Despite Being Ignored, Law Protects Bears

By RICHARD BURGESS

A federal judge in Lafayette last month ordered the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to designate “critical habitat” for the Louisiana black bear – two words often linked in the public mind to court battles over logging in spotted owl habitat in the Pacific Northwest.

Critical habitat for the Louisiana black bear was first proposed in 1993, but the Fish and Wildlife Service, faced with a contingent of wary farmers, landowners and politicians, never followed through with the plan.

The head of the Acadiana chapter of the Sierra Club filed a lawsuit in 2005 claiming the agency should have. U.S. District Judge Tucker Melancon has agreed, giving the wildlife service one year to designate bear habitat.

The first critical habitat proposal 14 years ago followed much publicity about the spotted owl controversy, and the specter of losing jobs to protect bears in Louisiana was raised at public hearings across the state.

Some feared that setting aside protected habitat for the bear would severely restrict commercial and residential development, timber harvest, farming, and the oil and gas industry. “Louisiana Cajuns are living in a critical habitat area,” one Morgan City resident commented during a public hearing. “He and his job are threatened.”

Former U.S. Rep. Billy Tauzin said the move would be a “land- grab” by the federal government. Former Gov. Edwin Edwards told a meeting of the National Cattlemen’s Association, “If it came down to either the black bear or human beings, I would come down on the side of human beings.”

It remains to be seen how the critical habitat proposal will fare in the current political climate, or whether it would will have any measurable effect on development, jobs or the oil industry.

The Louisiana black bear was listed as threatened in 1992. As a threatened species, the animal already receives protections.

Killing black bears is illegal, and the wildlife service must be consulted to determine if projects that are carried out, funded or permitted by the federal government – anything with a federal nexus – would jeopardize the survival of the species.

That includes timber harvest on federal land (the issue in the spotted owl dispute) or any dredging or wetlands projects that require federal permits.

In the 15 years since the black bear was listed as threatened, no proposed projects with a federal link have been tagged by the wildlife service as significantly harmful to the bear, according to court filings by the agency.

Critical-habitat proponents hope the designation will force the wildlife service to give more careful review to activities in the bear’s range, which stretches from coastal Iberia and St. Mary parishes through the Atchafalaya Basin and up into the Tensas River Basin in northeastern Louisiana.

The Black Bear Conservation Committee, a group of landowners and conservationists, has taken a different tack, arguing that a critical-habitat designation is a waste of time and money that will add no additional protection for the bear. BBCC Director Paul Davidson has said the designation could hurt the bear’s recovery by scaring off landowners who have voluntarily enrolled in programs to restore and conserve forested bear habitat.

Fears of major economic disruptions apparently are unfounded, and the wildlife service could conceivably choose to find that critical habitat for the bear is “not prudent” if studies show the designation would not help the species. Reviews would still apply only when a federal link – permit, funding, federal property – exists.

Regardless, as the judge pointed out in his 33-page ruling, the designation is required by law, albeit one that the judge viewed as having been ignored for more than a decade.

Richard Burgess is a member of The Advocate’s Acadiana Bureau.

(c) 2007 Advocate; Baton Rouge, La.. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.