How to Take a Bite Out of Venus Flytrap Poaching

Current laws further a cycle of poverty while not really protecting rare plants. There’s a way to fix that.

Walk into almost any garden shop, or even your local Wal-Mart, and you may notice a curious display: rows of fierce, lightning-fast carnivores in little plastic cups. These tiny cups contain Venus flytraps, the only plant of their kind and a species that’s quickly nearing extinction in the wild. But you’d never know that from the sale price of $5 to $10.

The allure of owning a flytrap, with its terrifyingly beautiful crimson jaws and macabre mystique, is undeniable. And, to be fair, many flytraps are cultivated and sold legally by growers. But all too often, that cheap novelty plant may have reached the store by a much more sordid and secretive means: a complex web of poaching, poverty and black-market dealers.

Venus flytraps (Dionae muscipula) grow in just a few small areas in North and South Carolina. Although they’re protected under state law (and are being considered for national protection under the Endangered Species Act), there’s a large illegal market for them. Poachers have been known to steal thousands of plants from the wild at a time and sell them to dealers for as little as 25 cents apiece.

Solving this is not easy under existing systems. The overarching problem with Venus flytrap poaching, as with all plant poaching, is that those who bear the brunt of enforcement are typically the most disadvantaged. People who crawl through swamps or chop down trees at night are often motivated by financial necessity — what I call “poverty poaching.” Because they’re more easily caught than illegal dealers, these poachers are often the only ones paying fines, furthering the cycle of poverty. Meanwhile the dealers who largely drive the market for poached plants usually escape enforcement, sometimes even falling entirely outside poaching laws.

What sets the problem of plant poaching apart from the more well-known crimes of wildlife poaching is the fact that the law tends to value plants less than animals. Plants are a vital part of any ecosystem, but those species that are heavily poached don’t enjoy the same level of protection and media spotlight as beloved animals like rhinos or elephants. That’s a shame, because poaching of highly coveted plants like ginseng, orchids and maples devastates these species and robs us of millions of dollars of natural value each year.

Few laws protect plants. Many state poaching laws — and even the federal Endangered Species Act — are designed more toward helping animals. Whatever small fines exist for protected plants are usually a small disincentive compared to the allure of quick profits.

To address this, my recent paper in the Washington Journal of Environmental Law & Policy proposes a multilevel approach using a relatively new North Carolina state law and the federal Lacey Act. The approach would provide more meaningful protection to the Venus flytrap and target illegal plant dealers with harsher punishments than small-time poverty poachers.

The starting point is a 2014 state law that made poaching flytraps a felony, with increased fines and potential jail time. The law shows the state’s desire to protect its beloved official carnivorous plant, but also reinforces the inequities of most poaching laws. The penalty only applies to poachers who are caught in the act, making enforcement very difficult and entirely bypassing the black-market dealers.

But this felony penalty could be a powerful tool if used in conjunction with the Lacey Act. The Lacey Act, which prohibits interstate trade in protected species, is designed as an overlay — a way to levy federal poaching charges using the substantive laws of a state, tribe or foreign nation. Federal prosecutors successfully used it recently to indict a lumber mill in Washington state that was intentionally buying poached maple wood, making roughly $800,000 from the stolen wood in just two years.

The Lacey Act provides two useful mechanisms for prosecutors. First, it allows for much scarier disincentives (up to $10,000 for a civil penalty and up to $20,000 and five years in prison for criminal penalties). Second, it can be used in some cases — especially in conjunction with a state permitting system — to more easily prove when a dealer intentionally or carelessly buys plants he should know were poached.

North Carolina already has some permitting requirements for flytrap dealers (as well as dealers in ginseng, another frequent poaching target). The combination of these state permitting laws, the state flytrap poaching felony, and the Lacey Act could be used to strike more effective — and more equitable — blows against the most egregious dealers.

Luckily, public awareness of the plight of the truly unique Venus flytrap is slowly starting to grow, and it seems positioned for greater protection. If that happens, this curious carnivore may serve as a case study for real change for poached plants. And the survival of Venus flytraps, as well as a wide array of other plant species, may depend on it.

The opinions expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Revelator, the Center for Biological Diversity or their employees.

Living With a Carbon Tax

As Washington state prepares to vote on a carbon tax, how is the one in Alberta, Canada, faring?

I live in Alberta, Canada. Yes, that Alberta. The one that wants oil pipelines, is home to the tar sands, and is responsible for nearly 60 percent of Canada’s entire feeder-cattle production. You may think this is the last place on Earth that would support any kind of action to reduce carbon emissions but, lo and behold, there has been a carbon tax here for nearly two years.

How has it worked out? I’ll let you decide.

Alberta has a few different policies to reduce emissions from large-scale emitters and electrical-generation facilities, but it wasn’t until 2017 that it implemented the carbon tax, which is applied to heating and transportation (except farm fuels). The current rate is $30 Canadian ($23 U.S.) per metric ton and will increase to $40 Canadian in 2021 and $50 in 2022. For gasoline right now, this works out to just under 7 cents per quart. On the heating side, a typical home now sees a monthly tax of about $5 Canadian (U.S. $3.80).

What does the government do with this windfall? Part of the money goes back to Albertans in the form of rebates. For instance, a low-income family will receive a rebate of $540 this year. The rebate is structured so that one-third of Albertans should receive more in rebates than they spend on the tax, one-third will break even, and the highest income earners will get no rebate. For this year the province will have an after-rebate surplus of about $1.4 billion Canadian, which is targeted to go into green projects such as expansion of light rail transit, research, small business tax reductions and rebates on residential efficiency items.

Sounds not too bad, eh?

The tax makes the carbon-based fuels a little less competitive against alternatives, and environmental progress is made by using less of them. However, like many stories that seem to have a happy ending, this is a story that’s not yet finished. Recently the government announced that future increases to the carbon tax will be used for general revenue. This makes the plan no longer revenue-neutral. It’s also a Christmas present for opposition political parties and lobby groups, enabling them to convince an already lukewarm electorate that this is just another tax.

