GRANTS PASS, Ore. – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Monday announced that West Coast beach-front critical habitat for the threatened western snowy plover will be cut back by nearly 40 percent, continuing a Bush administration policy of reducing habitat protections for threatened and endangered species to reduce economic losses.
The bulk of the cutbacks came from beaches in California on Monterey Bay, Morro Bay and the San Diego Bay island city of Coronado, where a report had estimated that protecting nesting areas from development and human contact would cost nearly $200 million over the next 20 years, attributed primarily to limiting recreation.
“The economic analyses are playing an increasingly significant role in determinations of critical habitat,” said Fish and Wildlife spokesman Al Donner in Sacramento, Calif. “That’s triggered by court decisions that have directed us to do more rigorous economic reviews of proposed critical habitat and their impacts.”
However, the court battle appears likely to continue. Kieran Suckling, policy director of the Center for Biological Diversity, said it was likely to challenge the designation based on an internal Fish and Wildlife document questioning the validity of the economic analysis. Coos County Commissioner John Griffith, who initiated the lawsuit that triggered the new designation, said he was looking into reopening the case because too little habitat was withdrawn.
Since 1999, critical habitat designations have closed the dry sand portions of many miles of beaches to recreation during the nesting season, which runs from March through September.
Only 28 major nesting areas remain for the estimated 2,600 snowy plovers that are left. Biologists have turned to killing predators, such as ravens and foxes, to improve nesting success.
Based on a lawsuit filed by Coos County in Oregon, which charged that the original economic analysis was inadequate, Fish and Wildlife agreed to reconsider its 1999 decision to protect 19,474 acres of federal, state and privately owned beach in 28 units in California, Oregon and Washington.
The new habitat designation, which takes effect Oct. 30, designates 12,145 acres in 32 units. California has 24 units covering 7,472 acres, Oregon five units covering 2,147 acres, and Washington three units covering 2,526 acres. That is down 38 percent from the 1999 designation and 30 percent from the 17,299 acres proposed for protection last December.
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