured wildlife, from the wonderful abalone to the charismatic dugong and the glorious pillar coral, and we should safeguard them accordingly,” she added. “It is vital that we manage fisheries properly, constrain climate change, and reverse habitat degradation.”

Nodding to the conference, Jane Smart, director of IUCN’s Science and Data Center, said the update reinforces her group’s “urgent call for a post-2020 global biodiversity framework that will be ambitious enough to cease destruction of our life support system and catalyze the necessary action and change to secure life on this planet.”

California court ruling opens door for protection of insects as endangered species

/ activist360
Photo by Pixabay
Photo by Pixabay

By Liz Kimbrough, Mongabay (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).

  • A court ruled this week that the California Endangered Species Act (CESA) can apply to invertebrates, including insects.

  • This means legal protections will be in place for four native, endangered bumblebee species in California.

  • The decision marks the end of a court battle between conservation groups and a consortium of large-scale industrial agricultural interests.

  • An estimated 28% of all bumblebees in North America are at risk of extinction, with consequences for ecosystems and crops, as one-third of food production depends on pollinators.

A California court has ruled that state legislation on endangered species can apply to invertebrates. The decision this week by the Third District Court of Appeal means insects, including four endangered native Californian bumblebee species and the monarch butterfly, will receive much-needed protection under the California Endangered Species Act.

“We are celebrating today’s decision that insects and other invertebrates are eligible for protection under CESA,” Sarina Jepsen, director of endangered species at the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, said in a press release. “The Court’s decision allows California to protect some of its most endangered pollinators, a step which will contribute to the resilience of the state’s native ecosystems and farms.”

In 2018, the Xerces Society, the Center for Food Safety (CFS), and Defenders of Wildlife petitioned the state of California to list four species of native bumblebees as endangered under CESA.

The California Fish and Game Commission voted to begin the process of listing these bees as endangered in 2019, but were then sued by a “consortium of California’s large scale industrial agricultural interests,” according to a Xerces Society press release. The trial court sided with the agricultural consortium, and the conservation groups appealed that decision in 2021. The decision this week marks a win for the conservation groups.

The four species are the western bumblebee (Bombus occidentalis), whose relative abundance has declined by 84%; the Suckley cuckoo bumblebee (Bombus suckleyi) which is considered critically endangered on the IUCN Red List and whose range has shrunk by 58%; the Crotch’s bumblebee (Bombus crotchii), now found in just 20% of its historical range; and Franklin’s bumblebee (Bombus franklini) which, despite extensive annual surveys, has not been seen since 2006.

Photo by Jiří Mikoláš
Photo by Jiří Mikoláš

According to California law, protections under the CESA mean that public agencies should not approve projects that would “jeopardize the continued existence” of any endangered or threatened species or adversely modify their habitat. These species are also protected from being removed from the wild or killed.

“It is a great day for California’s bumble bees!” said Pamela Flick, California program director with Defenders of Wildlife.

Sam Joyce, a certified law student with the Stanford Environmental Law Clinic who argued the case in the Third District, said the CESA is an important tool to protect and restore endangered species. He said the court’s ruling “ensures that CESA will fulfill its purpose of conserving ‘any endangered species’ by protecting the full range of California’s biodiversity, including terrestrial invertebrates.”

The IUCN’s Bumble Bee Specialist Group reports that 28% of all bumblebees in North America are at risk of extinction. Alarming on its own, this decline may also have consequences for ecosystems and crops, as one-third of food production depends on pollinators like bees.

“With one out of every three bites of food we eat coming from a crop pollinated by bees, this court decision is critical to protecting our food supply,” said Rebecca Spector, West Coast director at the Center for Food Safety. “The decision clarifies that insects such as bees qualify for protections under CESA, which are necessary to ensure that populations of endangered species can survive and thrive.”

A small and unpretentious fish is sending a warning message

/ activist360
Photo credit: USFWS by Steve Martarano / CC BY 2.0
Photo credit: USFWS by Steve Martarano / CC BY 2.0

A vanishing number of Delta smelt in San Francisco Bay is finding a changing climate contributing to its declining numbers.

