Wildlife versus Wildlife: Killing One Species to Save Another.  In my Wildlife Politics book, I have a section on “Values and Conflicts between Species.”  There are many cases where humans protected one (threatened or endangered) species by killing its predator species. For example, I discuss several cases of such conflicts including sea lions (salmon), barred owls (spotted owls), loggerhead shrike (San Clemente fox), Lake trout (cutthroat trout), ravens (tortoises), and mountain lions (bighorn sheep). There are other cases such as with wild geese and wild horse populations where the species have detrimental impacts on the habitat of other species so that many environmentalists support their removal.  In these conflicts, one species may be favored by a powerful interest group (e.g., lake trout are supported by angler groups and wild horses who have several powerful NGOs supporting them) who counter the influence of biologists pushing for the removal of the “problematic” species. Thus these “interspecies conflicts” can become complicated by human politics and the outcome is not determined just by the “best available science” but also by the relative influence of the contending groups on wildlife conservation policymaking.   Julia Rosen (in High Country News) has written an excellent, detailed account of the conflict between bighorn sheep in the California Sierras and mountain lions. These sheep population declined due to a number of reasons so that by the 1990s only “100 bighorn sheep remained” in the area. To support restoration of the bighorn sheep, wildlife managers put restrictions on grazing of domesticated sheep in the area as well as a program to eliminate mountain lions that preyed on them. The mountain lions do have NGOs that “speaks for their interest,” Panthera and the Mountain Lion Federation but they did agree to a time-limited killing of “guilty lions.”  Rosen says that large, healthy herds of bighorn can coexist with lions but struggling herds need help.  But Rosen’s article also points out the complexity of causation in determining causes of threats to species—a point I discuss in detail in Ch.2 of my book concerning science and wildlife conservation. She cites the debate whether it is the top predator (the lion) or bottoms-up (e.g., availability of grass and habitat) that drives the major increases or decreases in populations.  Weather is another major factor—droughts eliminate pasture for them to feed on while “brutal winters” also kill off many bighorn.  Government and politics play crucial roles. A 1990 California law protected lions from hunting. But bighorn sheep became protected under the Federal Endangered Species Act in 1999 which overrides the state law so that lions could be taken to protect bighorn. According to Rosen, ranchers remain influential—wildlife managers did  not try to increase bighorn sheep herd sizes “in the northern part of their range” where the heaviest domestic sheep ranching exists.  This case again illustrates the enormous complexity of wildlife politics—policy is the outcome of a mixture of competing human and wildlife interests along with science (albeit a degree of uncertainty about causation).  It is complex.  Rosen’s article is available as follows: Rosen, Julia. The Cost of the Bighorn Comeback:  In California’s Eastern Sierra, bringing back bighorns has meant killing more mountain lions. HCN, May 29, 2017. http://www.hcn.org/issues/49.9/Wildlife-Services-mountain-lion-killing
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Is Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act working as it should? Preserving Species versus Economic Development.
The Endangered Species Act is being “reviewed” now by Republicans in Congress who say they want to “update” the law and revise it so that it will not hinder economic development. Consequently, it is instructive to look at research that analyzes the impact of Section 7 requirements that projects that may affect endangered species be reviewed by the USFWS.  According to Jacob Malcom and Ya-Wei Li, conservative lawmakers submitted more than 160 bills to reduce protections related to listing (and delisting) in order to reduce the alleged harmful economic impacts of the ESA and particularly its Section 7 review requirements. A major complaint was that the reviews were lengthy and caused great delays and consequently were costly to developers and industry.  Malcom and Li point out that the negative comments about the impacts of Section 7 were based on informal comments and not systematic research so they conducted a study of more than 88,000 Section 7 consultations done between 2008 and 2015 using the USFWS’s TAILS database. Their startling finding was that only 2 projects “received jeopardy” status meaning that they were judged to jeopardize listed species and thus could be “prosecuted by a third party for breach of Section 7.”  Concerning delays, Malcom and Li found that the median duration of formal consultations was “one-half the maximum allowed” though 20 percent did take “longer than the 135 days allowed.”  Malcolm and Li noted that though these longer delays may reflect inefficiencies in the process, they can also be due to “inadequate data on species” which results in additional time needed to collect data on them.  In short, Malcom and Li conclude that the common perception (among developers and industries) that Section 7 hinders projects and adds to their costs due to unnecessary delays is not supported by facts.
 
