Archive: Terrestrial Wildlife

An agreement has been reached among all parties involved in federal litigation under the Endangered Species Act concerning the Beech Ridge wind project in Greenbrier County, West Virginia, that will provide for additional protection of the endangered Indiana bat and other wildlife while allowing some elements of the project to move forward and to begin producing renewable power in 2010.

The agreement, which has been filed in US District Court for the District of Maryland, resolves outstanding federal litigation by setting forth protective conditions on which additional project construction and operation may occur while Beech Ridge applies for an Incidental Take Permit relative to the Indiana bat from the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). The parties in the federal case have agreed to cooperate in a constructive manner during the FWS permitting process.

Details of the agreement, which has been approved by the Court, can be viewed here or obtained either from the plaintiffs or defendants in the case.

Members of Congress and constitutional experts testified on May 26, 2010 before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security on the recent Supreme Court decision invalidating a law prohibiting interstate commerce in crush videos, dog fighting videos, and other depictions of extreme animal cruelty. (Crush videos portray scantily clad women in stilettos, or even their bare feet, literally crushing, stomping on, or impaling small, helpless animals to satisfy sadistic viewers with a bizarre sexual fetish.)

When this law was passed in 1999, at the request of prosecutors, the market for crush videos quickly dried up. The Supreme Court took up the case of an individual challenging his conviction for selling dog fighting videos, and overturned the law on grounds that it was overbroad and violated the First Amendment.

Within hours of the Supreme Court’s decision, the crush video market reopened. Two bills, H.R. 5092 (with 306 cosponsors) and H.R. 5337, have been introduced to restore the ban in a way that will pass constitutional muster.

“The Animal Welfare Institute is grateful to Subcommittee Chairman Bobby Scott and Ranking Member Louie Gohmert for holding this hearing to explore the constitutional issues raised by the Court’s decision,” said Nancy Blaney, senior policy advisor, Animal Welfare Institute. They and the other members who attended asked very serious and thoughtful questions, with a clear interest in crafting a new law that will accomplish the goal of closing down the production of depictions of extreme animal cruelty and punish those who traffic in them.

AWI lobbied for the original law and will push for quick passage of a new measure. The Washington, DC law firm of Patton Boggs LLP is providing legal advice to AWI as we work with the Committee and Members of Congress on this important legislative measure.

The Animal Welfare Institute commends the US House of Representatives for its overwhelming bipartisan vote today—416-3—in favor of H.R. 5566, a bill to outlaw trafficking in “crush videos,” a particularly depraved product that depicts women in stilettos or their bare feet literally crushing, stomping on, or impaling small helpless animals to satisfy sadistic viewers with a bizarre sexual fetish.

In April, the US Supreme Court overturned the original law, 18 U.S.C. §48, enacted in 1999. In a case involving animal fighting videos, the Court ruled that Section 48, which criminalized commerce in depictions of animal cruelty, was “substantially overbroad and therefore invalid under the First Amendment” for potentially affecting materials pertaining to legal activities, such as hunting, even though no such prosecution had ever been attempted.

In its decision, however, the Court did not explicitly say whether a narrower law would be unconstitutional. H.R. 5566 was thus very narrowly crafted to prohibit interstate and foreign sales and distribution only of “crush videos” as obscene depictions of illegal acts.

AWI President Cathy Liss praised the sponsors of the bill, Representative Elton Gallegly (D-CA), who also sponsored the original legislation, and Representative Gary Peters (D-MI), as well as the members of the House Judiciary Committee, including Subcommittee Chairman Bobby Scott (D-VA) and full Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI), and the House leadership.

“Everyone worked very hard to put this legislation on the fast track in order to shut down the crush video market that emerged again after the Supreme Court decision,” she said. “We urge the Senate to act just as swiftly and send this bill to the President as soon as possible.”

A coalition of national and local organizations including Project Coyote, the San Gabriel Friends of Wildlife, the Animal Welfare Institute, and the Angeles Chapter of Sierra Club praised the Arcadia City Council for their unanimous vote Tuesday night to end the city’s coyote trapping program by the end of the month.

Public outcry against the program that costs residents more than $30K each year led to the council’s decision to hold a special “study session” to consider whether to continue the city’s contract with Animal Pest Management Services.

“We commend the City Council for voting unanimously to stop a coyote snaring program that is ultimately ineffective, ecologically unsound, and inhumane,” said Camilla Fox, Executive Director of Project Coyote and Wildlife Consultant with the Animal Welfare Institute. “We have offered our services and resources to the city to help them move forward with a long-term outreach program to inform residents about how to coexist with coyotes and other urban wildlife,” said Fox. “Education and a consistent message is key in informing residents about living with urban wildlife and we commend the city for starting to expand its outreach efforts.”

After learning of the city’s $30K annual contract with the private wildlife removal firm which employs wire neck snares and has killed 20 coyotes to date, local residents gathered more than 1,000 signatures calling on the City Council to end its contract with Animal Pest Management Services. They asked the city instead to adopt and implement a long-term coexistence and management plan as other municipalities and counties have done including Marin County, Denver, and Vancouver.

