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HARVARD    UNIVERSITY 

Library  of  the 

Museum  of 

Comparative  Zoology 


REAT  BASIN  NATURALIST  MEMOIRS 

ber  3  Brigham  Young  University  1979 

MAR  2^1980 

The  Endangered  Species: 
A  Symposium 


GREAT  BASIN  NATURALIST  MEMOIRS 

Editor.  Stephen  L.  Wood,  Department  of  Zoology,  Brigham  Young  University,  Provo,  Utah 

84602. 
Editorial  Board.   Kimball  T.  Harper,  Botany;  Wilmer  W.  Tanner,  Life  Science  Museum; 

Stanley  L.  Welsh,  Botany;  Clayton  M.  White,  Zoology. 
Ex  Officio  Editorial  Board  Members.  A.  Lester  Allen,  Dean,  College  of  Biological  and  Agricul- 
tural Sciences;  Ernest  L.  Olson,  Director,  Brigham  Young  University  Press,  University 
Editor. 

The  Great  Basin  Naturalist  was  founded  in  1939  by  Vasco  M.  Tanner.  It  has  been  published 
from  one  to  four  times  a  year  since  then  by  Brigham  Young  University,  Provo,  Utah.  In  gener- 
al, only  previously  unpublished  manuscripts  of  less  than  100  printed  pages  in  length  and  per- 
taining to  the  biological  and  natural  history  of  western  North  America  are  accepted.  The 
Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs  was  established  in  1976  for  scholarly  works  in  biological  natu- 
ral history  longer  than  can  be  accommodated  in  the  parent  publication.  The  Memoirs  appears 
irregularly  and  bears  no  geographical  restriction  in  subject  matter.  Manuscripts  are  subject  to 
the  approval  of  the  editor. 

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Scholarly  Exchanges.  Libraries  or  other  organizations  interested  in  obtaining  either  journal 
through  a  continuing  exchange  of  scholarly  publications  should  contact  the  Brigham  Young 
University  Exchange  Librarian,  Harold  B.  Lee  Library,  Provo,  Utah  84602. 

Manuscripts.  All  manuscripts  and  other  copy  for  either  the  Great  Basin  Naturalist  or  the 
Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs  should  be  addressed  to  the  editor  as  instructed  on  the  back 


iRE AT  BASIN  NATURALIST  MEMORS 


U 


Brigham  Young  University 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species: 
A  Symposium 


CONTENTS 

Introductory  remarks.  Joseph  R.  Murphy 1 

The  epoch  of  biotic  impoverishment.  Thomas  E.  Lovejoy 5 

Culture  and  species  endangerment.  Roland  C.  Clement  11 

Perspective.  John  L.  Spinks 17 

The  law  and  its  econimic  impact.  Donald  A.  Spencer 25 

Endangered  animals  in  Utah  and  adjacent  areas.  Douglas  Day  35 

Endangered  and  threatened  fishes  of  the  West.  James  E.  Deacon  41 

Rare  aquatic  insects,  or  how  valuable  are  bugs?  Richard  W.  Baumann  65 

Endangered  and  threatened  plants  of  Utah:  A  case  study.  Stanley  L.  Welsh  69 

Management  programs  for  plants  on  federal  lands.  Duane  Atwood  81 

Strategies  for  preservation  of  rare  plants  and  animals.  G.  Ledyard  Stebbins 87 

Strategies  for  preservation  of  rare  plants.  Arthur  H.  Holmgren 95 

Strategies  for  the  preservation  of  rare  animals.  Clayton  M.  White 101 

Rare  species  as  examples  of  plant  evolution.  G.  Ledyard  Stebbins  113 

The  meaning  of  "rare"  and  "endangered"  in  the  evolution  of  western  shrubs.  Howard  C. 

Stutz  119 

Some  reproductive  and  life  history  characteristics  of  rare  plants  and  implications  of 

management.  K.  T.  Harper 129 

The  importance  of  bees  and  other  insect  pollinators  in  maintaining  floral  species  compo- 
sition. V.  J.  Tepedino 139 

Endangered  species:  Costs  and  benefits.  Edwin  P.  Pister 151 

Endangered  species  on  federal  lands.  Panel:  Part  I,  Introduction.  John  L.  Spinks 159 

Panel:  Part  II,  Forest  Service  philosophy  of  endangered  species  management.  Jerry  P. 

Mcllwain 159 

Panel:  Part  III,  The  Bureau  of  Land  Management's  endangered  species  program.  Rich- 
ard Vernimen 163 

Panel:  Part  IV,  Summary  of  the  endangered  plant  program  in  the  Bureau  of  Land  Man- 
agement. Kenneth  G.  Walker 165 

Index 171 


12-79  1.5M  41728 


No.  3 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 

The  Endangered  Species: 
A  Symposium 

Brigham  Young  University,  Provo,  Utah 


1979 


INTRODUCTORY  REMARKS' 


Joseph  R.  Murphy- 


As  this  symposium  commences,  it  is  appro- 
priate to  ask  what  motivated  the  conveners 
to  choose  this  particular  time  to  address  yet 
again  a  now-famiHar  subject.  More  to  the 
point,  what  specific  aspects  of  the  endan- 
gered species  problem  might  be  confronted 
in  the  framework  of  another  symposium?  At 
least  three  kinds  of  rationale  for  such  a  meet- 
ing come  to  mind. 

First,  the  endangered  species  program  in 
the  United  States,  if  not  throughout  the 
world,  stands  at  a  crossroads  in  terms  of  pub- 
lic and  legislative  support.  Recent  news- 
worthy events,  wherein  an  endangered  ani- 
mal or  plant  is  seemingly  pitted  against  the 
agencies  of  human  progress  and  welfare, 
have  focused  attention  on  what  appear  to  be 
"either-or"  alternatives  regarding  the  species 
in  question  as  opposed  to  some  real  or  imag- 
ined public  good;  the  Tellicoe  Dam  incident 
exemplifies  this  kind  of  dilemma.  One  result 
of  this  is  that  industry  representatives,  and  of- 
ten government  agency  personnel,  live  in 
constant  fear  that  some  obscure  and  hitherto 
undescribed  species  of  clam  or  lousewort  will 
forestall  a  multimillion  dollar  development. 
Politicians,  at  both  local  and  national  levels, 
frequently  exacerbate  the  situation;  short  on 


biology  and  long  on  demagoguery,  they  at- 
tempt to  undermine  the  basic  concern  of  the 
public  for  the  welfare  of  endangered  or 
threatened  species.  Overzealous  con- 
servationists may  further  complicate  matters 
by  adopting  inflexible  and  unrealistic  posi- 
tions. These  polarized  opinions  leave  little 
common  ground  for  effective  compromise.  It 
is  to  be  hoped  that  this  symposium  can  con- 
tribute, in  at  least  a  small  way,  to  some  reso- 
lution of  these  tensions. 

A  second  rationale  for  the  symposium  may 
be  found  in  the  fact  that  the  invited  partici- 
pants, as  well  as  those  who  have  come  to  lis- 
ten, represent  a  broad  spectrum  of  agencies 
and  organizations  involved  in  endangered 
species  concerns.  Among  those  present  are 
resource  management  personnel  from  numer- 
ous state  and  federal  agencies,  representa- 
tives from  public  and  private  utilities  and 
other  industries,  university  researchers,  and 
spokesmen  for  private  conservation  organiza- 
tions. This  diversity  of  viewpoint  and  expe- 
rience should  promote  a  broad  examination 
of  the  various  issues,  and  perhaps  a  greater 
tolerance  for  the  views  of  the  "opposition." 
Too  often,  conferences  on  endangered  spe- 
cies involve  groups  with  identical  or  similar 


'The  symposium  convened  in  the  Monte  L.  Bean  Life  Science  Museum,  Brigha 
'Department  of  Zoology,  Brigham  Young  University,  Provo,  Utah  84602. 


Young  University,  Provo,  Utah,  7-8  December  1978. 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


philosophical  positions;  this  gives  partici- 
pants an  excellent  chance  to  reinforce  one 
another's  views,  but  little  or  no  opportunity 
to  gain  new  insights. 

Third,  this  particular  symposium  differs 
from  many  held  in  the  past  by  virtue  of  its 
emphasis  upon  several  taxa  of  the  humbler 
and  less  spectacular  creatures,  e.g.  plants,  in- 
sects, and  other  invertebrates.  The  public  im- 
age of  endangered  species  is  probably  embo- 
died in  or  symbolized  by  such  "glamour" 
forms  as  the  peregrine  falcon  or  blue  whale. 
Though  strong  public  support  for  these  spe- 
cies is  necessary  and  important,  it  is  mis- 
leading and  imdesirable  to  focus  all  attention 
on  them  alone.  Biologists  realize  that  the 
condition  of  the  so-called  "matrix"  species  of 
plants  and  invertebrates  often  supplies  a 
more  accurate  indication  of  the  overall 
health  of  an  ecosystem  than  does  the  plight 
of  one  or  a  few  species  of  top  consumers. 
Hence  the  status  of  these  lower  forms  be- 
comes a  matter  of  priority  for  all  of  us,  and 
not  just  for  the  erudite  specialist.  In  a  very 
real  sense,  then,  this  symposium  seeks  to 
break  new  ground  in  placing  appropriate  em- 
phasis upon  many  species  which  have  here- 
tofore been  neglected. 

Obviously,  the  foregoing  are  not  the  only 
valid  reasons  for  convening  this  series  of 
meetings.  There  is  still  a  genuine  need  to  ex- 
amine the  fundamental  philosophical  prem- 
ises vmderlying  the  management  of  endan- 
gered species.  That  there  yet  remain 
substantial  areas  of  disagreement  concerning 
the  status  of  protected  organisms  was  made 
manifest  in  the  recent  congressional  debates 
directed  toward  making  significant  changes 
in  the  Endangered  Species  Act  itself.  In  seek- 
ing these  modifications,  congressmen  claimed 
to  be  responding  to  a  "grass  roots"  demand 
for  relaxation  of  standards  promoted  by  a 
vocal  segment  of  industry  representatives  and 
the  public,  who  contend  they  have  been  eco- 
nomically disadvantaged  by  decisions  such  as 
that  regarding  the  snail  darter  and  the  Tell- 
icoe  Dam.  The  long-term  consequences  of 
any  substantial  amendments  to  the  present 
act  will  be  closely  monitored  by  those  on 
both  sides  of  controversies  involving  endan- 
gered species. 

Broadening  the  concern  for  vanishing  spe- 
cies to  a  worldwide  scope,  we  find  that  there 


is  increasing  global  concern  for  the  perpetu- 
ation of  threatened  plants  and  wildlife,  as 
pressures  brought  against  natural  ecosystems 
by  expanding  human  populations  inexorably 
mount.  This  subject  will  be  treated  in  great 
detail  by  several  of  the  invited  speakers,  and 
I  only  wish  to  point  out  here  that,  while 
there  is  much  cause  for  pessimism,  there  are 
a  few  hopeful  signs  as  well.  At  the  risk  of  ex- 
posing my  own  biases  regarding  the  relative 
worth  of  threatened  wildlife,  I  will  cite  a  few 
positive  examples  from  the  realm  of  avian 
conservation,  an  area  in  which  I  have  some 
first-hand  experience. 

Certain  species  of  raptors  have  responded 
favorably  to  the  voluntary  or  enforced  de- 
cline in  the  use  of  persistent  pesticides,  for- 
merly a  major  source  of  environmental  con- 
tamination. Noteworthy  in  this  regard  is  the 
apparent  recovery  of  breeding  populations  of 
the  peregrine  falcon  in  the  United  Kingdom 
and  parts  of  northern  Europe.  A  similar  pat- 
tern of  recovery  has  been  detected  among 
many  populations  of  the  osprey  in  the  United 
States  and  elsewhere.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that 
this  encouraging  trend  can  continue,  and  that 
hard  pesticides  will  be  replaced  by  new-gen- 
eration chemicals  in  those  areas  of  the  world 
where  these  problems  still  exist.  In  the  battle 
to  save  the  peregrine,  additional  successes 
have  been  achieved  through  the  release  of 
captive-bred  birds  into  areas  from  which  the 
species  has  been  extirpated  in  recent  decades. 
Results  have  been  sufficiently  encouraging  to 
stimulate  the  drafting  of  plans  for  a  similar 
effort  on  behalf  of  the  seriously  endangered 
California  condor;  another  such  program  is 
contemplated  for  the  Philippine  eagle,  a  vic- 
tim of  the  all-too-familiar  story  of  destmction 
of  forest  habitat  to  meet  the  needs  of  a  rapid- 
ly growing  human  population. 

The  kinds  of  success  obtained  with  raptors 
can  certainly  be  expected  in  the  intensive 
management  of  other  species  of  birds  and 
threatened  wildlife  in  general.  For  example, 
the  International  Crane  Foundation  of  Ba- 
raboo,  Wisconsin,  has  imderway  an  ambitious 
program  of  captive  breeding  and  restocking 
which  has  as  its  objective  the  perpetuation  of 
each  of  the  endangered  species  of  that  group. 
Some  additional  optimism  in  respect  to  the 
whooping  crane  has  been  engendered  by  a 
scheme  to  produce  more  young  whoopers  for 


1979 


The  Endancered  Species:  A  Symposium 


later  release  into  the  wild  by  cross-fostering 
of  eggs  and  nestlings,  using  sandliill  cranes  as 
smrogate  parents. 

There  is  another  category  of  species  whose 
decline  may  have  been  arrested  by  increased 
public  awareness  and  more  enlightened  man- 
agement practices  of  wild  populations.  Such 
would  appear  to  be  the  case  with  the  golden 
eagle  in  the  western  United  States.  While  di- 
rect and  indirect  persecution  still  account  for 
considerable  mortality  throughout  the  West, 
there  is  good  evidence  that  breeding  popu- 
lations are  healthy  and  stable  at  the  present 
time.  There  are  also  indications  that  at  least 
many  of  these  eagles  adjust  well  or  become 
habituated  to  various  types  of  human  disturb- 
ance, and  are  not  as  sensitive  or  inclined  to 
abandon  nests  as  many  of  us  had  previously 
thought.  This  in  turn  suggests  that  not  all  of 
our  direst  predictions  need  come  true  in 
every  case,  although  it  is  obvious  that  many 
endangered  species  are  not  as  adaptable  and 
versatile  as  we  would  want.  Another  plus  for 
the  future  of  the  golden  eagle  is  that  a  long- 
awaited  federal  management  plan  for  this 
species  appears  to  be  forthcoming.  This  plan 
is  intended  to  offer  management  guidelines 
that  will  address  problems  of  eagle  depreda- 


tion as  well  as  deal  realistically  with  the  sur- 
vival of  the  species.  It  is  hoped  its  principal 
function  will  be  to  keep  the  golden  eagle  at  a 
healthy  distance  from  the  endangered  species 
list;  to  the  extent  that  it  is  successful,  it  could 
serve  as  a  model  for  the  management  of 
many  other  species. 

In  closing,  I  am  tempted  to  deliver  a  stir- 
ring peroration  in  which  I  would  remind  you 
of  the  necessity  for  coming  to  grips  with  the 
issues  at  this  critical  time  in  the  history  of  the 
conservation  movement,  of  our  custodial  re- 
sponsibility toward  the  subhuman  species 
with  which  we  share  the  planet,  and  of  the 
challenge  to  initiate  innovative  and  effective 
solutions.  Instead,  I  will  merely  quote  some 
rather  straightforward  if  somewhat  trite 
words  ascribed  to  the  late  King  George  VI, 
which  were  adopted  as  the  motto  of  the  Tim- 
bavati  Nature  Reserve  in  South  Africa: 

The  wildlife  of  today  is  not  ours  to  dispose  of  as  we 
please.  We  have  it  in  trust.  We  must  account  for  it  to 
those  who  come  after. 

Perhaps  it  is  this  intrinsic  kind  of  value 
that  we  should  always  have  before  us  in  our 
deliberations  on  even  the  least  spectacular  of 
the  endangered  species. 


THE  EPOCH  OF  BIOTIC  IMPOVERISHMENT 

Thomas  E.  Lovejoy' 

Abstract.—  1978  was  the  first  year  in  the  history  of  man  that  legal  power  to  eradicate  a  species  was  established.  It 
is  one  of  a  number  of  signs  of  rapidly  accelerating  rates  of  extinction  which  may  result  in  reduction  of  biological 
diversity  by  one-seventh  to  one-fifth,  with  a  parallel  reduction  in  the  planet's  capacity  to  support  man  and  a  per- 
manent reduction  in  the  potential  body  of  biological  knowledge.  Species  loss  of  such  a  degree  would  warrant  desig- 
nating the  close  of  the  Recent  epoch  and  the  opening  of  a  new  one  of  Biotic  Impoverishment.  A  great  deal  of  the 
extinctions  will  occur  in  the  tropical  forest  areas  of  the  globe  but  with  possible  environmental  effects  extending  into 
the  temperate  regions.  It  will  fall  to  science  to  help  slow  the  rate  of  extinction,  to  decide  on  which  species  and 
ecosystems  to  concentrate  conservation  efforts,  and  to  communicate  the  importance  of  biological  diversity  to  govern- 
ment and  society. 


It  is  an  encouraging  sign  for  conservation 
that  during  this  first  week  of  December  1978, 
both  this  symposium  and  the  first  meeting  of 
private  conservation  organizations  in  Central 
America  are  taking  place.  It  is  interesting 
that  the  latter  is  occurring  in  Guatemala,  a 
country  which  honors  the  Quetzal,  a  trogon 
of  extraordinary  beauty,  in  three  ways:  as  its 
national  bird,  as  its  monetary  imit,  and  with  a 
statue  in  Guatemala  City.  At  the  same  time 
the  travel  route  many  of  us  followed  here 
takes  us  through  Salt  Lake  City,  where  stands 
one  of  the  few  other  statues  in  honor  of  a 
bird:  the  gull  which  rescued  the  Mormons 
from  orthopteran  plagues,  and  the  specific 
identity  of  which  is  probably  lost  forever  in 
history. 

But  1978  will  also  be  remembered  as  the 
year  when,  for  the  first  time  in  the  history  of 
civilization,  the  power  to  exterminate  a  spe- 
cies other  than  a  pathogen  was  legally  estab- 
Ushed.  This  certainly  was  not  arrived  at  in 
any  particularly  intelligent  manner,  and  its 
full  meaning  in  the  history  of  the  biological 
degradation  of  the  planet  was  and  is  appreci- 
ated by  few:  it  is  the  first  indication  in  the 
body  of  law  that  we  are  not  going  to  save,  or 
try  to  save,  the  full  array  of  species  in  the 
biota,  and  raises  the  terrifying  questions  of 
which  and  how  many  species  will  be  written 
off.  The  new  Endangered  Species  Legislation 
takes  a  step  toward  answering  those  questions 


by  according  lower-class  status  to  the  faunal 
majority  represented  by  the  invertebrates,  as 
opposed  to  those  lucky  enough  to  have  spinal 
columns. 

At  first,  species  will  wink  out  one  by  one 
like  city  lights  as  night  deepens,  but  soon 
there  will  be  a  rushing  torrent  of  extinction. 
This  year  also  saw  all  but  the  last  remnant  of 
natural  forest  on  Bali  cut  over,  leaving  little 
natural  habitat  for  the  Rothschild's  Mynah, 
which  fortunately  does  thrive  in  zoos.  As  far 
as  I  know,  nobody  has  answered  the  question 
of  how  many  extinctions  the  Bali  forest  de- 
struction represents.  It  carries  special  mean- 
ing when  we  reflect  on  how  much  was 
learned  about  how  the  world  works  when  Al- 
fred Russell  Wallace  crossed  the  narrow 
strait  between  Bali  and  Lombok  and  began  to 
conceive  of  the  science  of  zoogeography  and, 
later,  of  natural  selection.  He  grasped  natural 
selection  independently  of  Darwin,  yet  so  ef- 
fectively that  he  propelled  Darwin  into  pub- 
lishing the  volume  which  so  greatly  changed 
man's  view  of  his  place  in  nature.  It  is  indeed 
likely  that  some  of  the  recent  extinctions  on 
Bali  were  of  species  actually  described  by 
Wallace,  a  sad  tribute  to  a  man  who  did  so 
much  to  advance  knowledge. 

One  little-appreciated  aspect  of  the  recent 
and  forthcoming  extinctions  is  the  implica- 
tion for  the  future  growth  of  knowledge 
(Lovejoy    1978).    An   extinct   species   is   one 


'World  Wildlife  Fund,  1601  Connecticut  Avenue,  NW,  Washington,  D.C.  20009. 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


about  which  we  can  learn  httle,  either  in 
terms  of  its  specific  biology  or  role  in  nature, 
except  what  can  be  gleaned  from  the  sad 
remnants  of  information  held  by  museum 
specimens— remnants  which  are  nonetheless 
valuable  and  deserving  of  more  appreciation. 
Many  species  will,  in  fact,  disappear  without 
even  a  mention  of  their  existence  in  the 
chronicles  of  science. 

While  there  certainly  is  some  knowledge 
to  be  gained  from  the  response  of  biological 
systems  to  destructive  manipulation,  it  re- 
mains negligible  when  compared  to  what  can 
be  learned  from  living  biological  systems 
over  the  long  time  available  when  species 
continue  to  exist.  Indeed  one  might  think  of 
human  knowledge,  whether  in  general  or 
about  biology  in  particular,  as  a  growing  n- 
dimensional  hypervolume,  with  a  volume  Ve 
at  any  point  in  time.  Whether  there  is  a  total 
potential  body  of  knowledge  is  probably  a 
question  for  lengthy  discussion,  but  for  the 
moment  and  for  the  sake  of  argument,  let  us 
assume  that  there  is  such  a  definable  body, 
and  that  it  can  be  represented  by  another  hy- 
pervolume, Vp,  which  contains,  and  is  many 
orders  of  magnitude  larger  than,  Ve  (Fig.  1). 

Until  relatively  recent  times,  it  can  be  said 
that  throughout  human  history  society  has 
striven  to  enlarge  Ve,  deriving  considerable 
benefit  from  doing  so,  and  essentially  driving 
Ve  to  approach  Vp.  The  effects  of  the  rela- 
tively small  number  of  man-generated  extinc- 
tions up  to  this  moment  have  been  minor,  but 
now,  as  we  enter  the  epoch  of  Biotic  Impov- 
erishment, which  prol3ably  deserves  to  be 
treated  as  an  epoch  distinct  from  the  Recent, 
we  are  allowing  Vp  to  shrink  and  to  ap- 
proach Ve.  Yet,  as  living  organisms,  surely 
we  must  realize  that  biology  is  the  most  im- 
portant branch  of  knowledge  for  human  wel- 
fare. 