However, Paul S. Weiland et al., consultants who work with developers on many Section 7 consultations, replied to the Malcom-Li article by arguing that their research “reveals nothing regarding their [i.e., Section 7 consultations] economic impacts. They state that studying data concerning the formal consultation process ignores the fact that the formal process is preceded by informal consultation between the developers-industry and USFWS that can be lengthy and often results in many “proposed actions” that impose costs on the developers-industries and society. Moreover, they note that the Malcom-Li article did not directly study economic costs. Malcom and Li replied to this critique by arguing that, though they did not look directly at economic costs, “it is reasonably inferable from…key findings” of almost no jeopardy findings and the short median length of formal consultations. They also point to a decline in the percentage of jeopardy findings over the decades of the ESA despite a big increase in the number of consultations.
A 2016 study by Melinda Taylor et al. looked at 179 consultations done between 2010 and 2014 by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) concerning oil, gas, solar and wind projects. In contrast to the Malcom and Li study, they did look at the informal consultations done before formal ones. They did find that these “pre-consultations” can add “significant time to the projects” and “result in delays.”  One striking finding is that only 10 percent of all oil and gas projects on BLM lands “were subject to consultation” at all.  Moreover, Taylor et al. found that the consultation process was “generally highly collaborative” with much give-and-take between the parties—the one critique by industry of the process is that different USFWS often held different interpretations” of the ESA consultation process. Also, UFWS had responded to industry’s critiques of the slowness of the process by undertaking “programmatic Biological Opinions” (BOs) that involved “expedited review”—12 percent of the energy consultations involved these faster reviews.  BLM and USFWS made known to the industries-developers certain “best management practices” that allowed them to avoid consultations or reduce their length by conforming to the following informal rules:

1. the conduct studies to identify listed species and critical habitat in the project area;
2. design projects so as to minimize or mitigate impacts to species and habitat;
3.  avoid project activities in sensitive habitats and certain other areas where species are present;
4. minimize the total area disturbed by the project and ensuring reclamation of disturbed areas;
5.  limit vehicle and/or equipment use within the project area; and
6. restrict the timing of construction and other project activities.

 
One of Taylor et al.’s most interesting findings is that oil and gas projects affect relatively small areas (e.g., about five acres) compared to solar and wind projects (e.g., often hundreds to thousands of acres).  Overall, the most striking finding by Taylor et al. is the small percentage of energy projects (only 13 percent) subject to consultation at all. They suggest three possible reasons for this small percentage:

1. Federal agencies may be taking a narrow view of review to avoid the consultation requirement
2. Oil and gas developers may be deliberately siting projects away from species habitat to avoid need to consult
3. The best sites to develop may be located outside of species habitat

Taylor et al. believe that the second and third reasons are the major factors behind the small percentage.  However, as discussed in detail in my Wildlife Politics book, I suspect that Reason #1 is also important.  USFWS is a relatively weak agency trying to enforce rules on powerful industries in favor of protecting wildlife—not a very popular activity to be conducting in what is mainly conservative western states. 
 
My own overall conclusion is that the Malcolm and Taylor articles do not support the claims of ESA opponents who view the law as a major impediment to economic growth. Indeed, I think the evidence points more to the conclusion that wildlife conservation concerns may not be adequately addressed. 
 
