There are high mountain lakes in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks that are naturally free of fish and home to yellow-legged frogs. Non-native trout, introduced into the lakes, are now threatening the survival of the frogs, and the question for the National Park Service is what to do about it.

There are 560 lakes and ponds within the parks that contain introduced trout, and removal of these non-native species from up to 15 percent of these sites will be considered. Up to 82 lakes and 56 miles of streams are being considered for trout removal.

In its scoping document, the Park Service says the trout removal project “is needed to preserve and restore aquatic ecosystems and populations of native species, including mountain yellow-legged frogs in high elevation lakes and streams, creating new opportunities for visitors to experience native wildlife yet also maintaining recreational fishing opportunities.”

A preliminary project to eradicate trout from 11 lakes in the two parks since 2001 has allowed the recovery of yellow-legged frogs at these lakes. Now Park Service officials want to broaden the campaign to restore the frogs throughout the two parks - while leaving the fish in many lakes that are popular with anglers.

So the controversy is which lakes to remove the trout from, and how to go about doing it. For more information, and the opportunity to comment if you are so inclined, go to Save The Frogs!

The siamese crocodile was thought to have disappeared and was declared extinct in the 1990’s. But wait a minute.

DNA tests have found 35 pure-bred Siamese crocodiles at a wildlife sanctuary in Cambodia.

There are fewer then 250 of the species left in the wild, but the crocodiles at the sanctuary could now form the basis of a captive-breeding programme.

The discovery continues a remarkable comeback for the species.

Siamese crocodiles were declared extinct in the 1990s - before a small population was discovered in Cambodia’s Cardamom Mountains.

This is the conservationist equivalent of finding gold in your backyard or a Rembrandt in the attic. The siamese crocodile is still in such low numbers that it remains endangered, but a new population to breed from is a big hope.

It’s a good day to be a brown pelican.

Ken Salazar, Secretary of the Interior, 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.

This success was the result of co-operation between several federal and state agencies and private organizations. We’re so often told the opposite that it’s worth noting there are times when government actually works the way it’s supposed to.

One other thing worth noting is that the brown pelican has an historic place when it comes to wildlife management in the United States.

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.

There may be no control in the world that is more symbolized by its unique wildlife than Australia. Because of that, news like this isn’t just a concern Down Under, but all around the world.

Australia’s koalas could be wiped out within 30 years unless urgent action is taken to halt a decline in population, according to researchers.

They say development, climate change and bushfires have all combined to send the numbers of wild koalas plummeting.

The Australian Koala Foundation said a recent survey showed the population could have dropped by more than half in the past six years.

Many have been killed by the sexually transmitted disease chlamydia.

Previous estimates put the number of koalas at more than 100,000 - but the latest calculations suggest there could now be as few as 43,000.

All the usual forces ar at play here, but what it really comes down to is that koalas are picky about what they eat, and the few trees whose leaves they’ll touch are being cut down.

The Yellowstone Insider has a good update on the bison situation in and out of Yellowstone National Park. Basically, not much has changed. Ranchers still want bison who wander out of the park shot because of fears of brucellosis, bison lovers keep pointing out that cattle don’t get brucellosis from bison.

Bison who wander outside the boundaries of Yellowstone National Park could not be killed by the National Park Service and the U.S. Forest Service if a lawsuit filed by nine environmental groups and American Indian organizations succeeds.

The lawsuit, filed today in U.S. District Court, argues that the Park Service and Forest Service is negligent in protecting Yellowstone bison and overstates the danger to local livestock posed by brucellosis carried by bison and elk in the region.

But science doesn’t quite jibe with the cattleman’s view of the world: research indicates it’s very, very unlikely bison can transit brucellosis to cattle. The more likely suspect: elk. But it’s harder to slaughter elk: there’s so danged many of them in the region (some 10,000), and they’re less manageable than bison.

They left out that many ranchers like to hunt elk, too. But the basic point remains. Bison are a convenient scapegoat for ranchers, slaughtering them has little or nothing to do with the facts.

The most recent Bush Administration’s record on identifying and protecting endangered species was pretty dismal, only 62 species were listed in the eight years of Bush’s term. That contrasts with the previous two administrations, Clinton and George H.W. Bush, each of whom added about that many species to the list every year.

The Obama Administration came in to power talking about cleaning up the policies of the Bush Administration, particularly when it came to outdoors and environmental issues. So it might be expected that species added to the list would be trending back towards the numbers of the Clinton and first Bush years. Guess again.

The Obama administration Friday issued its first review of species that are candidates for protection as endangered species, identifying a total of 249 species in need of protection. The review also describes the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s progress in listing these species, showing that the administration has, to date, only listed one species - a Hawaiian plant reduced to a handful of individuals.