Most  of  us,  even  endangered  species  biolo- 
gists, tend  to  underestimate  the  extent  of  the 
impoverishment  of  the  biota  that  may  lie  be- 
fore us.  Here  in  the  United  States,  already  a 
highly  developed  nation  with  a  human  popu- 
lation now  predicted  to  peak  at  a  mere  253 
million,  it  is  possible  to  entertain  the  notion 
that  we  can  have  our  fauna  and  flora  and  the 
sybaritic  pleasures  of  the  consumer  society  as 
well.  There  are  occasional  problems  with  en- 
dangered species  and  public  works  projects 


in  conflict,  but  it  seems  possible  to  at  least 
dream  about  having  both. 

But  such  is  certainly  not  the  case  in  the 
tropical  forest  countries  of  the  world,  which 
are,  with  a  couple  of  exceptions,  all  lesser-de- 
veloped nations  eager  to  ape  our  ways.  The 
FAO  estimate  that  tropical  forest  destruction 
currently  occurs  at  50  acres  a  minute  is  truly 
terrifying.  These  forests  are  a  biological 
treasury,  and  the  conflicts  between  tradition- 
al development  projects  and  endangered  spe- 
cies are  many  orders  of  magnitude  greater 
than  in  temperate  regions.  I  recently  had  the 


Fig.  1.  The  relationship  of  expected  (Ve)  and  poten- 
tial (Vp)  knowledge. 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symi 


difficult  task  of  producing  for  a  presidential 
study  an  estimate  of  extinctions  that  will  take 
place  between  now  and  the  end  of  the  cen- 
tury. Attempting  to  be  conservative  wher- 
ever possible,  I  still  came  up  with  a  reduction 
of  global  diversity  between  one-seventh  and 
one-fifth,  principally  because  of  what  will 
happen  to  tropical  forests.  No  doubt  some  of 
my  colleagues  think  I  am  mad,  but  I  would 
challenge  them  to  produce  a  better  estimate. 
If  my  estimate  turns  out  to  be  too  high  it  will 
either  be  because  society  has  made  consid- 
erable changes  in  its  ways,  or  because  it  will 
take  a  bit  longer  to  reach  the  same  reduction 
in  diversity.  The  U.S.  example  to  the  inter- 
national community  will  be  very  important. 

The  problem  of  biotic  impoverishment 
then  is  considerably  greater  than  can  be  ap- 
preciated from  an  overview  of  endangered 
species  here  in  the  United  States.  Our  Ameri- 
can collection  of  endangered  flora  and  fauna 
really  represents  but  part  of  the  forward  con- 
tingent of  a  great  rush  to  extinction.  This  all 
raises  many  questions  for  science  and  society, 
including  the  most  terrible  one  of  all,  one 
which  few  are  brave  or  foolhardy  enough  to 
ask:  namely,  can  we  continue  to  treat  the  val- 
ue of  a  human  life  as  a  constant  whatever  the 
number  of  people  may  be?  I  am  enormously 
uncomfortable  even  asking  it,  let  alone  trying 
to  answer  it,  yet,  even  if  ignored,  it  will  in 
part  be  answered  by  the  degraded  capacity 
of  the  planet  to  support  man  if  biotic  impov- 
erishment proceeds  apace. 

It  is  more  comfortable  to  try  and  answer 
the  scientific  and  technical  questions  raised 
by  biotic  impoverishment  and  it  is  these  that 
this  symposium  is  largely  addressing.  Cer- 
tainly science  has  a  critical  role  to  play  in  ef- 
forts to  reverse  the  tide,  and  it  needs  to  be 
recognized  that  such  science  is  as  in- 
tellectually respectable  and  as  useful  to  so- 
ciety as,  for  example,  laboratory  work  on 
DNA  hybridization. 

In  many  cases  it  is  a  race  with  time.  World 
Wildlife  Fund  is  launching  a  major  research 
program  on  the  problem  of  the  minimum 
critical  size  of  ecosystems,  or  why  and  how 
ecosystems  set  aside  in  the  midst  of  land- 
scapes converted  to  man's  purposes  shed  or 
lose  species.  How  much  more  desirable  it 
would  be  to  have  the  results  in  hand  now,  be- 
cause most  opportunities  to  set  aside  a  repre- 


sentative series  of  the  planet's  ecosystems 
will  occur  in  the  next  two  decades.  Yet  we 
have  to  make  do  with  the  situation. 

It  is  important  that  universities  and 
agencies  recognize  that  conservation  is  an 
appropriate  activity  to  which  biologists 
should  devote  some  of  their  time.  Indeed  it  is 
probably  correct  to  say  that  today  a  biologist 
can  make  as  much  of  a  contribution  to  sci- 
ence by  helping  to  save  species  and  ecosys- 
tems, and,  therefore,  future  opportunities  to 
study  biology,  as  by  more  traditional  scholar- 
ly pursuits. 

To  science  should  fall  the  terrible  questions 
about  which  species  and  ecosystems  to  save 
and  which  not  to  save.  Which  of  us  would  be 
comfortable  about  saying  one  species  is  more 
important  than  another?  Yet  it  is  clear  that 
all  will  not  be  saved,  and  that  it  is  preferable 
for  scientists  to  address  those  questions  rather 
than  deferring  to  the  less  knowledgeable. 
Certainly  we  would  be  wise  to  try  and  avoid 
having  to  make  such  decisions  in  imthought- 
ful  haste— but  maybe  the  awful  nature  of  the 
questions  will  drive  us  that  much  harder  to 
keep  the  number  of  such  decisions  small. 

There  is  another  critical  role  for  science, 
namely  articulating  the  true  meaning  of  biot- 
ic impoverishment  for  society.  Too  often 
both  scientists  and  society  in  general  focus  on 
the  individual  species  rather  than  on  the  rec- 
ognition that  the  impoverishment  of  the 
biota  represents  a  reduction  of  the  planet's 
capacity  to  svipport  man.  Just  on  the  basis  of 
destroyed  coastal  wetlands  it  can  be  said  that 
the  fimdamental  capacity  of  the  planet  to 
support  man  is  less  today  than  a  century  ago. 
This  erosion  of  our  biological  wealth  has 
been  masked  by  the  constantly  refined  abili- 
ties of  technology.  Technology  has  fostered 
the  illusion  that  we  can  get  more  and  more 
from  less  and  less,  a  dream  that  soon  will  be 
shattered;  the  cracks  are  already  appearing. 

Scientists  must  articulate  the  true  meaning 
of  endangered  species  as  indicators  of 
stressed  ecosystems  and  as  yet  another  sign  of 
erosion  of  the  basic  quality  of  life.  When  the 
Devil's  Hole  pupfish  was  being  endangered 
by  a  lowered  water  table,  the  real  question 
was  about  the  rights  to  reduce  that  natural 
resource  base.  It  is  not  always  easy  to  deduce 
the  complete  meaning  for  society  of  any  par- 
ticular endangered  species,  but  it  will  always 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


be  generally  true  that  it  will  reflect  deterio- 
ration of  a  biological  system.  When  arguing 
the  case,  we  cannot  always  expect  the  exploi- 
ters to  play  fair;  poor  human  behavior  with 
respect  to  questions  of  dwindling  resources  is 
all  too  familiar. 

Our  society  is  generally  ignorant  of  the  im- 
portance of  biological  resources  and  hence  of 
endangered  species.  One  Supreme  Court 
judge  harbored  the  view  during  the  case  of 
the  Tellico  Dam  and  the  snail  darter  that  the 
Endangered  Species  Act  meant  endangered 
species  might  be  found  behind  already  exist- 
ing dams  and  it  would  be  necessary  to  run 
around  letting  the  water  out.  And  a  distin- 
guished senator  was  concerned  most  of  his 
state  might  be  declared  critical  habitat  for 
the  grizzly  bear;  perhaps  he  was  worried 
about  their  votes?  It  is  really  up  to  all  of  us 
to  employ  all  our  energies  and  intellects  to 
correcting  this  dangerous  state  of  ignorance. 
We  should  clearly  make  the  case,  for  ex- 
ample, that  dwindling  biological  resources 
are  making  a  major  contribution  to  problems 
of  economic  inflation. 

Society  worldwide  has  been  rocked  in  re- 
cent weeks  as  the  story  of  the  charnal  mille- 
feuille  of  Jonestown  emerged  layer  by  layer 
in  the  media.  How  many  of  us  recognize  that 
we  are  well  into  the  beginnings  of  a  biologi- 
cal Jonestown?  As  in  Jonestown,  there  will  be 
human  survivors  once  the  epoch  of  biotic  im- 
poverishment passes.  But  their  existence  will 
be  forever  an  impoverished  and  degraded 
one.  The  question  of  how  degraded  and  how 
impoverished  lies  before  science  and  society. 

Acknowledgments 

I  acknowledge  with  gratitude  the  help  of 
Richard  O.  Bierregaard,  Helen  Hays,  Eleanor 
Stickney,  and  Clayton  White. 

Questions  to  Mr.  Lovejoy 

Q.  It  would  be  interesting  to  have  a  figure  on  that  one- 
sixth  of  the  species  lost  you  have  computed. 

A.  You  mean  in  terms  of  numbers  of  species?  If  the  to- 
tal biota  for  the  planet  is  estimated  at  lying  some- 
where between  .3  million  and  10  million  species, 
which  gives  you  some  idea  of  how  ignorant  we  are 
about  the  biology  of  the  planet,  and  if  one  takes  the 
more  conservative  figure  of  3  million,  the  loss  is  on 
the  order  of  500,000  to  600,000.  The  actual  home- 


work I  went  through  to  arrive  at  all  of  that  is  going 
to  be  published  in  the  Global  2000  Study,  which  was 
requested  by  President  Carter  more  than  a  year  ago 
in  his  environmental  address  of  1977  and  will 
emerge  sometime  in  the  coming  September.  That 
particular  section  will  certainly  stand  out  because  a 
lot  of  the  reviewers  of  that  study  who  are  not  biolo- 
gists and  not  particularly  aware  of  whats  happening 
in  the  tropical  regions  found  it  very  difficult  to  be- 
lieve and  so  it  may  be  the  only  portion  of  that  study 
with  a  name  actually  attached  as  an  author. 

Q.  Would  you  explain  your  statement  about  fauna 
without  vertebrae  having  less  of  a  status  in  nature 
than  vertebrates? 

A.  Well  it's  true.  When  it  comes  to  invertebrates  the 
secretary  of  interior  has  the  ability  to  exempt  certain 
public  works  projects  from  the  Endangered  Species 
Act  without  taking  it  through  the  long  process  to  ul- 
timately what  some  of  us  call  the  "Extinction 
Squad"  setup  in  the  new  legislation.  It  really  doesn't 
say  flat  out  that  the  secretary  of  interior  can  allow  a 
nonvertebrate  to  go  extinct,  but  it  says  that  he  need 
not  recognize  discrete  populations.  Maybe  some  of 
the  Department  of  the  Interior  people  can  explain  it 
a  little  more  fully  than  I,  but  there  was  a  clear  dis- 
tinction drawn  between  the  two. 

Q.  What  are  the  strategies  to  address  the  problem  of 
the  destruction  of  tropical  rainforests? 

A.  As  currently  treated,  tropical  rain  forests  are  gener- 
ally regarded  as  one-time  use  resources  to  be  cleared 
and  replaced  by  something  else.  That  something  else 
is  often  not  economically  viable  in  the  long  term.  It's 
really  a  matter  of  proving  that  there  are  in  fact  con- 
siderably more  gains  from  protecting  as  much  of  the 
tropical  rain  forests  as  we  can  than  from  converting 
them  to  short-time  use. 

Q.  The  recent  modification  of  the  Endangered  Species 
Act  was  supported  around  the  country.  Some  of  the 
major  conservation  groups  supported  that  modifica- 
tion. Now  I  understand  that  the  World  Wildlife 
Fund  also  supported  the  modification  and  I'd  like  to 
know  if  that's  correct  or  what  your  position  is. 

A.  During  the  period  when  the  new  endangered  species 
legislation  was  being  considered  in  recent  months, 
some  conservation  organizations  supported  the  mod- 
ification. Was  World  Wildlife  Fund  one  of  these?  It 
was  not.  The  problem  was  that  the  biological  reality 
and  the  political  reality  simply  did  not  coincide.  It  is 
very  clear,  particularly  from  the  Senate  vote,  which 
I  think  was  something  on  the  order  of  94  in  favor  of 
modification,  that  there  was  little  sympathy  within 
the  Congress  for  maintaining  the  Endangered  Spe- 
cies Act  as  originally  laid  out.  We,  in  fact.  World 
Wildlife  Fund  and  some  other  organizations,  worked 
quietly  behind  the  scenes  to  try  and  get  as  strong 
successor  legislation  as  we  could  possibly  get,  but  we 
simply  were  not  about  to  go  on  record  and  condone 
anything  that  might  lead  to  extinction.  I  think  this 
was  well  understood  by  the  staff  of  the  Senate  sub- 
committee in  question. 

Q.  I  have  two  comments  to  what  you  had  to  say  today. 
First  of  all,  forgive  me  if  I  have  trouble  thinking 
about  tropical  rain  forests  today.  I  deal  in  the  area  of 
management,  which  is  where  most  of  the  problems 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


are  being  solved,  at  least  in  this  country.  If  we  set 
ourselves  as  biologists  aside  and  say  it's  iis  against 
them,  then  two  things  may  happen.  First,  we  may 
become  like  a  federal  agency  that  I  know  of  that 
says  we  have  this  pristine  untouched  piece  of  land 
and  we're  going  to  keep  it  pristine  and  untouched 
by  allowing  10,000  people  in  and  then  it's  going  to 
stay  somehow  miraculously  pristine  and  untouched. 
Second,  which  is  more  likely,  the  "other  side"  will 
win  because  they  have  more  influence  and  more 
people.  I  think  that  we  need  to  concentrate  more 
heavily  on  the  interface  between  the  scientific  com- 
munity and  the  people  and,  in  a  democratic  country, 
I  think  that  is  more  appropriate. 

\.  I  don't  have  any  difficulty  with  that  at  all.  In  fact,  I 
think  in  a  sense  that's  what  I  was  trying  to  say  by 
saying  we  have  to  articulate  what  it  all  really  means. 
But  it's  all  in  the  best  interests  of  all  of  us  to  be  wor- 
rying about  what  is  essentially  the  proper  biological 
management,  not  only  of  the  United  States,  but  of 
the  entire  planet  and  that  naturally  falls  into  two 
distinct  parts.  One  is  making  sure  that  you  protect 
all  the  pieces— all  the  biological  pieces— with  a  series 
of  representative  ecosystems  properly  designed  so 
that  thev  can  be  managed  to  protect  their  integrity, 
and  I  might  add  that  it's  getting  harder  and  harder 
to  protect  an  ecosystem  anywhere  without  manage- 
ment of  some  sort.  The  other  part  is  making  the  rest 
of  the  face  of  the  planet  biologically  productive  in  a 
sustainable  fashion  and  in  a  fashion  that  will  in  no 
way  threaten  the  sort  of  species  bank  you've  set 
aside.  For  example,  we  at  World  Wildlife  Fund  are 
taking  a  long  shot  at  trying  to  talk  to  the  last  of  the 
American  billionaires,  Daniel  Ludwig,  who  has  an 
operation  in  the  Amazon  about  the  size  of  Con- 
necticut where  he  has  cleared  forest  and  is  growing 
trees  for  pulp  and  rice.  If  I  actually  do  get  a  chance 
to  have  a  reasonable  discussion  with  him,  my  point 
to  him  is  not  going  to  be  that  he  shouldn't  be  doing 
what  he's  doing,  because  it  is  probably  more  in- 
telligent than  most  of  what's  being  done  in  the  Ama- 
zon, but  rather  that  the  long-term  security  of  his 
own  operation  depends  on  protecting  the  ecological 
integrity  of  the  Amazon  as  a  whole. 

Q.  You  alluded  to  a  correlation  between  biotic  impov- 
erishment and  economic  inflation.  Would  you  care 
to  elaborate  on  that  subject? 

A.  Probably,  if  one  searched  around,  examples  could  be 
found.  For  instance,  the  price  of  fish  is  increasing  as 
the  supply  dwindles  and  the  demand  stays  high.  I 
only  began  to  think  about  this  ten  days  ago,  but  cer- 
tainly this  process  has  to  be  occurring  here  and 
there.  The  problem  is  to  sort  it  out  from  the  incred- 
ible maze  of  vectors  that  comprise  economics  and 
really  demonstrate  what's  happening— and  that's 
part  of  the  problem. 

Q.  Mammoth  is  now  about  $5  a  poiuid.  The  summer 
Chinook  is  in  very  great  danger;  we  might  have  to 
drain  Grand  Coulee  Dam  to  save  it.  In  one  of  your 
other  statements,  you  said  that  we  have  to  protect 
habitats  that  have  been  damaged  or  destroyed  and 
renew  them.  No  summer  Chinook  were  caught  this 
year,  except  for  about  1,.500  by  the  Indians.  At  one 


time  there  were  billions  of  pounds  of  Chinook.  Crab 
is  now  about  $5  a  poimd. 
A.  I'm  really  delighted  to  have  that  example.  Well,  in 
fact,  if  you  probably  start  thinking  about  it,  the 
price  of  lobsters  and  other  marine  products  has  cer- 
tainly risen  a  great  deal  in  recent  years  and  that  may 
be  one  of  the  more  clear-cut  situations.  The  world 
fisheries  peaked  about  1970.  They  made  a  slight  re- 
covery this  year,  I  believe,  but  all  along  there  has 
been  an  increasing  catch  effort,  an  increasing 
amount  of  actual  fossil  fuel  energy  going  into  the 
pursuit  of  these  fish,  and  certainly  the  demand  for 
them  has  been  increasing,  too. 
Q.  Are  there  any  calculations  on  how  much  of  a  de- 
crease we  are  going  to  get  in  atmospheric  oxygen  if 
these  tropical  forests  are  destroyed? 
A.  The  problem  of  tropical  forests  with  respect  to  oxy- 
gen turns  out  to  be  no  real  issue.  They,  in  fact,  con- 
sume about  as  much  oxygen  as  they  produce.  The 
real  problem  in  terms  of  biogeochemical  cycles  may 
well  lie  in  the  carbon  which  is  stored  in  tropical  rain 
forests.  Tropical  rain  forests  represent  the  largest 
terrestrially  stored  pool  of  carbon,  and  it  was  esti- 
mated as  long  ago  as  1954  by  Evelyn  Hutchinson 
that  the  increase  in  carbon  dioxide  in  the  atmo- 
sphere probably  came  equally  from  the  burning  of 
fossil  fuels  and  the  destruction  of  forests.  The  whole 
problem  of  global  circulation  of  carbon  and  where 
the  sinks  are  certainly  isn't  a  clear  matter,  but  we  do 
know  that  CO2  is  increasing  and  that  if  we  destroy 
two-thirds  of  the  tropical  forest  (which  is  the  esti- 
mate by  2000)  we  will  release  an  enormous  amount 
of  carbon  into  the  atmosphere.  The  question  is  how 
rapidly  the  natural  sinks  can  absorb  it  and  bring  it 
back  to  normal  level.  If  there  is  a  pulse  of  carbon  in 
the  atmosphere,  then  we  may  get  into  problems  of 
climatic  change,  change  in  rainfall  regimens,  and 
temperatures  in  the  temperate  zones.  The  tropical 
rain  forests  really  aren't  all  that  far  away. 
Q.  It  seems  like  we're  expanding  on  the  strategy  of  the 
common  ideal.  How  can  we  deal  with  individual 
countries  that  are  bent  on  destroying  a  habitat 
which  may  affect  the  rest  of  us? 
A.  If  I  had  the  answer  to  that  I  might  be  head  of  the 
U.N.  There  is  no  easy  answer  to  it  at  the  moment. 
Many,  such  as  Roland  Clement  or  I,  work  on  a  coun- 
try-by-country basis.  I  endeavor  to  persuade  the  Bra- 
zilians, for  example,  that  proper  management  of  the 
Amazon  is  in  their  best  interests  as  well  as  that  of 
the  rest  of  the  world  in  terms  of,  say,  carbon.  On  the 
other  hand,  there  is  increasing  recognition  within 
governments,  even  in  Latin  America,  which  people 
were  despairing  about  for  so  long,  that  there  are  ma- 
jor problems.  There  is  now  an  Amazonian  pact 
among  all  the  Amazonian  nations  which,  at  least  in 
rhetoric,  talks  about  proper  management  of  the 
Amazon.  There  are  some  interesting  questions  in- 
volved in  that.  Take  the  example  of  the  contribu- 
tions of  biological  species  to  modern  medicine,  espe- 
cially the  importance  of  a  primate  species.  Take  a 
cure  that  comes  from  one  of  those  species  and  it  is 
verv  rapidly  distributed  around  the  world  as  an  in- 
ternational resource,  so  we  may  be  approaching  the 
time  when  some  biological  resources,  at  least,  are 


10 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


recognized  by  the  international  community  as  being 
international  resources,  and  pressure  will  therefore 
fall  on  some  of  the  less  well-behaved  countries  to 
clean  up  their  act. 

Q.    Are  people  as  much  a  problem  as  governments? 

A.  Oh,  it  certainly  is  both.  Roland  Clement  is  going  to 
address  problems  of  people. 

Q.   Is  corruption  ever  a  problem? 

\.  Well,  corruption  is  a  problem.  I  would  guess  that  at 
least  in  Latin  .\merica,  which  is  my  major  "beat," 
ignorance  is  a  greater  problem  than  corruption. 

Q.  Do  you  think  there  really  is  a  middle  ground  be- 
tween biotic  deprivation  and  the  goals  of  preserva- 
tion of  the  biota? 

A.  I  think  there  has  to  be.  It's  just  a  matter  of  how 
much  we  want  to  let  it  hurt  before  we  really  re- 
spond to  it.  1  think  it's  as  simple  as  that. 

Q.  What  about  the  review  board  set  up  under  the  new 
endangered  species  legislation  to  make  decisions  on 
seemingly  irresolvable  conflict  between  endangered 
species  and  public  works  projects?  How  busy  will 
they  be,  and  how  eager  will  they  be  to  exercise  that 
power? 