A recent poll indicates that two-thirds of Albertans would like to see the tax disappear. Strange, in my opinion, since a good portion of this group are making money on the rebate or, at worst, breaking even. The economy doesn’t seem to be suffering either, with Alberta’s economic growth leading all other provinces last year.

So why is there such resistance to the carbon tax? It’s the strong viewpoint of nearly half of Albertans that climate change is either not a problem or that it is not driven by human activity. The fact that our carbon dioxide emissions have already effectively increased the intensity of our sun by over a half percent is “fake news” to them.

With that mindset, many see the carbon tax as just another tax and not as a mechanism for nudging people to use fewer carbon-based fuels. This is backed up by new-vehicle sales last year, where less than 15 percent were compact or intermediate-sized cars.

Even with this considerable opposition, the carbon tax is likely to stay, at least for a while. If the provincial opposition party wins the next election and throws out the provincial tax, the Canadian federal government will impose its own version by 2019. Of course, the federal opposition party is also against the carbon tax, so the federal carbon tax may also be in jeopardy.

My feelings on all of this?

I believe a carbon tax is a necessary component of our battle to reduce emissions. What I’m not happy with is the shuffling of some of the revenue into general operating funds, since this makes it feel like every other tax when, in my opinion, it should be treated like the most transparent tool the government has to reduce emissions.

The other two tools at the government’s disposal — regulations and subsidies — are not transparent. For example, if we regulate higher fuel efficiency for vehicles, automobile companies will incur extra costs and pass this cost onto car buyers. If we want to speed up the introduction of solar power generation, we can put in subsidies or other incentives, but this money comes from the taxes we pay or, because most governments run a deficit, taxes our children will pay.

It will be very interesting to see how the next years play out here in Canada, both at the provincial and federal level. It would be nice to hear the political parties debate what kind of carbon tax should be implemented instead of whether there should be a carbon tax at all.

However, in my opinion, until a large majority of people finally understand that climate change is both manmade and real, any carbon tax here in Alberta — or other places, including Washington state, which will consider a carbon tax ballot measure on November’s election — will have limited positive impact and a precarious life.

The opinions expressed above are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The Revelator, the Center for Biological Diversity or their employees.

When This Rat Went Extinct, So Did a Flea

The extinction of the Christmas Island flea — and the current risk to other parasites — shows a major gap in conservation efforts.

When Western sailors first landed on the uninhabited volcanic outcropping in the Indian Ocean that would later become known as Christmas Island, they found it abounding with unique and interesting species that had evolved over thousands of years in isolation.

At that time one of the most plentiful Christmas Island species was a nearly two-foot-long rodent. Eventually dubbed Maclear’s rat (Rattus macleari), the island’s dominant mammal exhibited little to no anxiety about the sudden presence of humans.

“These animals, like most of those found in the island, are almost completely devoid of fear,” wrote British paleontologist Charles William Andrews in A Monograph of Christmas Island, published by the British Museum in 1900. “They are a great nuisance, entering the tents or shelters, running over the sleepers and upsetting everything in their search for food. They seem to eat anything, and destroy any boots or skins incautiously left within their reach.”

Andrews described this “fine new rat” as existing “in swarms” all over the island, where they could be “seen running about in all directions…the whole forest is filled with its particular querulous squeaking and the noise of frequent fights.”

Perhaps these bold rats should have realized they had something to fear when two-legged residents first showed up on their island home. By 1903, just three years after Andrews’ monograph was released, Maclear’s rat was extinct — probably due to a disease carried to the island by invasive black rats (Rattus rattus) that had stowed away on visitors’ ships.

Now, 115 years later, we know that Maclear’s rat was not alone in its fate. According to a paper published August 13 in the Journal of Insect Conservation, the disappearance of the rat also caused the extinction of another species that depended on it: a parasite called the Christmas Island flea (Xenopsylla nesiotes).

This is the first time that a host-specific flea has been declared extinct, according to the paper.

The discovery of the extinction was saddening, but not surprising, says the paper’s author, Mackenzie Kwak, a parasitologist with the National University of Singapore. “Parasites, particularly the host-specific species, are perhaps the most imperiled group of organisms on Earth,” he says.

Kwak, whose research focuses on assessing parasites’ extinction risk, has also documented other flea species of Australia, of which Christmas Island is now a territory. He found that four other species are endangered, two of them critically. All are host-specific fleas that parasitize one species each.

As he explains in his paper, specialized parasites are at the mercy of their host species, which actually makes them more prone to extinction than their hosts. He’s dubbed this the “cryptic loss effect.” If a theoretical possum species were living in four populations — only two of which carried host-specific fleas — and the two flea-carrying populations disappeared, the possum species as a whole could survive. The flea would not.

In fact, the loss of one host species could actually affect numerous species around it. “Many species host a huge range of parasites, so the extinction of one bird can have a cascade effect of also causing a handful of host-specific parasites to disappear as well,” Kwak says. Maclear’s rat is an example of that. Another parasite it once carried, a tick called Ixodes nitens, is also believed to be extinct.

Kwak says this cryptic loss effect means many parasite species are at risk of extinction, even if they are not currently recognized as such. “For every threatened vertebrate species listed on IUCN Red List, there is a number of unrecognized co-threatened parasites waiting to go extinct should their host decline,” he says.

To help prevent this, Kwak’s paper calls for a more holistic approach to conservation, with fleas and other parasites considered just as important to save as their host species. This might involve conservation efforts in the wild, translocating threatened populations to safer sites, or even captive breeding.

The idea of conserving wild species and their parasites is “something of a paradigm shift,” says Kwak. “At present conservationists are only concerned with eradicating wildlife parasites, even though host-specific parasites generally don’t adversely affect their host species. This shortsighted notion gives no thought to the value of parasites as wider biodiversity or big players in ecosystem functioning.” He says it has even led to at least one species — the Californian condor louse (Colpocephalum californici) — being purposefully driven extinct. “To have conservationists invested in conserving all threatened species, rather than some species, while causing the deliberate extinction of others, would be a welcome change,” he says.

