Working Toward Species Conservation - Ecosystem Conservation—an Alternative Approach

In the 1990s there was growing concern that traditional methods of species protection, using a species-by-species approach, were ineffective. Many alternatives were proposed. One of the most popular was a method variously termed the "habitat," "ecosystem," or "community" approach. The Fish and Wildlife Service defines an ecosystem FIGURE 2.5
National Forest System, 2004 as a "geographic area including all the living organisms (people, plants, animals, and microorganisms), their physical surroundings (such as soil, water, and air), and the natural cycles that sustain them." Central to these approaches is a focus on conservation of large intact areas of habitat. It is hoped that by focusing on entire habitats, rather than individual species recovery, numerous species will be protected before they reach critically low population sizes.

The National Biological Service was created in 1993 by the Department of the Interior. This agency is responsible for gathering, analyzing, and disseminating biological information necessary for stewardship of the nation's resources. The National Biological Service conducted the first large-scale study of ecosystems in the United States and found that many U.S. ecosystems are imperiled. In 1996 the National Biological Service was integrated into the United States Geological Survey as the Biological Resources Division.

In 1993 the White House Office on Environmental Policy established the Interagency Ecosystem Management Task Force to implement an ecosystem approach to environmental management. The task force included representatives from each of the four primary federal land-management agencies. A total of $700 million was appropriated to facilitate the implementations. The ambitious proposals included four pilot projects addressing conservation of old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest, habitats in the Everglades and Florida Bay, the urban watershed of the Anacostia River in Maryland and the District of Columbia, and Alaska's Prince William Sound. However, due to budget cuts enacted by Congress in 1994, efforts on the projects were sidelined.

By the turn of the twenty-first century, however, progress had been made on a number of key ecosystem fronts:

• In the late 1990s the Clinton administration secured $1.2 billion for Everglades restoration and added 70,000 acres to the Everglades National Park.
• A budget appropriation of $250 million was designated for the preservation of the Headwaters Forest in Northern California, where 2,000-year-old redwoods stand. Additionally, $220 million was appropriated for the restoration of the California Bay-Delta ecosystem, including $30 million in water management funds for the Bay-Delta.

TABLE 2.12
Summary of National Wildlife Refuge System land holdings, as of September 30, 1999 (In acres)

Reserved From Public Domain	Acquired by Other Federal Agency	Devise or Gift	Purchased	Agreement, Easement or Lease	Total
82,085,483.61	2,717,198.55	664,254.82	4,532,441.93	3,605,242.69	93,604,621.6
SOURCE: "National Wildlife Refuge System Acreage," in Annual Report of Lands under Control of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, as of September 30, 1999, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Washington, DC, September 30, 1999 [Online] http://refugedata.fws.gov/databases/national.taf?_function=list&<@UserReferenceArgument>&_start=1 [accessed February 10, 2004]

• Death Valley National Park, the largest National Park in the lower 48 states, was created.
• The Clinton administration successfully blocked congressional proposals to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, located in Alaska, to oil drilling. A second attempt to open the refuge to drilling was defeated by the Senate in 2002.

Adaptive Management

Adaptive management describes a conservation strategy that involves active, experimental manipulation of the environment in order to restore damaged ecosystems. It is being pursued in a variety of primarily aquatic habitats, including the Florida Everglades, San Francisco Bay, and the Great Barrier Reef in Australia.

One of the oldest examples of adaptive management is an effort to restore Colorado River habitats by the Department of the Interior and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. Colorado River ecosystems were originally damaged by water control measures following the completion of the Glen Canyon Dam at the northern edge of the Grand Canyon in 1963. The dam was built to store water for portions of Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming, as well as to provide hydroelectric power. Water flow management has caused severe ecological damage in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and Grand Canyon National Park. This includes large-scale erosion, including the loss of sandy beaches, invasion by non-native species, and the extinction of four species of native fish. Another native fish species, the humpback chub, is currently in serious decline, partly because of the purposeful introduction of predatory rainbow trout. The