“Most people had no idea their tax-dollars were being spent to trap and kill native wildlife,” said Bonnie Barron of the San Gabriel Valley Friends of Wildlife. “When they learned about this most were shocked and readily signed our petition to stop the indiscriminate killing.  Some were so moved that they came and testified at Tuesday night’s study session including 15 Arcadia residents.” San Gabriel Valley Friends of Wildlife, along with Pasadena Humane Society, Project Coyote, and the Animal Welfare Institute organized a free public educational forum, “Coyotes in our Midst,” on November 30th at the LA County Arboretum which attracted more than 250 attendees.

Reading a statement on behalf of Project Coyote and the Sierra Club’s Endangered Species and Wildlife Committee (Angeles Chapter) for which she chairs, Dr. Rosemarie White stated that “Studies show that local coyote populations may actually increase as a direct result of lethal control; as pup survival and immigration of coyotes from surrounding areas increase to fill the vacant territorial niches…Coyotes actually serve a vital ecological role by helping to reduce rodent populations and by keeping ecosystems clean of carrion. In addition, coyotes help to keep mesopredators such as foxes, raccoons, skunks and opossums in check thereby helping to boost ground and songbird abundance and diversity.” Dr. White also sits on the National Sierra Club’s Wildlife and Endangered Species Committee which helps to set wildlife policy for the entire organization.

“Arcadia has the opportunity to follow the lead of other progressive jurisdictions and continue the trend to coexist with urban wildlife and we will help them toward this goal in any way we can,” said Fox.

National non-profit organizations Animal Legal Defense Fund (ALDF), Project Coyote, and Animal Welfare Institute (AWI) are filing a lawsuit today against the Indiana Department of Natural Resources (DNR) and its director Robert Carter Jr. over the Department’s decision to waive state permit requirements for a controversial Greene County “penning” facility. In penning operations, wild foxes and coyotes are trapped so that packs of hunting dogs can be set loose on them. The captive wildlife, unable to escape the caged enclosures, frequently suffer horrific deaths while being ripped to shreds during these “field trials.” Indiana residents and taxpayers who are deeply concerned about the cruel practice have joined the suit. The law offices of Lawrence Reuben are providing pro bono legal assistance.

Why are attorneys and activists howling mad about the bloody field trials happening at Linton, Indiana’s WCI Foxhound Training Preserve without a state-issued permit? After activists complained that the facility lacks a permit to “possess”—i.e., physically contain—wildlife outside of hunting season, as mandated by state law, the DNR asserted that the coyotes and foxes trapped in these cage enclosures are not technically “possessed” by the facility because there are small, unintentional perforations in their poorly-maintained wire fences. Today’s lawsuit alleges that, if the Department’s grievous misinterpretation of the law were allowed to stand, anyone in the state of Indiana could skirt the wildlife possession permit requirement simply by failing to maintain the fencing within which they have enclosed an animal. By removing the state’s wildlife permit requirement—intended to serve as a substantial disincentive to possessing wildlife—the Department’s conduct makes it more likely that humans and wildlife will be harmed or infected with communicable diseases.

This lawsuit comes just a week before the Indiana Natural Resources Commission (INRC) considers creating new rules that would sanction coyote and fox penning year-round, despite major public outcry against the practice. Recently, Florida permanently banned coyote and fox penning state-wide, and just last year, the Indiana DNR recommended that the INRC outlaw the practice. Meanwhile, wildlife experts contend that the practice of penning results in ethically indefensible animal cruelty, is ecologically reckless, and is counter to sound scientific wildlife management. “As a nation, we have banned dog and cock fighting because of their inherent cruelty,” said Camilla Fox, Executive Director of Project Coyote and Wildlife Consultant with AWI. “Like these other brutal blood-sports, coyote and fox penning is unacceptably cruel and should be relegated to America’s dark past.” Today, ALDF, Project Coyote, and AWI submitted a letter to the INRC—endorsed by more than 60 prominent scientists, biologists, veterinarians, and attorneys—calling on the INRC to reject the proposed rules and instead ban penning statewide.

Today’s lawsuit against the DNR, meanwhile, highlights the flaws in the current regulatory system, making a state-wide ban on the abusive practice of banning all the more urgent. The Department of Natural Resources is vested with the responsibility of protecting Indiana’s wildlife,” says ALDF Director of Litigation Carter Dillard. “Instead, by ignoring the state’s permitting procedures, what they are doing is making it as easy as possible for this cruel operation to throw coyotes and foxes in a pen to be mauled to death.”

Today, Congresswoman Nita Lowey (D-NY) introduced legislation to end the use of brutal traps on furbearing animals within federal wildlife refuges. The Refuge from Cruel Trapping Act, H.R. 2657, is intended to help to restore the original intent of the National Wildlife Refuge System by placing a ban on the use of cruel body-gripping traps on these public lands.

“The use of steel jaw leg-hold traps and other barbaric mechanisms has no place in National Wildlife Refuges or other public lands,” said Congresswoman Lowey. “Body-gripping traps are cruel and inhumane, and it is time to end this brutal practice once and for all.”