Why should we worry about conserving parasites? It turns out that despite the negative connotations of the word, most parasites don’t kill their hosts, and they play some important roles. “We certainly know that parasites play key roles in food chains, nutrient cycling and in helping their host’s immune system stay strong and effective, so they have so-called ecological value,” Kwak says.

There may be other roles that we’re just starting to understand. “In our eternal quest for new therapeutic drugs, we are increasingly turning to the natural world,” he says. “We are becoming bio-prospectors, and parasites hold innumerable compounds which could revolutionize medicine. For example, some tapeworm species bioaccumulate heavy metals and they could one day be used to treat heavy metal poisoning. Fleas have powerful anticoagulants which are useful for controlling blood clots, and some botflies produce anesthetic compounds to numb pain. If we lose them to extinction their whole arsenal of potentially therapeutic compounds is lost forever.”

Of course, all of this is a century too late for the Christmas Island flea. But maybe it serves as a bit of a wakeup call — however itchy — for other imperiled parasites. Some of them may be disappearing right now, while nobody is looking.

Previously in The Revelator:

Parasite Lost: Did Our Taste for Seafood Just Cause an Extinction?

Christmas Island Bat, Last Seen in 2009, Confirmed Extinct

High Temperatures and Air Pollution May Increase Risk of Mental Illness, Suicide

Climate change will exacerbate the problem in the coming decades, according to recent studies.

Increasingly, science is suggesting psychiatric problems can be worsened by weather and air pollution.

For decades research has shown that heat stress negatively affects the body and exacerbates psychiatric illness; now it turns out the biological impacts of air pollution are no different. Common air pollutants such as carbon monoxide, ozone and particulate matter not only irritate the lungs but can also trigger immune responses throughout the body and reach the brain through the bloodstream, causing neuroinflammation. Studies have linked increased exposure to these pollutants to higher rates of psychiatric medication, hospital visits for depression and panic attacks, as well as psychiatric emergencies and suicide.

In one of the most recent studies in the United States, researchers found psychological stress was 17 percent higher in areas with high pollution. “This is really setting out a new trajectory around the health effects of air pollution,” Anjum Hajat, coauthor of the study, said in a press release. “The effects of air pollution on cardiovascular health and lung diseases like asthma are well established, but this area of brain health is a newer area of research.”

The next few decades may see these problems multiplying. Climate change is predicted to bring not just higher temperatures but also increased levels of ground-level ozone and particulate air pollution from wildfires, chemicals, stagnant weather patterns and other conditions.

In response, scientists are beginning to investigate how mental health will be affected by environmental change. A July 2018 study found a quantifiable link between above-average temperatures and increased rates of suicide. According to that analysis, as many as 26,000 additional people in the United States could die by suicide by 2050 if global warming is not curtailed. The study calculated that for months that are just 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than normal, the suicide rate that month increased by 0.7 percent. “Better understanding the causes of suicide is a public health priority,” lead author Marshall Burke of Stanford University told USA Today.

The study also highlighted the need for policies to mitigate future temperature rise if we hope to stem these mental-health threats; other experts have made similar calls. In a recent Nature article, public-health researchers called for a systems-wide consideration of the mental health effects of climate change. As they wrote in their paper, “mental health needs, funding of services and research are not being adequately addressed.” That could cost us all in the long run.

Trump’s Policies on Public Lands Will Hurt Local Economies

As Sec. Zinke prepares to open Grand Staircase-Escalante to mining, experts and business owners say tourism income far outweighs the potential from fossil-fuel extraction.

The Trump administration this week released draft plans for mining and other development within lands recently removed from Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments. The plans, which are now open for public comment, identify more than 1,600 acres formerly attached to the latter monument as “identified for disposal” by lease or sale, indicating their potential for coal, oil, natural gas and uranium development.

The administration claims these initiatives — the latest in its work to accelerate energy development by slashing regulations and protections for national monuments —will stimulate the economy, but experts say the rush to sell off public lands to the fossil-fuel industry could actually have a long-term damaging economic impact.

Emily Lande, a senior campaign representative at Our Wild America campaign at Sierra Club, says it has been “well documented” that public lands provide a lot of economic benefits, but the Trump administration has not only disregarded the economic benefits of protecting public lands, it has also tried to cover them up.

“The administration has the mindset that the only economic benefit that comes from public lands is from energy development and mining,” she says.

The Washington Post reported the Trump administration’s cover-up in July, when documents accidentally released by the Department of the Interior — and retracted a day later — showed the agency’s officials deliberately dismissed evidence that national monuments boosted “gateway” towns’ economies and instead focused on emphasizing energy development and logging.

Gateway towns are typically small, rural communities adjacent to national parks and monuments. These communities are mostly supported by tourism revenues from lodging, restaurants and gas stations and rely heavily on public lands for their livelihoods.

Several studies show that America’s public lands played a crucial role in supporting gateway communities in many parts of the country.

Among them, a 2017 report by Headwaters Economics, a nonpartisan independent research center, showed that population, employment, personal and per capita income have gone up in communities adjacent to national monuments since those monuments have been designated.

Gateway communities around Grand Staircase-Escalante, Cascade-Siskiyou, Craters of the Moon, Grand Canyon Parashant and a number of other national monuments in the West expanded after the monuments have been created, the report found.

In addition to growing their populations, these communities also saw growth in employment and per capita income in the years following monuments’ designation.

Another report, from the Outdoor Industry Association, was released before Trump slashed Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments in Utah; it found that monuments across the country serve as important economic drivers.

Hundreds of millions of annual visitors to monuments, parks and other Interior Department sites contribute $887 billion to outdoor recreation industries that support 7.6 million jobs, according to the report.

A report by the Natural Resources Defense Council highlighted the dangers of Trump’s sweeping proposal to open up almost the entire U.S. coastline — home to 68 national parks — to oil and gas drilling.

According to the report, coastal national parks generated $5.7 billion in economic output, supported 59,517 jobs and attracted 84 million visitors in 2017.

Putting oil rigs right outside protected areas, or inside previously protected sites, will have an adverse effect on this national economic engine, Lande says.