The articles discussed above are available as follows:
 
Malcom, Jacob W. & Li, Ya-Wei. Data contradict common perceptions about a controversial provision of the US Endangered Species Act. 15844–15849.  PNAS. [Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America] December 29, 2015 | vol. 112 no. 52. www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1516938112
 
Paul S. Weiland, Alan Glena, Sue Meyer Steve Quarles  Robert Thornton, and Brooke Wahlberg. Analysis of data on endangered species consultations reveals nothing regarding their economic impacts. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. PNAS | March 22, 2016 | vol. 113 | no. 12 | E1593. www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1601137113

Jacob W. Malcoma and Ya-Wei Li. Reply to Weiland et al.: The point is to bring data to inform policy, not to rely solely on anecdotes. E1594 PNAS March 22, 2016 vol. 113 no. 12. www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1601848113
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Taylor, Melinda; Webb, Romany; and Puig-Williams, Vanessa. (2016). Protecting Species or Endangering Development? How Consultation Under the Endangered Species Act Affects Energy Projects on Public Lands. Research Paper No. 2016-8 October 2016. https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=854006004112116127065018020075105069053032069011093069025100066025000125086106074006030110036003123013013080111090006119117106028051002032011065089084020065012081068040012032017065068125101071098118116080024088124025066125113010125073020025081073084067&EXT=pdf

The Endangered Species Act Under Attack. An article in the national geographic news.nationalgeogrpahic.com website by Christopher Ketcham provides a pro-conservation account of the Endangered Species Act effects and a critique of ongoing Republican efforts to weaken the Act. The article focuses on grizzlies and the actions to delist the species but has listings, photos and links to videos on many other species.  The article most upsetting (to me) revelation was that the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has picked “Amec Foster Wheeler” consulting outfit to “manage the scientific peer review of grizzly delisting” when this organization has as major clients large oil and gas corporations, many of whom are planning to initiate projects in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem once the grizzly is delisted. It also cites retired US FWS officials as stating that the agency has been toadying to “constituencies, interest groups, and politicians that are hostile to the mission of the agency. Agency biologists operate in an atmosphere of intimidation and fear of reprisal.”  This is entirely understandable given that the agency was (justifiably) timid during even the Clinton and Obama Administrations and now faces a Trump Administration which will dismiss any concerns about wildlife conservation if it interferes with development of any kind.  I discuss the agency's difficult political situation in several of my Wildlife Politics chapters, especially in the chapter on Implementation.  Check out the article (and photos-videos):  
Inside the Effort to Kill Protections for Endangered Animals.
Christopher Ketcham. May 19, 2017. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/05/endangered_speciesact/
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​Best Available Science and the Limitations of using science to make decisions on wildlife conservation and the dispute over Dingoes in Australia
 
In my Wildlife Politics book, I devote a chapter to exploring the role that science plays in wildlife conservation decisionmaking. As is widely known, the ESA (Endangered Species Act) in the U.S. and several other major laws and international agreements specify that the best available science should be employed in making conservation decisions. Consequently, science has played a key role in wildlife policymaking, more so than in most policy areas. However, my chapter explores how the role of science is often limited. In several cases I document such as policies over bison leaving Yellowstone, politics trumps science.  However, the other limitations of science impact are due to uncertainties that are inherent in the scientific process itself such as inadequate or questionable data, key assumptions that dictate the results of models that are now regularly employed in science, and values that underlie scientific conclusions.  I illustrate how often scientists disagree among themselves over conclusions—these disagreements may be due to differences in assumptions and methods but can also be affected by their values and professional roles that they play.  For example, I discuss how Alaskan Department of Fish and Game researchers came to very different conclusions from environmentalist researchers concerning the impacts of grizzlies and wolves on game.  One of the areas that I discuss in depth is the controversy over the cascade effects of predators such as wolves—many researchers have focused on how predators such as wolves and otters may contribute to diversity by their take of prey and thus moderating the impacts of herbivores and sea urchins respectively.  However, in the book, I demonstrate the complexity of science that makes it difficult to draw clear conclusions about the impacts of predators.
 
