The Endangered Species Act and the Plover

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A controversial plan to revise the Endangered Species Act was recently approved by the House of Representatives. One of its major provisions would dramatically reduce the amount of land that could be set aside to protect species deemed endangered. The Bush administration has not been waiting around for changes in the law. However, it has slashed what are known as critical habitat plans for several species. The most recent case involves a small brownish shorebird. NPR's John Nielsen has the story.

JOHN NIELSEN reporting:

The Western snowy plover lays its eggs in shallow depressions in the sand on Pacific beaches. When it sees a fox or a raven, it jumps up off the nest and makes a ruckus.

(Soundbite of bird calling)

NIELSEN: Mark Colwell, a plover expert at Humboldt State University, says these birds also do a little play-acting. He's seen them hobble away from nests with one wing dragging behind them.

Mr. MARK COLWELL (Humboldt State University): As if it's broken and then sort of scurry around on the ground in the vicinity of the predator, getting pretty close to the raven, for instance, on some occasions.

NIELSEN: The predator gives chase; the bird flies away. Unfortunately, this strategy has not protected plover eggs from builders raising condominiums or from other people who like to use the birds' nesting beaches.

Mr. COLWELL: People walk and drive and run their dogs through these areas, and in the winter, they're roosting in flocks of 10 to 40, 50 birds, and people don't see them and they'll drive their vehicles right through a flock.

NIELSEN: The Western plover was declared a threatened species in 1993. Six years later, the US Fish and Wildlife Service identified roughly 20,000 acres of beaches as critical plover habitat, as is required by the Endangered Species Act. Humans were eventually banned from parts of these beaches during the breeding season. Slowly the birds began recovering. Then last week, the US Fish and Wildlife Service cut the plover's critical habitat by 40 percent or by about 8,000 acres. Craig Manson, assistant secretary at the Department of Interior, says he made the cuts after a federal court judge ordered the agency to re-analyze the financial costs of the habitat restrictions.

Mr. CRAIG MANSON (Assistant Secretary, Department of Interior): That new economic analysis projected that critical habitat would cost between about $275 million and $645 million, the significant costs being due to loss of beach recreation.

NIELSEN: This is not the first time the Bush administration has cut big chunks out of a critical habitat plan. Habitats for salmon, trout and salamanders have also gone under the knife. Manson says all of those changes followed court rulings like the one that affected the plover. The Bush administration says these cuts won't hurt rare plants and animals, but environmentalists disagree. Brent Plater of the non-profit Center for Biological Diversity says studies have shown that rare species are twice as likely to recover if they have full habitat protection. He also says the government has yet to share the economic assumptions underlying the idea that critical habitat costs people lots of money.

Mr. BRENT PLATER (Center for Biological Diversity): Even though they have no evidence that there are enormous costs--and, in fact, all of the evidence shows otherwise, they try to make it appear true by making a false statement over and over again.

NIELSEN: The endangered species bill approved by the House of Representatives would end this debate by eliminating the critical habitat provision completely and by forcing the government to compensate landowners who say they've been hurt economically by an endangered species program. Analysts doubt that these endangered species reforms will make it all the way to the president's desk. As a result, they expect to see the fight over critical habitat escalate in the years ahead.

John Nielsen, NPR News, Washington.

MONTAGNE: This is NPR News.

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