State's Marbled Murrelet Strategy Finalized

December 3rd’s Board of Natural Resources meeting in Olympia, Washington, brought to an uneasy conclusion the development of the state’s conservation strategy for the endangered Marbled Murrelet. The meeting was appropriately long (5+ hours) and gripping thanks to a very engaged board, much public comment, and agreement that today’s vote was “historic” given the twenty-two years that have passed since the “interim” conservation strategy for the murrelet was put into place.

The upshot: Alternative H was approved in a 4-2 vote with Clallam County Commissioner Bill Peach and Jim Cahill (Senior Budget Assistant to Governor Inslee for Natural Resources) voting “nay” and the rest “yay.” For those of you following this issue, Alternative H was not the alternative preferred by the conservation coalition (Washington Forest Law Center, Washington Environmental Council, Defenders of Wildlife, Conservation Northwest, Olympic Forest Coalition, Seattle Audubon) and other murreleteers as it does not provide enough conservation benefit for marbled murrelets. Nor was Alternative H the preferred alternative of the timber industry and trust beneficiaries as it does not provide enough revenue and jobs. Alternative H, according to the DNR and US Fish and Wildlife Service, meets the requirements under the Endangered Species Act and also the DNR’s fiduciary responsibility to the trust beneficiaries. And, in striking the “right balance” between conservation and revenue generation, the DRN has made no one happy.

Commissioner Peach voted nay on Alt H because he stated his belief that it does not represent the best interests of the trust beneficiaries. He is concerned that the financial impacts to the junior taxing districts have not been clearly explained by the DNR to the board or members of the public. Peach moved to delay today’s vote until March 2020 but his motion was not seconded and so failed.

This fall, Audubon chapters and others in the conservation community also advocated for a delay in the vote (for different reasons) but it became clear later on that such a delay could open the door to involvement by the Department of Interior (via Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler and Southwest Washington timber industry) and result in an alternative with less conservation value to murrelets.

Jim Cahill voted nay, he stated, because Governor Inslee requested he do so because of his gubenatorial concerns about changes in ocean conditions and what it has done to the marbled murrelet. (I think there is more behind this request, but I am not privy to Inslee’s insights on murrelet conservation issues).

Alternative H is definitely not the win-win everyone was hoping for but with DNR’s mutually exclusive (in my opinion) orders to protect marbled murrelets and log their nesting habitat, Alt H is meh-meh at best. The proof will be when the strategy gets played out on the ground—in the forestlands where murrelets nest.

The highlight of Tuesday’s meeting for me came toward the very end of the meeting when Board Member Chris Reykdal, Superintendent of Public Schools gave this impassioned 3-minute speech (recorded by TVW) about the future of Washington State and the funding of K-12 school construction from DNR timber sales.

The pith of Reykdal’s three minutes: “The $80-90 million that K-12 gets in school construction—we need to phase off that in time. This money has to go to counties. It has to go to the industries that are impacted by these decisions and ultimately to species preservation and habitat preservation.”

Indeed, de-linking school construction from timber harvest is long overdue and it would be a real victory if Reykdal could accomplish this through the state legislature rather than the U.S. Supreme Court (upon entering the Union, Congress mandated the newly formed Washington state use a portion of its natural resources generate revenue to fund schools, hospitals, reform institutions, and other social services; it did not, however, specify logging).

The seven years of board meetings have been largely civil and congenial, especially under the leadership of Public Lands Commissioner Hilary Franz. The board members expressed their gratitude to DNR staff and also to the members of the public who have been showing up at meetings over the past several years. I think they were sincere.

So, this wraps up a very long effort to craft a Long-Term Conservation Strategy for one very special bird and its extraordinary habitat. My thanks to you all for your attention to this complex and important issue. I have a hunch it’s not quite over yet since a large swath of the public audience at the board meetings these any years are lawyers.

My hope is that the murrelet will have the last word on this.

Listen here to its call: https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Marbled_Murrelet/sounds

Help for the Murrelet

After several years of work, the Department of Natural Resources and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released in December the draft Environmental Impact Statement (dEIS)  for six alternative Long-Term Conservation Strategies for the endangered Marbled Murrelet. The dEIS is now available for public review and input. Once the preferred strategy is selected, it will replace the interim strategy that has been in place since 1997. 

But wait.

After so much time and effort, it turns out that not one of the alternatives actually does anything to save the murrelets nesting in our forested state lands. In fact, under scientific analysis, each Alternative--even the most conservative Alternative F--is associated with a downward population trajectory over the next fifty years.

Fortunately, a coalition of conservation organizations has developed a Conservation Alternative and now the coalition needs your support to encourage the DNR and USFWS to consider this alternative. 

You don't need to be a policy expert to support the Conservation Alternative. If you support the work of your local Audubon chapter, Washington Audubon, the Seattle Audubon Society, the Washington Environmental Council, Conservation Northwest, Defenders of Wildlife, the Olympic Forest Coalition, the Washington Forest Law Center, or the Sierra Club--the organizations that together developed a Conservation Alternative you can feel good about supporting this.