A.  We're  really  talking  about  a  play  of  attitude  and 
how  that  will  affect  the  whole  process.  The  Endan- 
gered Species  Act  up  to  the  point  where  it  was  re- 
vised certainly  involved  thousands  of  cases  of  seem- 
ing conflict   that  were  all  resolvable  at  staff-level 


discussion  with  the  Department  of  the  Interior.  The 
single  exception  was  the  Tellico  Dam  and  snail  dart- 
er, and  that  really  became  an  exception  only  be- 
cause the  TVA  was  completely  recalcitrant  and  re- 
fused to  acknowledge  that  it  was  subject  to  the  law. 
If  one  reflects  on  those  figures,  it  might  say  that  only 
rarely  will  the  Extinction  Squad  have  a  nasty  deci- 
sion to  make.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  agencies  feel 
that  the  creation  of  the  Extinction  Squad  has  weak- 
ened the  power  of  the  Department  of  the  Interior, 
they  may  feel  less  need  to  be  pliable  in  discussion 
and  they  may  get  very  busy  up  on  top.  I  don't  think 
they're  going  to  be  happy  to  do  this  at  all.  My  own 
particular  .solution  to  the  whole  thing  is  to  erect  a 
large  black  marble  slab  on  the  mall  in  Washington 
so  that  we  can  engrave  on  it  the  name  of  the  species 
exterminated  and  the  names  of  the  members  of  the 
squad  at  that  time. 


Literature  Cited 

LovEjoY.  1978.  The  Curious  Animal,  Symposium  on 
"Impact  of  Federal  Wildlife  Regulations  on  the 
Svstematics  Ecology  Community,"  sponsored  by 
the  Society  of  Systematic  Zoology  and  the  So- 
ciety of  Plant  Taxonomists,  14  Febniary  1978. 


CULTURE  AND  SPECIES  ENDANGERMENT 

Roland  C.  Clement' 

.\bstract.—  Species  endangerment  has  so  far  been  addressed  mostly  by  biologists.  It  is  now  important  to  involve 
social  scientists,  inasmuch  as  the  problems  are  man  caused.  The  history  of  our  attitudes,  our  uses  of  the  land,  and  the 
reasons  wherefore  are  problems  for  everyone. 

The  evidence  suggests  that  the  causes  of  endangerment  may  be  grouped  under  (1)  direct  and  indirect  exploitation 
of  resources,  and  (2)  population  displacement  by  modern  agriculture,  with  consequent  migration  to  the  city  or  to  the 
forest  frontier,  where  accelerated  forest  destruction  is  the  result.  The  displaced  people  are  part  of  the  marginalized 
two-thirds  of  the  human  race  and  will  destroy  what  is  left  of  nature  in  order  to  survive  unless  we  help  them  become 
self-sufficient. 

Such  a  refocusing  of  Western  civilization,  which  has  so  far  been  parasitic  on  nature  and  a  marginalized  humanity, 
will  require  a  new  world  view  by  the  dominant  one-third  of  us,  perhaps  based  on  Whiteheadean  philosophy,  wherein 
we  accept  a  participatory  role  in  a  complex  of  processes  that  evolve  from  one  another. 


The  focus  of  this  paper  is  an  attempt  to 
broaden  perspectives  on  contemporary  spe- 
cies endangerment.  The  biology  that  is  cur- 
rently being  elucidated  by  a  spate  of  dis- 
cussions of  this  problem  is  fascinating  and 
helpful,  but  not  enough  in  itself. 

Let  us  first  summarize  very  quickly  the 
two  principal  causes  of  man-caused  endan- 
germent under  two  categories  of  pressure:  ex- 
ploitation and  competitive  exclusion.  These 
are  well  known,  but  we  tend  to  generalize 
them  too  much.  For  example,  there  is  abun- 
dant and  growing  objection  to  direct  exploita- 
tion, such  as  whaling,  sealing,  even  hunting, 
and  more  recently  against  economic  devel- 
opment which  destroys  key  habitats.  But  we 
still  neglect  the  impact  of  the  killer-buyer 
relationship  in  the  exploitation  of  wild  spe- 
cies, partly  because  it  is  diffuse  and  largely  il- 
legal, and  therefore  difficult  to  quantify.  It  is 
also  a  more  recent  phenomenon.  The  new 
traffic  in  animals  and  their  parts  We  need  to 
confront  and  regulate  is  a  by-product  of  the 
jet  age  and  the  mass-consumption  society.  It 
is  a  result  of  uneducated  affluence. 

There  is  cause  to  believe  that  the  United 
States  alone  generates  a  $10  million  annual 
traffic  in  live  birds;  that  two  to  four  times  the 
number  of  individuals  delivered  perish  en 
route;  and  that  "products"  made  from  wild 
animals  involve  sales  which  are  several  times 


$10  million.  The  Justice  Department  is  now 
attempting  to  assess  this  traffic  more  accu- 
rately, almost  for  the  first  time. 

There  is  also  a  need  to  study  the  implica- 
tions of  the  sheer  weight  of  human  numbers 
on  management  policy.  Numbers  probably 
now  mitigate  against  the  rational  manage- 
ment of  our  wildlife  resources.  What  we  re- 
cently considered  "moderate  use"  now  adds 
up  to  excessive  demand  and  exploitation. 

It  is  the  same  with  competitive  exclusion. 
We  stress  human  population  growth  and  tend 
to  point  the  finger  at  the  poor  who  still  favor 
large  famlies.  But  we  have  neglected  the  so- 
cially disruptive  displacement  of  people  by 
agricultural  "modernization."  Thirty  years 
ago,  the  growth  of  capital-intensive  and  tech- 
nology-intensive mechanization  in  U.S.  agri- 
culture sent  10  million  blacks  to  the  cities, 
and  today  the  Green  Revolution  or  some  less 
spectacular  form  of  agricultural  modern- 
ization is  doing  the  same  thing  to  world  peas- 
antry. The  only  way  to  call  this  modern- 
ization progressive  is  to  overlook  the  social 
and  ecological  disruptions  for  which  it  con- 
tinues to  be  responsible. 

The  displaced  people  are  flooding  the 
cities  and  rapidly  destroying  their  viability 
because  the  cities  are  incapable  of  assimilat- 
ing such  numbers.  Or  the  people  become 
modern-day  colonists  along  the  frontiers  of 


R2,  Norwalk.  Connecticut.  068.50. 


11 


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Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


the  remaining  forest,  destroying  it  at  a  ca- 
tastrophic rate. 

Having  been  slow  to  understand  the  social 
dynamics  of  labor  displacement  by  machines 
and  gasoline,  we  have  misidentified  the  im- 
pact of  marginalized  human  groups.  We 
blame  what  seem  to  us  insensitive  attitudes 
toward  forest  destruction  by  these  people,  or 
we  point  to  over-population  as  a  basic  cause. 
We  must  learn  to  recognize  that  today's  for- 
est destruction  is  a  by-product  of  our  own 
economic  demands.  It  was  to  facilitate  min- 
ing activities  by  foreign  capital  that  Brazil's 
trans-Amazon  highway  network  was  built; 
and  it  is  to  satisfy  America's  hamburger  cul- 
ture that  cattlemen  have  displaced  corn 
farmers  from  nearly  half  of  Central  America. 

Another  neglected  element  of  competitive 
exclusion  which  needs  to  be  seen  as  a  sense- 
less ecological  pressure  is  that  of  the  mecha- 
nized mobility  of  this  generation.  This  is  ex- 
hilarating, but  it  allows  one  species  to  disrupt 
the  existence  of  all  other  species  as  never  be- 
fore. Its  unfavorable  effects  are  another  result 
of  uneducated  affluence.  This  effect  may,  of 
course,  be  constrained  within  a  decade  or  so 
by  the  energy  shortage. 

At  a  La  Jolla  seminar  on  endangered  spe- 
cies, Lovejoy  (1978)  outlined  the  scientific 
needs  of  late  twentieth-century  conservation. 
He  called  for  species  research  to  identify 
minimum  habitat  requirements,  for  island 
biogeography-type  studies  to  identify  species 
maintenance  needs  as  against  individual 
needs,  and  for  ecosystem  research.  Lovejoy 
also  called  for  a  new  conservation  anthropol- 
ogy focused  on  the  study  of  human  attitudes 
and  values,  but  leaving  out  the  needs  of  the 
Third  World,  important  as  he  knew  these  to 
be.  He  asked  that  this  new  field  of  study  in- 
quire into  the  biology  of  our  own  species,  so 
that  we  may  learn  what  has  led  us  to  take 
such  an  adversary  stance  toward  the  environ- 
ment. 

As  already  suggested,  much  as  I  would  val- 
ue more  biological  knowledge  of  ourselves 
and  other  species,  this  will  not  suffice  to  re- 
duce the  rate  of  extermination  which  is  now 
underway.  We  need  a  conservation  anthro- 
pology but  it  must  be  a  much  broader  inquiry 
than  attitudinal  res-earch;  it  must  investigate 
our  world  view,  which  is  the  way  people 
"characteristically    look    outward   upon    the 


universe."  This  calls  for  an  investigation  of 
our  culture,  because  culture  is  the  sum  of  our 
ideas  about  ourselves,  our  environment,  and 
the  social  institutions  we  have  devised  to  get 
things  done. 

Anthropologists  (Hall  1977)  tell  us  that  we 
cannot  understand  our  own  culture  by  self- 
examination  or  introspection,  but  only  by 
comparing  the  approaches  of  other  cultures. 
Other  cultures  furnish  us  a  necessary  point  of 
reference.  Therefore,  rather  than  the  psy- 
chologist, it  is  the  historian,  studying  older 
cultures,  and  the  anthropologist  and  the  ge- 
ographer, systematically  studying  existing 
cultures,  who  are  our  best  guides  to  under- 
standing ourselves  and  our  neighbors.  They 
can  help  us  unravel  the  social  psychoses  that 
cause  us  to  undermine  our  own  existence 
through  internecine  struggles  and  the  impov- 
erishment of  the  biosphere.  How  ironic  that 
we  have  heretofore  been  so  heedless  of  the 
survival  of  other  cultures.  We  need  one  an- 
other, if  only  for  dead-reckoning  purposes! 
Will  it  turn  out  to  be  the  same  with  those 
other  nations,  the  wild  species? 

Our  own  culture,  a  variant  of  Western  civ- 
ilization, is  now  old  enough  to  be  viewed 
somewhat  objectively  by  mature  historians. 
Ordinary  citizens  cannot  yet  do  this  because 
they  have  internalized  culture  and  are  not 
yet  scholarly  enough.  But  they  can  be  taught. 
Two  of  the  most  intriguing  historians  of  our 
day  who  may  serve  as  models  and  teachers 
are  Fernand  Braudel  (1978),  the  Frenchman 
who  is  the  authority  on  the  growth  of  civ- 
ilization in  the  Mediterranean  basin,  and  Im- 
manuel  Wallerstein  (1974),  who  is  engaged 
on  a  three-volume  study  of  the  modern  world 
system  which  is  our  economic  system. 

The  particular  importance  of  Wallerstein 
for  our  theme  is  that  he  has  disaggregated  the 
modern  world  system.  We  are  all  familiar 
with  the  fact  that  the  nations  of  the  world 
normally  include  one  or  a  few  dominants,  but 
Wallerstein  is  convincing  in  demonstrating 
that  this  is  an  interdependent  system,  where- 
in a  small  group  of  core  nations  system- 
atically exploit  a  larger  group  of  peripheral 
nations.  The  danger  is  that  the  core  nations 
build  up  such  a  high  life-style  by  exploiting 
the  peripheral  nations  that  they  become  de- 
pendent on  this  unbalanced  system  of  ex- 
changes. It  is  noteworthy  that  it  is  this  sub- 


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The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


13 


sidized  well-being  that  allows  the  core 
nations  to  enjoy  the  internal  political  free- 
dom they  boast  about  and  mistakenly  see  as 
the  cause  of  their  well-being  instead  of  a  by- 
product. The  peripheral  nations,  conversely, 
must  impose  some  form  of  coerced  labor  to 
extract  the  raw  materials  for  export,  while 
consumption  at  home  is  constrained.  Eco- 
nomic development  for  the  core  nations  is 
maintained  by  underdevelopment  of  the  per- 
ipheral nations.  This  is  a  large  part  of  the 
Third  World  problem. 

History  also  teaches  that  dominance  in  this 
system  is  a  shifting  phenomenon.  Spain  was 
the  first  leader,  but  for  less  than  a  century. 
The  British  enjoyed  dominance  for  a  very 
long  time,  but  lost  it  to  the  United  States  dur- 
ing World  War  II.  There  are  many  signs  that 
the  dominance  of  the  United  States  may  not 
be  longer  lived  than  Spain's  unless  we  be- 
come more  appreciative  of  the  relationships 
involved  and  modify  the  system  to  remove  its 
worst  inequities. 

In  any  event,  because  the  most  worrisome 
threats  of  extinction  are  focused  in  the 
world's  tropical  regions,  and  these  areas  are 
all  peripheral  nations  in  the  world  economic 
system,  it  is  obvious  that  we  must  look  to  the 
exploitive  life-styles  of  the  core  nations  if  we 
are  to  introduce  a  more  rational  balance  be- 
tween numbers  of  people,  their  material  de- 
mands, and  the  carrying  capacity  of  the  re- 
gions involved.  It  is  the  mass-consumption 
society  that  has  the  most  "give"  in  it.  A  first 
task  in  this  monumental  transition  may  be  to 
analyze  and  display  those  ecologically  sense- 
less agencies  in  our  culture  that  have  provid- 
ed the  compulsive  drive  to  exploit  the  planet 
as  though  it  were  a  midden  heap.  People 
must  be  shown  that  their  culture  has  become 
counterproductive  before  they  can  be  ex- 
pected to  make  the  necessary  changes. 

In  addressing  the  particular  problems  of 
the  Neotropics,  we  will  benefit  from  Brazi- 
lian anthropologist  Darcy  Ribeiro's  (1971) 
analysis  of  our  Western  Hemisphere  system. 
The  cultural  complexity  of  the  hemisphere  is 
highlighted  by  Ribeiro's  need  to  recognize 
three  categories  of  people.  First  are  the  Wit- 
ness People,  the  descendants  of  earlier  native 
civilizations  that  were  crushed  by  the  Span- 
ish invaders.  These  are  the  Aztecs  of  Mexico, 
the  Maya  of  Guatemala  and  environs,  and  the 


Incas  of  Peru  and  Bolivia.  These  people  com- 
prise a  large  but  marginalized  component  of 
the  modern-day  populations  of  their  new 
countries.  A  second  group  is  that  of  the  New 
People,  where  the  European  colonists 
amalgamated  lesser  tribes,  including  im- 
ported African  slaves,  and  thereby  created  a 
new  mixed  human  stock.  Such  an  amalgam  is 
characteristic  of  Brazil  in  particular,  and  of 
Venezuela,  Colombia,  Chile,  the  Antilles, 
southern  Central  America,  and  the  southern 
United  States. 

Finally,  there  are  two  groups  of  Trans- 
planted People,  New  World  Europeans  so-to- 
speak,  who  simply  pushed  native  peoples 
aside  on  first  conquering  their  areas.  These 
are  the  Anglo-Americans  of  Canada  and  the 
United  States;  and  the  River  Plate  people  of 
Argentina,  Uruguay,  and  Paraguay.  Notice 
that  these  two  groups  occupy  the  temperate 
zones  of  our  hemisphere.  We  are  still,  in 
many  respects,  a  bunch  of  tribes,  but  we  are 
tied  together  by  an  economic  system  whose 
exploitiveness  has  become  unbearable  for 
two-thirds  of  the  world  population  newly  en- 
lightened about  their  true  status  by  American 
movies,  radio,  and  television. 

Let  me  be  more  specific  by  calling  atten- 
tion to  recent  studies  of  what  is  happening  in 
Central  America.  In  what  is  unfortunately  a 
somewhat  obscure  publication  for  many  of 
us,  Berkeley  geographer  James  J.  Parsons 
(1976)  reported  that  the  expansion  of  arti- 
ficial pastures  in  Central  America  at  the  ex- 
pense of  both  cropland  and  natural  forest  is  a 
regional  phenomenon  with  drastic,  over- 
looked consequences.  In  most  of  this  region 
in  the  15  years  prior  to  Parson's  report,  the 
area  in  planted  pasture  (mostly  in  African 
grasses)  and  the  number  of  beef  cattle  had 
nearly  doubled.  But  the  per-capita  con- 
sumption of  beef  in  those  same  countries  had 
actually  declined,  because  most  of  this  pro- 
duction was  for  export.  This  expansion  of 
cattle  raising  was  done  at  the  expense  of  the 
Indians  and  mestizos  who  formerly  raised 
corn  for  themselves  on  these  marginal  lands. 
Dispossessed  by  the  cattlemen,  these  people 
have  either  migrated  to  the  cities  or  have 
gone  to  the  forest  frontier  to  engage  in  shift- 
ing cultivation  by  cutting  the  forest.  Within  a 
few  years,  of  course,  the  colonists  find  it  nec- 
essary to  abandon  their  plots  and  to  cut  new 


14 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


forest,  mostly  because  weeds  become  more 
expensive  to  fight  than  cutting  forest.  The 
cattleman  then  moves  in  behind  them,  rents 
the  abandoned  acreage  for  a  pittance,  and 
plants  it  to  grass.  The  peasants  have  not  only 
been  dispossessed,  but  they  have  become  a 
free  labor  supply  for  cutting  the  forest. 

Although  lauded  as  progressive  and  mod- 
ernizing by  local  and  national  governments 
and  bv  international  agencies  like  AID  and 
FAO,  it  is  this  system  of  land  use  which  has 
become  the  chief  cause  of  tropical  forest  de- 
struction in  the  neotropics.  It  is,  of  course, 
also  impoverishing  already  marginalized  hu- 
man populations.  We  have  all  known  for 
years  that  the  pressure  of  so-called  land 
squatters,  with  machetes  and  fire,  were  a 
serious  threat  to  any  forest  preserve  in  Latin 
America,  but  Parsons  and  a  few  young  an- 
thropologists were  the  first  to  show  that  this 
destruction  is  the  end  product  of  a  wide- 
spread economic  system  anchored  in  the 
hamburger  culture  of  the  United  States.  The 
U.S.  link  has  not  yet  been  spelled  out  in  de- 
tail, but  it  seems  obvious.  The  dire  effects  of 
this  extensive  land  use  shift  of  the  last  20 
years  or  so  on  the  Indians  of  Chiapas  are  now 
being  documented  by  Robert  Wasserstrom 
(1977,  1978),  James  D.  Nations  (1979),  and 
their  colleagvies  who  worked,  until  recently, 
as  the  Centro  de  Investigaciones  Ecologicas 
del  Sureste  (CIES)  in  San  Cristobal  de  Las 
Casas. 

It  is  time  to  suggest  that  the  environmental 
awareness  that  has  come  to  so  many  in  this 
decade  of  the  seventies  is  akin  to  a  religious 
revelation.  Having  become  aware  that  our 
economic  system  is  parasitic  on  both  nature 
and  people,  we  are  now  challenged  to  redes- 
ign our  world  view  in  line  with  a  more  con- 
sistent vision  of  the  joint  realities  of  our  lives: 
the  environmental,  which  is  the  substrate  of 
our  existence;  and  the  social,  which  is  a  mea- 
sure of  our  humanity  in  making  intelligent, 
perhaps  even  enobling  use  of  our  opportu- 
nities. This  calls  for  a  reassessment  of  our  sci- 
ence and  technology,  our  values,  and  even 
our  unstated,  unexamined  theological  as- 
sumptions, since  willy-nilly,  we  have  some 
vague  concept  of  the  destiny  of  mankind. 
Obviously  it  must  be  a  joint  venture,  and  it 
will  take  time,  but  each  of  us  can  help  by 


engaging  in  some  fraction  of  the  task  and  by 
involving  others. 

We  are  likely  to  discover  in  that  process  of 
review  that  the  principal  assiunptions  of  our 
Western  civilization— homocentricity,  ration- 
ality, technocracy,  and  progress— have  be- 
come an  embarrassing  myth.  We  have  ido- 
lized our  own  creations  instead  of  simply 
appreciating  them  as  events  in  our  history  as 
developing  organisms.  Having  demytholo- 
gized  nature  and  his  origins,  modern  man 
himself  now  stands  in  need  of  demythologiz- 
ing! 

Ecology  has  taught  us  that  we  are  involved 
in  systems  within  systems,  and  that  we  both 
impact  and  are  impacted  by  these  systems. 
But  scientific  reductionism,  useful  though  it 
may  be  as  methodology,  has  become  a  dan- 
gerous, unwitting  philosophy.  It  seems  likely 
that  a  great  deal  of  that  sense  of  relationship 
to  the  environment  which  we  lack,  but  which 
the  ancients  had,  is  due  to  the  specialism  and 
incrementalism  encouraged  by  reductionism. 
This  has,  of  course,  also  affected  our  educa- 
tional approaches  and  made  for  a  hasty  em- 
phasis on  specialization  for  the  sake  of  pre- 
paring practitioners.  Education  should 
involve  helping  people  see  whole  systems  be- 
fore training  them  to  analyze  and  manipulate 
the  elements  of  these  systems. 

However,  to  invent  a  new  outlook  is  not  to 
destroy  the  old,  but  to  give  it  a  new  form,  a 
new  emphasis,  a  new  reach.  Jay  Forrester 
(1978),  who  prepared  the  way  for  the  Limits 
to  Growth  debate,  has  now  suggested  that  we 
have  perhaps  already  been  through  the  tech- 
nological age.  This  does  not  mean  that  we 
are  through  with  technology,  but  that  the  age 
which  is  dawning  will  not  be  awed  by  tech- 
nology and  will  use  it  in  the  service  of  all 
men  instead  of  as  an  end  in  itself  and  for  a 
relative  few. 

It  seems  obvious  that,  if  we  are  to  save  the 
million  or  so  species  we  fear  may  be  lost 
along  with  the  destruction  of  the  tropical  for- 
ests of  the  world,  we  must  open  our  system  of 
inventive  production  to  that  two-thirds  of  the 
human  race  which  was  marginalized  during 
the  mad  rush  for  domination.  The  margina- 
lized people  will  otherwise  be  forced  to  chew 
up  the  forest  in  a  frantic  effort  to  survive. 

But  the  earth  cannot  support  its  present 
overload  of  humans  at  a  standard  of  living  we 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


15 


would  like.  The  first  step  must  therefore  be 
to  eliminate  waste  in  order  to  make  our  re- 
sources satisfy  more  people;  then  to  tailor 
our  demands  to  more  modest  proportions; 
and  finally  to  adjust  our  numbers  to  a  new 
sustained  yield  economy  instead  of  the  pres- 
ent liquidation  of  resources  that  passes  for 
production.  Done  in  stepwise  fashion,  we  will 
be  pleased  to  see  that  efficiency  and  frugality 
do  not  hurt. 