Currently, animals living within National Wildlife Refuges (NWRs) are at risk of falling victim to body gripping traps where they may be tortured for hours or days—struggling to be free of the long-drawn-out pain inflicted on them by the traps. More than half of our country’s refuges currently allow trapping using steel jaw leghold traps, Conibear traps and snares. Steel jaw leg-hold traps are designed to restrain the animal by the leg, and some animals who are caught may chew off their own limb to escape on three legs. Conibear traps are designed to crush the animal’s spinal column for a quick kill. However, the trap often misses and clamps down on the chest or pelvis, crushing bones and causing the animal excruciating pain and prolonged death. Snares are among the oldest form of trap, a simple noose made of thin wire, which tightens around an animals neck or body as the animal struggles to get away.

Federal legislation is needed to stop this barbaric practice, currently allowed on more than half of our nation’s 550 refuges. These inhumane traps have been banned or severely restricted in 89 other nations and in 8 states throughout the United States. According to a 1989 study conducted by the United States Department of Agriculture’s Animal Damage Control division, such traps are indiscriminate and on average take 10.8 non-target animals for each trapped target animal. Referred to as “trash” animals by the trapper, non-target wildlife often are simply thrown away. Non-target animals that may be caught include raptors, songbirds, and deer.

“The Refuge from Cruel Trapping Act is a critical step toward reducing the suffering inflicted on our nation’s wildlife,” said Cathy Liss, AWI President. “The Animal Welfare Institute applauds Congresswoman Lowey for her leadership in seeking to protect both target and non-target animals from traps that cause extensive physical trauma.”

International wildlife conservation groups Pro Wildlife, Defenders of Wildlife, and the Animal Welfare Institute, issued a report today titled Canapés to Extinction: The International Trade in Frogs’ Legs and its Ecological Impact. The report is the first comprehensive study of the frog leg market ever conducted and reveals an industry that is systematically devastating frog populations throughout the world and, subsequently, causing severe environmental impacts to natural ecosystems.

“Humans have been eating frogs for ages. But today the practice is not sustainable on a global scale,” said Alejandra Goyenechea, acting director of international conservation programs for Defenders of Wildlife. “Billions of frogs are traded internationally each year for human consumption, and that industry is responsible for depleting wild populations, spreading deadly disease, and allowing invasive species to destroy the health of native ecosystems.”

In recent years, the United States has imported an average of 2,280 tonnes (4.6 million pounds) of frog legs each year – the equivalent of 456 million to 1.1 billion frogs – and another 2,216 tonnes (4.4 million pounds) of live frogs for Asian-American markets. Most frog and frog leg imports to the U.S. come from China, Taiwan, Ecuador, Brazil, the Dominican Republic, Vietnam, Mexico and Indonesia.

During the last decade, the European Union imported an average of 4,600 tonnes (9.2 million pounds) of frog legs each year – the equivalent of 1 to 2.3 billion frogs. Indonesia is the world’s leading supplier, providing 84 percent of total imports to the EU with the vast majority of frogs being caught in the wild. Belgium, France and the Netherlands are the top importers in the EU.

“The decline of many frog species is a global problem that is being greatly accelerated by just a handful of European nations,” said Sandra Altherr, director of wildlife programs for Pro Wildlife in Germany. “The capture and killing of native frogs is prohibited within the EU, so it is incomprehensible that we would be supporting environmentally disastrous practices abroad.”

Until the mid-1980s, India and Bangladesh dominated the international frog leg export market. Severe exploitation resulted in the collapse of many wild frog populations in those countries, including two of the most sought-after species, the green pond frog and the Indian bullfrog. In turn, the decline of those species resulted in a dramatic increase in the use of pesticides, due to an explosion of insects and other agricultural pests previously kept in check by frogs. In 1985, the two frog species were protected with an Appendix II listing under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). India and Bangladesh subsequently banned exports, their native species have since recovered and the use of pesticides has been reduced.

However, in recent years, other countries have stepped in to fill the void and their frog populations appear to be headed for a similar fate. Indonesia, where billions of frogs are taken from the wild annually, and to a lesser extent China, Taiwan and Vietnam, where frogs are farmed very intensively, have now taken over the export market.

“We must take immediate action to protect frog species from being exploited for international trade,” said D.J. Schubert, a wildlife biologist with the Animal Welfare Institute. “Wild populations across Asia are already in trouble, and unregulated trade puts native species in the U.S. at even greater risk from deadly diseases that have been wreaking havoc on amphibians worldwide. It will take a coordinated effort from governments and the world’s conservation community to prevent the extinction of imperiled frog species and to protect our native species from harmful invasives.”

The report will be distributed to key government decision-makers, including those responsible for the implementation of CITES, with a request that they take immediate action to bring this unregulated trade under control. Considering that the frog species dominating the frog leg trade are not currently protected under CITES, there is an urgent need for governments to secure CITES protections for them.

Click here to download the full report.