In a nutshell...

Conservation Alternative aims to achieve the following biological goals for the marbled murrelet population in Washington State (adapted from the 2008 Science Team Report and 1997 Recovery Plan:

1.  a stable or increasing population for at least a 10-year period 

2.  an increasing geographic distribution

3.  a population that is resilient to disturbances (stochastic events such as wind throw, wildfire, and insect outbreak)

The Conservation Alternative is based on Alternative F, but recommends the following additional protections:

 1. All current and future habitat within the next 50 years and/or

 2. All Emphasis Areas and Special Habitat Areas from Alt. E (collectively “Conservation Areas” when combined with Marbled Murrelet Management Areas)

3. No-touch 150 m buffers around all occupied sites and old forest in the Olympic Experimental State Forest planning unit as mapped by the 2008 Science Team.

Now what?

Please take a moment to send a letter or e-mail by Thursday March 9 at 5 p.m. (Only written comment is being accepted in this process).  Submit your comments online at sepacenter@dnr.wa.gov or SEPA Center, PO Box 47015, Olympia, WA 98504-7015. 

Please include the file number "12-042001" on letters and postcards and in the subject line of comments send by e-mail. 

If you are short on time...simply write this: 

Please request that Board of Natural Resources analyze a Conservation Alternative in a Supplemental EIS before they selected a preferred alternative.  

If you have another few minutes and would like to add more, here are some suggestions: 

Predicted population decline: All six of the current strategies being considered by the DNR show a declining population trend for the next 50 years. None of the alternatives contribute to Marbled Murrelet survival and recovery. This is demonstrated by the DNR's own population modeling. Please recommend the BNR analyze the Conservation Alternative in a Supplemental EIS.

Recent uplisting to “endangered.” In December 2016, the Marbled Murrelet’s status was uplisted from a “threatened” to the more serious “endangered” by the Washington Fish & Wildlife Commission. The dEIS Alternatives do not properly reflect this imperiled state, as evidenced by the ongoing population decline in the dEIS population viability analysis and by the 44% smaller population size (from 2001-2015) documented in the 2016 status review. Please recommend the BNR analyze the Conservation Alternative in a Supplemental EIS.

Best-available science: Alternative F, which is based on the 2008 Science Team Report, comes closest to reaching Marbled Murrelet recovery goals, but unfortunately this alternative does not include important, more recent scientific findings. For example, a 2015 study identified the regional importance of the Strait of Juan de Fuca as a "hotspot," not previously recognized, of murrelet at-sea density adjacent to high/higher quality nesting habitat. Please recommend the BNR analyze the Conservation Alternative in a Supplemental EIS.

“Bridge” habitat: DNR-managed lands contain approximately 15% (213,000 acres) of all existing Marbled Murrelet habitat in the state, and this habitat is needed to serve as a temporal "bridge" to support the bird's population over the next 30-50 years while it is most vulnerable to extirpation. Please recommend the BNR analyze the Conservation Alternative in a Supplemental EIS.

Harvest volumes: Alternatives A-E set harvest volumes between 35,000 and 49,000 acres DNR's best option for protecting Marbled Murrelets, Alternative F, allows the harvest of 25,000 acres of mature forest habitat that is needed for the population to stabilize and recover. The DNR and USFWS should consider a stronger, more effective alternative with considerably lower harvest volumes to prevent the local extinction of the Marbled Murrelet. Please recommend the BNR analyze the Conservation Alternative in a Supplemental EIS.

Precautionary approach: Without explicit population recovery criteria at the state or federal levels, the adopted LTCS Alternative could preclude murrelet recovery if it does not preserve enough existing and future habitat.  Under these conditions, a precautionary approach—as outlined in the Conservation Alternative—is appropriate. Please recommend the BNR analyze the Conservation Alternative in a Supplemental EIS.

Mitigation for loss of high-quality habitat: The restoration of low quality habitat over time does not adequately mitigate for the loss of higher-quality habitat that currently exists.  Washington’s murrelet population cannot afford further habitat losses in its imperiled status, or it may become functionally extirpated before future, low quality habitat is restored gradually over time. If murrelets become functionally extirpated from Washington, the lack of genetic flow and genetic variability will become a more significant threat to the persistence of the species at the range-wide scale. Please recommend the BNR analyze the Conservation Alternative in a Supplemental EIS.

Edge-effects: Not all of the dEIS Alternatives adequately ameliorate the edge effects associated with habitat fragmentation.  For example, Alternatives A and B completely lack contiguous, blocked-up Conservation Areas.  Alternative F stipulates that Marbled Murrelet Management Areas only have a 50% habitat target in the Olympic Experimental State Forest; this insufficient for achieving one of the goals of the Conservation Areas—to minimize edge effects. Please recommend the BNR analyze the Conservation Alternative in a Supplemental EIS.