TABLE 2.13
National Wildlife Refuges for endangered species, 2004

State	Unit name	Species of concern	Unit acreage
Alabama	Blowing Wind Cave National Wildlife Refuge	Indiana bat, gray bat	264
	Fern Cave National Wildlife Refuge	Indiana bat, gray bat	199
	Key Cave National Wildlife Refuge	Alabama cavefish, gray bat	1,060
	Watercress Darter National Wildlife Refuge	Watercress darter	7
Arkansas	Logan Cave National Wildlife Refuge	Cave crayfish, gray bat, Indiana bat, Ozark cavefish	124
Arizona	Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge	Masked bobwhite quail	116,585
	Leslie Canyon	Gila topminnow, Yaqui chub, peregrine falcon	2,765
	San Bernardino National Wildlife Refuge	Gila topminnow, Yaqui chub, Yaqui catfish, beautiful shiner, Huachuca water umbel	2,369
California	Antioch Dunes National Wildlife Refuge	Lange's metalmark butterfly, Antioch dunes evening-primrose, Contra Costa wallflower	55
	Bitter Creek National Wildlife Refuge	California condor	14,054
	Blue Ridge National Wildlife Refuge	California condor	897
	Castle Rock National Wildlife Refuge	Aleutian Canada goose	14
	Coachella Valley National Wildlife Refuge	Coachello Valley fringe-toed lizard	3,592
	Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge	California clapper rail, California least tern, salt marsh harvest mouse	21,524
	Ellicott Slough National Wildlife Refuge	Santa Cruz long-toed salamander	139
	Hopper Mountain National Wildlife Refuge	California condor	2,471
	Sacramento River National Wildlife Refuge	Valley elderberry longhorn beetle, bald eagle, least Bell's vireo	7,884
	San Diego National Wildlife Refuge	San Diego fairy shrimp, San Diego mesa mint, Otay mesa mint, California orcutt grass, San Diego button celery	1,840
	San Joaquin River National Wildlife Refuge	Aleutian Canada goose	1,638
	Seal Beach National Wildlife Refuge	Light-footed clapper rail, California least tern	911
	Sweetwater Marsh National Wildlife Refuge	Light-footed clapper rail	316
	Tijuana Slough National Wildlife Refuge	Light-footed clapper rail	1,023

humpback chub has been listed as endangered since 1967 and has declined by 75 percent in the last 10 years alone.

As adaptive management is dependent on experimentation and manipulation, it can sometimes lead to unintended and unfortunate consequences. For example, an early effort at restoring Colorado River habitats involved sending huge amounts of water down the river. This was expected to lift sand from the river bottom and create sandy beaches, and did. However, the sand was quickly