Recently, the controversy over predator effects has emerged against, this time concerning dingoes in Australia.  Morris and Letnic in an article titled “Removal of an apex predator initiates a trophic cascade that extends from herbivores to vegetation and the soil nutrient pool” http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/284/1854/20170111  conducted a study with some quasi-experimental controls to show that dingoes have had a positive effect on the amount of “soil nutrient level” by controlling populations of kangaroo.  The “quasi-experiment” occurred because a “dingo proof” fence had been constructed so that the researchers compared the dingo-occupied areas with dingo-less areas.  They concluded that there was evidence of positive trophic cascades that would assist biodiversity.  Another Australian researcher, Benjamin Allen, has published articles questioning the cascade effects hypothesis for dingoes such as in the following article: Allen, Benjamin A. A comment on the distribution of historical and contemporary livestock grazing across Australia: Implications for using dingoes for biodiversity Conservation. Ecological Management & Restoration, 12(1), April 2011, 26-30. He points out that can influence faunal declines including the amount and nature of livestock grazing, fire, disease, “introduce herbivores, and land clearing.” Thus effects attributed to the presence (or absence) of dingoes may actually be due to “landscape productivity” or “timing of rainfall.” He cautions that encouraging the spread of dingoes to spur cascades could be dangerous—dingoes could actually be a threat to the endangered species, not their saviors.
 
Another article by Kuijper et al. titled “Paws without claws? Ecological effects of large carnivores in anthropogenic landscapes” discusses other complicating factors that make it difficult to determine the effects of predators. In particular, they discuss how the presence and activities of humans affects the results of predators.  They discuss, for example, how in countries such as Sweden, human  takes of carnivores keeps their populations much reduced and thus it is questionable whether this small population of carnivores can affect prey species.  They also discuss how “agriculture” and “silviculture” along with “supplementary feeding” can allow “prey” to grow “beyond carnivore control.”  In addition, they state that human hunting very directly influences carnivore hunting location and thus push carnivore take of prey into remote locations.  Consequently, they conclude that “predator-prey interactions” are “highly complex-dependent” and thus it is difficult to arrive at a “general conclusion about the current or future effects of predators.” 
 
The above studies beg a discussion of how are policymakers to arrive at a policy based on “best science available” when there is uncertainty about causal factors?  I illustrate this dilemma in my Wildlife Politics book in cases involving wolverines in the U.S. as well as wolves.  What happens is that decisionmakers often rely on the judgments of professional wildlife researchers, realizing that their conclusions are based on imperfect knowledge that could change in the future with new studies. Critics of these decisions sometimes label these judgments as “junk science.”  The alternative is to rely on the values and preferences of elected or appointed officials whose opinions may be affected by stakeholders (e.g., hunters, ranchers, extractive industries, etc.)  Despite these limitations of science, overall, science has had a major impact on wildlife conservation policymaking.  Still, concerning he most controversial decisions, especially those involving predators who are threatening to humans, politics plays an important and often, the dominating, role. 

Institutional and Other Obstacles to Protecting Wildlife: Comparisons among developing countries.
 
