Cascadia Scorecard Weblog

Wolf Millennium

New wolf numbers released this afternoon from US Fish and Wildlife: Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming now host an estimated 1,020 wolves, a stunning 21 percent increase in just a single year. Since reintroduction in the mid-1990s, gray wolf numbers have grown at an astonishing pace, faster even than the most optimistic prognostications. Idaho continues to shelter more wolves than any other state in the West with about half the total. The rest are split almost evenly between Montana and Wyoming.

In recent months, nearly every day seems to bring new rumors of federal de-listing, an action that would leave gray wolves in a much more precarious position. Idaho officials, for example, have already stated their intent to kill wolves that are preying on elk.

The sheer absurdity of Idaho's position is almost mind-boggling. Wolves are already killed for attacking livestock--but elk, on the other hand, are the wolves' natural prey. In any case, credible biological studies actually show a negligible reduction in elk numbers that can be attributed to wolf predation. Until wolves become vegetarian, they're not likely to have many friends in state government. In the meantime, their best chance lies in establishing a large and sustainable population that can weather squalls of bad policy.

Ironically, the best ally of the wolves at the moment may be anti-wolf forces in Wyoming. State officials there have so far refused to draw up a recovery plan for wolves that doesn't allow unregulated killing outside of Yellowstone National Park (where, incidentally, the wolves draw millions of dollars in tourist revenue). Until Wyoming has a suitable recovery plan--as Idaho and Montana already do--the federal government will likely not de-list wolves. And with each year bringing double-digit population growth, gray wolves just need time to keep their numbers booming.

UPDATE 3/10/06: Article in today's New York Times that details some of the issues around de-listing, including the desire of ranchers to have unregulated wolf killing, including aerial killing.

The Economy Is Strange

Interesting column in the Washington Post today. The piece is far too short for the subject--that the economy is darned hard to understand right now--but it's a decent primer.

There is also a plethora of data sets that can be used to show that, in reality, we're all still better off than we were 10, 20 or 30 years ago, or, if you wish, that the American Dream is dead and the economy is now run by and for the super-rich. What is almost certain, however, is that fundamental changes in the structure of the labor, product and capital markets are accelerating a long-term trend toward income inequality.

Check it out.

Shocker: Global Warming Bad For Skiing

A new study from researchers at Oregon State University, showing that warming trends are likely to have significant effects on snowpack. (Good articles in the Seattle Times and the Oregonian.) The Northwest's coastal mountains are especially sensitive to climate change because temperatures frequently hover near freezing--so even slight warming can drastically reduce the amount of snow that accumulates. (For localized details, click on the image at right, from the Seattle Times.)

By 2040, if warming trends continue as predicted:

• About 3,600 square miles of low-elevation terrain usually covered by snow during the winter would be dominated by rainfall.
• Nearly 22 percent of the snow-covered areas of the Oregon Cascades and 12.5 percent of the snow areas of the Washington Cascades would shift to a rain-dominated winter climate.
• More than 60 percent of the Olympic Range's snow-covered area would have rain-dominated winters.

The OSU findings aren't exactly revolutionary, but they are more evidence that the Northwest has particular reason to be concerned about the impacts of climate change. And the snowpack affects a lot more important aspects of life in the region than just skiing: salmon run, irrigated farms, residential water supplies, and so on.

(During last year's lousy winter, when my skis stayed closet-bound, I blogged about this subject a bit.)

Sprawl of Boise

In NEW's seven-city study of Northwest cities and sprawl--part of our Cascadia Scorecard project--Boise ranked worst. What's heartening is that many Boise community leaders, members of the media, and advocates in Idaho are bent on doing something about it.

An Idaho Statesman editorial this weekend--which cited our energy and sprawl research extensively--laments the city's smart-growth record and notes the strong connection between Idaho's sprawl and energy habits. (Idaho also consumes the most energy per capita in the Northwest.)

"Our decisions about energy use — and the land-use policies that drive energy use — can prove costly. . . . And it's a critical message for a state that, for all its growth, still embraces a love of the highway and a general lack of interest in public transportation."

Searching for Salmon in the Wrong Places

  OK, let’s consider just how absurd this predicament is. People are terrestrial creatures. We like to eat salmon, which spend most of their lives in the ocean. Fortunately, salmon have a habit -- nay, an instinct -- of returning to fresh water to spawn. They do this every year. Used to be, people would wait for them in rivers and estuaries, and catch them there, close to home.