We  can  draw  inspiration  from  the  process 
philosophy  of  A.  N.  Whitehead  (1933)  of  a 
half  century  ago,  and  from  the  new  interest 
in  the  implications  of  historical  con- 
sciousness. Whitehead's  cosmology  is  summa- 
rized in  the  thesis  that  "the  ultimate  and  fim- 
damental  reality  of  the  universe  is  a  multiple 
and  never  ending  complex  of  processes  devel- 
oping out  of  one  another."  This  is  both  a  sci- 
entific and  a  metaphysical  statement  of  fact. 
To  think  in  process  terms  is  to  acknowledge 
our  dependence  on  the  systems  that  produce 
us  and  our  responsibility  to  contribute,  in- 
sofar as  we  can,  to  the  advancement  of  these 
processes  instead  of  destroying  them  for  tem- 
porary self-satisfaction.  The  way  of  historical 
consiousness  (Stevenson  1969)  is  a  restate- 
ment of  the  same  concept:  that  when  the 
reality  of  existence,  and  we  ourselves,  are  un- 
derstood as  historical,  we  become  aware  of  a 
responsibility  to  and  for  history.  In  both  cases 
the  appeal  is  not  to  morality  as  injunction, 
but  to  participation  in  a  process. 

The  theologian  Paul  Tillich  once  said  that 
the  salvation  of  man  and  nature  are  one  and 
the  same  task.  More  recently  the  anthropo- 
logist Edward  T.  Hall  said  that  the  popu- 
lation-environment crisis  and  the  crisis  of 
relationship  to  self  must  be  solved  together. 
It  seems  to  me  we  have  enough  testimony  to 
get  started  on  the  reconstruction  of  our  cul- 
ture. 

Postscript 

A  frequent  response  to  the  approach  taken 
in  this  paper  is  that  it  is  too  optimistic,  as 
though  I  expected  things  to  right  themselves 
as  soon  as  awareness  is  more  widespread.  It  is 
also  objected  that  "education"  takes  too  long. 

But  education  is  not  restricted  to  that  long 
sequence  of  school  attendance  we  currently 
impose  on  our  young.  It  may  also  affect  those 


in  control  of  our  social  systems,  and,  through 
them,  all  those  in  between.  A  culture  does 
not  change  until  all  the  people  in  it  also 
change.  There  is  no  telling  how  long  this  will 
take,  but  a  crisis  or  unusual  leadership  may 
make  it  happen  rather  suddenly. 

The  destructive  portend  of  current  prac- 
tices has  caused  British  astronomer  Fred 
Hoyle  (1977)  to  suggest  that  the  salvation  of 
the  human  race  may  depend  on  an  early  col- 
lapse of  our  economic  system.  He  sees  two 
likely  options  for  a  high-technology  society 
like  ours:  (1)  if  an  essentially  unlimited  source 
of  energy  were  perfected  before  the  human 
race  agrees  to  limit  its  population  and  subsist 
by  less  destructive  life  styles,  a  collapse  lead- 
ing even  to  extinction  is  likely.  If,  on  the  oth- 
er hand  (2)  an  early  economic  collapse  causes 
us  to  come  to  terms  with  ourselves,  and  we 
limit  population  everywhere,  the  consequent 
rebirth  of  invention,  if  it  then  provides  ample 
energy  supplies,  may  allow  the  human  race 
to  rise  to  new  heights  that  are  hardly  imagi- 
nable at  present. 


Questions  to  Dr.  Clement 

Q.  How  can  we  show  people  that  their  culture  has  be- 
come counterproductive  and  needs  to  be  changed? 

A.  Let  me  first  make  the  point  that  cultures  don't 
change  until  almost  everybody  changes.  It  is  an 
educational  process,  and  scientists  will  need  to  help 
by  pointing  out  the  implications  of  what  ecology  is 
teaching  us;  that  way  we  will  revamp  our  education- 
al system.  If  the  people  don't  understand  that  they 
partake  of  larger  systems,  they  will  continue  the 
short-sighted  exploitation  which  has  characterized 
our  civilization.  We  always  begin  by  accepting  the 
cultural  systems  we  are  born  into.  And  it  was  a 
great,  exciting,  and  in  one  sense  enlarging  expe- 
rience to  be  caught  up  in  this  wave  of  exploitation. 
But  now  the  very  system  of  exploitation  is  in  ques- 
tion, so  we  must  help  people  understand  that  we  are 
not  proposing  a  Marxist  revolution  but  a  revamping 
of  our  system  before  it  breaks  down.  There  are  abun- 
dant signs  that  the  breakdown  is  already  underway. 

Q.  Will  we  succeed  in  revamping  our  civilization  to 
prevent  the  extinctions  you  and  Lovejoy  are  so  con- 
cerned about? 

A.  Let  me  take  a  different  tack.  Education  usually  takes 
a  generation,  but  it  may  come  quickly  if  a  crisis  oc- 
curs and  our  leaders  can  point  out  new  directions; 
the  people  may  then  ttim  around  almost  overnight. 
One  reason  I'm  optimistic  about  the  future  is  that 
our  system  is  so  close  to  its  end  that  we  will  not 
achieve  the  growth  projections  in  which  the  business 
world  believes.  We  are  already  so  deadended  in  so 
many  areas  that  if  we  don't  wake  up  to  our  problems 


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in  a  decade  or  so,  we'll  be  squeezed  down  to  size.  It 
would  take  another  lecture  to  develop  this  point, 
but  the  petroleum  problem  is  a  good  clue.  We  have 
a  naive  faith  that  all  we  need  do  is  invest  more  in 
production  at  home  to  get  more  energy.  Of  course 
we  can  do  this,  but  only  at  increasing  cost.  Every 
million  feet  of  new  oil  well  costs  more  than  it  did 
yesterday,  both  in  dollars  sunk  and  in  diminished  re- 
turn. And  the  more  we  pump,  the  quicker  we  will 
run  out.  This  is  what  needs  to  be  made  obvious  to 
the  people.  We  currently  buy  the  surpluses  of  the 
Middle  East  because  these  are  the  cheapest  ones. 
Even  American  agriculture  will  have  to  be  turned 
around  because  of  the  energy  crisis. 

Q.  You  talked  about  marginalized  people  in  Latin 
America,  but  are  there  not  marginalized  people  in 
the  U.S.  who  will  get  caught  in  this  crossfire? 

A.  There  are  many  other  marginalized  people— the 
blacks,  the  hispanics,  and  the  Amerindians  at  home, 
and  the  people  of  Asia  and  Africa.  Reassimilating 
these  people  into  the  world  economic  system  will 
not  be  done  overnight,  but  if  we  at  least  accept  this 
as  a  challenge  and  work  at  it,  we  will  soften  the  im- 
pacts. 

Q.  What  kind  of  progress  is  Canada  making  toward  be- 
coming a  conservationist  society? 

A.  I'm  afraid  they  are  not  making  much.  The  Cana- 
dians are  making  all  the  same  mistakes  in  exploiting 
their  energy  resources  that  we  have  made.  This  is 
not  surprising  because  Canadians  are  a  marginalized 
people  too;  they  are  exploited  by  the  United  States. 

Q.  You  spoke  of  the  need  to  educate  the  public  to  the 
fact  that  our  system  has  serious  problems;  you  also 
said  that  we  must  convince  people  that  they  will 
need  to  get  by  on  a  smaller  piece  of  the  resource  pie. 
How  can  you  really  expect  this  to  work?  Won't  some 
economic  penalty  be  necessary?  People  usually 
change  when  they  see  a  personal  payoff  of  some 
kind. 

A.  Well,  yes,  but  you  are  opening  up  another  area 
which  cannot  be  addressed  with  a  simple  answer. 
There  are  no  simple  answers.  In  a  democratic  so- 
ciety we  must  seek  to  persuade  rather  than  impose. 
But  if  time  runs  out  we  face  a  dilemma.  Within  a 
decade  or  so  we  will  probably  truly  be  in  an  energy 
crunch,  and  we  will  then  learn  that  volimtary  ap- 
proaches to  the  conservation  of  energy  are  not 
enough;  they  put  the  good  guys  at  the  mercy  of  the 
cheaters.  When  that  time  comes,  it  is  hoped  some- 
one will  have  the  persuasive  skills  to  put  this  over.  If 
we  don't  accept  this,  we'll  have  to  fight  over  it;  and 
if  we  do  that  we're  in  real  trouble. 

Q.  Isn't  that  happening  now?  This  audience  is  aware  of 
many  of  these  problems,  but  we  also  have  large  cor- 
porations with  lots  of  money  advertising  in  national 
magazines  and  on  television,  saying:  "Don't  worry. 
Buy  your  gas  dryers  and  gas  stoves.  We'll  have  gas 
for  as  long  as  we  need  it." 

A.  Exactly.  We  already  have  a  conflict  of  approaches.  \ 
large  section  of  the  economic  community  actually 
still  believes  that  resource  "production"  is  simply  a 
matter  of  investment.  Look  at  the  ads  nm  by  Mobil 
Corporation,  "The  Capitalist  Revolution."  They  say, 
just  get  the  government  off  our  backs  and  everything 
will  be  all  right.  They  seem  ignorant  of  the  fact  that 


they  are  liquidating  the  resources.  Of  course,  if  you 
don't  care  about  the  future,  that's  another  matter. 

Q.  Isn't  it  correct  that  increasing  the  price  of,  say,  pe- 
troleum may  not  solve  problems  of  exhaustion  and 
inflation? 

A.  Yes,  but  price  is  important.  If  we  can  make  people 
pay  the  full  social  costs  of  what  they  wish  to  do, 
they  must  then  decide  what  they  most  wish  to  do  in- 
stead of  greedily  trying  to  do  everything,  or  con- 
suming everything.  If  we  have  artificial  price  struc- 
tures, the  public  is  misled.  Industry  agrees  with  this 
view.  The  question  is  who  will  get  the  price  in- 
crease? It  should  be  a  tax  that  we  can  use  for  con- 
stnictive  uses— in  the  case  of  energy,  to  rebuild  a 
mass  transit  system  where  the  people  are. 

Let  me  now  add  that  I'm  delighted  at  the  re- 
sponse you  provided  because  a  large  part  of  the  an- 
swer to  this  big  problem  is  people  like  you  tackling 
questions  energetically  and  in  an  open  fashion.  We 
must  then  try  to  involve  more  people  in  our  tenta- 
tive conclusions.  If  we  don't,  our  troubles  won't  go 
away. 


Literature  Cited 

Braudel,  F.  1978.  Afterthoughts  on  material  civilization 
and  capitalism.  Johns  Hopkins. 

Burger,  J.  M.  1965.  Experience  and  conceptual  activity. 
MIT  Press. 

Forrester,  J.  W.  1978.  Changing  economic  patterns. 
Technology  Review,  Aug. /Sept. 

Hall,  E.  T.  1977.  Beyond  culture.  Anchor  Books. 

Hoyle,  F.  1977.  Everyman's  universe.  In:  Ten  faces  of 
the  universe.  W.  H.  Freeman  and  Co.,  San  Fran- 
cisco. 

LovEjoY,  T.  E.  1978.  Late  twentieth-century  con- 
servation: the  science  of  a  simplifying  biosphere. 
First  International  Conference  of  Reserve  in 
Conservation  Biology,  Univ.  California,  San 
Diego. 

Nations,  J.  D.  1979.  Cattle,  cash,  food,  and  forest:  the 
destruction  of  the  American  tropics  and  the  La- 
candon  Maya  alternative.  Culture  and  Agricul- 
ture, Univ.  California,  Davis  (in  press). 

Parsons,  J.  J.  1976.  Forest  to  pasture:  development  or 
destruction?  Revista  de  Biologia  Tropical,  Costa 
Rica.  24(1):  121-138. 

RiBEiRO,  D.  1971.  The  Americas  and  civilization.  Geo. 
Allen  &  Unwin,  Ltd.,  London  (translated  from 
Portuguese). 

Stevenson,  W.  T.  1969.  History  as  myth/  the  import  for 
contemporary  theology.  Seabury  Press,  new  York. 

Wallerstein,  I.  1974.  The  modern  world-system:  capi- 
talist agriculture  and  the  origins  of  the  European 
world-economy  in  the  sixteenth  century.  Aca- 
demic Press,  New  York. 

Wasserstrom,  R.  F.  1977.  Land  and  labor  in  central 
Chiapas:  a  regional  analysis.  Development  and 
Change.  4:441-46.3. 

1978.  Population  growth  and  economic  devel- 
opment in  Chiapas,  1524-1975.  Human  Ecology. 
6:127-144. 

Whitehead,  A.  N.  1933  (1955).  Adventures  of  ideas. 
Mentor  Books. 


PERSPECTIVE 

John  L.  Spiiiks' 

Abstract.—  The  fact  that  mankind  has  desecrated  much  of  the  natural  world  is  recognized.  The  rate  of  plant  and 
animal  extinction  has  increased  in  North  America  from  an  estimated  3  species  per  century  3,000  years  ago  to  an 
average  of  143  per  century  since  1620.  Endangered  species  protection  began  in  the  Fish  and  Wildlife  Service  in  19.38 
with  the  purpose  of  the  Aransas  National  Wildlife  Refuge  for  the  whooping  crane.  A  committee  on  rare  and  endan- 
gered species  was  formed  in  1962  by  the  director  of  the  Fish  and  Wildlife  Service  and  a  tentative  list  was  published 
in  1964.  The  Endangered  Species  Acts  of  1966,  1969,  and  1973,  together  with  subsequent  amendments,  provide  the 
legislative  authority  for  the  present  program.  The  intent  of  Congress,  through  this  legislative  authority,  is  to  avoid 
irreversible  or  irretrievable  commitments  of  resources  by  identifying  problems  of  environmental  impact  projects 
early  in  the  planning  stage.  Examples  in  the  step-by-step  development  of  the  legislation  and  its  operation  were  re- 
viewed. 


I  certainly  sympathize  with  the  difficulty 
that  Tom  Lovejoy  and  Roland  Clement  had 
with  their  presentations  prior  to  mine,  but 
with  all  due  respect  I  think  perspectives  are 
a  bit  difficult  to  address.  Perspectives  are 
very  individualistic  things  held  certainly  very 
precious  to  those  individuals  who  have  them. 
When  organizations  or  groups  have  a  similar 
perspective  on  something,  they're  often  in- 
stitutionalized. I  would  not  be  so  presump- 
tive as  to  try  to  imply  that  the  Fish  and 
Wildlife  Service  collectively  or  myself  indi- 
vidually has  the  only  perspective  on  endan- 
gered .species  and  endangered  species  pro- 
grams. All  we  can  do  is  hope  that  a  general 
public  interest  and  a  realistic  perspective  can 
be  gained  by  all  of  those  who  may  affect  or 
be  affected  by  our  administering  the  Endan- 
gered Species  Act  of  1973  as  amended. 

To  have  any  perspective  I  think  you  must 
have  a  little  historical  sense  as  to  how  we  got 
here  from  there.  Then  I  want  to  get  into  the 
nitty-gritty  things  that  are  not  so  much  per- 
spective as  they  are  pragmatic  problems 
we're  going  to  have  in  administering  the 
1978  amendments.  We  do  not  have  all  the 
answers  to  a  number  of  rather  weighty  ques- 
tions presented  by  tho.se  amendments,  but  I 
would  like  you  to  leave  here  today  with  at 
least  as  much  knowledge  as  we  have  as  to 
how  we're  going  to  proceed. 

The  fact  that  we  have  desecrated  much  of 
the  natural  world  is  almost  given  at  this 


point.  There  have  been  various  ways  to  quan- 
tify this.  Nobody  is  sure  what  the  quan- 
tification means.  We  are  not  exact  in  saying 
that  it  means  a  certain  loss  to  us  by  having 
made  a  given  species  extinct.  At  least  we  do 
know  what  happened  here  in  North  America. 
In  the  3,000-year  period  prior  to  our  arrival, 
the  natural  extinction  rate  was  about  3  spe- 
cies per  100  years.  Since  the  Puritans  arrived 
at  Plymouth  Rock  in  1620,  over  500  species 
and  subspecies  of  North  American  flora  and 
fauna  have  become  extinct.  Norman  Myers 
expresses  the  impact  we  have  had  on  re- 
sources, on  species  and  subspecies  in  an  ex- 
cellent statement,  condensing  earth's  exist- 
ence down  to  one  calendar  year,  as  follows: 

To  condense  the  evolution  of  life  on  earth  into  a  more 
comprehensible  frame  of  reference,  suppose  the  whole 
history  of  the  planet  is  contained  within  a  single  year. 
The  conditions  suitable  for  life  did  not  develop  until  late 
June.  The  oldest  known  fossils  are  living  creatures  about 
mid-October  and  life  is  abundant  for  both  animals  and 
plants,  mostly  in  the  seas,  by  the  end  of  that  month.  In 
mid-December  dinosaurs  and  other  reptiles  dominate 
the  scene.  Mammals  appear  in  large  numbers  only  a 
little  before  Christmas.  On  New  Year's  Eve  at  about  five 
minutes  to  midnight,  man  emerges.  Of  these  five  min- 
utes of  man's  existence,  recorded  history  represents 
about  the  time  the  clock  takes  to  strike  midnight. 

The  period  since  1600  A.D.,  the  one  refer- 
enced earlier,  when  man-induced  extinction 
began  to  increase  rapidly,  amounts  to  about 
three  seconds.  The  quarter-century  just  be- 
gun, when  the  disappearance  of  species  is  put 
on  the  scale  of  all  the  mass  extinctions  of  the 


'Chief,  Office  of  Endangered  Spec.es,  U.S.  Fish  and  WildUfe  Service,  Washington.  D.C.  20240. 


17 


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No.  3 


past  put  together,  will  take  one-sixth  of  a  sec- 
ond. So  the  process  by  which  species  have 
become  extinct  has  been  incredibly  accelera- 
ted by  the  impact  of  man. 

We  have  classic  cases  here  in  North  Amer- 
ica, such  as  the  passenger  pigeon,  which  once 
numbered  in  the  billions  and  became  extinct 
in  1914.  It  is  very  difficult  to  say  what  the  re- 
action of  the  people  who  lived  in  that  time 
might  have  been  as  these  species  went  by  the 
boards.  There  were  certainly  some  who  were 
economically  sensitive  of  the  loss.  Passenger 
pigeons  made  great  feed  for  hogs.  They  could 
be  caught  on  their  roost  and  killed  by  the 
barrel  loads  with  sticks,  so  there  was  some  re- 
action, but  it  was  not  really  a  societal  at- 
tempt, with  money  behind  the  movement,  to 
do  something  about  endangered  species.  It 
was  not  until  the  1930s,  when  the  1932  Ani- 
mal Damage  Control  Act  was  passed  by  Con- 
gress (which  is  still  in  the  operative  legisla- 
tion, incidentally,  for  federal  activities  in  ani- 
mal damage  control),  that  there  was  a  hue 
and  cry  from  the  Society  of  Mammalogists 
about  consequences  to  vulnerable  species. 
Dr.  E.  Raymond  Hall  still  remembers  vividly 
his  concern  as  a  young  man  for  what  had 
happened  to  the  gray  wolf,  and  he  did  not 
like  the  future  prospects. 

The  Fish  and  Wildlife  Service  really  began 
"endangered  species"  protection,  in  terms  of 
major  fiscal  outlays,  in  1938  with  the  pur- 
chase of  the  Aransas  National  Wildlife  Ref- 
uge for  Whooping  Cranes.  The  cranes  at  that 
time  had  reached  a  low  of  14  birds  and  were 
in  a  very  critical  situation.  The  service  con- 
tinued to  work  on  whooping  cranes,  and  in 
1956  a  coordinating  committee  was  estab- 
lished between  the  service  and  representa- 
tives of  the  National  Audubon  Society  to  see 
what  could  be  done  about  a  concentrated  ef- 
fort to  save  the  whooping  crane.  Since  then 
progress  has  moved  steadily  in  terms  of  sensi- 
tivity and  concern  for  vanishing  animals,  but 
I  would  emphasize  that  the  early  concern 
was  more  for  animals  and  more  specifically 
mammals  and  birds  than  any  consideration  of 
lesser  lifeforms.  If  it  had  big  brown  eyes  and 
was  cuddly  or  in  some  way  looked  noble, 
then  folks  had  an  increased  tendency  to  love 
it  and  be  concerned  if  it  was  disappearing. 
Skuas  and  invertebrates  really  didn't  turn 
folks  on  too  much  then  and,  as  a  matter  of 


fact,  they  don't  turn  folks  on  very  much  now. 
That's  another  story. 

In  1962,  a  committee  on  rare  and  endan- 
gered wildlife  species,  composed  of  the  vari- 
ous divisions  of  the  Fish  and  Wildlife  Service, 
was  formed  by  the  director  to  begin  wres- 
tling with  the  problem  of  what  should  be 
done  with  these  critters  for  which  we  should 
be  responsible.  By  January  1964,  a  tentative 
list  of  endangered  species  was  put  together 
by  the  service  and  circulated  for  review,  and 
this  resulted  in  1966  as  "the  red  book,"  the 
good  old  red  book  you  may  have  seen  in  your 
libraries  on  native,  rare,  and  endangered  spe- 
cies. 