I recently read a few articles that have dealt with institutional and other difficulties that countries experience in trying to protect species.  Dearden and Bennett (Dearden, Philip and Bennett, Michelle. (2005). Trends in Global Protected Area Governance, 1992–2002 Environmental Management Vol. 36, No. 1, pp. 89–100) point out the conflicts between goals of achieving local participation in conservation efforts versus the goal of improving biodiversity.  For example, in Nepal, the Lantang National Park was established primarily to protect the red panda and the conservation efforts, according to Dearden and Bennett achieved “high marks” for its participation on the part of locals but the park’s panda habitat has nevertheless been “heavily grazed” (over 60%) and has “resulted in unacceptably high mortality rates of 44%” for adults and “86% for cubs” (p. 97). I discuss in my Wildlife Politics book the inevitable conflicts that have occurred between conservation objectives and development goals that have occurred since both developing and supporting countries have tried to achieve both objectives since they don't want to have it appear that wildlife conservation is coming at the expense of poor who live near the wildlife. In Liberia, E&E news reported that two forest rangers were killed by a mob in Sapo National Park. The mob had been illegally settling in the park—the country’s first and largest protected area with a rain forest and just one month earlier, another ranger had “been tortured” by other illegal settlers in the park—the story is available at https://www.eenews.net/greenwire/2017/05/09/stories/1060054261  A article in Science by Dennis Normile (Science  12 May 2017: Vol. 356, Issue 6338, pp. 573) describes a “crackdown by China” on coastal fisheries so they will be closed for up to 4 months to give depleted stocks of fish time to recover.  But the article also notes that some observers believe that the ban will not be effective because “fishers will strive to make up for lost income” when the ban is lifted and that the ultimate solution would be to “reduce China’s fishing fleet overcapacity” which the government does have plans to do.  A 2002 article by Catherine Courtney et al. states that there were some reports of increased fish abundance in certain coastal areas in the Philippines in their conservation efforts but that overall “less than 20 percent of the targeted municipalities said they had accomplished “key basic service benchmarks.”  The article is as follows:  Courtney, Catherine A., White, Alan T., and DeGuit, Evelyn. (2002). Building Philippine Local Government Capacity for Coastal Resource Management. Coastal Management, 30: 27-45.  Ishihara et al. describe the attempt to preserve Oriental White Storks in Tokyo City in Japan using a PES (Payments for Ecosystem Services) approach that provides financial incentives to the hamlets by giving financial contributions directly to the hamlet budget plus the hamlet benefited from fees assessed on visitors to the hamlet as well as charges on the visitors for using “communal facilities.”  Conflicts occurred between the “outsiders” who gave top priority to the conservation goal versus insider hamlet residents who wanted to benefit the hamlet which has been suffering from depopulation and aging as younger residents moved away.  One conflict occurred over who should receive the financial benefits—the hamlet officials insisted that the hamlet should be the recipient rather than the individuals who participated directly in the conservation efforts and their views prevailed.  The problem was that many of those who disliked the payments to the hamlet community as a whole and preferred the individualistic approach were younger residents.  The article employs a "critical" perspective on PES showing that this approach makes assumptions about the best method of providing incentives but these assumptions can conflict with cultural and social norms. The article is as follows:   Ishihara, Hiroe, Pascual, Unai, and Hodge, Ian. (2017). Dancing With Storks: The Role of Power Relations in Payments for Ecosystem Services. Ecological Economics 139 (2017) 45–54. One final article is by Andrea Olive concerning two developed countries—the U.S. and Canada:   Olive, Andrea. It is just not fair: the Endangered Species Act in the United States and Ontario. 2016. Ecology and Society, 31(3).  The author conducted interviews with landholders subject to ESA (for U.S.) and SAR (Species at Risk in Canada) restrictions for conserving wildlife. Her article emphasizes that people subject to such restrictive laws need to believe in their fairness if they are to accept them. She notes early in the article that this acceptance is important because “although the law regulates private property…that regulation is difficult to implement and monitor. There are thousands and thousands of land parcels to which the ESAs apply regulatory measures. The governments cannot watch all landowners at all times. The implication of this is that both laws rely on landowners to voluntarily obey the law and steward land for endangered species.”  The interviews found that landholders thought they had “paid for conservation” already by paying taxes on their land and thus thought they should not bear the burden of losses due to restrictions by the laws—these should be shared by society at large. She also found that a significant proportion of the landowners considered themselves good “stewards of the land” and wanted recognition for their efforts from the government.  Olive suggests that landholders should be given this recognition.
 
Overall, these article demonstrate that implementing wildlife conservation effort is anything but automatic.  Imposing regulations and restrictions on humans to protect wildlife is not an easy sell.  Government has limited resources for these programs—their goals are generally far more ambitious than the resources such as staff (or incentives) they can provide to local residents to cooperate.  In short,  wildlife conservation is a very challenging task