But then -- perhaps to jump the queue and get ahead of the crowd unfurling its nets in rivers and bays -- some fishermen started to troll for salmon in the offshore waters. The salmon still had every intention of swimming into our rivers where they are easier to catch. But instead, trollers began baiting their gear and enticing salmon to take their hooks at sea.

As long as salmon runs are abundant, this impatient practice can be written off as one of those idiosyncrasies of our species, yet another method we have devised to needlessly burn diesel fuel. "Technology is needed not to beat the fish, but to beat other fishermen," wrote Richard Manning in Salmon Nation. "The fish would still come back... if we would wait."

But when certain stocks of salmon start to weaken, this reliance on ocean trolling shows its weakness as well. This week, the Pacific Fishery Management Council is weighing its options in the face of a predicted low run of Klamath River chinook. Biologists estimate that 29,000 salmon would make it to the mouth of the Klamath in the absence of any fishing -- already well below the 35,000 minimum that fisheries managers have set as an annual goal to reach the spawning grounds.

At sea, those scarce Klamath-bound fish mingle with other chinook headed for rivers with more abundant runs -- such as the Sacramento, where runs have rebuilt over the last decade. Regulators fear that trollers would hook Klamath fish among their catch, a chinook that would be indistinguishable on deck from a fish headed for the Sacramento, Eel, or Rogue river.

So the council is entertaining a proposal to nix this year’s salmon fishing season along 700 miles of coastline, from Point Sur, near Monterey, California, north into Oregon. Their dilemma has set off a round of finger-pointing, with trollers blaming water diversions from the Klamath for the salmon’s woes on that river, and hence for the possible closure of the fishery. No doubt, in the long term, the water regime on the Klamath needs to change.

But in the meantime, maybe we should change how we fish. Ocean trolling is inherently indiscriminate. As long as some salmon populations are less robust than others, either some stocks will be overfished or many will go under-caught. Instead, if fishing boats sought salmon at the mouths of the rivers they’re returning to, there’d be a much smaller risk of catching a fish from any other run. In California, commercial fishing inside the Golden Gate, at the mouth of the Sacramento-San Joaquin River, has been illegal since 1957. The present situation might offer a reason to move forward by turning back the clock half a century.

Tax-deductible Wildlife

Here's an interesting solution to a problem I blogged about a few weeks ago: states like Oregon are losing money to fund wildlife biology and habitat management. Traditionally, these activities have been funded by various hunting and fishing fees; and as the rod and gun sports have waned in popularity their revenue has dried up too. That leaves states less able to pursue wildlife and biological research--not to mention basic land and water conservation--which are hugely important for protecting natural resources.

The solution, in Oregon at least, is to allow tax payers to check a box on their state income tax forms and then make a tax-deductible contribution to non-game wildlife conservation. As far as I can tell from the Oregonian article, the contribution is above and beyond whatever taxes an individual owes. Still, it seems like a good way to encourage wildlife aficionados to make a voluntary contribution to Oregon's natural heritage. This sort of revenue-generation must certainly be more popular than access fees like parking at USFS trailheads and state parks--fees that have proved less than popular in the Northwest.

I'm intrigued by this idea, partly because the revenue is important and partly because it shifts the funding away from hunting and fishing and toward wildlife watching. I imagine the funding shift will also be reflected in the research and conservation priorities that the money pays for. Too bad it can't happen in Washington (because there's no state income tax and hence no form with a handy box to check).

Anyone else know of similar stuff happening elsewhere? 

UPDATE: And by the Oregonian, of course, I meant the Salem Statesman-Journal. Of course. Here's the article. (Thanks, Grace.)

Red States, Blue States, and Family Planning

Yesterday brought a number of articles on a report from New York's Guttmacher Institute on how the US states rank on efforts to reduce unintended pregnancies. (Go to full report; and a state-by-state ranking.)

Interestingly, both red and blue states (including New York, California, South Carolina, Alabama, and Alaska) were winners at helping women avoid unplanned pregnancies. But the reason is not too surprising: These states have taken family planning seriously, with steps such as funding programs to improve access to family planning, contraception and emergency contraception. They also know it's an economic issue as well as a social one: The report finds that every dollar spent on family planning can save up to $3 in health care costs related to a pregnancy.

