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IMMEDIATE ACTION NEEDED TO
PROTECT TRUMPETER SWANS FROM HUNTING
March 23, 2000 -- The trumpeting of spring is spoiled by the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service (FWS) proposal to establish a permanent sport
hunting season on trumpeter swans within the Pacific Flyway. Because it  is difficult to distinguish between tundra and trumpeter swans in the
field, tundra swan hunters have been responsible for killing and crippling the protected trumpeter swans.

The purpose of the proposed season on trumpeter swans is to absolve hunters of liability for killing  protected birds. A more prudent course of action would be to close tundra swan hunting in the areas needed for trumpeter swan restoration,  but it appears that the FWS is more interested in protecting the interests of hunters than the interests of a protected species.

Specifically, tundra swan hunting on the Bear River National Wildlife
Refuge in Utah has precluded its use for trumpeter swan restoration
efforts. As a result, trumpeters remain "bottlenecked" in the Greater
Yellowstone region, where their populations are at risk of being  decimated due to extreme winter conditions, lack of nutritional forage,  or
a disease outbreak.

The notice of the availability of the draft supplemental environmental
analysis (EA), "Proposal to Establish Operational General Swan Hunting  Seasons in the Pacific Flyway," was published in the Federal Register on  March 23, 2000. A copy of the EA is available by contacting:
Mr. Robert Trost
Pacific Flyway Representative
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
Migratory Bird Management Office
911 N.E. 11th Avenue
Portland, OR 97232-4181
Phone: 503-231-6162
Email: robert_trost@fws.gov

The EA's preferred alternative establishes a permanent hunting season on  a species that has been protected from hunting for more than 75 years,  and offers no solution to restoring Rocky Mountain trumpeter swans to a  secure winter distribution. Please tell the FWS that there is no  justification for opening a season on Rocky Mountain trumpeter swans, a  biologically vulnerable population, simply to pacify a small number of  tundra swan hunters in the states of Utah, Montana, and Nevada. Write to  the address above and express your opposition to any proposal that would  open a hunting season on these swans. THE DEADLINE FOR COMMENTS IS May 22,  2000.

NEW MEXICO TO GET MEXICAN WOLVES Mar 22,2000 
SILVER CITY, N.M. (AP) Mexican gray wolves will make their reappearance in the Gila Wilderness this week.  The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said the endangered Mexican gray wolves will be kept in special mesh pens in the Gila for up to 30 days to acclimate them to the area. The first wolves are to be moved to the pens today.

Wolves are being relocated from the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest on the Arizona-New Mexico line after some of the animals killed cattle.
Fish and Wildlife chose the Gila to release the wolves because it has extensive roadless areas free of human habitation or active cattle grazing allotments.

Four wolves from the Mule Pack are to be moved into the pens today, the agency said. The pack consists of an adult pair, with the female pregnant, and two pups born last year.

A second pack, the Pipestem, will be moved to the Gila and released later this month. That pack consists of an adult pair, with that female also pregnant; three pups born in 1999; and a 2-year-old female. Biologists have not decided whether to release the 2-year-old female, said Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman Vicki Fox.

Wolves have been responsible for eight confirmed livestock kills through January, and the agency recaptured many of the animals.
Ted Turner's 210,000-acre Ladder Ranch near Truth or Consequences, N.M., is the new home for at least five wolves. Those animals are from the so-called Gavilan Pack, blamed for attacking cattle in western New Mexico in December and January.

The Mule Pack did not attack cattle but was recaptured to move the wolves to a better hunting site with more elk, Fish and Wildlife said.
The rare wolves first were released in Arizona in 1998 in a federal program to restore Mexican gray wolves to the wild. Five of the original 13 were shot, and one of 22 wolves released last year was killed by a car.
Hearings early this month in the Gila-area communities of Reserve and Silver City drew standing-room-only crowds of opponents and supporters of wolf relocation, but the opponents outnumbered those in favor.
Ranchers, who bitterly oppose moving wolves to the Gila, have said they fear attacks on humans, losses of livestock and damage to
hunting.

March 21, 2000
THREATENED STATUS GRANTED FOR CANADIAN LYNX
US Fish & Wildlife Service has at long last listed the Canadian lynx as a threatened species.  The first petition to do so was in 1982.  Lynx advocates express concern that "threatened" is insufficient for the species' recovery in some areas in which they should have been given "endangered" status.

March 20, 2000
US MILITARY THREATENS OKINAWA DUGONGS
A remnant population of perhaps a dozen dugongs that were considered extinct in this part of their range has been discovered on the north coast of Okinawa.  And guess where the US military wants to build an enlarged base.  The military already has several large bases and residential enclaves for service personnel occupying large portions of the Island, which is part of the Japanese Empire but governs its own internal affairs.

The Mammalogical Society of Japan has classified these animals as "critically endangered" and they have CITES ' highest classification.
March 8, 2000
KENYA AND INDIA OPPOSE ANY IVORY TRADE
Nehemiah Rotich, director of the Kenya Wildlife Service pointed to two tons of ivory elephant tusks his country had seized from poachers to demonstrate the effect  the limited renewal of the ivory trade in 1997 sanctioned b CITES at the request by Botswana , Namibia, and Zimbabwe  had on Nigerian elephants.  Both Nigeria and India realize that living elephants generate more tourist dollars than selling the tusks of slaughtered elephants to Japan.  The problem is that ANY legal trade in ivory  encourages poaching  by creating a chance for traffickers to insinuate their illegal ivory onto the market.  South Africa has joined in the petition to continue ivory sales which will be made at the CITES meeting in Nairobi, April 10-20.     Subsequent updates     Previous