NOAA's Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), jointly referred to as the Services, announced today their joint determination that the loggerhead sea turtle (Caretta caretta) is globally comprised of nine distinct population segments (DPSs) that qualify as species for listing as endangered or threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

The Federal Register notice, scheduled to publish on March 16, will formally announce the findings on petitions to list the North Pacific and Northwest Atlantic populations of the loggerhead as DPSs with endangered status and proposes to list nine separate loggerhead DPSs worldwide, including the two petitioned populations.

"Following a thorough assessment of the global loggerhead populations it was clear the nine populations were distinct," said Eric Schwaab, NOAA assistant administrator for NOAA's Fisheries Service. "Our joint analysis of the nine loggerhead DPSs also lead us to the finding that two of these populations should be proposed for listing as threatened, while the other seven should be proposed for listing as endangered." The two DPSs proposed as threatened are the South Atlantic Ocean and the Southwest Indian Ocean. The seven DPSs proposed as endangered are the North Pacific Ocean, South Pacific Ocean, Southeast Indo-Pacific Ocean, North Indian Ocean, Northwest Atlantic Ocean, Northeast Atlantic Ocean, and Mediterranean Sea.

Loggerhead sea turtles are currently listed as threatened throughout their range.

In August 2007, the Services completed an ESA five-year review of the loggerhead turtle and recommended that the species be fully examined in accordance with the DPS policy to determine whether the species exists as DPSs and, if so, what the status of those DPSs is. On July 16, 2007, the Services received a petition from the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and Turtle Island Restoration Network requesting that loggerhead sea turtles in the North Pacific be reclassified as a DPS with endangered status, and that critical habitat be designated. On November 16, 2007, the Services received a second petition from CBD and Oceana requesting that loggerhead turtles in the Northwest Atlantic be reclassified as a DPS with endangered status and that critical habitat be designated.

On November 16, 2007 and March 5, 2008, respectively, the Services announced their 90-day findings that the requested actions may be warranted and that they would proceed with an assessment of the loggerhead's listing status. Subsequently, a Loggerhead Biological Review Team (BRT) was formed. The BRT evaluated the species in accordance with the DPS policy to determine whether DPSs existed, and then evaluated the status of each DPS. This effort resulted in a formal Status Review of the Loggerhead Turtle in August 2009. The BRT status report then underwent independent peer review by nine scientists with expertise in loggerhead sea turtle biology, genetics, and modeling.

"The BRT status review was not only comprehensive in its scope," said Cynthia Dohner, FWS's southeast regional director, "but represents an outstanding synthesis of the best available scientific information used to inform our joint determination and proposal."

Following a detailed review of the BRT findings, and an assessment in accordance with the statutory requirements of the ESA, the Services determined that the petitioned actions were warranted and prepared the single Federal Register notice that includes the 12-month petition findings and a proposed rule for all nine identified DPSs.

The Services are soliciting public comment on the proposed listing determination. Specifically they are seeking information and comments on whether the nine proposed loggerhead sea turtle DPSs qualify as DPSs and, if so, whether they should be classified as threatened or endangered.

Specific information sought includes the following areas relative to loggerhead turtles within the nine proposed DPSs:

historical and current population status and trends,

historical and current distribution,

migratory movements and behavior,

genetic population structure,

current or planned activities that may adversely impact loggerhead turtles, and

ongoing efforts to protect loggerhead turtles.

Anyone wishing to comment and/or submit information, identified by the RIN 0648–AY49, regarding the proposed actions may do so via one of the following methods:

Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov. Follow the instructions for submitting comments.

U.S. mail or hand-delivery: NMFS National Sea Turtle Coordinator, Attn: Loggerhead Proposed Listing Rule, Office of Protected Resources, National Marine Fisheries Service, 1315 East-West Highway, Room 13657, Silver Spring, MD 20910 or USFWS National Sea Turtle Coordinator, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 7915 Baymeadows Way, Suite 200, Jacksonville, FL 32256.