Perspectives.  How  did  we  get  from  the  last 
passenger  pigeon  in  1914  to  a  federal  action 
in  the  late  1960s?  It's  difficult  to  say.  Endan- 
gered species  are  very  difficult  animals  to 
think  about  and  the  legislation  that  protects 
them  is  a  very  difficult  type  of  legislation  to 
understand.  I  think  one  perspective  that  folks 
have  on  the  Endangered  Species  Act  reminds 
me  of  Mark  Twain's  comment  on  the  Bible. 
He  said  that  he  didn't  understand  very  much 
of  it,  but  what  he  did  understand  scared  the 
hell  out  of  him.  In  many  respects  this  is 
where  we  have  been  with  endangered  species 
legislation.  The  first  Endangered  Species  Act 
of  1966  was  a  rather  innocuous  piece  of  legis- 
lation, in  all  honesty,  and  particularly  so 
when  compared  to  the  1973  act.  It  allowed 
us  to  list  native,  endangered  species  and  to 
acquire  land  with  Land  and  Water  Con- 
servation Fund  monies.  There  was  no  pro- 
cedural requirement  as  to  how  things  were 
put  on  the  list,  however,  and  it  didn't  do  a 
critter  a  lot  of  good  because  being  listed  af- 
forded no  protection  from  taking.  It  was, 
however,  a  first  fledgling  step  to  a  mean- 
ingful national  law  protecting  endangered 
species.  Also,  there  was  only  one  category,  an 
endangered  species,  and  an  endangered  spe- 
cies was  basically  a  basket  case,  something 
that  was  in  dire  straits.  Reference  was  made 
to  rare  species  in  the  red  books  published  in 
1966  and  1968  but  rare  species  were  not  in- 
cluded in  legislation.  In  1969,  a  second  en- 
dangered species  act  was  passed.  The  Endan- 
gered Species  Conservation  Act,  and  this  act 
went  a  bit  hirther  than  the  1966  act.  It  did 
broaden  the  definition  of  fish  and  wildlife  to 
include   moUusks  and  crustaceans,  a   rather 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


19 


large  step  forward  because,  heretofore,  pre- 
dominant concern  had  been  with  vertebrates, 
mostly  those  that  were  lovable.  The  Lacey 
Act  was  amended  to  allow  a  broader  degree 
of  enforcement  by  including  reptiles,  am- 
phibians, moUusks,  and  crustaceans.  Foreign 
species  could  be  listed  for  the  first  time  under 
the  1969  act.  A  very  important  international 
step  was  taken  by  the  1969  act  when  the  sec- 
retary of  the  interior  was  directed  to  seek  the 
convening  of  an  international  ministerial 
meeting  before  30  June  1971,  at  which  would 
be  concluded  a  binding  international  conven- 
tion on  the  conservation  of  endangered  spe- 
cies. That  convention  took  place  and  is  now 
the  Convention  on  International  Trade  in 
Endangered  Species  or  Wild  Fauna  and 
Flora,  a  very  important  international  agree- 
ment to  which  some  46  countries  are  now 
parties.  Then  came  the  big  one,  the  Endan- 
gered Species  Act  of  1973,  which  President 
Nixon  signed  into  law  on  28  December.  The 
Endangered  Species  Act  of  1973  could  accu- 
rately be  described  as  a  "sleeper."  I  am  sure 
Congress  was  unaware  of  the  fviU  implica- 
tions of  its  provisions. 

Tellico  Dam  is  a  good  case  in  point.  Tell- 
ico  had  been  imder  litigation  from  local  citi- 
zens who  were  opposed  to  it  for  a  number  of 
years  before  the  snail  darter  swam  into  the 
picture.  Perhaps  Tellico  and  the  snail  darter 
could  be  likened  to  the  whale  who  swallowed 
Jonah  under  inverse  circumstances.  Jonah 
swallowed  the  whale  and  the  snail  darter 
seems  to  have  engulfed  Tellico  Dam.  After 
the  snail  darter  was  scientifically  described, 
an  emergency  rule  making  listed  the  species 
and  determined  its  critical  habitat.  We  were 
petitioned  to  do  so. 

The  federal  district  court  in  which  the  case 
was  first  tried  did  not  find  for  the  plaintiffs. 
In  addressing  the  issue  of  saving  either  Tell- 
ico Dam  or  the  snail  darter,  they  found  for 
the  Tennessee  Valley  Authority.  The  district 
court's  decision  was  appealed.  It  was  re- 
versed in  the  federal  appellant  court  and  ulti- 
mately came  before  the  U.S.  Supreme  Court. 
The  Supreme  Court  also  ruled  for  the  snail 
darter  but  not  in  the  true  context  of  that 
statement,  in  that  the  Supreme  Court  said, 
"Yes,  this  is  really  what  the  Endangered  Spe- 
cies Act  says.  This  is  what  Section  7  of  the 
Endangered  Species  Act  says."  It  says  that  all 


federal  agencies  shall  insure  that  actions  au- 
thorized, funded,  and  carried  out  by  them  do 
not  jeopardize  the  continued  existence  of  a 
threatened  or  endangered  species  or  adverse- 
ly modify  or  destroy  its  critical  habitat,  and 
that's  what  the  TVA's  actions  were  clearly 
going  to  do.  There  was  no  question  of  that 
being  the  ultimate  outcome  should  the  dam 
be  completed  and  the  gates  closed. 

The  ripple  that  reached  tidal  wave  propor- 
tions following  the  decision  could  perhaps  be 
characterized  as  the  "Chicken  Little  Syn- 
drome." Do  you  remember  Chicken  Little? 
Chicken  Little  was  out  in  the  barnyard  one 
day  when  an  acorn  dropped  on  his  head  and 
he  assumed  the  sky  was  falling.  Other  parties 
with  similar  federal  works  projects  saw  the 
acorn  fall  on  Tennessee  Valley  Authority's 
head  and  assumed  the  sky  was  going  to  fall. 
It  was  Chicken  Little  all  over  again.  There 
was  a  deep  concern  that  economic  progress, 
if  you  will,  inckiding  many  important  public 
works  projects,  would  be  halted  because  of 
endangered  or  threatened  species  being  pres- 
ent. 

We  felt  in  the  Fish  and  Wildlife  Service  at 
that  time,  and  we  still  do  to  this  day,  that  the 
concern  was  an  overconcern,  that  we  could 
find  no  justification  for  it.  The  service  had 
completed  some  5,000  formal  and  informal 
consultations  with  other  federal  agencies. 
Three  of  those  at  that  time  had  been  liti- 
gated. In  one  instance  involving  the  Indiana 
Bat  and  Merramac  Park  Lake,  the  court 
found  in  favor  of  the  U.S.  Army  Corps  of  En- 
gineers both  at  the  district  court  level  and 
the  appellant  court  level.  In  the  second  case 
involving  the  Mississippi  Sandhill  Crane  and 
Interstate  10,  the  court  did  find  for  the 
plaintiffs,  but  that  highway  has  since  been 
completed.  The  questionable  interchange  is 
going  in.  The  conflict  was  resolved  ulti- 
mately by  the  Fish  and  Wildlife  Service  and 
the  Federal  Highway  Administration  work- 
ing cooperatively,  so  we  could  have  our  cake 
and  eat  it,  too— or  have  our  cranes  and  their 
interchange,  too,  if  you  want  to  put  it  like 
that.  We  felt  there  was  a  degree  of  over- 
reaction  to  the  problems  that  were  going  to 
be  caused  by  Tellico.  We  thought  it  was  an 
anomaly.  It  was  not  typical  of  what  the  En- 
dangered Species  Act  was  going  to  do  in  the 
future.  Nevertheless,  a  number  of  individuals 


20 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


were  concerned  about  this,  and  a  number  of 
bills  were  put  before  Congress  to  address  the 
problem.  There  were  any  number  of  varia- 
tions on  these  bills,  including  specific  exemp- 
tions for  the  Tellico  Dam  and  for  another 
TVA  project  on  the  Duck  River.  Some  14  or 
15  bills  were  being  considered  by  Congress, 
some  introduced  in  the  House  of  Representa- 
tives, some  in  the  Senate. 

The  first  thing  that  happened,  in  terms  of 
action,  was  a  Senate  bill,  cosponsored  by  Sen- 
ator Culver  of  Iowa  and  Senator  Baker  from 
Tennessee.  This  bill  presented  a  mechanism 
by  which  an  appeal  could  be  made  and  a 
project  exempted  from  the  Endangered  Spe- 
cies Act.  A  focus  was  finally  made  in  the 
House  of  Representatives  on  a  bill  reported 
out  of  Mr.  Legget's  subcommittee  which  had 
that  provision  as  well  as  a  preliminary  review 
step  by  a  review  board.  The  outcome  of  all 
this  was  an  amendment  to  the  Endangered 
Species  Act  which  passed  Congress  in  the 
eleventh  hour  on  14  October,  just  before 
Congress  was  going  to  adjourn.  Unfortu- 
nately, our  appropriation  authority  to  admin- 
ister the  Endangered  Species  Act  had  expired 
at  midnight  on  30  September.  We  were  out 
of  business  for  two  weeks  because  we  had  no 
money  to  operate  the  program.  The  act  itself 
remained  in  effect,  the  prohibitions  of  the  act 
remained  in  effect,  and  our  obligations  to 
consult  remained  in  effect.  However,  we  had 
no  money  to  do  any  of  these  things.  President 
Carter  signed  that  bill  on  10  November  at 
10:00  p.m.  That  was  the  last  day  the  presi- 
dent had  to  sign  the  bill  before  it  was  pocket 
vetoed.  That  made  a  total  of  41  days  that  the 
Office  of  Endangered  Species,  indeed  the  en- 
dangered species  program,  was  out  of  busi- 
ness. 

We  are  now  back  in  business.  We're  dig- 
ging out  and  we're  trying  to  understand  the 
1978  amendments  to  the  Endangered  Species 
Act.  I  want  to  go  over  these  with  you  briefly. 
They  are  too  complex  to  focus  on  in  great  de- 
tail. Again  I  would  qualify  an  ultimate  con- 
sideration of  what  these  amendments  say  to 
the  extent  that,  until  we  have  a  firm  reading 
from  our  solicitor's  office  on  some  finer  inter- 
pretations of  the  intent  of  Congress,  we  are 
going  to  be  walking  a  tightrope  blindfolded 
at  times  to  try  to  administer  these  and  keep 


the  intent  of  Congress  uppermost  in  our 
minds. 

One  of  the  more  interesting  happenings 
was  a  redefinition  of  critical  habitat.  There 
had  been  no  definition  of  critical  habitat  in 
the  original  1973  act.  It  was  mentioned  in 
Section  7  of  that  act  and  it  was  defined  by 
regulation  by  the  Fish  and  Wildlife  Service 
in  the  Section  7  regulations.  The  new  defini- 
tion basically  confines  critical  habitat  to  the 
geographical  area  in  which  a  species  present- 
ly occurs.  It  does  make  allowance  for  consid- 
eration of  specific  areas  outside  the  geo- 
graphical area  where  the  species  is  found,  but 
only  if  these  areas  are  determined  to  be  es- 
sential for  conservation.  What  does  essential 
for  conservation  mean?  Conservation  is  de- 
fined in  one  place  in  the  act,  but  we  are  not 
sure  what  the  degree  of  essential  is. 

Another  important  happening  was  the  def- 
inition of  species.  Tom  Lovejoy  alluded  to 
the  lessening  of  protection  for  invertebrates 
and,  at  one  point,  in  one  earlier  bill  which 
was  not  enacted,  there  was  a  rather  glaring 
distinction  made  against  invertebrates— as  I 
recall,  something  to  the  effect  that  they 
could  not  have  critical  habitat  determined 
for  them.  That  was  changed  in  the  final  act. 
The  major  difference  made  between  in- 
vertebrates and  vertebrates  is  that  we  cannot 
list  invertebrates  at  the  population  level. 
They  may  only  be  listed  at  a  subspecific  lev- 
el. 

Now  for  Section  7  itself.  The  key  elements 
for  requiring  an  agency  to  consult  with  the 
Fish  and  Wildlife  Service,  if  their  activities 
may  affect  a  listed  species,  are  still  in  place. 
This  has  not  changed  at  all.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  the  necessity  for  consultation  has  been 
stengthened  by  these  amendments  because, 
without  a  good-faith  consultation,  an  agency 
will  not  qualify  for  an  exemption  under  other 
provisions  of  the  act.  There  is  more  definition 
given  to  the  opinion  to  be  rendered  by  the 
secretary  of  the  interior,  i.e.,  the  director  of 
the  Fish  and  Wildlife  service  to  whom  the 
authority  to  administer  the  act  has  been  dele- 
gated. It  now  specifies  what  must  be  con- 
tained in  the  biological  opinion. 

An  entirely  new  element  called  a  biologi- 
cal assessment  has  been  introduced  which 
only  applies  to  agency  action  for  which  no 
contract   for  constniction  has  been  entered 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


21 


into  and  for  which  no  construction  has  begun 
on  the  date  of  the  amendments.  A  biological 
assessment  must  be  done  on  projects  that  fall 
in  this  category.  The  agency  that  has  the  ac- 
tion must  request  from  the  secretary  of  the 
interior  a  list  of  proposed  or  listed  species 
which  may  be  found  in  the  project  area.  The 
agency  has  180  days  in  which  to  conclude  a 
biological  assessment  to  see  what  indeed  is 
there.  The  intent  of  Congress  is  that  you  find 
out  the  problem  in  the  early  planning  stage 
before  you  get  in  the  middle  of  a  dam  and 
then  end  up  with  another  confrontation  on 
your  hands.  During  this  process  and  during 
the  consultation  process,  the  action  agency 
cannot  make  an  irreversible  commitment  of 
resources. 

A  federal  agency,  the  governor  of  a  state  in 
which  a  project  is  located,  or  a  license  or 
permit  applicant  whose  permit  or  license  is 
being  denied  because  of  endangered  or 
threatened  species  can  appeal  for  exemption 
to  an  endangered  species  committee.  The  ap- 
pellant has  90  days  after  a  biological  opinion 
has  been  rendered  in  which  to  submit  this  ap- 
peal. The  endangered  species  committee  is 
composed  of  seven  members,  the  chairman  of 
which  is  the  secretary  of  the  interior  and  the 
other  members  being  secretaries  of  agricul- 
ture and  the  army,  the  chairman  of  tlie  Coun- 
cil of  Economic  Advisors,  the  EPA,  the  ad- 
ministrator of  NOAH,  and  one  person  or 
persons  appointed  by  the  president  from  the 
state(s)  affected  by  the  project  action. 

Before  the  committee  gets  to  look  at  the 
exemption  or  the  request  for  one,  however, 
it  is  first  referred  to  a  review  board,  a  sec- 
ond-tier process  which  was  not  included  in 
the  Baker-Culver  amendment  from  the  Sen- 
ate. This  review  board  has  three  persons  on 
it,  one  appointed  by  the  secretary  of  the  inte- 
rior not  later  than  15  days  after  the  appli- 
cation, one  appointed  by  the  president,  and 
an  administrative  law  judge.  It  is  the  job  of 
this  review  board  to  examine  the  application 
for  exemption,  and  they  look  at  four  basic  fac- 
tors: (1)  Does  an  unresolvable  conflict  exist? 
(2)  Has  the  agency  carried  out  the  con- 
sultation in  good  faith?  (3)  Did  it  conduct  the 
biological  assessment  required  of  it?  (4)  Did  it 
refrain  from  making  an  irreversible  com- 
mitment of  resources? 

Within  60  days  after  receiving  the  appli- 


cation for  exemption,  the  review  board  must 
have  been  appointed  and  have  positively  de- 
termined that  these  criteria  have  been  met. 
The  board  reports  to  the  committee,  and 
within  180  days  after  they  make  a  determina- 
tion they  must  recommend  to  the  committee 
reasonable  and  prudent  alternatives  to  the 
action,  summarize  the  evidence  as  to  whether 
or  not  the  agency  action  is  within  the  public 
interest  and  of  national  or  local  significance, 
and  decide  if  mitigation  and  enhancement 
measures  should  be  considered  by  the  com- 
mittee. Once  the  committee  gets  all  this  in 
hand  it  has  90  days  to  decide  whether  or  not 
it  will  exempt  a  project  from  the  require- 
ments of  Section  7.  In  the  process  of  doing 
this,  the  committee  must  make  four  findings: 
that  there  are  no  reasonable  or  prudent  alter- 
natives to  the  agency  action,  that  the  benefits 
of  the  action  clearly  outweigh  alternative 
courses  consistent  with  preserving  the  species 
or  its  critical  habitat,  that  such  action  is  in 
the  public  interest,  and  that  the  action  is  of 
regional  or  national  significance.  However, 
after  proceeding  this  far  in  the  exemption 
process,  if  the  secretary  of  the  interior  deter- 
mines the  exemption  would  cause  the  extinc- 
tion of  a  species,  he  so  advises  the  committee 
and  the  committee  has  30  more  days  in 
which  to  decide  whether  or  not  the  project 
will  cause  the  extinction  of  a  species  by  vir- 
tue of  granting  an  exemption  to  the  agency 
action.  There  is  also  a  review  provision  by 
the  secretary  of  state  that  if  the  exemption 
would  violate  any  international  treaty  or  ob- 
ligation then  the  exemption  cannot  be  al- 
lowed. This  will  be  addressed  in  the  regu- 
lations promulgated  by  the  committee  itself. 
They  have  90  days  after  enactment  of  the 
1978  amendments  to  propose  these  regu- 
lations. 

This  is  the  core  of  how  the  exemption  pro- 
cess works,  only  the  core.  The  complete,  re- 
vised version  of  the  act,  with  the  1978 
amendments  incorporated,  will  be  available 
from  the  Fish  and  Wildlife  Service  sometime 
around  1  January.  At  the  present  time,  we 
only  have  a  copy  of  the  signed  bill  itself  and 
this  can  be  rather  confusing  unless  you  are  fa- 
miliar with  the  1973  act  and  can  see  where 
all  the  "wherefore's"  and  "thou  art's"  go. 

One  other  thing  that  the  amendments  did 
was  to  provide  for  immediate  consideration 


22 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


of  exemption  for  both  Tellico  Dam  and  Gray 
Rocks  Dam.  The  committee  has  30  days  to 
begin  consideration  of  both  projects  and  90 
days  to  decide  whether  it  will  exempt.  If  it 
fails  to  act  within  90  days,  both  projects  are 
exempted  by  virtue  of  this  statute. 

There  was  an  amendment  to  Section  6  of 
the  act  which  for  the  first  time  brings  plants 
under  the  purview  of  the  grant-in-aid  pro- 
gram. Heretofore  Section  6  cooperative  funds 
were  only  available  for  animals,  not  plants. 
Also,  the  bill  authorized  our  expenditures  un- 
der the  act.  I  indicated  earlier  that  we  went 
out  of  business  when  our  appropriation  au- 
thority expired.  We  only  received  18  months 
of  reauthorization,  which  means  we  will  go 
through  the  same  process  of  having  the  act 
reauthorized  in  18  months.  We  anticipate 
oversight  hearings  on  the  Endangered  Spe- 
cies Act  this  spring,  probably  in  both  houses 
of  Congress. 

What  we  are  going  to  do  about  getting  on 
with  listing  of  endangered  and  threatened 
species  and  determining  critical  habitat  for 
these  species  is  something  else  again.  We  had 
originally  planned  on  some  200  rulemakings 
in  fiscal  year  1979.  Our  present  estimate  is 
that  maybe  20  to  30  rulemakings  will  be  pos- 
sible. The  reason  for  this  is  the  greatly  in- 
creased workload  to  list  a  species.  It  will  be  a 
more  expensive  process;  it  will  be  a  more 
time-consuming  process.  Some  of  the  ele- 
ments involved  in  the  new  listing  process  are 
good:  holding  public  hearings,  notifying  local 
people  that  an  action  is  contemplated,  pub- 
lishing in  a  local  newspaper.  We  think  that 
the  increased  public  involvement  in  the  deci- 
sion-making process  will  be  beneficial  in  the 
long  run. 

We  hope  we  can  resolve  some  of  the  con- 
cerns that  have  been  expressed  over  many 
proposals.  It  appears,  however,  that  there  are 
a  couple  of  "Catch  22's"  in  terms  of  present 
proposals.  There  is  a  two-year  expiration  pro- 
vision in  the  1978  amendments.  It  says,  in  ef- 
fect, that,  if  a  species  or  critical  habitat  has 
been  proposed  for  two  years  and  it  hasn't 
been  finalized  within  that  two-year  period,  it 
expires  and  must  be  withdrawn  by  the  secre- 
tary of  the  interior.  There  is  a  one-year  grace 
period,  however,  for  existing  proposals.  That 
one  year  will  be  up  on  10  November  1979. 
Over  1,700  plants  are  proposed.  We  realize 


we  will  be  able  to  list  perhaps  a  fraction  of 
those.  All  of  the  existing  critical  habitat  pro- 
posals will  more  than  likely  be  withdrawn 
because  of  the  new  requirements  involved  in 
determining  critical  habitat.  Those  require- 
ments include  doing  an  economic  analysis 
and  an  analysis  of  other  relevant  impacts  and 
we're  not  sure  what  other  relevant  impacts 
really  means.  Here  again  the  lawyer  will 
come  to  our  rescue. 

We  are  going  to  place  in  priority  form  the 
existing  proposals  based  on  degree  of  threat 
before  the  on-year  expiration  period  comes 
up.  We  do  not  have  a  large  staff  in  the  pro- 
gram. Basically  the  law  charges  us  with  the 
responsibility  for  the  animal  and  plant  king- 
doms of  the  world.  We  have  something  less 
than  200  permanent  full-time  positions  with- 
in the  endangered  species  program  split  be- 
tween the  Office  of  Endangered  Species, 
Federal  Wildlife  Permit  Office,  the  Division 
of  Law  Enforcement,  and  the  National  Wild- 
life Refuge  System.  So  the  dilution  of  per- 
sonnel across  the  program  scope  is  tre- 
mendous. It  is  a  challenge,  a  challenge  which 
we  welcome,  and  the  espirit  de  corps  within 
the  program  has  never  been  higher. 

Back  to  perspectives  again.  Perspectives 
are  very  difficult.  At  times  it  is  difficult  to 
justify,  depending  on  the  individual's  per- 
spective, listing  a  species  and  perhaps  imped- 
ing a  given  project.  The  question  keeps  com- 
ing back.  What  good  are  endangered  species 
or  threatened  species?  Tell  us  in  a  very  tan- 
gible fashion  what  good  a  snail  darter  is.  We 
cannot  answer  that.  We  cannot  give  you  a 
dollar  and  cent  answer  to  that  kind  of  ques- 
tion. The  most  lucid  comment  which  address- 
es this  concept,  however,  is  one  which  was 
made  by  Aldo  Leopold,  who  said  that  the 
first  sign  of  intelligent  tinkering  is  that  you 
don't  throw  away  any  of  the  parts.  With  all 
of  our  sophistication,  I  think  we  are  tinkering 
with  phenomena  that  are  much  more  sophis- 
ticated than  we.  Ovir  concern  is  certainly  for 
the  survival  of  the  species.  It  is  also  for  the 
survival  and  well-being  of  mankind.  It  is  our 
posture  that,  until  our  knowledge,  as  a  race, 
as  a  society,  evolves  to  the  point  that  we  can 
clearly  know  the  consequences  of  our  action 
by  making  a  species  extinct,  it  is  very,  very 
foolish  to  do  so.  It  may  be  the  part  that  we 
needed  to  make  the  clock  run  for  another 
centurv  or  so. 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


23 


Qu 


ESTIONS  TO 


Dr.  Si 


Q.  Have  I  been  given  an  impossible  task  then  to  provide 
for  the  Fish  and  Wildhfe  Service  in  Utah  the  data  on 
200  endangered  species  of  Utah  plants? 

