Going, going, gone: Three case studies

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Alaskan sea otters


It was as if the furry, back-floating marine mammals had simply vanished.

After learning some Alaskan sea-otter populations were plummeting up to 17 percent a year — perhaps because they were being eaten by killer whales — federal scientists in 2002 knew what to do: They filed the paperwork to list the creatures under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

"When we looked at the numbers, it was like 'Holy smokes!' " said Rosa Meehan, division chief for marine mammals at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Anchorage, who said perhaps 65,000 otters had disappeared since the mid-1980s.

More than a year later, the Bush administration still had not initiated the long, required public process that leads to ESA protection.

Even though time was of the essence, it took 18 months — and a lawsuit filed by environmentalists — before the administration decided earlier this year to move forward with protecting the otters.

Meehan expects the otters to finally be listed by early next year.

Bull trout


It took a half-dozen lawsuits for the bull trout to land, in the late 1990s, on the list of endangered species.

The trout live in cold-water streams across more than two dozen national forests from Montana to Washington. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has struggled with how much habitat to designate as critical to their survival.

Government scientists proposed designating 18,000 miles of streams and a half-million acres of lakes. But the secretary of the interior, by law, can exclude areas from critical-habitat designation if costs outweigh benefits.

So a government contractor did the math. Costs to protect the trout: up to $300 million, mostly because of changes needed in dam operations and timber harvests to help the fish survive. Benefits: more than $200 million, including an increase in sport-fishing licenses and lower costs to keep drinking water clean.

But, to the frustration of many agency biologists, the 55-page section outlining benefits was excised from the contractor's report by staff members in Washington, D.C.

"It's hard to assess the economic benefits of a snail or a fish, and the law doesn't say we have to weigh economic benefits," said Fish and Wildlife Service spokesman David Patte in Portland.

Instead, the agency under President Bush essentially compares the monetary costs of habitat protection with the biological benefits to a species — and then makes a subjective decision.

Last week, the Interior Department designated 10 percent of the habitat scientists initially proposed — about 1,600 miles of streams and 61,000 acres of lakes.

"The Service found there were many areas that already had conservation efforts in place and did not need to be designated," said Dave Allen, regional director of the Fish and Wildlife Service's Pacific Region, in a written statement. "In other areas, the Service found that the social and economic cost of a designation outweighed the conservation benefit."

Lake Sammamish kokanee


It has now been so long since a biologist has seen a summer-run kokanee in Lake Sammamish that King County biologists stopped trying to find them.

But as recently as 2000, when biologists found two of the land-locked fish returning to Issaquah Creek, a group of homeowners begged the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect kokanee using the Endangered Species Act.

Calling the group Save Lake Sammamish, community members formally petitioned the agency to list the fish under the ESA. After all, in the 1970s, the summer run had been 15,000-fish strong.

If the agency agreed, the federal government would at least try to fend off the fish's demise. If it disagreed, the group could appeal. Either action might help a related fall run of kokanee whose numbers also are declining.

The Clinton administration never responded.

In fall 2003, King County Executive Ron Sims announced the early-run kokanee was probably extinct. He wrote to the Fish and Wildlife Service, demanding it respond within 90 days to the request for protection..

Nearly a year later, under the Bush administration, nothing has changed.

"We have not heard anything back from them," said David St. John, a water-resources manager with King County. "We're not aware of them having done anything with the petition. I think it has sort of stalled somewhere."

An agency spokesman said only that the agency was too busy responding to lawsuits to even study the summer kokanee.