Fax: To the attention of NMFS National Sea Turtle Coordinator at 301–713–0376 or USFWS National Sea Turtle Coordinator at 904–731–3045.

The Services will post all information received on http://www.regulations.gov. This generally means that any personal information provided also will be posted. NOAA Fisheries and FWS will accept anonymous comments (enter N/A in the required fields, if you wish to remain anonymous). Attachments to electronic comments will be accepted in Microsoft Word, Excel, WordPerfect, or Adobe PDF file formats only.

Please note that submissions merely stating support for or opposition to the action under consideration without providing supporting information, although noted, will not be considered in making a determination, as section 4(b)(1)(A) of the ESA directs that "the Secretary shall make determinations... solely on the basis of the best scientific and commercial data available ..."

Information must be received by June 14, 2010. Request for public hearings must be received by June 1, 2010.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the principal federal agency responsible for conserving, protecting, and enhancing fish and wildlife and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. Visit the Service online at http://www.fws.gov or http://www.fws.gov/southeast/

We should think again about our definition of what progress is because we might be having a simplistic view of things. Today we speak of progress in terms of economic growth, advances in science and technology but do these aspects of our existence define progress in its entirety or are they just discrete parts of it?

The inhabitants of the ancient city of Jericho, about six thousand years ago, enjoyed a life expectancy of just 25 years. This is known thanks to skeletal remains found in many different tombs and burial sites of the region: In almost all cases, the bones belonged to people of about that age.

Today the life expectancy of most human beings is well above that and for the most part, increases every year; we have clearly improved in that department as well as others, but we still drag along our existence other problems that were already know for the inhabitants of that city and in some cases, things got worse oddly thanks to our technology simply because we can do more harm when we do harm with our more efficient tools: the negative environmental impact of many human activities has increased due to advances in technology, an increase in life expectancy and also an exponential growth in the overall population.

War is another example: The weapons of today are immensely more capable of inflicting damage than those of the ancients. We still wage war, and for quite similar reasons, so we cannot say that we have advanced significantly in that area. In fact, we could have fared far better, considering that thousands of years have elapsed since.

The treatment that we dispense to animals should also make us think a little: if we apply the same methods that the Assyrians or the Holy Inquisition used to obtain confessions from prisoners to experiment with animals, then we are the same. Arguments in favour of such experimentation are as believable to those supporting them as the loyalty to the king or the love of God was to both the Assyrians and the inquisitors. Many of them truly believed in their duties and thought that they were actually doing good things instead of evil ones. Now, scientists, corporate leaders, military leaders and politicians who support such experiments also believe that they are doing what is necessary and that there is no other way. Well… part of what progress is should be to try to find other ways.

If such justifications were valid, we would still have slavery instead of machinery because there was no way to replace human labour with mechanical devices prior to the industrial revolution, but machines finally came, so abolition wasn't in the end an impossibility or a catastrophic proposition.

It is true to say that in our society, as it stands today, we cannot simply let the animals go because we still need them for food and other necessities, but we have to make a difference between what is necessary by nature - i.e. eating the indispensable - from what is superfluous like cosmetics, sports hunting and even gourmet food and what shouldn't be done, plain and simple, including experiments with weapons suing animals as test subjects or targets. The way in which we treat animals is the way in which we really are because we do what we do without inhibitions.

A few months after the financial crisis that infected the world during 2008 and 2009, new talk about economic growth and economic recovery is appearing in the news, but only taking into account the numbers offered by the same governments and financial institutions that were in fact the collective cause of the problem. Individuals and families that lost their homes because of due payments are scantly better and many lives have been shattered because our society followed a path of tolerating mortgage and real estate speculation up to a point in which people had to sell themselves in virtual slavery to pay unrealistic amounts. Some decades ago people could buy or build their homes without any sort of mortgage, so having the populace drowning in debt now in order to get just the same as before is not exactly progress, right? At the time in which our grandparents liven, debts of hundreds of thousands of dollars - or now, euros - belonged to the realm of serious gambling addicts. Could we say that having almost every citizen in a country entangled in debts as heavy as those suffered by addicts meant that our world is better now?