A.  If  you  think  we're  going  to  do  it  next  week,  you'll  be 
disappointed.  If  you  think  we're  not  going  to  do  it  at 
all,  you're  wrong.  It's  going  to  be  a  lot  of  jumping 
through  hoops.  We've  had  some  other  difficult 
hoops  to  jump  through  and  our  intent  is  to  get  this 
program  unwound  as  rapidly  as  we  can.  We've  been 
digging  out  from  41  days  of  inactivity,  but  I  feel 
rather  confident  in  telling  you  that  your  data  is  not 
going  to  be  gathering  dust  for  an  indefinite  period  of 
time.  If  those  species  for  which  you  are  providing 
the  information  fall  out  as  priority  species  having 
the  most  danger,  the  greatest  degree  of  threat, 
they'll  be  among  the  first  we  get  to. 

Q.  Is  there  any  aspect  of  litigation  involved  in  this  new 
amendment?  In  other  words,  how  do  we  give  people 
the  chance  to  question  something  we  say  is  becom- 
ing extinct,  like  the  snail  darter?  Does  the  applying 
agency  have  to  provide  research  fimds  or  try  to  relo- 
cate the  snail  darter  even  though  they  might  not  be 
successful  in  that  aspect  of  threatened  or  endan- 
gered species? 

A.  Yes.  The  committee  will  actually  direct  the  appeal- 
ing agency  as  to  what  must  be  done  on  behalf  of  that 
species,  and  the  agency  taking  the  action  is  respon- 
sible for  bearing  the  cost  of  that.  Now  in  terms  of 
construction  projects,  this  cost  is  not  considered  in 
evaluating  the  cost-benefit  ratio  of  the  project.  It 
will  be  an  additional  cost;  but  it  would  not,  for  in- 
stance, bring  a  project  below  parity  and  thereby 
make  it  unfeasible  or  illegal  to  build. 

Q.  In  all  the  time  limits  that  have  been  set,  the  30  days, 
the  90  days,  the  180  days,  what  happens  if  an  agency 
or  committee  fails  to  meet  these  deadlines? 

A.  There  is  no  slap  on  the  wrist  if  anyone  fails  to  meet 
the  actual  time  frame.  Some  of  those  time  frames, 
incidentally,  are  negotiable  in  that  the  180-day  bio- 
logical assessment  could  be  lengthened  if  the  agency 
requested  it  with  agreement  between  the  agency 
and  secretary.  If  you  add  up  all  the  maximum  time 
frames,  however,  including  the  180  days,  the  total  is 
something  like  750  days  that  the  entire  process  could 
take. 

Q.    But  there  is  no  traditional  mechanism? 

A.  No,  but  the  citizen  suit  provision  of  the  act  still  ap- 
plies, and  anyone  could  litigate  against  any  party 
that  failed  to  meet  its  deadlines. 

Q.  It  has  been  the  thmst  of  the  whole  program  all  along 
that  the  brunt  of  the  responsibility  has  fallen  on  oth- 
er federal  agencies,  besides  the  Fish  and  Wildlife 
Service,  and  private  organizations,  too.  But  isn't  it 
true  in  the  West,  where  field  work  for  proposed  spe- 
cies is  just  starting?  Now  suddenly  I'm  being  pushed. 
I  know  I'm  speaking  to  you  in  a  sense,  but  I'm  also 
speaking  to  me.  I'm  one  who  elected  the  people  who 
are  passing  these  things,  but  20  or  30  are  not  going 
to  be  enough.  We  need  more  people.  There  are  a  lot 
of  areas  where  work  needs  to  be  done. 

A.  There  is  a  "Catch  22"  in  everything,  I  guess.  There's 
also  a  hiring  freeze  in  the  federal  government  at  the 
moment  which  affects  permanent,  full-time  posi- 


tions. .\s  a  matter  of  fact,  there  is  nothing  we  can  do 
about  that.  1  hope  you  can  also  appreciate  the  diffi- 
culty of  bringing  in  a  permanent  part-time  or  some 
other  less  than  permanent  position  and  expecting 
that  person  to  walk  in  and  start  doing  something 
productive  the  next  day.  It  takes  a  lot  of  expertise 
and  training  to  write  a  decent  rulemaking,  for  in- 
stance, one  that  will  get  by  the  scrutiny  of  the  solic- 
itors and  be  legally  justifiable  and  adequate. 

Q.   .\11  I'm  asking  is  to  just  make  an  effort. 

.\.    We  are. 

Q.  Pertaining  to  the  exemption  process,  other  than  liti- 
gation, where  is  the  avenue  for  public  involvement? 

A.  There  is  a  provision  which  provides  the  meetings  of 
both  the  review  board  and  the  committee  to  be 
open.  It  will  depend  on  whether  the  committee  de- 
cides to  take  testimony  from  the  public.  That  point, 
I'm  sure,  will  be  addressed  in  regulation  pro- 
mulgated by  the  committee  and  by  the  review 
board.  The  final  decision  of  the  committee  is  subject 
to  judicial  review.  It  can  be  appealed  to  the  courts, 
and  there  is  specific  provision  in  the  legislation  for 
that. 

Q.  When  would  you  determine  the  rulemaking  for  criti- 
cal habitat  for  the  grizzly  bear? 

A.  As  I  indicated  earlier,  it  is  very  likely  that  all  exist- 
ing proposed  mlemakings  for  critical  habitat  will  be 
withdrawn.  In  effect,  that  proposed  rulemaking 
would  be  invalidated  and  a  reproposal  would  come 
forth.  The  reproposal  would  have  to  meet  the  new 
criteria  of  the  1978  amendments,  including  an  eco- 
nomic impact  analysis  and  identifying  actions  or  ac- 
tivities within  the  area,  which  might  be  affected  by 
having  the  area  designated  as  critical  habitat— both 
federal  actions  as  well  as  private  actions.  We  do  not 
have  an  economist  on  our  staff  and,  quite  frankly,  it 
gives  us  .some  heartburn  to  consider  a  meaningful 
economic  analysis.  I  am  not  being  facetious  when  I 
say  meaningfid,  because  we're  not  going  to  try  to 
short-cut  the  intent  of  Congress  in  this  thing.  They 
want  an  economic  analysis,  one  that  is  meaningful, 
and  that  is  what  they  are  going  to  get  from  us.  We 
don't  know  where  the  help  is  going  to  come  from, 
perhaps  from  within  the  department  and  other 
agencies  which  do  have  economic  expertise. 

A.  You  recently  listed  some  species  in  California  with- 
out listing  critical  habitat.  Are  these  being  consid- 
ered for  withdrawal  under  new  amendments? 

.\.  No,  anvthing  that  is  already  listed  that  did  not  have 
critical  habitat  determined  at  the  time  it  was  listed 
will  remain  a  listed  species.  The  amendments  say 
that  we  may  determine  critical  habitat  for  these  spe- 
cies at  some  point  in  time.  We  can  do  this;  we  don't 
have  to  do  it  yesterday.  What  we  do  have  to  do  in 
the  future,  however,  unless  it  is  pnident  not  to  do  so, 
is  to  propose  critical  habitat  at  the  same  time  we 
propose  listing  of  species,  so  these  two  things  go 
along  simultaneously.  There  was  no  provision  for 
critical  habitat  in  either  the  1966  or  1969  acts.  That 
is  why  we  have  a  huge  backlog  of  listed  species  that 
have  no  critical  habitat. 

Q.  Isn't  it  true  that  any  agency  must  consult  the  Fish 
and  Wildlife  Service  before  beginning  any  project? 


24 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs  No.  3 


Do  we  mean  any  project  or  are  we  defining  proj- 
ects? 

No,  when  an  agency  identifies  that  its  actions  may 
affect  listed  species,  that  is  when  they  must  initiate 
consultation.  It  is  the  may  affect.  Now  the  confusing 
element  here  may  have  been  my  comments  con- 
cerning constmction  contracts,  projects  for  which  no 
contracts  have  been  let  and  for  which  no  constmc- 
tion has  begim.  These  are  the  ones  that  would  have 
to  do  a  biological  assessment  before  things  could 
proceed  if  there  are  listed  or  proposed  species  in  the 
area,  but  that  is  different  than  consultation  per  se. 


THE  LAW  AND  ITS  ECONOMIC  IMPACT 

Donald  A.  Spencer' 

Abstract.—  There  is  no  adecjiiate  inventory  of  population  size  and  distribution  of  most  of  the  world's  animal  and 
plant  species  and  lower  taxa.  Furthermore,  populations  are  rarely  static  and  continue  to  change  in  response  to  both 
natural  and  man-made  factors.  Thus  clearance  today  for  public  works  or  industrial  projects  can  be  reversed  tomor- 
row as  new  information  becomes  available.  Lacking  assurance  that  a  project  can  be  completed  without  new  endan- 
gered species  surfacing  places  an  untenable  constraint  on  the  commitment  of  dollars  for  new  long-term  programs. 

As  a  consequence  of  the  absence  of  data,  studies  to  determine  occupied  range,  population  levels,  and  habitat  re- 
quirements of  specific  endangered  species  must  be  conducted  on  each  project  area.  The  direct  costs  of  these  studies 
are  the  responsibility  of  the  project  applicant.  The  time  consumed  results  in  project  delays  which  can  become  a 
major  expense  item.  Additional  economic  impacts  are  inherent  in  construction  modifications  and  subsequent  project 
operations  intended  to  accommodate  an  endangered  species. 

Finally,  the  withdrawal  of  natural  resouces  to  support  endangered  species  can  conceivably  reach  a  point  where 
the  squeeze  on  other  societal  programs  becomes  unacceptable. 


Thank  you  for  making  this  time  available 
to  me.  It's  always  a  privilege  to  get  together 
with  a  group  that  is  intentionally  interested 
in  a  good  program  and  talk  problems  out. 

I  brought  along  this  book.  I  thought  some 
of  you  might  want  to  obtain  a  copy  of  it.  It  is 
a  proposed  environmental  impact  statement 
on  the  effect  of  grazing  on  some  of  our  west- 
ern lands.  This  little  book  cost  $250,000  to 
prepare.  It  is,  actually,  an  excellent  study; 
you'll  be  much  impressed  by  what  the  au- 
thors and  the  various  research  teams  have  put 
together  in  it.  But  as  I  read  through  it  and 
came  to  the  areas  of  my  own  expertise,  I 
found  that,  if  we  are  going  to  consider  endan- 
gered species  on  this  800-square-mile  area 
this  book  is  about,  we're  going  to  have  to  do 
the  job.  The  information  on  endangered  spe- 
cies, on  wildlife  and  nongame  species  in  gen- 
eral, is  treated  once  over  lightly. 

In  the  back  of  the  publication,  I  began  to 
read  the  letters  received  about  this  program 
from  people  who  actually  lived  on  the  area; 
and  who  were  going  to  be  affected  by  it,  not 
an  outsider  like  me  who  was  reading  what  I 
considered  to  be  a  very  excellent  program. 
Then  it  occurred  to  me  that  this  was  just  like 
what  had  been  happening  to  me.  You  know 
most  of  my  professional  career  has  been 
spent  in  research  in  the  field  of  animal  biolo- 
gy. When  you  come  up  with  a  new  tool  or  a 
new  program  or  a  new  project  that  is  the  re- 


sult of  research  and  you're  very  proud  of  ac- 
complishing something  new  for  wildlife  man- 
agement, you  send  the  report  all  over  the 
coimtry  for  trial.  When  it  comes  back  to  you 
from  first  one  point  then  another,  reviewers 
state  that  it  won't  work  here  or  that  it  pro- 
duces an  adverse  affect  there.  You're  very 
bitter  about  it— you  even  tend  to  react  vio- 
lently. Then  you  begin  to  realize  that  of  all 
tlie  things  research  values  most  highly  it  is 
knowing  the  limitation  of  the  new  tool. 
Where  are  the  boundary  lines  where  it  works 
most  effectively?  If  you  do  not  recognize 
those  boundaries  early,  you  are  liable  to  lose 
the  use  of  the  tool  in  the  areas  where  it 
would  be  valuable.  There  are  literally  hun- 
dieds  of  examples  in  the  last  four  or  five 
years  to  bear  this  out  and  I  won't  have  to 
elaborate. 

One  thing  we  have  to  realize  is  that  in  ask- 
ing for  habitat  for  endangered  species  we  are 
in  competition,  and  I'm  using  that  term  ad- 
visedly, with  a  lot  of  other  conservation  ob- 
jectives. For  example,  over  100  years  ago  we 
began  a  national  park  system  that  has  grown 
to  some  300  units  encompassing  in  excess  of 
31  million  acres.  The  Brown  Pelican,  which 
has  been  so  much  in  the  news  of  recent  years, 
initiated  the  first  unit  of  the  National  Wild- 
life Refuge  System  that  has  now  grown  to  34 
million  acres.  We  have  now  reserved  be- 
tween 100  and  150  million  acres  where  wild- 


'13508  Sherwood  Forest  Terrace,  Silver  Spring,  Maryland  20904. 


25 


26 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


life  receives  top  billing. 

Building  on  these  established  programs, 
and  adding  such  new  ones  as  the  Wild  and 
Scenic  Rivers  (1968),  National  Sea  and  Lake 
Shores,  Wilderness  (1964),  National  Trails 
System,  Marine  Protection  Research  and  Es- 
tuaries (1972),  Research  Natural  Areas, 
Coastal  Zone  Management  Act,  Agriculture's 
Water  Bank  Program,  Wetlands,  etc.,  has  be- 
come a  veritible  national  obsession.  Cur- 
rently President  Carter,  under  the  authority 
of  the  Antiquities  Act  of  1906,  has  pro- 
claimed 56  million  acres  in  Alaska  as  national 
monuments,  and  the  secretary  of  the  interior 
has  temporarily  withdrawn  an  additional  54 
million  acres  from  any  commercial  devel- 
opment. The  U.S.  Forest  Service  has  under 
review  some  62  million  acres  of  "roadless 
areas"  for  possible  inclusion  in  the  Wilder- 
ness System.  The  Bureau  of  Land  Manage- 
ment, overseer  of  470  million  acres  of  public 
lands,  is  engaged  in  a  similar  "roadless  area" 
review  to  determine  what  lands  of  theirs 
would  qualify  for  wilderness  designation. 

In  a  very  limited  way,  habitats  purchased 
specifically  to  protect  an  endangered  species 
add  to  the  set-aside  totals.  But  the  greatest 
impact  will  result  from  "critical  habitat"  des- 
ignations that,  while  not  infringing  on  any 
use  that  does  not  adversely  modify  the  habi- 
tat for  a  given  endangered  species,  still  im- 
pose costly  constraints  on  change,  to  the 
point  of  completely  preventing  some  projects 
useful  to  man.  Alternate  uses  that  are  affect- 
ed by  critical  habitat  constraints  can  be  quite 
varied,  as  the  following  from  the  U.S.  Forest 
Service's  Wildlife  Management  Manual  illus- 
trates: 

Maiiv  projects  and  practices  authorized  or  carried  out 
hv  the  Forest  Service  are  of  such  a  nature  that  modifica- 
tion of  the  vegetation  or  land  is  often  a  direct  or  indirect 
result.  These  include  activities  such  as  recreation  site 
development,  land  exchanges,  timber  sales,  revegetation 
and  reforestation,  type  conversions,  water  impound- 
ments, road  and  trail  construction,  grazing  by  herbi- 
vores, and  development  that  results  in  significant  in- 
creases in  the  level  of  human  activity  in  an  area. 

The  patterns  for  establishing  critical  habitats 
give  little  as.surance  that  very  many  areas 
will  be  free  of  constraints  to  protect  one  or 
more  endangered  plants  or  animals.  A  num- 
ber of  critical  habitats,  both  established  and 
proposed,  are  disturbingly  large.  The  critical 
habitat  for  the  Manatee  includes  every  major 


estuary  in  peninsular  Florida,  sits  astride  the 
busy  intercoastal  waterway,  and  is  one  of  the 
most  intensively  used  recreational  boat  areas 
in  the  United  States.  The  proposed  critical 
habitat  for  the  grizzly  bear  suggests  13  mil- 
lion acres  in  Montana,  Idaho,  and  Wyoming 
which  encompasses  two  national  parks,  Yel- 
lowstone and  Glacier.  Throughout  the  visitor 
season,  a  succession  of  trails,  campgrounds, 
and  back-country  are  closed  to  people  be- 
cause of  bears.  As  for  the  Whooping  Crane,  a 
proposal  will  about  triple  its  present  90,000- 
acre  wintering  ground  and  provide  seventeen 
migratory  stopovers  in  six  states  and  a  new 
nonhistorical  experimental  breeding  range  in 
three  other  states.  Some  of  these  brief  stop- 
over points  are  not  necessarily  small  areas. 
Along  the  Platte  River  in  Nebraska  the  linear 
54  miles  of  bottom  land  totals  about  103,000 
acres;  the  proposed  migratory  stopover  on 
the  Niobrara  River  is  115,200  acres;  the  large 
proposed  area  along  the  Canadian  border  in 
northwest  North  Dakota  probably  exceeds  2 
million  acres.  Then,  surprisingly,  it  is  pro- 
posed to  include  the  dams  and  lake  margins 
between  maximum  and  minimum  pool  of  the 
two  largest  flood  control  impoundments  on 
the  Missouri  River  (Lake  Oahe  and  Lake 
Sakakawea). 

As  tne  endangered  list  grows  by  the  addi- 
tion of  relatively  little-known  species  and 
subspecies  from  the  enormously  large  pool  of 
living  plants  and  animals  these  resource  set- 
asides  can  provoke  a  reaction  that  will  dam- 
age even  the  best  features  of  the  program. 

The  Regulatory  Thicket 

The  independent,  consumer-owned  power 
companies  serving  some  200  municipalities  in 
eight  Missouri  Basin  States  found  their  pres- 
ent capacity  for  electric  power  desperately 
below  what  would  be  needed  in  the  years  just 
ahead.  So  they  formed  the  Missouri  Basin 
Power  Project,  which  began  constructing  its 
first  generating  plant,  the  Leland  Olds  Sta- 
tion, in  1962.  The  construction  required  only 
one  government  permit  and  was  completed 
in  four  years.  Unit  No.  2  at  this  site  required 
five  permits  and  went  on  line  in  1975.  Their 
next  cooperative  project,  the  Laramie  River 
Station  and  Grayrocks  Reservoir,  got  under 
construction  in  1976  and  has  thus  far  re- 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


27 


cjuiied  43  pennits  and  approvals  from  feder- 
al, state,  and  local  authorities.  Their  third 
project,  the  Antelope  Valley  Station,  begun 
in  June  of  this  year  (1978),  has  at  this  early 
stage  required  69  federal,  state,  and  local  per- 
mits—a\\  of  this  within  the  experience  of  one 
vital  cooperative  project  serving  an  eight- 
state  area. 

Like  illustrations  of  the  maze  of  govern- 
ment regulations  are  at  every  hand.  For  ex- 
ample, the  atomic-powered  electric  plant  un- 
der construction  at  Midland,  Michigan,  has 
acquired  some  93  pennits  to  date. 

The  redundant  nature  of  some  of  these 
regulations  is  a  sad  commentary  on  the  effi- 
ciency that  has  marked  so  much  of  America's 
progress.  Take,  for  example,  the  construction 
of  a  transmission  line  that  links  North  Dakota 
and  Minnesota.  Not  only  did  the  federal  Ru- 
ral Electrification  Agency  require  an  Envi- 
ronmental Impact  Statement  (Study),  but  a 
Certification  of  Need  had  to  be  obtained 
from  the  Minnesota  Energy  Agency,  a  Cer- 
tificate of  Corridor  Compatability  from  the 
Minnesota  Environmental  Quality  Board,  and 
two  separate  permits  for  Site  Compatability 
and  for  Route  Designation  from  the  North 
Dakota  Public  Service  Commission.  The 
transmission  corridor  crossed  four  navigable 
rivers  requiring  four  separate  construction 
permits  from  the  U.S.  Corps  of  Engineers.  It 
made  eleven  other  water  crossings,  each  re- 
quiring separate  permits  from  the  Minnesota 
Department  of  Natural  Resources;  crossed 
three  wetland  areas  requiring  as  many  ease- 
ments from  the  U.S.  Fish  and  Wildlife  Ser- 
vice; made  eleven  highway  crossings,  each 
requiring  a  permit  from  the  respective  coun- 
ty highway  department— which  was  in  addi- 
tion to  two  separate  permits  from  the  North 
Dakota  Land  Department,  one  labeled  State 
Land  Crossing,  the  other  River  Crossing;  and 
crossed  five  different  railroads  requiring  per- 
mits for  each  location.  It  can  be  agreed  that 
such  a  corridor  has  to  obtain  easements 
across  every  privately  owned  parcel  of  land, 
so  why  should  public  land  be  different?  The 
point  to  be  made  here  is  the  large  number  of 
governmental  agencies  have  replicated  input 
into  a  single  project. 

A  review  of  Sections  7  Consultation  Logs 
of  the  U.S.  Fish  and  Wildlife  Service's  six  re- 
gional offices  for  the  period  of  October  1977 


through  May  1978  reveals  that  between  30 
and  35  different  federal  and  state  agencies 
contacted  the  Office  of  Endangered  Species 
for  advice  on  their  responsibilities  under  the 
act. 

With  such  a  galaxy  of  regulatory  agencies 
afield,  there  are  few,  if  any,  projects  that  do 
not  require  a  permit  or  license  of  some  kind. 
A  western  cattleman  will  need  a  grazing  per- 
mit to  use  public  land,  a  farmer  will  need  a 
point  source  discharge  permit  for  return  irri- 
gation flows,  to  build  a  dock  or  bulkhead  on 
your  waterfront  property  will  require  a  per- 
mit, and,  even  if  you  wish  to  participate  in 
the  recovery  of  a  Peregrine  Falcon,  thus  en- 
hancing this  endangered  species,  you  must 
have  a  permit.  Regulation  reaches  into  the 
most  remote  corner  of  our  society. 

The  regulatory  morass  motivated  President 
Carter  in  March  1978  to  issue  Executive  Or- 
der 12044  "as  a  first  step  toward  ensuring 
that  regulations  achieve  their  statutory  goals 
in  the  most  effective  and  balanced  way." 
This  now  has  been  followed  up  by  the  Presi- 
dential appointment  of  a  Regulatory  Council 

to  inform  me,  the  public,  and  the  Congress  about  the 
cinmilative  impact  of  regulation  on  the  economy.  The 
Council  will  help  ensure  that  regulations  are  well 
coordinated,  do  not  conflict,  and  do  not  impose  excess 
burdens  on  particular  sectors  of  the  economy.  The  first 
report  of  this  Council  is  to  be  made  public  no  later 
than  February  1,  1979. 