​The National Academy of Science recently released a report concerning the “cumulative effects of stressors on marine mammals” that illustrates the difficulty of science in providing definitive evidence on threats to species. The report begins by stating that “assessing the cumulative effects of multiple stressors” is a “top-priority problem in marine biology.”  A survey of 2000 ocean scientists declared that their “top priority” research question is “How will the individual
and interactive effects of multiple stressors (e.g., ocean acidification, anoxia, warming, fishing, and pollution) affect the capacity of marine ecosystems and species to adapt to changing oceans?”  I read this report hoping to benefit from a statement about substantive findings on cumulative effects. However, the report does not provide such an assessment because it turns out that identifying cumulative effects is very difficult to do.  A previous 2005 National Academy report stated that “no scientific studies have conclusively demonstrated a link between sound and adverse effects on a marine mammal population.”  This report states that this statement remains true concerning a “population” but, they state, in more recent years, studies have shown effects “on individual marine mammals.”  The report states several reasons why it is so difficult to assess the effects of sound (and other stressors) on populations. One limitation is that most studies establish a “threshold” so that they are measuring the effects of sound in an “all or nothing” approach that thus underestimates the impact of sound.  They conclude that the effects of sound “cannot be reliably be condensed into a single estimate” because individual animals respond differently” and, statements about the effects are subject to uncertainty so that at best “confidence intervals” would be “more consistent with the state of knowledge” about predicted impacts.  It goes on to state that once researchers try to estimate the cumulative impacts of additional stressors that the research is much more complex and it is even more difficult to reach firm conclusions. They state that to study this issue “rigorously” would require a factorial experiment that could detect the “interactive effects of multiple stressors” but that for both “practical and ethical reasons, such experimental approaches are not possible” and consequently conclusions must be based on “quasi-experiments.”  In my Wildlife Politics book, I have an entire chapter devoted to science and its role in wildlife conservation policy. I point out that the Endangered Species Act (and major treaties such as CITES) state that policy should be based on the “best available science” but I demonstrate in the chapter how the role of uncertainty as well as values (e.g., how and where to draw lines) and the use of complex models based on assumptions has meant that often researchers disagree on substantive conclusions about wildlife conservation.  This National Academy Report reaffirms my Ch.2 conclusion about the limitations of science. Of course, science does play a key role in making decisions but, as I show in my book, it is often a “supporting” not a leading role in many decisions.  The report is available as follows:  National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2017. Approaches to Understanding the Cumulative Effects of Stressors on Marine Mammals. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: https://doi.org/10.17226/23479

What will it take to preserve Nature? Michael McCarthy and Verlyn Klinkenborg on how to rein in humanity’s destruction of species.
Verlyn Klinkenborg has written an excellent book review of Michael McCarthy’s “The Moth Snowstorm: Nature and Joy. The book documents huge declines in butterflies and other species mostly due to humans but sometimes to other unknown causes such as the decline of “house sparrows” in London.  According to Klinkenborg, McCarthy critiques the major alternatives to preserving species and biodiversity: sustainable development and the ecosystem services models. McCarthy’ critique of the former is that it pretends that we “can go about our usual business while changing its emphasis to include the protection of ecosystems.” His view of the ecosystem services model is that “Worth is attributed only to services whose usefulness to us can be directly measured.” McCarthy’s solution, according to Klinkenborg is a “state of awareness…grasp the incomprehensible wonder of the world we live in.”  Klinkenborg finds his solution inadequate because McCarthy too values nature for “what it offers us” while a more advanced ethical system is to recognize nature’s (fora and fauna) right to exist “regardless of whether humans value them that is “in no way subordinate to our own.” From my perspective, I believe that Klinkenborg is certainly ethically correct but the problem is that humanity has the capability and, in fact, continues to alter the world to its needs and desires and will continue to do so unless there spreads across the world some human consciousness that we should give such rights to nature.  How can such a consciousness happen?  Certainly, there are environmental movements across the world that have had some significant impact but they remain modest compared to the inexorable forces remaking the world according to the desires of most humans.  The article is available as follows—note it has some excellent photos of butterflies, moths, and other wildlife: Verlyn Klinkenborg. What’s Happening to the Bees and Butterflies? New York Review of Books, December 22, 2016. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2016/12/22/whats-happening-to-the-bees-and-butterflies/
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Human Tolerance for Scary Animals: Key Variable for Limitations on Restoration of predators into historical range
One of the key issues that has arisen over wolves and now grizzlies concerning restoration of them into their historical range involves human tolerance for animals that can represent threats to humans or their interests.  An LA Times article by Louis Sahagun details how black bear population has been booming in certain areas of California and that many townspeople have welcome them back, though they have caused some damage and that some of them have been killed with or without people securing “depredation permits.”  Many people go “goo goo over the bears” according to the article.  Some conservation groups point to the Yellowstone example suggest that grizzlies could be restored to some areas of California to “control elk populations and increasing diversity by digging up turf…” But others state that humans would not have tolerance for such a formidable animal. The article cites researcher Peter Alagona as stating that tolerance for such bears is a “cultural” rather than “biological” issue and others state that the bears would be “dead” once they wandered into a town.
Since human populations are likely to grow in areas with habitat favorable to bears, the future for restoration to historical range will grow more and more unlikely.  Indeed, as populations continue to grow in areas currently inhabited by grizzlies and wolves, the major challenge will be to keep existing range of “scary predators.”  The article is available at:  Sahagun, Louis. (2016). A black bear boom has a California town wondering how residents would get along with grizzlies. LA times, December 23. Accessed 12/25/16 from http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-bears-20161219-story.html