By Hanisha Harjani, Yale Climate Connections (CC BY-NC-ND 2.5)

Deep in the San Francisco Bay, two rivers splinter into a vague triangle, creating one of the richest watersheds in California. This estuary – the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta – is an important source of freshwater for the 4 million folks who live in the region. Local agricultural, fishing, and recreation industries bring in billions of dollars a year, and the area also provides a rich habitat for local wildlife. 

Over the past few decades, this watershed has seen a dramatic change in its climate. Years-long droughts and record-high temperatures have transformed the region – a shift that’s told no better, perhaps, than through the story of the Delta smelt.

The Delta smelt is an iridescent fish about the size of a finger. The fish is a bioindicator, often noted for its distinct smell of fresh cucumbers. Though small in size, it has an impact reaching beyond the Delta, all the way to Capitol Hill. The smelt’s role in Northern California’s decades-long “water wars” have made it a key player in shaping the region’s water policy.

A harbinger of threats to other species

As a bioindicator, its presence in the Delta signifies a healthy ecosystem – one that can support a diverse range of life. However, not since the 1980s have the fish been abundant in the wild.

To Tien-Chieh Hung, PhD,  director of the Fish Conservation and Culture Laboratory (FCCL) at UC Davis, it’s simple: “If these fish are going extinct, then there are other species that are going to be listed as threatened or endangered, too.”

There was a time when these fish swam through the Delta in the thousands. Trawling surveys would pull up nets full of their thin, shimmering bodies. It’s now rare for these surveys to catch even one. 

In fact, the largest known population of Delta smelt doesn’t live in the Delta at all. They live, instead, just south of the watershed, in large white circular lab tanks Hung oversees at the FCCL, now rearing  a captive population in the tens of thousands.

This decades-long effort has been meticulous. The smelt was listed as threatened in 1993 but the project to culture the fish was established only a decade later, in 2004. Since then, FCCL scientists each year scour the estuary in search of wild smelt. Each such specimen found is then transported into the lab to be tagged and genetically cataloged. 

The careful genetic classification of each wild Delta smelt has been key to preserving the genetic diversity of the captive population to keep it as similar to the wild stock as possible. For years, when breeding season comes along, this genetic catalog is carefully consulted to pair-up smelt for mating new generations in the lab. But keeping this cultured population diverse has become harder over the past decade as finding wild smelt has become rarer in the estuary. 

The hard reality: In 2021, California’s Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Fall Midwater Trawl Survey found none at all, prompting scientists to do something they have been putting off for years – begin preparing for the first release of cultivated smelt into the wild.

A long troubling history, and now comes climate change

The Delta smelt raised in captivity do not smell much like cucumbers. Hung mentions that this trait seems to be connected to stress. The smelt at the FCCL have no predators, perfectly saline water, and plenty of food piped into their tanks. Their lives in the Delta are much less comfy.

Importantly, the Delta smelt evolved specifically in, and is named after, the ecosystem of the San Francisco Bay Delta, for thousands of years having an estuary with cool, freshwater running through its many channels. The watershed in modern times feels very different: According to scientist Peter Moyle, associate director of the Center for Watershed Sciences at UC Davis, “that [original] habitat just isn’t there.”

Irrevocable changes in the smelt’s ecosystem began in the 1800s. Non-native species – like the bluegill and largemouth bass – were introduced to the watershed for sportfishing. Fish very similar to the Delta smelt, like the silverside and wakasagi, were introduced soon after as supplemental food for these new game fish. The former meant more predation for the Delta smelt, the latter meant more competition. 

In addition to these new fish in the Delta, regional water programs like the Central Valley Project and the State Water Project began operating in the 1960s. These projects diverted water flows in the estuary to serve communities in Northern California and, consequently, turned the watershed more saline than brackish.

All of this, coupled with rising temperatures and consistently historic droughts in the region, have created a deadly Delta for the smelt; though this is also a reality for many estuaries, worldwide. “Climate change,” said Moyle, “has just accelerated things.”

The Delta smelt has a lifespan of only one year, and its population was initially devastated by a prolonged drought in the 80s. This time, however, recovery proved particularly difficult because conditions continued to worsen and some non-native species adapted to these changes better than the smelt. In past droughts, smelt populations have diminished even as populations of introduced silversides increased.

“We use the term regime shift,” said Brian Schreier, a scientist with the Department of Water Resources (DWR) in West Sacramento, about the smelt’s decline. And this regime shift was not so easy to reverse. Even as the conditions in the estuary worsened, millions of people still relied on these water projects to survive.