At  reoccurring  intervals  officials  of  the  Office 
of  Endangered  Species  have  sought  to  clarify 
what  is  meant  by  critical  habitat  by  saying 
that  the  act  charges  federal  agencies— and 
only  federal  agencies— with  carrying  out  pro- 
visions of  Section  7.  State  and  private  actions 
not  involving  federal  approval  do  not  come 
imder  the  act.  This  is  meaningless  comfort 
when  it  would  be  almost  impossible  to  identi- 
fy a  private  project  that  does  not  need  some 
federal  (or  state)  approval.  Even  if  this  were 
not  so.  Section  9  provides  severe  penalties  for 
any  person  who  "harasses,  harms,  pursues, 
hunts,  shoots,  wounds,  kills,  captures,  col- 
lects, or  attempts  to  engage  in  any  such  con- 
duct" an  endangered  or  threatened  animal  no 
matter  where  found.  Thus  the  act,  for  all  in- 
tents and  purposes,  affects  public  works  and 
private  projects  alike. 

The  Permit:  Often  Elusive 

The  permit  or  license  is  elusive  because  it 


28 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


can  be  withdrawn  by  the  issuing  agency  on 
the  basis  of  new  information  not  previously 
considered,  and  because  a  court  of  law  can 
order  the  permit  suspended  or  withdrawn 
pending  the  outcome  of  a  public  interest  suit 
which  may  rest  only  on  some  omission  in  the 
Environmental  Impact  Study.  It  can  be  dis- 
ruptive because  the  regulation,  or  the  factor 
requiring  it,  did  not  come  into  being  until  the 
project  was  partly  completed. 

Advancing  technology  has  made  most  proj- 
ects more  complex  to  construct.  Added  safety 
and  environment  features,  and  the  time-con- 
suming efforts  to  comply  with  over-numerous 
regulations,  all  combine  to  lengthen  con- 
stRiction  time.  Thus,  to  bring  a  major  coal 
mine  to  full  capacity,  or  a  new  power  plant 
on  line,  can  take  ten  years.  Each  year  that 
passes  sees  a  10  percent  increase  in  construc- 
tion costs.  With  no  assurance  that  a  project 
can  successfully  negotiate  the  ever-changing 
maze  of  regulations,  financing  of  projects 
that  cannot  be  completed  in  a  reasonably 
short  time  becomes  quite  a  gamble. 

The  "biological  opinion"  resulting  from  a 
Sections  7  Consultation  with  the  Office  of 
Endangered  Species  is  an  agency  approval  (if 
granted)— in  practice  it  has  the  force  of  a  per- 
mit. A  few  examples  will  show  that  these  bio- 
logical opinions  can  exhibit  every  one  of  the 
above  three  deficiencies  with  respect  to 
clearing  the  project  for  completion.  Follow- 
ing completion  of  a  broad  Environmental  Im- 
pact Study,  the  Bureau  of  Land  Management 
received  the  following  Section  7  biological 
opinion  on  a  proposed  phosphate  mine  on 
the  Osceola  National  Forest  in  Northern 
Florida: 

It  is  my  biological  opinion,  subject  to  the  conditions 
identified  herein,  that  the  proposed  project  is  not  likely 
to  jeopardize  the  continued  existance  of  the  endangered 
or  threatened  species  listed  above  or  result  in  the  de- 
struction or  adverse  modification  of  their  critical  habi- 
tats. 

The  conditions  imposed  are  as  follows: 

The  Bureau  of  Land  Management  must  reinitiate  Sec- 
tion 7  Consultation  should  (1)  new  information  reveal 
impacts  of  the  above-listed  species  or  their  habitats 
which  was  not  considered  in  this  consultation,  (2)  the 
proposed  leasing  [be]  subsecjuently  modified,  or  (3)  a 
new  species  [be]  listed  that  may  be  affected  by  the  pro- 
posed action. 

The  above  clearance  named  only  species 
on  the  established  list.  It  did  not  mention  that 


standing  in  the  wings  waiting  to  go  on  stage 
was  a  proposed  list  of  plants  and  animals  al- 
most 10  times  as  long.  Nor  did  it  include 
Florida's  official  state  list  which  names  still 
other  species.  Lastly,  on  a  project  of  this  size, 
52,000  acres,  it  should  not  be  too  difficult  a 
task  to  come  up  with  an  undescribed  species 
or  one  with  very  local  distribution  that  has 
not  yet  been  proposed  for  listing. 

A  well-known  example  of  the  late  surf- 
acing of  an  endangered  species  is  provided 
by  the  Tellico  Dam  in  Tennessee,  where  the 
small  fish  had  not  even  been  described  as  a 
distinct  species  of  Darter  until  well  after  con- 
struction had  begun. 

More  recently  the  Office  of  Endangered 
Species  established  a  54-mile  stretch  of  the 
Platte  River  bottom  in  Nebraska  as  critical 
habitat  for  whooping  cranes  during  migra- 
tory stopovers.  Upstream  some  275  miles  was 
a  power  plant  already  under  construction  by 
the  Missouri  Basin  Power  Project.  Extraor- 
dinary steps  had  been  taken  at  the  planning 
stage  of  this  facility  to  have  a  conservation- 
acceptable  project.  Now,  despite  their  hold- 
ing all  the  required  federal  and  state  permits, 
their  use  of  water  from  the  Laramie  River 
has  been  challenged  in  court  because  it  might 
reduce  by  4  percent  the  flow  of  water 
through  the  whooping  crane's  fall  and  spring 
stopover.  This  action  threatens  the 
$444,000,000  already  invested  in  the  project. 
Each  lost  day  will  cost  $140,000  in  interest 
on  the  money  alone  (or  $50,000,000  a  year). 

Here,  as  in  several  other  notable  cases,  the 
Endangered  Species  Act  is  being  used  to  ac- 
complish an  entirely  different  objective.  It  is 
actually  a  matter  of  the  continuing  wrangle 
over  water  rights  between  the  State  of  Ne- 
braska, who  initiated  the  court  suit,  and  the  ■ 
State  of  Wyoming.  Previously,  the  U.S.  Su- 
preme Court  had  awarded  the  water  in  the 
Laramie  River  to  Wyoming,  so  there  ap- 
peared to  be  no  problem  about  the  Gray- 
rocks  impoundment.  What  is  in- 
comprehensible to  me  is  that  midway 
between  Grayrocks  and  the  whooping  crane's 
critical  habitat  is  the  Kingsley  Dam  in  Ne- 
braska that  backs  up  Lake  McConaughy, 
which  is  20  times  the  size  of  the  incompleted 
Grayrocks.  The  withdrawal  of  irrigation  wa- 
ter at  the  King.sley  Dam  must  have  marked 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


29 


influence  on  the  regulated  flow  in  the  Platte 
River. 


The  Informal  Consultation 

The  Endangered  Species  Act  of  1978,  Sec- 
tion 7(c)(a)  directs— 

each  Federal  Agency  shall  .  .  .  request  of  the  Secretary 
information  whether  any  species  which  is  listed,  or  pro- 
posed to  be  listed,  may  be  present  in  the  area  of  such 
proposed  action.  If  the  Secretary  advises  .  .  .  that  such 
species  may  be  present,  such  agency  shall  conduct  a  bio- 
logical assessment  for  the  purpose  of  identifying  any  en- 
dangered species  which  is  likely  to  be  affected  by  (the 
project). 

It  is  analogous  to  being  directed  to  a  well 
for  a  drink,  a  well  that  hasn't  been  dug  deep 
enough  to  strike  more  than  a  suggestion  of 
water,  then  being  drafted  into  the  work  force 
to  dig  the  well  deeper.  Although  the  act  sug- 
gests that  this  responsibility  might  be  dis- 
charged in  180  days,  a  review  of  past  direc- 
tives from  the  Office  of  Endangered  Species 
shows  that  such  studies  can  take  from  a  few 
months  to  several  years,  depending  on  the 
complexity  of  the  biological  assessment. 

A  number  of  federal  agencies  have  elected 
to  prepare  in  advance  of  requests  for  specific 
resource  use,  an  Environmental  Impact  Study 
covering  districts  or  broad  subdivisions.  For 
example,  the  BLM  has  programmed  studies 
on  173,919,000  acres  of  public  lands  subject 
to  grazing.  The  estimated  budget  to  provide 
the  142  separate  studies  at  current  prices  is 
$35,500,000,  an  average  of  $250,000  each.  To 
date,  16  EIS  have  been  completed,  but  the 
entire  area  will  not  have  been  covered  until 
1988.  The  proportion  of  this  program  that 
can  be  assigned  to  providing  data  on  endan- 
gered species  is  usually  quite  minor.  For  ex- 
ample, a  breakdown  of  an  Environmental 
Impact  Study  for  a  proposed  surface  mining 
project  in  Wyoming,  which  cost  a  private 
company  $500,000,  shows  the  wild- 
life/vegetational  fraction  costing  $190,000, 
with  only  $18,000  (or  3.6  percent)  related  to 
endangered  species  information. 

Another  example:  The  Departments  of 
Transportation  in  the  six  lake  states  routinely 
asked  for  advice  if  they  proposed  repairing  or 
replacing  a  bridge.  In  fact,  in  the  period  of 
October  1977,  through  May  1978,  20.9  per- 
cent of  the  entries  on  the  consultation  logs  in 
U.S.  Fish  and  Wildlife  Service,  Region  No.  3, 


concerned  bridges,  and  another  20.5  percent 
highway  actions.  Just  as  routinely  they  re- 
ceived the  following  informal  "opinion": 

Survey  for  endangered  species  or  their  habitat  in  the 
project  area,  (or)  If  through  your  investigations  you  find 
an  endangered  species  or  their  habitat  in  the  project 
area  you  should  initiate  a  formal  con.sultation. 

In  most  instances  involving  bridges  the  in- 
terest was  in  one  or  more  species  of  endan- 
gered freshwater  mussels,  which  required  the 
services  of  a  qualified  malacologist  for  under- 
water surveys  and  species  identification. 
Aside  from  waiting  for  the  proper  season  to 
do  the  work,  these  local  studies  could  be 
completed  rather  quickly,  as  in  the  case  of  a 
contract  to  search  49,500  square  feet  of  the 
Wabash  River  near  Hutsonville,  Illinois,  at  a 
cost  of  $2,500. 

The  Corps  of  Engineers,  responsible  for 
maintaining  channel  navigation  in  the  upper 
Mississippi  River,  finds  these  same  endan- 
gered freshwater  mussel  surveys  far  more 
costly  and  time  consuming.  They  have 
awarded  five  research  contracts  totaling 
$263,977,  four  of  which  are  now  completed. 
A  final  report.  Freshwater  Mussels  of  the  Up- 
per Mississippi  River,  prepared  for  the  corps 
by  the  Academy  of  Natural  Sciences  of  Phila- 
delphia, is  a  400-page  document.  Please  un- 
derstand that  this  required  study  involved 
only  freshwater  mussels.  Who  is  to  say  what 
other  species  and  subspecies  of  freshwater  in- 
vertebrates, fish,  amphibians,  or  aquatic 
plants  will  require  similar  treatment  in  the 
future? 

The  magnitude  of  some  of  these  studies  to 
determine  the  impact  of  development  proj- 
ects on  the  environment  is  sobering.  The 
Corps  of  Engineers  has  come  under  criticism 
for  its  dredging  activities  along  our  coasts 
and  navigable  rivers.  Congress  authorized  a 
five-year  thorough  study  of  this  program  that 
has  now  cost  $30,000,000.  A  part  of  that 
study  is  an  eight- volume  (1,502  pages)  set  of 
reports  covering  colonial  bird  use  and  plant 
succession  on  dredged  material  islands.  Con- 
tracted to  seven  different  teams  of  qualified 
ornithologists,  these  studies  found  that  "62 
percent  of  all  colonial  species  (more  than 
156,000  adult  birds)  along  the  Texas  coast  in 
1977  nested  on  dredged  material  islands."  In- 
cluded were  the  Least  Tern,  the  Gull-billed 
Tern,  the  Roseate  Spoonbill,  the  Reddish 


30 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


Egret,  and  the  Brown  Pelican.  In  Florida, 
"approximately  50  percent  of  the  colonial 
nesting  sea  and  wading  birds  nest  on  dredged 
material  and  many  more  species  use  the  is- 
lands for  feeding  and  roosting." 

What  I  gleaned  from  these  studies  was  the 
exciting  possibility  of  so  locating  and  con- 
structing these  dredge-spoil  areas  as  to  create 
superior  nesting  habitat  with  minimal  pre- 
dation  and  disturbance  pressure.  But  the  de- 
cision between  using  the  most  cost-effective 
dredge  disposal  site  and  a  wildlife-oriented 
one  carries  a  price  tag.  For  example,  to  avoid 
an  endangered  plant  (Menzies  Wallflower) 
the  alternate  to  the  most  cost-effective  dis- 
posal site  for  dredge  spoil  from  Humboldt 
Harbor  (California)  is  estimated  to  cost 
$150,000. 

Some  of  the  requests  from  the  Office  of 
Endangered  Species  for  these  preconsultation 
biological  assessments  pose  enormous  com- 
mitment of  time  and  money.  Take  the  case  of 
the  Nellis  Air  Force  Range  in  Nevada.  BLM 
received  the  following  biological  opinion: 

A  study  should  be  conducted  to: 

(1)  Determine  all  candidate  and  proposed  threatened  or 
endangered  plant  species  which  occur  on  the  Nellis 
Range. 

(2)  Delineate  the  exact  locations  of  such  populations. 
Such  a  study  should  be  for  at  least  one  full  collecting 
season  during  an  average  moisture  year  and  prior  to  any 
activities  that  might  jeopardize  the  existance  of  the  sub- 
ject species. 

The  above  instructions  for  conducting  the 
study  are  botanically  sound,  by  reason  of  the 
fact  that  seeds  of  many  species  lie  dormant  in 
the  soils  of  the  arid  Southwest  for  years 
awaiting  an  infrequent  rain.  Then  rapidly  the 
full  plant  cycle  is  completed  while  moisture 
is  still  available.  But  how  do  you  foretell  an 
adequate  moisture  regime?  How  do  you  fit 
such  an  indefinite  timetable  for  survey  and 
site  mapping  of  arid-land  plants  into  the  hard 
realistic  schedules  of  construction  if  it  is  to  be 
cost  effective  and  available  when  needed? 

Summary:  Under  the  1978  version  of  the 
act,  preconsultation  biological  assessments 
will  be  the  responsibility  of  agencies  seeking 
approval  of  programs  authorized,  funded,  or 
conducted  by  them.  The  above  examples  il- 
lustrate the  potential  for  delaying  the  start  of 
the  project  and  for  adding  (sometimes  signifi- 
cantly) to  the  overall  co.sts.  It  would  seem 
that  regulations  have  been  imposed  to  pro- 


tect animals  and  plants  against  extinction  be- 
fore there  is  any  very  precise  knowledge  of 
the  tens  of  thousands  of  little-known  or  in- 
conspicuous species  of  nongame  animals,  par- 
ticularly invertebrates,  and  even  less  of  plant 
species  we  have  not  chosen  to  propagate  or 
value  for  their  form  or  floral  display. 


Withdrawal  of  Resources 

There  is  no  way  to  avoid  the  commitment 
of  natural  resource  if  an  endangered  species 
habitat  is  to  be  protected.  Some  of  these  re- 
sources we  can  easily  share,  and  others  are 
not  in  excess  of  our  economic  needs.  This  is 
not  to  say  that  resources  reserved  to  endan- 
gered species  are  irretrievably  lost— but  for 
current  use  they  are  not  available,  and  this 
can  seriously  impact  local  industries  depen- 
dent upon  them  for  ongoing  supplies. 

For  example,  the  U.S.  Forest  Service  has 
presently  located  some  2,000  nesting  colonies 
of  Red-cockaded  Woodpeckers  in  south- 
eastern national  forests.  It  has  been  deter- 
mined that  each  colony  nesting  site  averages 
10  acres.  One  fourth  of  the  colonies  require 
an  additional  25-acre  recruitment  area.  This 
is  a  total  of  70,000  acres  in  merchantable 
timber  currently  removed.  The  eventual  goal 
is  to  have  four  such  colonies  per  1,000  acres, 
which  would  entail  setting  aside  140 
acres/ 1,000  acres  in  suitable  timber.  There  is 
an  estimated  6,000,000  acres  of  pine  types  in 
the  Red-cockaded  Woodpecker's  range  on 
national  forests.  If  the  goal  is  eventually  at- 
tained, it  will  mean  that  840,000  acres  of 
commercial  timber  is  being  devoted  to  the 
protection  of  one  single  endangered  species. 

While  there  is  no  system-wide  manage- 
ment plan,  several  regions  of  the  national  for- 
ests have  adopted  the  practice  of  setting 
aside  against  any  modification  eight  acres 
about  each  Bald  Eagle  nest  tree,  together 
with  an  additional  buffer  zone  limiting  activ- 
ities during  the  nesting  season.  In  Alaska 
2,760  Bald  Eagle  nests  have  been  located  and 
charted,  thus  automatically  setting  aside 
some  21,500  acres  of  merchantable  timber. 
However,  land  use  plans  for  national  forests 
in  southeast  Alaska  call  for  the  reservation  of 
approximately  50,680  acres  of  standard  oper- 
able   commercial    timberlands    along    beach 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


31 


areas,  primarily  for  the  protection  of  eagle 
habitat. 

The  endangered  Kirtland's  Warbler  nests 
in  northern  Michigan  in  an  early  successional 
stage  following  fire.  Here  Jack  Pine  boughs 
screen  a  ground  nest  in  a  more  or  less  con- 
tiguous low  blueberry  ground  cover.  The  re- 
covery plan  calls  for  managing  some  61,485 
acres  of  Jack  Pine  on  the  Huron  National 
Forest,  by  controlled  burning,  to  provide  this 
habitat.  Elsewhere,  on  the  Six  Rivers  Nation- 
al Forest  in  California  a  proposed  timber  sale 
of  approximately  9.25  MMBF  of  merchan- 
table timber  was  withdrawn  to  protect  an  en- 
dangered plant  (Pine-foot).  In  New  Mexico, 
the  endangered  Jemes  Mountain  Salamander 
requires  deep  shade  and  substantial  amounts 
of  moist,  decomposing  timber  material  on 
rocky  north  slopes.  The  management  plan 
may  withdraw  as  much  as  2,500  acres  to  pro- 
tect this  habitat,  though  admittedly  the  tim- 
ber is  difficult  to  harvest.  In  Montana,  habi- 
tat protection  for  the  grizzly  bear  tends  to 
limit  the  salvage  of  beetle-killed  timber. 

In  a  number  of  cases,  one  of  the  reasons 
given  for  listing  an  animal  or  plant  as  endan- 
gered is  overgrazing.  However,  thus  far  only 
one  proposal  to  close  an  area  to  grazing  has 
surfaced.  This  is  the  Beaver  Dam  Slope  area 
in  southeastern  Nevada,  for  the  purpose  of 
protecting  the  Desert  Tortoise.  But  with- 
drawal of  public  range  can  take  a  number  of 
forms.  For  example,  prairie  dog  colonies  on 
the  Buffalo  Gap  National  Grasslands  in  South 
Dakota  have  increased  from  114  in  1968  to 
479  in  1975— and  the  area  occupied  from 
3,000  to  18,000  acres.  Because  of  the  endan- 
gered Black  Footed  Ferret  that  uses  the 
prairie  dog  as  a  principal  prey,  the  simple  so- 
lution of  removing  these  rodents  to  the  point 
where  range  forage  conditions  improve  is  not 
acceptable.  So  the  management  plan  calls  for 
partial  reduction  in  prairie  dog  numbers,  ac- 
companied by  a  reduction  in  livestock  graz- 
ing that  would  have  produced  319,000 
povmds  of  beef. 

But  of  resources  in  the  western  United 
States  that  are  less  than  adequate  for  man's 
needs,  water  stands  first.  The  most  produc- 
tive place  to  look  for  an  endangered  or 
threatened  species  is  in  an  isolated  spring  or 
sink.  Isolation  created  the  adapting  species 
and  that  same  restricted  habitat  endangers 


them.  These  sites  are  very  susceptible  to 
withdrawal  of  water  from  underground  aqui- 
fers for  domestic  use  or  irrigation.  Thus,  the 
Desert  Pupfish  prevailed  in  stopping  a  ran- 
cher from  irrigating  his  alfalfa  fields.  In 
southwestern  Texas  three  small  fish  in- 
habiting springs  and  headwaters  of  drainages 
to  the  Amistad  Reservoir  are  proposed  as  en- 
dangered and/ or  threatened,  the  major  rea- 
son being  "excessive  removal  of  ground  wa- 
ter." Water  uses  in  an  area  starved  for  that 
commodity  can  be  affected  many  miles  dis- 
tant. 

Even  cities  are  vulnerable  to  this  type  of 
resource  withdrawal.  For  example,  to  insure 
adequate  water  for  future  needs,  the  city  of 
Cheyenne,  Wyoming,  acquired  the  water 
rights  from  the  Little  Snake  River  on  the 
western  slope,  which  they  would  bring 
through  a  tunnel  under  the  Divide  to 
Cheyenne.  But  below  the  water  takeout 
points  is  the  stream  habitat  of  the  Colorado 
Cutthroat  Trout,  considered  for  protective 
listing.  To  solve  the  impasse,  Cheyenne 
agreed  to  release  5,000  acre  feet  of  their  an- 
ticipated 23,000  acre  feet  of  water  to  main- 
tain the  trout  habitat.  The  value  of  the  water 
to  the  city  is  much  greater  than  the  $110  per 
acre  foot  necessary  to  develop  the  water  col- 
lection project  ($550,000  for  this  fraction). 

The  life's  blood  of  the  southwestern  United 
States  is  the  Colorado  River  drainage  basin. 
It  holds  the  key  to  every  activity.  Endan- 
gered species  of  fish  have  now  been  listed  for 
different  segments  of  this  river  system  from 
Wyoming  to  Arizona.  The  impact  of  this  pro- 
gram in  so  sensitive  an  area  can  be  explosive. 

Costly  Project  Modifications 

The  regional  office  of  the  U.S.  Forest  Ser- 
vice in  California  informed  me  in  August 
1978  that  they  had  made  22  requests  of  the 
Endangered  Species  Office  for  formal  Section 
7  Consultations.  At  that  time  they  had  re- 
ceived 10  completed  biological  opinions,  half 
of  which  recommended  modification  of  a 
program.  Similarly,  the  regional  office  of  the 
Forest  Service  in  Montana  had  received  final 
biological  opinions  on  five  programs,  80  per- 
cent of  this  number  recommending  changes. 
Many  of  the  project  modifications  were  the 
product  of  interagency  planning  that  min- 


32 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


imized  cost  and  disruption.  But  others  add 
appreciably  to  project  costs. 