“People don’t really want to go to parks and see an oil rig, that’s just not what they are there for,” she says. “That will have negative consequences for the local economies and for the places that are really dependent on those protected landscapes in order to keep a sustained, healthy economy.”

Ironically, rural voters who turned out heavily for Trump in the 2016 election could be the hardest hit by his environmental policies, as small communities often depend on the health of public lands for their long-term income.

Lande says a particularly egregious example of Zinke’s destructive public-land policies is the rollback of federal protections for Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in Utah in December 2017.

“I think it’s the prime example because the monument is so established in that community, and people really build their lives around it,” she says. “To undo that protection and to shrink the size of that monument… that really puts a threat and a lot of pressure on a local community.”

Utah has always been at the fore of the debate on energy and public lands because of the high number of protected landscapes in the southern part of the state, all of which are located next to areas leased for oil and gas development.

Along with Grand Staircase, Trump has also drastically cut Utah’s Bears Ears National Monument, which was designated by the Obama administration in December 2016, by 85 percent. Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument in Oregon and Gold Butte National Monument in Nevada are awaiting potential similar fates.

The larger economic impact of opening public lands to oil and gas would be felt across the country, as development and increased emissions would contribute to climate change, Lande says.

“You are going to feel that in a community, you are going to feel that in a number of wildfires, you are going to feel that in air pollution and water pollution and costs that come from that — all public-health impacts,” she says. “I think there are larger and longer-term economic impacts that will be felt across our country.”

National Monuments, Local Economies

In Utah local and state officials have vocally opposed Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument ever since it was designated by President Bill Clinton in 1996. Once the Trump administration entered the White House, they doubled down on their rhetoric about federal overreach.

At the behest of Utah’s outgoing Sen. Orrin Hatch, Trump slashed the 1.9-million acre Grand Staircase-Escalante in Garfield and Kane counties by 900,000 acres. The move was meant to limit federal government’s control of local lands and give opportunities to the extracting industry to create jobs in the area.

But business owners in Garfield County, home of several gateway communities to Grand Staircase-Escalante, say tourism — not energy development — is the primary driver of the local economy.

One of those gateway towns is Boulder, Utah, which sits between the town of Escalante and Capitol Reef National Park and is praised for its pristine beauty. Surrounded by rugged southwestern landscapes, it’s one of the most isolated areas in the country, and business owners say visitors are attracted to its spectacular landscape and dark night skies adorned by the Milky Way.

Scott Berry, a co-owner of Boulder Mountain Lodge, says “the public demotion of Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument will likely discourage individuals, families, and businesses from bringing new ideas, and new capital to the gateway communities.”

Berry says he saw this influx 24 years ago when he opened the lodge and tourists from other states and countries poured into the town, transforming it from an insular rural community into a prime outdoor destination, which at the time was free from the crowds common for many national parks.

“It improved the character of the community, which started to blossom and see itself as a part of the world,” Berry says.

Blake Spalding, a co-owner of Hell’s Backbone Grill, moved to Boulder from Flagstaff, Ariz., in 1999. She opened the restaurant the following year.

“We wouldn’t have opened the restaurant had the monument not been created,” Spalding says in a telephone interview.

The vision for Hell’s Backbone Grill was to support the monument. After opening the restaurant, Spalding authored two books that highlight her affinity for Utah’s public lands. The most recent, This Immeasurable Place: Food and Farming from the Edge of Wilderness, co-authored by her business partner Jen Castle, tells the story how they started the farm-to-table restaurant in the small, Mormon community.

“We are unequivocally for the monument — and if anything, it should be made larger, not reduced in half,” Spalding says.

Although her business is booming, Spalding says people have written to her about canceling their trips to the area in protest of Utah officials’ handling of the state’s national monuments.

Berry, of the Bounder Mountain Lodge, has also had reservations cancelled. He says he couldn’t tell if the reduction of the monument had an immediate impact on his business as his guests didn’t tell him why they decided to change their trips.

Berry and Spalding are not isolated cases. According to the NRDC report, Garfield and Kane counties, homes to the monument, experienced 24 percent job growth, a 32 percent increase in personal income and a 17 percent increase in per capita income between 2001 and 2015.

More recently, tourism tax dollars in Kane and Garfield counties increased 20.8 percent and 10.2 percent, respectively, between 2015 and 2016, according to the report.

Ironically, Berry argues that this growth actually fed opposition to the monument.

“These newcomers are bringing new ideas to what have always been small, insulated communities in the middle of nowhere, slowly changing the social landscape,” he says. “Not surprisingly, these changes have made traditional residents uneasy, and disagreement about the monument is the way that unease gets expressed.”

This unease was the key factor that has played into local government’s push for the reduction of the monument and claims that mining could bring better jobs than recreational tourism. Studies point to large deposits of coal in the Kaiporawits Plateau, an area rich in dinosaur fossils which has been cut from the monument by the Trump administration.

Four mining claims have been staked in the former Grand Staircase so far, but Berry calls local conversations about mining “wishful thinking” and questions whether mining in the region would ever be economically viable.

“Local residents are well aware of the talk about the possibility of new energy and mining projects in the area are ‘castles in the clouds’,” he says.

To Berry there’s only one product that the remote area near Grand Staircase-Escalante can market sustainably now and in the future: the wild, untrammeled, awe-inspiring landscape.

“Right now hundreds of families in Boulder, Escalante, Tropic and Kanab are building the foundations of a future economy based on this unique opportunity,” he says. “We, as locals, and the nation at large will we have to decide if we have the courage to step into this future, or choose instead to retreat into dreams of the past.”

Editor’s note: The plans to sell off some of the public lands formerly attached to Grand Staircase-Escalante were withdrawn two days after they were announced. The Bureau of Land Management has now been directed to “modify” the proposal.

Grizzly Bears and Roads: The Grisly Truth

When roads are built in grizzly habitat, bears come into conflict with humans more often. A new report explains what’s necessary to keep the bears from dying.