Steps leading to boosting number of smelt in the wild

In 2008, the US Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) issued a Biological Opinion (BiOp) that expanding the export of water from the Delta would severely impact the smelt population. That action mandated that measures, like reduced pumping, be taken to prevent such a future for the fish. That 2008 BiOp was reversed in 2019, however, when the Trump administration issued a new statement claiming that the smelt population would be fine given that the FCCL has spent decades rearing a robust captive population to supplement the wild fish.

Even though the FCCL’s plan has always been to eventually release these fish into the wild, scientists have resisted doing so for nearly 20 years. They expressed concerns that the captive population might not be fit for conditions in the wild, or that they would adversely impact the wild smelt population that is surviving.

Water and Power Law Group’s Natural Resource Counsel, Paul Kibel, recalls the way hatcheries failed at replacing salmon populations in a 2020 article “Salmon Lessons for the Delta Smelt.” “The replacement assumption has proven faulty,”  Kibel wrote, “as the total abundance of salmon declined at the same time the propagation and release of hatchery salmon has expanded.” In the case of the salmon, the replacement population not only increased competition for their wild counterparts, but they had also been domesticated in the hatchery and were unfit to survive in the wild. 

These were real concerns also for scientists working with the smelt. And though the 2019 BiOp placed excessive and perhaps unreasonable emphasis on the hatchery fish solution, it may have also – temporarily, at least – saved the Delta smelt.

“That was the first regulatory document that actually had legal backing,” said Schreier, “and effectively mandated that supplementation would occur.” And, late last year, for the first time ever, supplementation finally did.

‘A roller coaster’ as 12,000 hatchery smelts were reintroduced

December 15, 2021, marked the first release of hatchery Delta smelt into the wild. More than 12,000 of these fish were transported from their cool, roomy tanks in the FCCL and placed into several barrels in the back of a pick-up truck. They were then driven to Rio Vista where the barrels were transported to a boat and sailed into the channels of the Delta, where the fish were finally released together. 

The road to this release was “a roller coaster,” according to Schreier: It involved many months of experimental trial releases where select populations of hatchery fish were exposed to conditions of the Delta in aluminum cages specially designed to prevent their escaping even as  food and fresh water flowed through. 

“We started under what we thought would be the best conditions,” said Melinda Baerwald, an ecologist at the DWR, about the caged trials. “To be perfectly honest, we didn’t have high hopes.” But she says she was pleasantly surprised when this first trial had a nearly 100% survival rate of the captive smelt.

The research team then tried exposing the hatchery population to progressively worsening conditions to see how they would fare, another step that  proved reassuring. Baerwald recalls one of the last caged trials they did last summer. “It was fairly shocking,” she said.

The team took the smelt out to the Yolo Bypass in the middle of a heat wave. They weren’t expecting the smelt to stay alive for about a week. “But the fish kept surviving,” she said.

74 wild smelt is more than zero … but ‘a desperation measure’?

Since the first release in December, four more releases have occurred in two additional locations. And, since these releases have taken place, local trawling surveys have picked up 74 smelt, compared to the previous number of  consistently zero.

Baerwald and Schreier wanted these releases to take place in the wintertime to ensure the best chances of survival in the increasingly warming Delta. They also mentioned that doing the releases during cooler months allows the captive Delta smelt to spawn the next generation directly in the rivers so they can begin their lives in the watershed.

The scientists are hopeful, but Moyle says  it’s also “a desperation measure.” The factors that caused the wild smelt’s original decline have still not been properly addressed and the smelt are facing increasingly dire conditions. California and much of the U.S. West,  has also been in a drought since February 2020  and the beginning of 2022 continues to be historically dry.

One may wonder what hope there is, really, for such a little fish as the Delta smelt. Human combustion and emissions of fossil fuels continue to cause unprecedented warming around the world. And these hotter temperatures have also been noted to increase drought severity. So long as temperatures continue to rise as predicted, the Delta of today – plagued with unrelenting droughts and contested water projects and chemical runoff – will never be the Delta of the smelt’s past.

And eventually, without a proper habitat to enter into, those hatchery fish will have nowhere to go to.

Hanisha Harjani is a reporter, artist, and student, currently attending UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.