Understanding Government

Federal wildlife conservation officials have launched an inquest into the deaths of protected birds at a California wind farm, Louis Sahagun of the Los Angeles Times reports, highlighting a potentially crippling drawback of one of the world’s cleanest power sources.

A total of seven golden eagles are believed to have been killed over the course of two years after colliding with one of 90 windmills at the Pine Tree windmill site. The windmills, operated by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power in the Tehachapi Mountains went on-line in 2009 and are spread out among 8,000 acres, generating 120 megawatts of electricity. (more…)

Six years and thousands of miles away from the poorly designed flood walls and levees whose post-Katrina failure inundated New Orleans, environmental groups in California have filed a federal lawsuit to prevent what they contend is an unproven, costly and potentially damaging flood protection strategy ordered by US Army Corps of Engineers.

The Corps, under scrutiny after a natural disaster became a man-made catastrophe, decreed in 2007 that local levee districts would in the future lose guarantees of federal aid and loans unless all trees and shrubs were removed from levees under its nominal jurisdiction around the nation. (more…)

Claudia Broman of the Ashland (Wisconsin) Current reports on a public hearing in Ashland, Wisconsin held by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service on removing the gray wolf from the federal endangered species list. The agency claims that, “Research shows there are now two species of wolves in the Great Lakes rather than one, the gray wolf and the Eastern wolf.” Also, threats to Great Lakes wolves have already been minimized and there are few unregulated killings. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources questions this distinction between the Eastern and gray wolf, but is OK with delisting the gray wolf.

So says the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service which now argues that the Wisconsin gray wolf is a distinct species from the endangered eastern wolf. The agency argues that, as a result, the gray wolf should be taken off the endangered species list, reports Paul A. Smith of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Conservation groups are split on the issue, though the Wisconsin Wildlife Foundation supports the delisting as gray wolves have been shown to kill and harass livestock.

Chinook salmon

California’s vanishing salmon are suddenly bouncing back. After four years of declining populations that have worried scientists, bankrupted fisherman and launched desperate conservation measures, a near record year is predicted for Chinook or King salmon, prompting regulators to prepare plans for opening the Pacific for the first real commercial and recreational salmon fishing season since 2007.

The federal Pacific Fishery Management Council released three conceptual options for the coming season yesterday, reports Peter Fimrite of the San Francisco Chronicle. All three options allow for much more fishing than last year, predicated on estimates derived from the number of two-year-old salmon, known as ‘jacks,’ that returned to spawn a year ago. (more…)