Buffers. Buffers on occupied sites of 100 meters or less (Alt. A-F) are too narrow to protect murrelet nests from predators, a suboptimal microclimate, and/or wind throw. Buffers of 150 meters should be part of the preferred alternative. Please recommend the BNR analyze the Conservation Alternative, which provides for these buffers, in a Supplemental EIS.

Make the talking points your own. Add information about your experience or or expertise on the marbled murrelet. Thank you for your help. If you are not filled with warm and fuzzy feelings about this bird, please click the chick for more photographs of this unique, endearing, and imperiled seabird. And a photo a literal bottle of marbled merlot. 

What Managing Murrelets Looks Like

This is the poetic version of what managing Marbled Murrelets looks like; a word cloud of the most-often used terms in the 1997 Recovery Plan for this federally threatened seabird:

All good words but words whose meaning(s) we have not yet agreed on. We struggle toward meaning, but seem to end up in court battling out the particulars. We are not sure who is responsible for making these words mean something to the marbled murrelet--something or some action that will slow its decline and set it on a path toward recovery.

Words fail us and, ultimately, the marbled murrelet. This is a numbers game it turns out. A lot of numbers, a lot of calculations, a lot of measuring things that may or may not be measurable. In Washington State where I live, we are struggling with a lot of numbers that will ultimately inform a Long-term Conservation Strategy for the murrelets that occupy (or could occupy) certain forest that are managed by our Department of Natural Resources. This strategy will replace the one (the inadequate one) adopted in 1997.

Why has it taken so long? For many reasons--some understandable, some inexcusable. And because, when it comes down to it, it looks like this:

This is just one of the PowerPoint slides prepared by the Department of Natural Resources (with assist from U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service) for the June 7 meeting of the Board of Natural Resources--the board that oversees the work on the Long-Term Conservation Strategy. The entire presentation can be viewed here. It is worth looking at if only to get a sense of the complexity of marbled murrelet management.

The meeting is open to the public. The meeting room will be crowded with members of conservation community, representatives of the timber industry, western Washington county commissioners, and many who fall into a large group of people representing the "trust beneficiaries." The sale of timber (marbled murrelet nesting habitat in many cases) generates revenue for our state public institutions--schools, universities, and hospitals among them. There are a lot of smart people in the room--and on the board itself. But few people (myself included) will be able to follow the math and understand exactly (or even generally, conceptually, or vaguely) what it means for the forest and the murrelet. 

On and off, I have been attending the monthly Board of Natural Resources meetings for three years now. I should be able to follow along. I should know what the charts, graphs, discounts, p-stage values are. But I don't. 

I should know what the words "recover" and "stabilize" and "protect" mean. But I don't.

We are all trusting a very few very smart people to choose the numbers and the words. My hope is that--zero through 9 and A to Z--we find the best numbers and words. The best to prove that yes we can do right by the murrelets, the forests, and our future.

Tomorrow's meeting in Olympia will be long. The address and agenda can be found here

Three Keers for Science!

Thank you all Marbled Murreleteers who have been supporting a Science-based conservation strategy for this imperiled species in Washington state. It's been a long haul (at least two years of monthly meetings with the Board of Natural Resources), but today the board approved an expanded range of alternatives including one based on the 2008 Science Team report (officially known as Recommendations and Suporting Analysis of Conservation Opportunities for the Marbled Murrelet Long-Term Conservation Strategy, (Raphael, M.G., S.K. Nelson, P. Swedeen et al). 

Additionally, the board approved adding and amending other alternatives to create a total of six alternatives, one including expanded buffers (from 100 meters to 150 meters) around occupied nest sites. It is unlikely this expanded buffer will be approved, but it is important that buffers with meaningful and documented conservation value be analyzed for comparison to less buffer-generous alternatives.

This is a big victory! Thanks to all the individuals, staff of the Washington Forest Law Center, the Murrelet Survival Project and partners, and many Audubon chapters who have been providing public comment in person or in writing lo these many months. Every voice matters--truly. And we seem to have a board that listens.

Kyle Blum of Department of Natural Resources has done a remarkable job getting all the stakeholders to this point. It's amazing how complex, time-consuming, and fraught the conservation of such a little bird can become. The members of the BNR (with one notable and unnamed exception) should be praised for their engagement in the material presented and for their insightful questions all along the way. This is how we get to a win-win. Maybe even a win-win-win if we are lucky.

Up Next: More analysis by the DNR and USFWS. This is just the end of one phase and the beginning of the intense scrutinizing the environmental impacts of each alternative strategy. We are probably looking at summer/fall for a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) and opportunities for Murreleteers and others to provide comment. Adding and modifying alternatives will extend the time line to reach an approved Long-Term Conservation Strategy--but what's a few months given the interim strategy has been in place since 1997!