Real progress is something more vast than increasing the size of our economy, having new consumer electronic gadgets or antibiotics. Those things are fine, but too much of a good thing is also bad, so the first and foremost thing that we need to improve in order to attain real progress is our sense of proportion for the things we do and imagine.

Source: Pablo Edronkin, Andinia.com

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WASHINGTON, D.C. - Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar, Assistant Secretary for Fish and Wildlife and Parks Tom Strickland and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Sam Hamilton announced that the brown pelican, a species once decimated by the pesticide DDT, has recovered and is being removed from the list of threatened and endangered species under the Endangered Species Act.

"At a time when so many species of wildlife are threatened, we once in a while have an opportunity to celebrate an amazing success story," Salazar said. "Today is such a day. The brown pelican is back!"

The brown pelican was first declared endangered in 1970 under the Endangered Species Preservation Act, a precursor to the current Endangered Species Act. Since then, thanks to a ban on DDT and efforts by states, conservation organizations, private citizens and many other partners, the bird has recovered. There are now more than 650,000 brown pelicans found across Florida and the Gulf and Pacific Coasts, as well as in the Caribbean and Latin America.

The Fish and Wildlife Service removed the brown pelican population in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, and northward along the Atlantic Coast states from the list of endangered species in 1985. Today's action removes the remaining population from the list.

"After being hunted for its feathers, facing devastating effects from the pesticide DDT and suffering from widespread coastal habitat loss, the pelican has made a remarkable recovery," Strickland said at a press conference in New Orleans to announce the delisting. "We once again see healthy flocks of pelicans in the air over our shores."

The pelican's recovery is largely due to the federal ban on the general use of the pesticide DDT in 1972. This action was taken after former U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Rachel Carson published Silent Spring and alerted the nation to the widespread dangers associated with unrestricted pesticide use.

Hamilton praised the Gulf and Pacific Coast states for their constant efforts to restore this iconic coastal species. "Brown pelicans could not have recovered without a strong and continuing support network of partnerships among federal and state government agencies, tribes, conservation organizations, and individual citizens," said Hamilton. "This is truly a success story that the whole nation can celebrate."

In the southwest, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, The Nature Conservancy and numerous other conservation organizations helped purchase important nesting sites and developed monitoring programs to ensure pelican rookeries were thriving.

Louisiana, long known as the "pelican state," and the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission jointly implemented a restoration project. A total of 1,276 young pelicans were captured in Florida and released at three sites in southeastern Louisiana during the 13 years of the project.

Past efforts to protect the brown pelican actually led to the birth of the National Wildlife Refuge System more than a century ago in central Florida. German immigrant Paul Kroegel, appalled by the indiscriminate slaughter of pelicans for their feathers, approached President Theodore Roosevelt. This led Roosevelt to create the first National Wildlife Refuge at Pelican Island in 1903, when Kroegel was named the first refuge manager. Today, the system has grown to 550 national wildlife refuges, many of which have played key roles in the recovery of the brown pelican.

With removal of the brown pelican from the list of threatened and endangered species, federal agencies will no longer be required to consult with the Service to ensure any action they authorize, fund, or carry out will not harm the species. However, additional federal laws, such as the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and the Lacey Act, will continue to protect the brown pelican, its nests and its eggs.

The Service has developed a Post-Delisting Monitoring Plan, designed to monitor and verify that the recovered, delisted population remains secure from the risk of extinction once the protections of the ESA are removed. The Service can relist the brown pelican if future monitoring or other information shows it is necessary to prevent a significant risk to the brown pelican.

The monitoring will be done in cooperation with the State resource agencies, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, U.S. Virgin Islands, Mexico, other federal agencies, non-governmental organizations, and individuals. Further, the Service is working with state natural resource agencies where the brown pelican occurs to develop cooperative management agreements to ensure that the species continues to be monitored.

The final rule removing the bird from the list of threatened and endangered species will be published in the Federal Register and will take effect 30 days after publication.

Source: U.S. DOI

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