Most people picture western Canada as sprawling, pristine wilderness, with high mountain peaks and thick pine forests as far as the eye can see. But cutting through the woods are hundreds of thousands of miles of resource roads — dirt and gravel roads that provide the public and the timber, oil and mining industries with a thoroughfare into the backcountry. In British Columbia and Alberta alone there are nearly 497,000 miles (800,000 kilometers) of such roads, slicing right through prime grizzly bear range.

How bad are these roads? A report published last month found that motorized access to wilderness areas is increasingly bad news for grizzly bears, both individuals and populations. When roads are present, grizzlies (Ursus arctos horribilis) die more often.

Resource roads — From “Resource Roads and Grizzly Bears in British Columbia and Alberta, Canada.” Used with permission.

“Roads have a particularly influential impact on grizzly bears,” says Michael Proctor, an independent Canadian bear research ecologist and co-author of the report. “They also have an impact on elk and mule deer, but grizzly bears are thought to be a decent umbrella species in this region.”

Prior research has found that between 77 and 90 percent of grizzly bears that survive the natural perils of cub-hood will eventually be killed by people — and almost all are killed near roads. This increase in grizzly mortality isn’t due to bears getting hit by vehicles, but rather from conflicts with humans roaming the woods, especially during summer and fall sport- and subsistence-hunting seasons. During these times humans are out looking for deer and elk while bears are foraging nuts and berries to build up their fat supplies ahead of winter hibernation.

How roads affect bears — From “Resource Roads and Grizzly Bears in British Columbia and Alberta, Canada.” Used with permission.

“More females have died from ungulate hunters defending their hunt” than have died from the formerly legal grizzly trophy hunt in some areas, explains Proctor, cofounder of the Trans-Border Grizzly Bear Project, which focuses on the conservation of grizzlies in the southern Selkirk and Purcell mountains of British Columbia, Montana and Idaho. “No one wants to get hurt by a grizzly bear, but you put people with guns out in the backcountry and bears die.”

Roads affect bears differently depending on their sex and age. For example, Alberta researchers have found that survival of reproductive-age females declines in areas where road density is greater than about half a mile of road per 250 acres. As females die the local population experiences cascading declines. Exactly how much a population will decline in these areas varies, depending on traffic volume, habitat quality and the tendency of local people to kill bears.

Animals also change the ways they make use of their surroundings in areas where roadways slice through their habitat, leaving populations increasingly fragmented. As a result, bears select smaller home ranges and experience reduced reproduction rates.

The new study ultimately corroborates a report issued last year by the British Columbia’s Auditor General’s office that found habitat degradation was the biggest threat to the province’s remaining 15,000 grizzlies — not trophy hunting, which conservationists had long fingered as the key practice putting bears in jeopardy. Resource roads in the province are increasing at a rate of 6,200 miles (10,000 kilometers) per year, according to the new report. Though British Columbia has far more resource roads than Alberta, it also has far more bears and fewer protections. Grizzlies are a threatened species in Alberta under the provincial Wildlife Act, with fewer than 1,000 left in the wilderness. British Columbia, meanwhile, doesn’t even have provincial protected species legislation, which makes it harder to enact conservation measures. It also means bears rarely come out ahead of industry and development. “British Columbia is a bit further behind in managing access than Alberta,” says Clayton Lamb, a Ph.D. student at the University of Alberta who also worked on the report.

grizzly on a road — A grizzly on the road. Photo: National Park Service

Alberta has already started working on such access management, but British Columbia has made few steps toward protecting the bears. Earlier this month the province announced it would close public access to roads near four key grizzly populations for a few months each year, but the roads will remain open to industry vehicles year-round, and other sites remain unprotected.

The authors ultimately recommend strategically reducing motorized access in both provinces to save grizzlies. “We’re not talking about ‘no roads’ in the backcountry, but a reasonable reduction,” says Proctor. He recommends closing roads in areas where grizzly bear conservation is a concern (like around threatened population groups), in areas where roads occur in high-quality habitats and around areas the provide habitat linkages between populations.

However, wildlife managers have struggled to implement road-access controls that would keep the recreating public out but allow industry in. “It’s universally hard to close a road,” says Proctor. “It was hard in the United States, but the U.S. has adapted.” Because bears have been extirpated in the majority of the lower 48, with no more than 1,000 bears in any of the six remaining population groups, the United States has implemented access controls more swiftly in hopes of protecting the few bears they have left before they disappear. As a cornerstone of recovery, U.S. managers established a motorized-access management system that adjusts road densities based on the security of bear habitat. This includes a requirement for large roadless areas. Canada, with more than 16,000 bears in the West, hasn’t faced such a conservation crunch yet and therefore has been slower to make changes.

On the surface it appears that Canada falls far behind the United States, but Proctor says it’s more that “our problems are finally catching up to us.”

Proctor says the conservation of grizzlies and their habitat on both sides of the border is vital for the species’ long-term survival. Reducing road access goes far beyond regional conservation in Alberta and British Columbia. It would also aid in creating large-scale connectivity between grizzly bear populations across North America. Each patch of habitat is vital to providing a chain between population zones.

This kind of big thinking falls in line with the Yellowstone to Yukon Initiative, a conservation project with the aim of creating a continuous ecological corridor from the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming up to Canada’s Yukon Territory. The corridor spans more than 500,000 square miles — ample room for roaming grizzlies.

Achieving any of these goals requires preserving more habitats with fewer roads. “We need to keep the backcountry core habitat healthy so we have healthy populations to connect,” says Proctor.

Fins from Protected Shark Species Still Heavily Traded

A new study shows that CITES-listed sharks remain some of the dominant species in the retail fin market.

Last month you were probably busy watching celebrities jump in the water with great white sharks (Carcharodon carcharias) and tiger sharks (Galeocerdo cuvier) and then attach satellite tags on their fins to track their movements. But while many were glued to their televisions for Shark Week, an important step in shark conservation was happening in a small laboratory in Hong Kong.

I was a part of a team that analyzed fins from Hong Kong’s market, and we found that protected sharks are still frequently being traded. That’s a big problem, as one of the leading threats to sharks is the trade of their fins, and Hong Kong is a leading importer.