Good governance and Implementation Continue to be Crucial in Enforcing wildlife protections.
An article by Alkaly Doumbouya et al. studied illegal fishing in West Africa and found that Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated fishing was dependent on strong sanctions such as increased penalties for repeat offenders and foreign fishing. They also found that governance-related characteristics such as transparency and corruption were associated with effective Monitoring, Control, and Surveillance (MCS) systems. They found too that some countries had passed impressive legislation but the threat of sanction is nevertheless very low.  Thus implementation and effective law enforcement are important here as they are in developed countries like the U.S. as I document in my chapter on Implementation in my Wildlife Politics book.  The authors note that technological systems such as Automatic Identification System and Vessel Monitoring Systems are key to implementing existing legislation.  The article is available at:  Alkaly Doumbouya et al. Assessing the Effectiveness of Monitoring Control and Surveillance of Illegal Fishing: The Case of West Africa. Frontiers in Marine Science, March 7, 2017. http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fmars.2017.00050/full
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Wildlife Politics and Compromise: How well do Stakeholder Approaches Work?
 
I just read a very useful book by Julia M. Wondolleck and Steven L. Yaffee:  Marine Ecosystem-Based Management in Practice. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2017.  I found it instructive in providing some good examples of the difficulties of reaching compromise over wildlife issues that I discuss in my Wildlife Politics book. The book has detailed case studies of the process of marine ecosystem management such as marine protected areas in the U.S. (and in a couple of cases, Canada too).  In every case, the stakeholder approach was employed in which a wide variety of stakeholders were involved in either advising and/or managing marine ecosystems.
The stakeholder approaches always employ the use of science such as the collection of data concerning the status of ecosystem and the health of fish and other species.  Indeed, “adaptive management” is the term used to describe how most wildlife management agreements are supposed to be implemented which assumes that data will be regularly collected to determine how well goals are being achieved and then, depending on the results, adjustments will be made in the management approach. However, decisions are reached by consensus and thus science is not necessarily a determining factor.  Indeed, the book cites an observation that Narraganset Bay Estuary Program managers and policymakers “often view monitoring as a black hole that absorbs a lot of money and energy without producing much management-relevant information” (p. 116). The book discusses “triggering” events that were the “tipping” point for action to be taken that convinced consumptive stakeholders such as fishermen and reluctant local and state officials to take potentially politically controversial steps such as no fish zones and other restrictions on consumption. In most of the cases cited in the book, the triggering events were not scientific data but the  causes were consistently “mediagenic” events such as the Deepwater Horizon oil spill that made “cross-state” cooperation indisputable necessary (p. 45), “dead zones” that resulted in “dramatic decline in shrimp catch” and red tides along with “microbial pathogens in coastal waters” that threatened “local coastal economies” (p. 50), and the collision of 3 ships into coral reefs within a few days that made the media seized on.  The fishermen were not focused on overall ecosystem health but tolerated actions when fishers themselves noted that “marked decline in coral fish” (p. 80) and the decline of sports fish (p. 92).  Consumptive users often dispute the validity of scientific data. In my Wildlife Politics book, I cite several examples where consumptive users dispute official statistics on populations of fish but in these cases, their ability to find fish was enabled by greater effort & the better technology to find the fish.  In short, it takes more than scientific data to convince consumptive users of the need for change—dramatic, irrefutable declines or and/or disasters are needed to provide the necessary trigger for cutbacks. 
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Another theme I noticed in the book is a deep fear, resentment and even hatred for the Federal government’s intervention in managing wildlife.  In my book, I discuss how some landowners try to avoid threats such as restrictions to protected listed species by killing the species and/or destroying their habitat.  The book contains an example of similar dramatic event that took place in the 1960s by opponents to the establishment of the Biscayne National Monument: “opponents …plowed a “Spite Highway” …across the forest on the island…hoping to cause so much environmental damage that the Federal government” would decide it was no longer worthwhile preserving (p. 88).  Many fishers resent the environmental movement viewing it as elitist wanting to preserve areas as a “playground for the rich” rather than for “smelly fishermen” who have to make their living off them. (p. 88).  This theme goes long back into U.S,  history of wildlife management to the 1800s that I discuss in my book--wealthier sportsmen groups instituted restrictions on takes of deer and other prey and also pushed “ethical hunting” reforms that populists like Andrew Jackson ridiculed as elitist. A good part of the hatred for wolves of comes from their association with the Federal government’s role in their reintroduction.  The book cites an example where the Federal government, rather than trying to police marine areas themselves, pays the State of Florida to do so because local residents have more trust in them (p. 87). 