Unfortunately, other states have stagnated in their efforts. From the WA Post article:

From 1994 to 2001, many states cut funds for family planning, enacted laws restricting access to birth control and placed tight controls on sex education, said the institute.

Despite some gains, the United States still lags far behind most industrialized nations in reducing abortion and teenage pregnancy. In 2002, 21 in 1,000 American women age 15 to 44 had an abortion. Although that is the lowest abortion rate since 1974, the decline has stalled, prompting fears that individuals and policymakers have lost focus on the underlying problem of unintended pregnancies, said Guttmacher President Sharon L. Camp.

The rankings were based on factors such as ease of access to contraception, state funding for sex counseling and support from state legislatures.

In the Northwest, Washington ranked 11th, Oregon ranked 9th, Idaho ranked 26th, and Montana 32nd. Idaho and Montana are two of the states where pharmacy access to emergency contraception--aka Plan B--isn't offered yet because the passage of Plan B was stalled at the Federal Drug Administration headquarters in DC. (See this article for an update.)

In good news, as we reported last month, the teen birth rate in Cascadia is at an all-time low.

Oh, Migratious!

Interesting:  a new study from the US Centers for Disease Control has determined that recent US immigrants are healthier than native-born US citizens:

Overwhelmingly, the study found, ... immigrants have lower rates of obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure; have less disability; and are less likely to acknowledge having mental health problems.

I've often heard it claimed that British Columbia's good health, relative to the Northwest US (longer life spans, lower rates of chronic illness, etc.) can be attributed in part to immigration patterns, rather than healthier lifestyles or better health care in the province.  The claim seems somewhat plausible:  BC has large numbers of well-off and healthy Asian immigrants, who likely buoy health statistics in the province; whereas international immigration in the Northwest US is usually from poorer parts of the globe, such as Central and South America. 

So it comes as a bit of a surprise to find that international migration may not be a drag on health stats in the Northwest US after all -- just as in BC, in-migration may give health figures a boost.   

Then again, perhaps it shouldn't be a surprise.  The Northwest states are healthier than the US average, but that's not saying much any more.  Life expectancy in the US ranks 29th in the world, behind nearly every other major industrial democracy.  It's now nearly a year shorter than in Costa Rica, and just behind such places as Cyprus and the United Arab Emirates.  Given that emigrants tend to be healthier than average for their home countries, and that the US's life expectancy lead has been slipping for decades, it probably shouldn't be at all shocking that in-migrants are now healthier on average than US natives.

Eat More Veggies

Lots more. According to a new biochemical analysis, the nutritional value of US vegetables has declined over the last 50 years. That's because new varieties of fast-growing crops designed to maximize output cannot take up or synthesize nutrients as quickly as more slow-growing plants. The result:

...of 13 major nutrients in fruits and vegetables tracked by the Agriculture Department from 1950 to 1999, six showed noticeable declines -- protein, calcium, phosphorus, iron, riboflavin and vitamin C. The declines ranged from 6 percent for protein, 15 percent for iron, 20 percent for vitamin C, and 38 percent for riboflavin.

Yikes. Just when the slow food movement is taking off, it turns out we need a slow-growing food movement too.

Beetle Battle

From the Washington Post, an article worth reading on a subject that's depressingly well-known to Canadians, but probably unfamiliar to most Americans: the mountain pine beetle outbreak devastating forests in British Columbia. The damage has been colossal:

Surveys show the beetle has infested 21 million acres and killed 411 million cubic feet of trees -- double the annual take by all the loggers in Canada. In seven years or sooner, the Forest Service predicts, that kill will nearly triple and 80 percent of the pines in the central British Columbia forest will be dead.

Meanwhile, the beetle is moving eastward. It has breached the natural wall of the Rocky Mountains in places, threatening the tourist treasures of national forest near Banff, Alberta, and is within striking distance of the vast Northern Boreal Forest that reaches to the eastern seaboard.

Foresters and researchers agree that the principle culprit is global warming (because warmer winters, even by a few degrees, have not been severe enough to kill the native beetle and supress its now-exponential population growth). So the pine beetle infestation is worrisome, not only for the severe ecological impacts, but also because it appears to be an early sign of the devastation to be wrought by a warming atmosphere.