The work to protect sharks and other wildlife threatened by trade started back in 1973, when the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) was formed. Every three years since then member nations and organizations meet at the Conference of the Parties. Proposals are made then to list various wild species on different lists called appendices that either ban (Appendix I) or control (Appendix II) their international trade.

The first shark species listed on CITES Appendix II were whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) and basking sharks (Cetorhinus maximus) in 2001, followed by great white sharks in 2004. After that CITES parties were unwilling to list more shark species on its appendices for almost a decade.

But after years of data collection and advocacy, the parties took a sharp turn in the right direction and, in the past six years, have listed nine commercially important shark species on Appendix II. Exporting countries now must obtain permits to prove that trade of sharks listed on Appendix II is legal, traceable and not detrimental to the survival of these species.

Scalloped hammerheads (Sphyrna lewini), smooth hammerheads (S. zygaena), great hammerheads (S. mokarran), oceanic whitetip sharks (Carcharhinus longimanus), porbeagle sharks (Lamna nasus), silky sharks (C. falciformis), pelagic thresher sharks (Alopias pelagicus), bigeye thresher sharks (A. superciliosus) and common thresher sharks (A. vulpinus) are now on that list. They were known to be among the most common sharks found many small- and large-scale fisheries around the world and on the international shark fin market.

But a big question remained unanswered: Are hammerheads, porbeagles and oceanic whitetips still common in the international fin trade following their CITES implementation started in late 2014?

This question has now been answered in our new study, published in Conservation Letters. Our main objectives were to assess the global position of Hong Kong as legal importer of fins from CITES-listed species according to trade records and to evaluate the relative importance of these species in the Hong Kong fin market after listings were implemented. Silky and thresher sharks were not considered for this study because enforcement for these species has not been implemented in Hong Kong to date.

We searched the CITES Trade Database for all legal importations of CITES-listed shark species in 2015, the first year of implementation. Hong Kong was the top legal importer of CITES-listed shark fins with about 22,000 kilograms (nearly 25 tons) from six different countries in 16 individual shipments. This relatively small amount in these listed species contrasts with the more than 5.5 million kilograms (6,000 tons) of shark fins from all species entering Hong Kong in 2015 alone.

If records are an accurate representation of imports, we would expect CITES-listed species to be rare among fins being processed in 2015 and 2016.

To test this hypothesis, we gathered in that small laboratory to genetically identify 9,200 processed shark fin samples collected from the retail markets of Hong Kong between February 2014 and December 2016.

This analysis revealed that scalloped hammerheads and smooth hammerheads — whose trade should be highly restricted — were consistently the fourth- and fifth-most-common species in the retail markets. Official numbers suggested they should have been much lower down the list.

The difference between legal importation figures and the actual prevalence of these species in the retail markets underlies the fact that nations exporting to Hong Kong known to land protected species were not among those reporting trade to CITES. This suggests that compliance with reporting requirements was low in the first years of implementation.

What happens now? Nations around the world with large exports and imports now face the challenge of enhancing their capacity to monitor this high-volume trade.

Our study highlights the urgent need to assist nations that are struggling to monitor the high-volume international shark trade. This is a top priority for many nations since failing to meet CITES requirements can lead to the application of international trade sanctions.

Several important steps, such as fin identification workshops, have already been taken to improve the quality of inspections in Hong Kong and other key shark trading countries. Nevertheless, the relative importance and high volume of CITES-listed species in trade suggests that this capacity to monitor the trade is likely already exceeded.

To increase inspection efficiency in major trading hubs, rapid and cost-effective wildlife forensics tools are being developed for sharks and other endangered species. There is a key role to be played by developed countries and other international bodies, such as non-governmental organizations and industries, to help developing countries in the transfer of such technologies and building capacity.

In recent years shark conservation has been subject to public attention and there is a positive momentum for shark trade management by CITES parties. This has the potential to trigger international cooperation to ensure a more effective implementation of CITES listings for sharks — for the benefit of all protected species.

Climate Change Got You Down? Let’s Talk

We have five questions for Kate Schapira, founder of Climate Anxiety Counseling.

About once a week, Kate Schapira goes to a public space in her city of Providence, R.I., and sets up a Lucy-from-Peanuts-style booth with nine simple words painted on it:

Climate Anxiety Counseling
5 Cents
The Doctor Is In

She sits down at the booth and, for the advertised fee of five cents, talks to people about their anxiety about climate change.

When people stop at the booth, Schapira invites them to share what they’re most worried about, whether it’s related to climate change or to something else. They talk and afterwards, with her client’s permission, Schapira sometimes documents the session at her Climate Anxiety Counseling website. All of the booth’s income is donated to the Environmental Justice League of Rhode Island.

Schapira, who is a poet, author, teacher, and activist, has been doing the climate counseling project for more than four years. It can be understood as ongoing gift, collaborative living artwork, awareness campaign, community building, and personal practice. We talked to Schapira to learn more about the inspiration for this unique project, what happens during her counseling sessions, and the impact on herself and her “customers.”

So what’s your own anxiety level like today?

Wildfires in California and the Arctic Circle, a brutal heat wave in my region, my state’s apparent eagerness to build fossil fuel energy projects, scientists talking about human extinction — my anxiety level’s high.

Why did you start the climate anxiety counseling project, and can you describe what it means?

I wanted to build a vocabulary for the fear, helplessness and anger that I felt when I read or heard about climate change. An interlocutor described anxiety as “what you feel about things you think you can’t change,” and that’s a good description, although I try to connect people with paths to collective action if that seems possible and desirable for them.

There’s a standard answer I’ve given in response to the question of why I started the project: I’d start talking to other people about how horrified and miserable I was about the climate, and they’d look at me strangely. I started the project to learn more about what other people were thinking and feeling about climate change, and as an invitation to connect. But recently I remembered that before any of that, I responded in the same way to someone else: I asked her not to talk to me about climate change because it made me feel so bad, and it essentially ended our friendship. I was wrong, and we can’t go around doing that. We need to be able to feel and work together in this time, whether or not we survive.

Are there any particular climate-related anxieties you tend to hear from people?