One key problem in all stakeholder approaches is how to decide on the proportion of representatives that will represent “consumptive” versus “environmental” interests. The book cites an example in the Albemarle-Pamlico National Estuary Program where representatives of fishing, agriculture and local government felt that environmentalists were “overrepresented” (p. 118) and thus they withdrew participation or failed to attend meetings, thus undermining the legitimacy of the effort. In my book, I cite examples of the opposite situation—in some habitat conservation plans and other conservation efforts, environmentalists were often far outnumbered by pro-consumption members and this affected the nature of the decisions reached.  There is no handy guideline for deciding on group representation and it is one of the inherent difficulties and complexities of the stakeholder approach. A related limitation of the stakeholder approach that I discuss in my book is that, in order for a compromise solution to be reached, stakeholders must be willing to compromise the demands of the groups they represent. I describe how this does occur occasionally as some representatives become invested in the success of the process and are swayed by information (e.g., science) or personal camaraderie that develops during the process so they want the outcome to be successful.  The book cites an example of such a success where one fishermen acknowledges fear about the plan for the Tortugas Reserve but through the process he became “convinced” it would help “deal with overfishing” (p. 98). On the other hand, a member of Channel Islands marine reserve science advisory panel stated that most of the members were lobbyists “paid to have a particular position” and they were “not paid to change their minds” (p. 94).  The book cites an example of the extent of differences between groups: representatives of consumptive interests would only support 12 percent of the [Channel Island] sanctuary to be devoted to “no take” while environmentalists wanted 29 percent (p. 94).  In short, decisions about stakeholder representation is not a technical issue—it affects “Who gets what when how.” 
Another point that struck me is that in all of these cases, there is an incredibly strong desire to avoid conflict.  One would assume that groups set up to protect marine ecosystems would give priority attention to issues related to fish. But the book describes how groups such as the Gulf of Mexico Program and Gulf of Mexico Alliance both, after the “lengthiest discussion,” decided to not include as one of their issue areas “fisheries and living marine resources” which seems incredible to me but they justified it on the basis that others were working on this issue.  Certainly, avoidance of the most controversial issue decreases stress and controversy but it also limits the relevance of the organization.  Another example is the San Juan Marine Resources Committee that decided to rely on voluntary measures in order to avoid conflict with the result that their effort did not have much impact (p. 150). 

Finally, while the marine ecosystem efforts did produce some positive impacts, as one reads about the underlying threats to marine life, it is clear that the most important involve humans and human-related development and industry (shipping as well as fishing) that are huge and inexorable in nature.  Thus growing populations increase demand for fish, agricultural excess nutrients contaminate waters, increased global shipping results in strikes on whales and increased noise that harms marine life, and sewage contamination from populations and developments that  cluster on highly-desired (by wealthy humans) coastal areas. The book provides examples of how improved sewage treatment resulted from some of these efforts and other measures have been taken (e.g., restrictions on ship speed in areas where vulnerable species are concentrated. But the issue of scale is worrisome to me—the restrictions are often very limited in size and the scale and pervasiveness of these threats are universal and likely to overwhelm these modest efforts to cope with them.