TABLE 2.13
National Wildlife Refuges for endangered species, 2004

State	Unit name	Species of concern	Unit acreage
Florida	Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge	Loggerhead sea turtle, green sea turtle	29
	Crocodile Lake National Wildlife Refuge	American crocodile	6,686
	Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge	West Indian manatee	80
	Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge	Florida panther	23,379
	Hobe Sound National Wildlife Refuge	Loggerhead sea turtle, green sea turtle	980
	Lake Wales Ridge National Wildlife Refuge	Florida scrub jay, snakeroot, scrub blazing star, Carter's mustard, papery whitlow wort, Florida bonamia, scrub lupine, highlands scrub hypericum, Garett's mint, scrub mint, pygmy gringe tree, wireweed, Florida ziziphus, scrub plum, eastern indigo snake, bluetail mole skink, sand skink	659
	National Key Deer Refuge	Key deer	8,542
	St. Johns National Wildlife Refuge	Dusky seaside sparrow	6,255
Hawaii	Hakalau Forest National Wildlife Refuge	Akepa, akiapolaau, 'o'u, Hawaiian hawk, Hawaiian creeper	32,730
	Hanalei National Wildlife Refuge	Hawaiian stilt, Hawaiian	917
	Wildlife Refuge	coot, Hawaiian moorhen, Hawaiian duck
	Huleia National Wildlife Refuge	Hawaiian stilt, Hawaiian coot, Hawaiian moorhen, Hawaiian duck	241
	James C. Campbell	Hawaiian stilt, Hawaiian	164
	National Wildlife Refuge	coot, Hawaiian moorhen, Hawaiian duck
	Kakahaia National Wildlife Refuge	Hawaiian stilt, Hawaiian coot	45
	Kealia Pond National Wildlife Refuge	Hawaiian stilt, Hawaiian coot	691
	Pearl Harbor National Wildlife Refuge	Hawaiian stilt	61
Iowa	Driftless Area National Wildlife Refuge	Iowa Pleistocene snail	521
Massachusetts	Massasoit National Wildlife Refuge	Plymouth red-bellied turtle	184
Michigan	Kirtland's warbler Wildlife Management Area	Kirtland's warbler	6,535
Mississippi	Mississippi sandhill crane National Wildlife Refuge	Mississippi sandhill crane	19,713
Missouri	Ozark cavefish National Wildlife Refuge	Ozark cavefish	42
	Pilot Knob National Wildlife Refuge	Indiana bat	90
Nebraska	Karl E. Mundt National Wildlife Refuge	Bald eagle	19

lost again to fluctuating river flows. In 2003 attention turned to the Paria River, which supplies the Colorado River with sand. The Paria feeds into the Colorado downstream of the Glen Canyon Dam, and it is hoped that a large pulse of floodwater from the dam following natural monsoon storms will carry sand to new beaches along the Colorado. Another plan underway at the end of 2003 called for the running of high fluctuating flows of water

TABLE 2.13
National Wildlife Refuges for endangered species, 2004

State	Unit name	Species of concern	Unit acreage
Nevada	Ash Meadows National Wildlife Refuge	Devil's Hole pupfish, Warm Springs pupfish, Ash Meadows amargosa pupfish, Ash Meadows speckled dace, Ash Meadows naucorid, Ash Meadows blazing star, amargosa niterwort, Ash Meadows milk vetch, Ash Meadows sunray, Spring-loving centaury, Ash Meadows gumplant, Ash Meadows invesia	13,268
	Moapa Valley National Wildlife Refuge	Moapa dace	32
Oklahoma	Ozark Plateau National Wildlife Refuge	Ozark big-eared bat, gray bat	2,208
Oregon	Bear Valley National Wildlife Refuge	Bald eagle	4,200
	Julia Butler Hansen Refuge for Columbian White-tail Deer	Columbian white-tailed deer	2,750
	Nestucca Bay National Wildlife Refuge	Aleutian Canada goose	457
South Dakota	Karl E. Mundt National Wildlife Refuge	Bald eagle	1,044
Texas	Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge	Attwater's greater prairie chicken	8,007
	Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge	Black-capped vireo, Golden-cheeked warbler	14,144
Virgin Islands	Green Cay National Wildlife Refuge	St. Croix ground lizard	14
	Sandy Point National Wildlife Refuge	Leatherback sea turtle	327
Virginia	James River National Wildlife Refuge	Bald eagle	4,147
	Mason Neck National Wildlife Refuge	Bald eagle	2,276
Washington	Julia Butler Hansen Refuge for Columbian White-tail Deer	Columbian white-tailed deer	2,777
Wyoming	Mortenson Lake National Wildlife Refuge	Wyoming toad	1,776
SOURCE: "National Wildlife Refuges Established for Endangered Species," in America's National Wildlife Refuge Wildlife Refuge System, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Washington, DC, 2004 [Online] http://refuges.fws.gov/habitats/endSpRefuges.html [accessed February 10, 2004]

through the Grand Canyon for three months—this may kill rainbow trout eggs and reduce the numbers of this non-native species. Native fish species tend to inhabit side channels, and are less likely to be affected. There are also plans in place to warm water released from the dam, which the Fish and Wildlife Service believes would aid endangered native fish species.