A few things come up regularly: food shortages and scarcity, displacement of groups of people, flooding and sea-level rise. Sometimes people will say, “We’re basically fucked, right?” and then I try to get them to articulate what that means to them. When people mention something far away, like the polar ice, I try to get them to connect that with things closer to home.

What emotion should people endeavor to hold instead of anxiety? Hope and anger both might be too far on the opposite end of the spectrum.

Since feelings aren’t actions, for me it’s less “try to feel this way” and more that I’d like people to notice what they’re feeling and what the feeling is “asking” them to do. So with climate change, what is that demand? To me, it’s twofold: that we prepare to mourn together (for species, places, cultures, people and the futures we thought we’d have) and that we imagine — and learn about! there are precedents! — the structures that would allow us to live well enough without hurting ourselves and each other, and without helping the people currently hurting us. How could we live in the present in a way that would be good for us in the present in case there’s no future, but that could also potentially help to bring about a livable future? How would it feel to live that way?

I listen and ask questions about what the other person’s thinking, feeling, doing, what they’ve tried and what they know. The more I do that, the more generous, honest and deep the conversations go. Then, when we get around to the “But what can I do?” part of the conversation, it’s based in a real understanding of what that person wants and is capable of. And there’s more potential to ask people to consider things that they have previously not considered, or rejected, but that might change how they participate in the world.

Does talking about climate change help to reduce those anxieties? Or does talking about it in a specific way help?

It’s more like, “What do I do with this anxiety; how do I live with this knowledge?” I try to ask questions that draw out people’s sense of and potential for connection — recognizing the living systems that we’re part of and enmeshed with, knowing about and moving toward acting together to combat a fossil fuel project or push for expanded producer responsibility or support a less monopolized food system.

Another thing they can do is just speak frankly with the people they know about their worry and fear. We are not alone. We need each other, and that’s a feature, not a bug.

A Move to Preserve the Night Sky

In Idaho, a breathtaking new reserve promises to preserve the darkness — and shows how other communities can follow.

With August comes the Perseid meteor shower, that time of year when Earth passes through a cloud of cometary dust and gravel that can produce hundreds of shooting stars in a single night. The annual phenomenon reminds us that all of humanity resides upon a single stone hurtling through space at breathtaking speed. Closer to home, it also reminds us of the growing problem of light pollution, which each year prevents most Americans from seeing the Perseids and other common celestial events.

Fortunately, awareness of the value of natural darkness is building. One promising new development is the Central Idaho Dark Sky Reserve, an oasis of wilderness located about 150 miles east of Boise. Last December the reserve was recognized by the International Dark-Sky Association as the world’s 12th Dark Sky Reserve and the first designation of its kind in the United States. The reserve, which was years in the making, reflects collaboration among municipalities, land managers, private citizens and others. Their work demonstrates that communities can enjoy the modern benefits of well-lit lives without sacrificing the wonders of the night sky.

The new reserve spans over 1,400 square miles and includes the communities of Ketchum, Stanley and Sun Valley. Its heart is an expanse of remote national forest that encompasses the Sawtooth National Recreation Area and most of three federally designated wilderness areas. Vast and largely undeveloped, these public lands provide one of the best windows onto the universe in the contiguous U.S.

To qualify as a dark sky reserve, a place must have a remote core large enough to preserve an exceptional nocturnal environment, with nearly pristine views of the night sky. Just as important, public and private landholders must support the designation, and a buffer of surrounding communities must demonstrate commitment to preserving natural darkness. In the case of Central Idaho, years of coordination occurred between communities, county governments, private landowners, businesses, conservation groups and public land managers. The payoff came when the International Dark-Sky Association awarded the new reserve with a “gold tier” status, its highest rating.

At each reserve, stakeholders commit to reducing excessive lighting and investing in association-approved lighting technologies such as shields that prevent skyward glare. Municipalities and land management agencies also factor night sky protections into local infrastructure and long-range planning. And since voluntary compliance is the key to a reserve’s success, steady public outreach and education go toward boosting awareness of the value of natural darkness.

Light pollution has attracted growing attention and alarm in recent years. Research published in 2016 estimated that 99 percent of Americans live within its glare, and that 80 percent no longer experience the once-common view of the Milky Way. Health experts point out this excessive exposure to artificial lighting disrupts the human circadian rhythm, increasing our susceptibility to obesity, depression, dementia, cancer and other health problems. And our exposure to artificial lighting is increasing, through sprawling development, home lighting choices, and even the tendency to stare into the bright lights of our phones until we roll over to sleep each night.

Beyond well-established health effects, light pollution also deprives us of awe-inspiring encounters with stars and other heavenly bodies. For me, that realization dawned one September while camping in Montana’s Bob Marshall Wilderness. On that trip I saw bears, wolves, endangered bull trout and the wonders of a landscape enlivened by natural fire. But when I think back, my most vivid memory is of the purity of the night sky. Each night I lay on my back with my tent door open and my head in the grass, peering up at the universe. I’m sure I saw the 2,500 to 3,000 stars that experts say should be visible in a naturally dark sky. It was a novel experience for me, and I thrilled in seeing the same celestial bodies that our earliest ancestors used to cross the planet’s deserts and oceans, and that inspired generations of mythology, religion, art and science.

But preserving natural darkness is about much more than human health and experience. From plants to wildlife, dark nights are vital for sleep, migration, hunting, feeding, reproduction and much more. In Puget Sound, research found artificial lighting draws endangered juvenile Chinook salmon out of dark waters, increasing their exposure to predation. In Florida, streetlights lure young sea turtles off course as they try to navigate toward the safety of the ocean. Perhaps most famously, artificial lighting disorients migrating birds, who perish by the millions from collisions with buildings, increased predation or exhaustion from becoming lost in spheres of artificial light. Thus protected natural areas, including the Central Idaho Dark Sky Reserve, provide ecological havens for an array of species dependent on the dark.

