re !!!!!!! Tiger Salamander listing

Thu Jan 20 18:36:45 PST 2000

If you live in Southern CAL THIS IS SO IMPORTANT TO GRASP THE
INTERCONNECTION OF EVERYTHING- please read!

I just came in from work to a message from KCLY TV about wanting to talk
about the endangered local tiger salamander. I didn't know it was and
told them I needed to bone up on the issue before feeling comfortable,
but that they should call US Fish & Wildlife Service in Ventura for the
scoop and KCLY said they had. So I begged off the story not knowing
more. Then I read ECOSLO's below fwd on the emergency endangered listing
of the tiger salamander in Santa Barbara County.

And I read the details of ECOSLO's below attached email and it hit me!
Grazing lands being lost to intensive new agriculture. Well, agencies
tend to soften their words in order not to single out particular aspects
of an industry as targets or culprits. But this one does not take
imagination what is going on here! Unbeknownst to us may be some of the
details, but clearly wildlife and their grassland habitat are being
obliterated from existence locally. There is only one intensive crop
going in this fast on ranchland that could possibly be doing what has
been done to the tiger salamander almost over night-- eighteen months
according to the below USFWS emergency listing!.

Salanders, red-legged frogs, southwestern pond turtles, etc., need the
upland grassland habitat around the streams/wetlands. It is not enough
to save arroyos with water and ribbons of oaks along them, or to let the
oaks project from vineyards like sentinels from a recent bygone
ecosystem era. These aquatic oriented species need the upland grassland
for things like hibernation, estivation, migration, feeding, and certain
aspects of their breeding cycle-- as moving overland from one stream or
watershed to another during the wet season to find mates and suitable
stream habitat. 

But all of this upland overland habitat between the wetlands and creeks
is disappearing faster than our university, trust agency, and
environmental organization scientists can assess it.

In all my years on the Central Coast since the Federal and State
endangered species acts were enacted in the late 60's and early 70's
respectively, I have not known USFWS, or Cal. Fish & Game Dept., or
National Marine Fisheries Service, or any other empowered trust agency
to locally activate an emergency listing of a species-- until now. It is
an omen of terrible environmental times on the Central Coast. I will do
some more investigation, but I already know that only one crop is
obliterating the Central Coast so fast as to extract this dire of an
ecological action from a trust agency that is usually very cautious not
to move in ways that could be construed as blocking progress.

I am grateful USFWS did this, but I hope it is not too late for the
tiger salamder, and who knows how many other species that are
disappearing by the hour to the sound of the deep plow! And since
reading ECOSLO's below post on this, I have gotten back with KCLY, and
after they go to Cal Poly's wine hosting event tomorrow, on the Campus
where Gallo has contracted to cover 150 acres of public land with
private Grapescape, they want to meet. And also today, Guy Hand has
tentively set Sunday, Jan. 30 for doing a Grapescape radio program from
the grapification threatened grassland/oak savannah vistas of Santa
Margarita Ranch. So any of you fighting that Grapescape project who want
to participate in the radio show with us, Guy says you are more than
welcome, and I'd love to have you there too.

This is not about money. These industrial grapers from the valley and up
north and internationally and now locally that want to "green" the
central coast with the environmentally strangling vine are mostly
already rich beyond reason. Its about jumping on the wine grape
bandwagon to be part of the glorified party before the Central Coast
ranch grasslands are all gang "greened" and there's no more bandwagon or
valley grasslands left to jump. And the party is over before they got
invited, before they got their glorified share-- that's what they worry
about. And it's about power. That's what it is about for Rossi, and
Kendall, and Davy Crockett, and South Corps, Gallo, Archierro,
transplanted Napa/Sonoma grapers, etc..

So they leave token trees and Grapescape hemmed in arroyos and creeks,
and hope that will pacify the complaints. But the wildlife still
disappear because the creek/grassland/oak savannah ecosystem is gone and
without the full set of ecosystem components necessary for wildlife to
survive, they're forever gone amongst what only remains-- vineyards
lonely sentinel oaks, and vine shackled streams.

Join Guy and I Sunday the 30th for more than just another radio show.

Later,    wscPhil

Date: Thu, 20 Jan 2000 13:27:49 -0800
Content-Type: message/rfc822

Subject: Fw: Federal Register - Tiger Salamander listing
MIME-Version: 1.0
Sender: ecoslo at slonet.org
FROM: ecoslo at slonet.org
TO: caucus at omnipost.com
Content-Type: multipart/Mixed; boundary="openmail-part-08f6d055-00000002"

> ---------------- Begin Forwarded Message ----------------
> 
> DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
> 
> Fish and Wildlife Service
> 
> 50 CFR Part 17
> 
> RIN 1018-AF81
> 
> 
> Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants; Emergency Rule To
> List the Santa Barbara County Distinct Population of the California
> Tiger Salamander as Endangered
> 
> AGENCY:  Fish and Wildlife Service, Interior.
> 
> ACTION:  Emergency rule.
> 
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> SUMMARY:  We, the Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), exercise our
> authority to emergency list the Santa Barbara County Distinct
> Vertebrate Population Segment (DPS) of California tiger salamander
> (Ambystoma californiense), as endangered under the Endangered Species
> Act of 1973, as amended (Act). Of 14 documented breeding sites and
> associated uplands, half have been destroyed or have suffered severe
> degradation in the last 18 months. Plans to convert additional sites
> from grazing to intensive agriculture are being developed and
> implemented. Because these losses and planned conversions constitute an
> emergency posing a significant and imminent risk to the well-being of
> the Santa Barbara County DPS of the California tiger salamander, we
> find that emergency listing is necessary. This emergency rule provides
> Federal protection pursuant to the Act for a period of 240 days. A
> proposed rule to list the Santa Barbara County DPS of the California
> tiger salamander is published concurrently with this emergency rule, in
> this same issue of the Federal Register in the proposed rule section.
> 
> DATES:  This emergency rule becomes effective January 19, 2000 and
> expires September 15, 2000.
> 
> ADDRESSES:  The complete file for this rule is available for
> inspection, by appointment, during normal business hours at the U.S.
> Fish and Wildlife Service, Ventura Fish and Wildlife Office, 2493
> Portola Road, Suite B, Ventura, California, 93003.
> 
> FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT:  Grace McLaughlin or Carl Benz,
> Ventura Fish and Wildlife Office, at the address listed above
> (telephone: 805/644-1766; facsimile: 805/644-3958).
> 
> 
> ----------------- End Forwarded Message -----------------
> 
> David Orr
> Glen Canyon Action Network
> PO Box 466
> Moab UT 84532
> 
> (435) 259-1063
> www.drainit.org
> 
> Restore Glen Canyon--Save Grand Canyon--Drain Lake Powell!
> 
> 
> --------- End forwarded message ----------
> 

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