Posted 12/13/96


Among the many anti-environmental riders on the Fiscal Year 1995-96 federal budget is an onerous provision that threatens to cause the extinction of the Marbled murrelet, an old-growth-dependent seabird listed as Threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA).

This rider would affect the areas proposed for critical habitat designation for the murrelet, which cover nearly 4.5 million acres of ancient forest in the Pacific Northwest. The designation also would provide protected habitat for the Northern spotted owl and Coho salmon.

The murrelet extinction rider would open these late-seral-stage forests to logging by changing the protocol designating a stand as occupied by murrelets if it exhibits certain characteristics associated with nesting, such as flying below the canopy or circling the stand. The proposed change would designate a stand as occupied only if physical evidence is found, such as an eggshell fragment, a chick, a bird in a nest, or a fecal ring around the base of the tree. Considering the elusive nature of this robin-sized seabird, these proposed standards are ridiculously high. Despite the expenditure of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of hours only about 75 nests have been found since 1974.

In California, the proposed change in the murrelet detection protocol would profoundly impact the fight to save Headwaters Forest, the largest unprotected ancient redwood wilderness in the world. Headwaters is one of only three murrelet nesting sites in California, and is crucial for the eventual redistribution of the murrelet throughout its historic range.

The Environmental Protection Information Center (EPIC) of Garberville recently won a preliminary injunction in federal court to prevent Pacific Lumber Co. from logging in Headwaters Grove, based largely on the fact that the area is designated as critical habitat for the murrelet. A change in the protocol to determine occupancy would make it easier for Pacific Lumber to log in Headwaters and the other nearby old-growth groves. A permanent resolution to the Headwaters Forest crisis is within our grasp, yet we are in danger of losing these crucial interim protections.

The old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest are under siege with the recently enacted salvage logging rider, the potential change in the murrelet detection protocol and the release of old timber sales to logging. Vast tracts of virgin forest on public lands are now being sacrificed to the timber industry, even though it is widely accepted that the remaining old-growth forests - just 10 percent of what existed 150 years ago - are critical to the survival and recovery of many species including Coho salmon, Northern spotted owl, and the murrelet. The murrelet extinction rider - and other anti-environmental riders - must be removed.

WHAT YOU CAN DO
Tell your elected officials to strip the Marbled murrelet extinction rider from the Interior Department Appropriations bill. Please call President Clinton and demand that he veto a bill containing this rider. We also urge you to demand that he help kill riders that would open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling, transfer the Mojave Desert National Reserve to the Bureau of Land Management, and place a moratorium on endangered species listing.

President Bill Clinton
The White House
Washington, D.C. 20500
202-456-1111 (phone), 202-456-2461 (fax)
e-mail: president@whitehouse.gov and vice.president@whitehouse.gov

Members of Congress:
Rep.___________________
House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515

Senators:
Sen. Barbara Boxer or Sen. Dianne Feinstein (please write both)
Senate Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20510

Congressional switchboard:
202-224-3121