Preserving natural darkness is the mission of the International Dark-Sky Association, founded in 1988. Their work builds global awareness, and their system of protective designations has real sway. Examples include their Dark Sky Communities, which include Ketchum, Idaho; Borrego Springs, California; and Flagstaff, Arizona, where well-attended star parties showcase how local cultures can reconnect to the night sky. The association’s Dark Sky Parks include over forty U.S. national parks committed to maintaining nocturnal environments, including Natural Bridges in Utah and Big Bend in Texas.

Federal land management agencies increasingly recognize the value of dark nights. In 2009, the National Park Service formed its Night Sky Team after construction of a prison threatened to spray light into California’s Pinnacles National Monument (now a national park). Today the team is active across the park system. In 2016 they helped Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota successfully negotiate for efficient lighting at a nearby crude oil loading facility. The U.S. Forest Service and other agencies also now list natural darkness as a measure for monitoring conditions in federally designated wilderness areas.

These initiatives demonstrate increased appreciation for natural darkness and the abundance of methods — many of them simple and cost-effective — for preserving it. In Idaho, which saw thousands of “astro-tourists” flock to view the 2017 solar eclipse, communities see dark-sky preservation as a potential economic boon. It also offers potentially swift and meaningful reductions in carbon pollution. After all, light pollution often represents wasted lighting — light that is cast up rather than down. Eliminating wasted lighting saves energy, and on a community level that savings can help make a difference for the climate.

As demonstrated in Idaho with the new dark sky reserve, individuals, businesses, communities and land managers can all play a role in reducing light pollution — and they should, as it would benefit the health and economies of their neighborhoods. A good place to learn more is the International Dark-Sky Association resources page, which features brochures, guides to dark-friendly light fixtures, links to research, materials for educators and more. The association also helped produce a model lighting ordinance, which offers key ways communities can take the steps that both preserve natural darkness and reduce energy costs.

Meanwhile, this month Earth is making its annual pass through the trail of Comet Swift-Tuttle, the source of the Perseid meteor shower. If the sky is clear and you can find a place free of artificial light, it’s an excellent opportunity to watch shooting stars, connect to your local night sky, and bask in its life-sustaining darkness.

Previously in The Revelator:

Big Cities, Bright Lights: Ranking the Worst Light Pollution on Earth

Lemurs in Crisis: 105 Species Now Threatened with Extinction

At least 95 percent of Madagascar’s beloved primates are now at risk, conservationists warn.

Lemurs are the now the most threatened mammal group on the planet, according to conservationists who issued a warning about the animals this month.

Out of 111 known lemur species and subspecies, at least 105 — 95 percent — are now considered to be threatened with extinction.

All lemur species are native to the island nation of Madagascar, where they are threatened by habitat loss, deforestation, hunting for meat, the illegal pet trade and other factors.

“The world loves lemurs, but the government of Madagascar pays very little attention,” says Russ Mittermeier, chief conservation officer for Global Wildlife Conservation and chair of the IUCN Species Survival Commission Primate Specialist Group, which conducted the new assessment of lemur species at a recent workshop.

According to the analysis, at least 38 lemur species should now be listed as “critically endangered,” up from 24 when the primates were last assessed back in 2012. Another 44 should be considered “endangered,” while 23 are thought to be slightly safer and have been categorized as “vulnerable to extinction.” Only two lemur species, both widespread mouse lemurs, were considered to be of “least concern,” the healthiest assessment category on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

Among the most threatened of these popular animals are both the largest and smallest lemur species, the 2-foot-tall indri (Indri indri) and the Madame Berthe’s mouse lemur (Microcebus berthae), which, at about 1 ounce in weight, is also the world’s smallest known primate. The rarest lemur is now the northern sportive lemur (Lepilemur septentrionalis), which has an estimated population of just 50 individuals.

The famous ring-tailed lemur (Lemur catta), the most common primate in captivity around the world, is expected to now be listed as “endangered.” Recent research estimates that populations for this species have fallen by as much as 95 percent since the year 2000.

These new assessments are considered provisional and will take another few years to finalize, but Mittermeier says lemurs need action now: “We don’t want to wait two or three years for the final results to come out because it’s too urgent.”

Mittermeier says the Madagascar government has been too besieged over the past few years by a coup and other political crises to accomplish much in the name of conservation. He says the country’s current president, Hery Rajaonarimampianina, “is a good guy, but now we have a new election coming up and it’s heavily focused on politics and the capital city and the rest of the country be damned, which is really too bad.”

Lemurs have been on decline since long before the coup, but we’ve also been learning more about them the whole time. Mittermeier points out that science had only described 60 lemur species when the first field guide to the animals was published in 1994. Nearly that many new species have been discovered since then, including one that was just described this past January. Mittermeier expects the total number will continue to grow, as several species are even now awaiting formal scientific description. “We’re going to add at least 5 to 10 percent more species in the next few years,” he says.

Unfortunately, the improved knowledge has corresponded with the destruction of much of Madagascar’s native forests. “Even as we describe new species, the available range for every species has become smaller,” Mittermeier says. “Some of the new species have no habitat protection whatsoever.”

So what can be done to help lemurs? “Ecotourism is the number-one conservation tool right now,” Mittermeier says, because it supports both protected areas and the people who live near them. “The answer is empowering the communities and getting more and more people going there and showing the benefits of establishing protected areas to communities,” he says. “That’s about the best thing we can do at this point.”

Along these lines, the IUCN Species Survival Commission has raised $8 million for lemur conservation and is in the process of distributing grants for on-the-ground efforts. “That’ll go toward the communities and tourism operations and things like that,” Mittermeier says.

He also points to the Lemur Conservation Network, which links the efforts of more than 50 conservation organizations, research groups and zoos and implements the lemur survival action plan.

Beyond, that, Mittermeier says he hopes other conservation groups and governments will follow up with similar targeted efforts, including aid packages that require the government of Madagascar to rigorously commit to conservation, including to help not just lemurs but also to end the rampant illegal trade in tortoises and rosewood.

How does Mittermeier himself deal with the increasingly bad news about lemurs? “Look, I’m an eternal optimist,” he says. “I just keep pushing and plugging away. If there’s a failure, you just regroup. If you have an obstacle put in front of you, you either knock it down or move around it. These are wonderful animals and we’re working together to save them.”