That’s right, after nearly a year under Obama, the Fish & Wildlife Service has added one, count ‘em, one, name to the Endangered Species List. That doesn’t even come close to matching the pace of the Bush years, much less the two presidents before him.

Whatever the reason, for the delay, there are more than a few candidates for the list right now. Every year’s delay means it’s that more likely that some of these species won’t make it.

The 249 candidates include a wide variety of species, from shorebirds such as the red knot, which migrates along the Atlantic Coast during one of the longest migrations in the animal world, to the aboriginal pricklyapple, a cactus found in Florida, to the Pacific fisher, a relative of the mink and otter that is dependent on old-growth forests on the West Coast. Being designated as a candidate does not provide any formal protection to the 249 species, a number of which have been waiting for protection for almost as long as the Endangered Species Act has existed. On average, the candidates have been waiting 20 years for protection.

The current review includes eight new species since the last review: Florida bonneted bat, yellow-billed loon, roundtail chub, diamond darter, rabbitsfoot clam, Goose Creek milkvetch, Kentucky gladecress, and Florida bristle fern. Four species were removed, including the fat-whorled pondsnail, troglobitic groundwater shrimp, and two plants, Calliandra locoensis and Calyptranthes estremerae.

There’s a reason that this is more than a cute animal story.

SeaWorld in San Diego is home to 82 baby sea turtles. Marine experts at the park discovered the newly hatched sea turtles Oct. 5, and the hatching continued for nearly two weeks, officials said.

The newest turtles are the offspring of sea turtles that have been in the park’s care for more than three decades, they said.

I’s because all seven species of sea turtles in the world are endangered.

There have been several times in the past when the number of species going extinct merited the title of a great extinction, the end of the dinosaurs is probably the most famous.

But it’s happened in the past, and if we don’t find a way to stop it, it could very well happen again, and soon.

Nearly one-third of all known species of plants and animals are threatened with extinction, finds the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, IUCN, in the most recent update of its authoritative Red List of Threatened Species™ issued today.
The updated assessment shows that 17,291 species out of the 47,677 assessed species are threatened with extinction.

“The scientific evidence of a serious extinction crisis is mounting,” warns Jane Smart, director of IUCN’s Biodiversity Conservation Group.

The IUCN finds that 21 percent of all known mammals, 30 percent of all known amphibians, 12 percent of all known birds, and 28 percent of reptiles, 37 percent of freshwater fishes, 70 percent of plants, 35 percent of invertebrates assessed so far are at risk.

The thing is that this time it’s not an asteroid impact or massive volcanic eruption that’s causing the extinctions. It’s us. Which means we can do something about it, if we so choose.

Large predators around the world are threatened by habitat loss and encroaching humanity. It’s probably just a matter of time before one or more of them goes extinct, and right now the odds are looking like tigers could be the next to go.

An animal that is more valuable dead than alive; an animal that is projected by doomsayers to be totally extinct within the next 15 years — experts and policymakers got together in Kathmandu yesterday to find a way of saving it — the tiger.

Challenges are quite enormous, figures quoted in the Kathmandu Global Tiger Workshop revealed. There are now about only 3,200 tigers in the wild compared to some 1,00,000 a century ago, and every year fresh news of bereavement are coming — only a few months ago it was reported that Panna reserve of Madhya Pradesh lost all its 38 tigers to poachers.

Tigers are also finding their ranges squeezed from every corner. Today they occupy only 7 percent of their historic range and use 40 percent less area than in 1997.

Worst of all, trade in tiger parts is booming, now accounting for about $10 billion –second only to drugs and weapons trade in Asia.

With all those factors playing a hand, it’s a pretty good bet that, for children born today, tigers will either be only alive in zoos, or gone forever, and the world will be a sadder place for it. How valuable will a dead tiger be then?

You may remember some consternation last year when polar bears were not declared endangered on account of global warming. That left their status as threatened, which is still enough to bring the designation of critical habitat in to play, a move that would probably help the bears as much as anything outside of re-freezing the arctic ice cap.

The new administration looks ready to make that move.

The Obama administration on Thursday proposed setting aside 200,000 square miles off Alaska and along its shorelines as “critical habitat” for polar bears — an action that could add restrictions to future offshore drilling for oil and gas.

“Proposing critical habitat for this iconic species is one step in the right direction to help this species stave off extinction,” Tom Strickland, interior assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks, said in a statement. “The greatest threat to the polar bear is the melting of Arctic sea ice caused by climate change.”

For more information from the Fish & Wildlife Service, or if you wish to leave a comment regarding polar bears and critical habitat, click here.