The  Florida  Power  and  Light  Company, 
serving  the  electric  needs  of  southeastern 
Florida,  is  literally  being  painted  into  a  cor- 
ner by  a  maze  of  conservation  set-aside  areas, 
including  critical  habitats  for  four  endan- 
gered species.  They  sought  permission  to 
build  a  transmission  line  to  cross  about  a  mile 
of  one  comer  of  the  Loxahatchee  Wildlife 
Refuge.  They  offered  to  purchase  another 
tract  of  land  of  equal  value  that  would  be 
suitable  habitat  and,  in  addition,  provide  $1 
million  for  its  development.  They  failed  to 
get  the  easement  because  it  was  "in- 
compatible with  the  Everglade  Kite  Critical 
Habitat."  The  line  has  now  been  detoured 
around  that  comer  of  the  refuge  at  an  addi- 
tional cost  for  construction  of  $1,200,000. 
The  public  utility  contends  that  the  easement 
they  sought  contained  neither  Everglade 
Kites  nor  the  Apple  Snail  on  which  they  feed. 

Clear  across  the  continent  another  public 
utility,  Southern  California  Edison,  expe- 
rienced increased  project  costs  of  a  somewhat 
different  nature.  A  17-mile  equipment  haul 
route  to  the  San  Onofre  Nuclear  Generating 
Station  near  San  Clemente,  California,  from 
the  off-loading  dock  was  required.  Due  to 
terrain,  land  ownership,  and  load  weight  con- 
straints, the  route  was  to  follow  along  the 
coastal  beach  just  above  the  high  tide  line. 
During  1976,  a  portion  of  the  route  became 
populated  with  a  colony  of  Least  Terns.  Af- 
ter several  meetings  with  the  Least  Tern  Re- 
covery Team,  it  became  obvious  that  a  new 
haul  route  and/ or  construction  schedules  and 
equipment  delivery  times  would  have  to  be 
changed.  The  studies  and  altered  schedules  to 
avoid  equipment  arrival  during  nesting  peri- 
od (April-September)  resulted  in  direct  costs 
of  approximately  $800,000. 

In  northern  Colorado,  the  Peabody  Coal 
Company  was  enlarging  its  mining  operation, 
which  is  to  serve  as  the  sole  fuel  source  for 
Colorado-Ute's  Power  Plant  at  Hayden. 
Peabody  had  surveyed  and  purchased  a  right- 
of-way  for  a  haul  road  to  deliver  the  coal 
when  a  local  staff  member  of  the  Colorado 
Division  of  Wildlife  called  attention  to  a  cul- 
tivated wheat  field  along  the  route  that  was 
used  each  spring  by  a  small  group  of  Greater 
Sandhill  Cranes.  These  migratory  stop-over 


sites  are  termed  "dancing  grounds"  because 
certain  prebreeding  rituals  take  place  in  this 
period.  Peabody  had  prepared  an  Environ- 
mental Impact  Study  on  their  program  and 
circulated  it  to  state  agencies,  but  it  evi- 
dently did  not  come  to  the  attention  of  any- 
one knowledgeable  about  the  cranes.  The 
greater  Sandhill  Crane  is  on  the  Colorado 
state  list  as  endangered,  but  not  on  the  feder- 
al. This  situation  required  Peabody  to  reroute 
their  delivery  road  and  purchase  a  new  right- 
of-way. 

The  Arkansas  State  Highway  Department, 
although  filing  a  formal  request  for  a  Section 
7  Consultation  on  the  proposed  routing  of  a 
four-lane  highway,  decided  independently  on 
an  alternate  route  to  avoid  the  cave  halaitat 
of  the  federally  endangered  Gray  Bat  and  a 
state-listed  cavefish  and  grotto  salamander. 
The  envisioned  adverse  affects  were  not  the 
physical  disruption  of  the  right-of-way,  but 
the  off-chance  that  a  chemical  spill  would 
occur  on  the  completed  highway  that  would 
enter  the  undergroimd  aquifer  that  feeds  a 
more  distant  cave.  This  alternate  action 
lengthened  the  highway  by  a  little  over  two 
miles,  which  will  cost  taxpayers  an  estimated 
$3,000,000. 

Addressing  Problems,  Not  Solutions 

The  Soil  Conservation  Service  has  had 
some  rather  difficult  experiences  with  the  en- 
dangered species  legislation.  A  small  water- 
shed program  has  broad  participation  of  af- 
fected parties  in  project  planning.  The  usual 
goal  is  to  prevent  the  loss  of  topsoil  in  the 
upper  basin  and  destructive  flooding  in  the 
lower  basin,  and  to  improve  permanent  wa- 
ter sources,  be  it  stream  flow  or  small  reser- 
voir. 

The  Cypress  Creek  Watershed  in  Lauder- 
dale County,  Alabama,  and  Wayne  Coimty, 
Tennessee,  was  just  such  a  project.  But  the 
biological  assessment  that  SCS  funded  turned 
up  an  endangered  small  fish,  the  Slackwater 
Darter,  one  of  80  species  and  subspecies  of 
darters  in  Tennessee.  The  biological  opinion 
from  the  Office  of  Endangered  Species  point- 
ed out  that  the  project  would  adversely  affect 
the  Slackwater  Darter  because  of  its  very  un- 
usual reproductive  requirements.  While  typi- 
cal of  a  slow-flowing  stream  with  silt  and 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


33 


gravel  bottom,  this  Darter  makes  use  of  high 
(flood)  water  to  swim  off-stream  into  seepage 
areas  in  open  pastures  for  breeding.  OES  ap- 
proved four  water  retarding  structures  on 
Little  Cvpress  where  no  darters  were  found, 
but  blue-penciled  for  the  time  being  15  struc- 
t\ires  on  other  branches  of  the  system.  This 
darter  needs  flooding,  but  the  fields  and  small 
towns  down  valley  don't. 

In  Mississippi,  after  identification  of  the 
Bayou  Darter  in  the  Bayou  Pierre  Water- 
shed, over  $100,000  was  spent  by  SCS  to 
identify  the  habitat  and  critical  elements  of 
that  habitat.  Planning  and  taking  into  ac- 
count habitat  location  and  the  critical  ele- 
ments of  the  habitat  resulted  in  selecting  land 
treatment  and  13  floodwater  retarding  struc- 
tures as  the  proper  approach.  An  analysis  of 
impacts  on  the  scope  and  extent  of  habitat 
and  the  critical  factors  in  the  habitat  in- 
dicated no  significant  impact  on  the  Bayou 
Darter.  But  the  Office  of  Endangered  Species 
disagreed.  High  on  their  list  of  reasoning  was 
the  inability  to  predict  induced  land  changes 
that  might  be  accompanied  by  increased  pes- 
ticide residues,  siltation,  etc.  This  would  not 
appear  to  be  an  objection  to  the  project  per 
se,  but  to  the  opportunity  it  provided  indi- 
viduals within  the  improved  watershed  to  up- 
grade their  economic  pursuits  which  just 
might  adversely  affect  the  darter. 

Conclusion 

The  impacts  of  the  Endangered  Species 
Act  have  so  many  facets  and  ramify  into  so 
many  comers  of  our  society  that  it  has  been 
impossible  in  a  short  paper  to  bring  you  very 
much  of  the  information  finding  its  way 
across  my  desk  in  the  last  three  months. 
However,  it  should  be  abundantly  clear  that 
much  of  the  burden  of  performing  research 
and  adjusting  to  endangered  species  require- 
ments is  falling  outside  the  coterie  of  govern- 
ment agencies,  private  organizations,  and  in- 
dividuals who  are  expressly  committed  to  the 
management  of  wildlife  and  native  plants. 
Imposing  that  obligation  places  a  critical  re- 
sponsibility on  those  wielding  the  legislation 
to  fully  determine  that  the  programs  are  bio- 
logically sound  and  economically  practical. 
As  the  list  of  endangered  species  grows,  it 
will  take  the  wisdom  of  Solomon  to  avoid 


fencing  in  the  economy  until  it  will  no  longer 
serve  you.  You  have  very  little  time  to  estab- 
lish a  favorable  rapport,  for  the  program 
comes  up  for  another  congressional  review  in 
one  and  one-half  years.  You  have  this  in  your 
favor:  there  is  almost  no  one  who  doesn't  en- 
joy some  aspect  of  the  living  world  about  us. 

Questions  to  Dr.  Spencer 

Q.  If  I  interpret  your  comments  correctly  and  place 
them  into  a  context  of  the  relationship  they  might 
have  to  those  of  Dr.  Clement,  there  is  a  real,  imme- 
diate requirement  for  changing  some  of  the  cultural 
practices  we  presently  have.  Is  this  interpretation 
correct? 

A.  I  am  sorry  folks.  I  live  in  a  pretty  practical  world 
and  am  not  prepared  to  go  into  the  theories  and  phi- 
losophies of  management.  So  if  I  may,  I  am  going  to 
duck  that  question. 

Earlier  this  morning  one  of  our  speakers  said  that 
he  was  often  asked,  "What  is  the  value  of  a  given 
endangered  species  and  how  do  you  compare  it  with 
the  costs  that  we  are  going  to  face  in  providing  pri- 
ority-use habitats?"  The  House/Senate  Conference 
Report  (No.  95-1804,  dated  15  October  1978)  has  this 
to  say: 

...  to  balance  the  benefits  associated  with  the  agency  action  against 
the  benefits  associated  with  alternative  courses  of  action,  they  should 
not  balance  the  benefits  of  the  action  against  the  value  associated  with 
the  listed  species. 

I  take  this  to  mean  that  there  is  to  be  no  attempt  to 
place  a  monetary  value  on  a  species  threatened  with 
extinction.  In  other  words,  the  instruction  is  to  com- 
pare the  economic  impact  of  the  different  alterna- 
tive actions,  but  not  to  place  a  value  on  wildlife  for 
the  purposes  of  comparative  costs. 

Q.   That  is  correct.  It  is  an  act  of  Congress,  I  think. 

A.  It  is  in  the  Endangered  Species  Act  Amendments  of 
1978.  The  Solicitor  General's  Office  will  provide  de- 
cisions on  these  matters. 

Q.  Several  of  your  comments  were  directed  toward  the 
relative  costs  of  changing  a  project  or  altering  a  proj- 
ect in  order  to  be  in  accord  with  the  Endangered 
Species  Act.  You  seem  to  be  saying  by  this  that  it 
costs  a  lot  of  money  for  other  government  agencies, 
private  companies,  and  the  like  to  accommodate 
their  designs  with  the  requirements  of  the  Endan- 
gered Species  Act.  I  won't  argue  with  that.  It's  true. 
It  seems  that  we  need  a  priority  system  to  go  along 
with  it.  As  an  example,  let  me  tell  you  a  little  story. 
I  had  to  do  an  environmental  impact  statement  for  a 
power  line.  The  question  in  my  mind  was,  "Is  this 
power  line  needed?"  I  never  got  a  satisfactory  an 
swer  from  the  power  company  or  anyone  else  that  it 
was  necessary.  It  seems  to  me  that  we  need  a  prior- 
ity system  whereby  we  can  feed  that  kind  of  infor- 
mation into  the  decision-making  process  because  it 
is  possible  that  someone  might  plan  something  with- 
out a  real  need  for  it. 

A.  I  would  suggest  that  this  is  not  a  normal  procedure. 
People  generally  do  not  build  what  they  do  not 
need.  It  is  normal  not  to  encumber  an  expense  un- 


34 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


less  you  anticipate  some  beneficial  return.  Before 
being  too  hasty  to  ascribe  a  motive  to  a  person,  or- 
ganization, or  project  to  which  we  might  have  some 
objection,  I  suggest  we  follow  the  motto  that  says, 
"Don't  criticize  your  opponent  until  you  have 
walked  a  mile  in  his  moccasins." 
The  other  point  I  thought  you  were  trying  to  make 
is  that  people  here  in  the  audience  ought  to  be 
aware  that  there  is  a  very  bad  economic  penalty  or 
economic  cost,  if  you  want  to  put  it  in  those  terms, 
with  this  particular  piece  of  legislation  and  that  if 
we  fail  to  recognize  those  costs  that  are  there,  we 
may  be  in  jeopardy  of  losing  the  program  entirely. 
You  have  stated  my  opinion  very  well.  We  are  proud 
of  what  we  have  been  able  to  accomplish  in  wildlife 
conservation  in  this  country.  Until  very  recently, 
these  wildlife  programs  have  been  totally  self-sup- 
porting and  have  not  dipped  into  the  tax  till  to 
which  the  general  public  contributes.  Now  we  have 
turned  around  and  are  progressively  passing  the 
costs  along  to  companies,  organizations,  and  the  gen- 
eral public  for  projects  in  which  they  have  little 
first-hand  interest.  It  is  up  to  us  to  be  sure  that  the 
cooperation  we  ask  of  them  is  a  wise  investment  for 
all  parties. 

The  new  environmental  laws,  including  the  En- 
dangered Species  Act,  came  into  being  during  a  pe- 
riod when  we  were  economically  well  off.  Now  we 


are  experiencing  a  period  of  inflation,  high  taxes, 
and  a  cost  of  living  that  is  affecting  every  pock- 
etbook.  It  is  time  for  us  to  be  very,  very  careful  we 
don't  crowd  this  unfavorable  economy.  If  we  ask  for 
too  much,  if  we  wield  this  powerful  legislation  with 
too  much  enthusiastic  abandon,  we  stand  to  have 
Congress  remove  it  from  the  books.  Please  remem- 
ber it  comes  up  in  Congress  for  reappropriation  in 
18  months.  In  the  39  years  I  worked  for  the  federal 
government,  34  of  those  years  with  the  Fish  and 
Wildlife  Service,  every  time  the  economy  dipped 
our  appropriations  were  among  the  first  to  be  cut.  I 
don't  think  times  have  changed. 

There  are  relatively  few  endangered  and  threat- 
ened species  on  the  lists  at  the  present  time  com- 
pared to  literally  thousands  that  only  await  the 
proper  study  to  be  added.  We  have  established  criti- 
cal habitat  for  only  33— a  not  too  complicated  pro- 
cedure when  only  one  species  in  an  area  is  consid- 
ered. But  in  the  future,  you  can  anticipate  that 
critical  habitats  will  involve  acreages  and  overlaps 
that  will  noticeably  fence  in  the  economy. 

In  my  opinion,  the  25  amendments  to  the  Endan- 
gered Species  Act  in  1978  succeeded  only  in  making 
the  legislation  more  difficult  to  administer,  and 
equally  more  difficult  to  comply  with.  It  is  now  so 
complex  that  it  is  self-defeating. 


ENDANGERED  ANIMALS  IN  UTAH  AND  ADJACENT  AREAS 

Douglas  Day' 

.Abstract.—  This  paper  presents  a  brief  background  on  Utah's  experience  with  the  Endangered  Species  Act  of 
1973  to  date,  the  Division  of  Wildlife  Resources'  involvement  with  resident  endangered  wildlife  forms,  including  the 
Utah  prairie  dog,  peregrine  falcon,  bald  eagle,  woundfin,  Colorado  squawfish  and  humpback  chub,  and  problems 
associated  with  the  listing  of  native  fauna.  Also  discussed  is  a  proposal  to  vest  the  division  with  authority  for  endan- 
gered plants  by  legislative  mandate. 


I  appreciate  that  kind  introduction— and 
it's  true,  I  am  a  son-in-law  of  Dr.  Clarence 
Cottam.  I  was  debating  whether  to  mention 
that  or  not,  but  it  has  come  up.  Let  me  just 
pay  tribute  to  Dr.  Cottam,  as  the  personal 
relationship  I  had  with  him  was  something 
special,  and  I  think  that  the  reason  I'm  here 
today  is  because  of  the  special  interest  he 
showed  in  me.  I  can  remember  looking  for 
whooping  cranes  at  the  Arkansas  Refuge.  He 
wanted  to  make  sure  I  got  a  firsthand  impres- 
sion of  those  magnificent  birds,  and  that  im- 
pression has  stayed  with  me  throughout  my 
life.  I  remember  staying  out  at  night  with  Dr. 
Cottam  on  the  Welder  Refuge,  trying  to  call 
up  the  Texas  red  wolf.  His  keen  interest  in 
endangered  species  was  inspiring.  I'll  never 
forget  it.  He  has  been  a  great  influence  in  my 
life.  Also,  I  know  he  provided  some  direction 
to  BYU's  biological  endeavors. 

Talking  about  endangered  species,  I  think 
I  might  be  one.  In  the  position  that  I'm  in  as 
director  of  Utah's  Division  of  Wildlife  Re- 
sources, I  think  I  have  a  feeling  for  these  crit- 
ters that  we're  talking  about.  I'm  kind  of 
caught  between  two  worlds— the  political 
world  and  the  world  that  we  have  worked  in 
so  many  years  in  the  biological  realm.  To 
make  those  worlds  see  eye  to  eye  is  very  dif- 
ficult. That's  sometimes  why  I  think  directors 
are  endangered— because  they  might  get  a 
little  too  enthusiastic  about  the  biological 
part  of  it  and  forget  the  political  part.  It's  a 
tightrope  to  walk.  Sometimes  we  don't  have 
the  opportunity  to  say  what  we  really  feel. 
Someone  gets  to  the  public  before  we  do  and 


says  this  is  what  they  think,  and  prudence  re- 
quires that  we  wait  for  a  better  opportunity. 
Sooner  or  later  it  seems  to  come.  I  think  the 
time  might  come,  if  we  keep  going  in  the  di- 
rection we're  going  in  disregarding  environ- 
mental concerns,  that  someone  might  just 
happen  to  have  an  idea  that  the  whole  world 
should  be  declared  critical  habitat.  If  that 
happens,  I  don't  think  we'll  have  to  worry 
about  collecting  permits. 

I'd  like  to  make  a  couple  of  comments  on  a 
pending  court  case.  The  defendants  are  the 
secretary  of  the  interior,  the  governor  of  Col- 
orado, the  director  of  the  Colorado  Division 
of  Wildlife,  the  governor  of  Utah,  Utah's  di- 
rector of  the  Department  of  Natural  Re- 
sources, and  I.  This  lawsuit  is  over  threatened 
and  endangered  species.  In  that  lawsuit  it  is 
mentioned  that  "The  right  to  develop  and 
beneficially  consume  the  limited  quantity  of 
water  .  .  .  (from  the  Colorado  River)  is  a  ves- 
ted property  right,  the  use  of  which  is  pro- 
tected to  the  citizens,  present  and  fu- 
ture. .  .  ."  Now,  I  would  ask  the  question- 
does  wildlife  have  any  vested  property 
rights?  I  submit  that  it  hadn't,  not  until  the 
Endangered  Species  Act  of  1973.  That's  very 
important— to  realize  why  we  need  to  protect 
and  hold  on  to  the  Endangered  Species  Act. 
In  that  lawsuit  some  of  the  claims  are  the  de- 
fendants failed  to  properly,  fairly,  equitably, 
and  impartially  enforce  the  provisions  of  the 
Endangered  Species  Act.  Continuing  on,  the 
lawsuit  further  states,  "The  factual  basis  upon 
which  the  determination  was  made  that  the 
Colorado    Squawfish   and   the    Humpback 


'Division  of  Wildlife  Resources,  1596  West  North  Temple,  Salt  Lake  City,  Utah  84116. 


35 


36 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


Chub  are  or  were  'threatened  with  extinc- 
tion,' and  the  continued  designation  under 
ESA  as  'endangered'  was  and  is  not  based 
upon  sound  and  adequate  biological  data  and 
knowledge  of  said  species  .  .  .  and,  further, 
amount  to  arbitrary  and  capricious  acts  on 
the  part  of  the  defendants. ..." 

Here  is  another  item,  "The  defendants,  and 
all  of  them,  have  determined  without  ade- 
quate biological  data  and  knowledge  that  wa- 
ter impoundment  development  adversely  af- 
fect such  fish  species.  .  . ,  and  as  a  result  of 
said  erroneous  conclusions,  based  upon  little 
or  no  scientific  evidence,  defendants  have 
continued  to  wrongfully  impede  plaintiff  dis- 
tricts' efforts  to  construct  their  projects,  in- 
cluding impoundments.  .  .  ." 

And  last,  another  excerpt  I  thought  would 
be  of  interest  to  you,  is  "The  fact  that  Colo- 
rado Squawfish,  and  the  Humpback  Chub, 
were  allegedly  'threatened  with  extinction' 
and  are  now  allegedly  'endangered'  is  the  di- 
rect and  proximate  result  of  the  stocking  by 
all  defendants  of  non-endemic,  non-native  or 
exotic  fishes  in  the  Colorado  System."  What 
that  means  is  that  the  stripers  are  eating  the 
squawfish.  I  suggested  a  proposition  or  a  pro- 
posal that  might  be  humorous  in  one  way  but 
sad  in  another,  that  being,  if  they  really  want 
to  stop  the  stripers  from  eating  the  squawfish 
(there  is  no  scientific  evidence  of  this),  why 
don't  they  build  another  dam  on  the  Colo- 
rado River  to  keep  stripers  from  running  up- 
stream. I  don't  know  what  the  outcome  of  all 
this  will  be. 

My  time  is  rather  limited,  but  I  want  to 
draw  your  attention  to  last  Sunday's  Parade 
magazine.  I  am  pleased  that  we  are  getting 
this  kind  of  coverage.  What  it  says  is  the  two 
things  that  are  the  greatest  threat  to  wildlife 
today  are  (1)  loss  of  habitat  (and  that's  very 
obvious,  because  if  endangered  species  had 
good  habitat  they  wouldn't  be  in  danger)  and 
(2)  commercialization  of  world  wildlife.  Con- 
sider these  statistics  from  the  U.S.  Fish  and 
Wildlife  Service.  Last  year  in  the  United 
States  we  imported  about  100  million  tropi- 
cal fish,  500,000  reptiles,  100,000  mammals, 
and  uncounted  thousands  of  birds.  The  im- 
ported traffic  in  manufactured  wildlife 
goods— furs,  coats,  leather,  trinkets,  jewelry, 
and  carvings— leaped  from  1.7  million  items 
in  1972  to  91  million  in  1976,  the  last  year 


for  which  figures  are  available.  Between 
1973  and  1976,  skin  and  hide  imports  rose 
from  900,000  to  32.5  million.  Part  of  the  rea- 
son is  the  impact  from  TV  of  Barretta's  bird, 
Fred.  A  few  years  ago  you  could  buy  a  cock- 
atoo for  $100,  and  now  some  of  them  are 
fetching  $6,000  apiece. 

Let  me  go  into  some  of  our  involvement  in 
the  State  Wildlife  Division  with  endangered 
species.  I'll  tell  you  about  a  few  of  the  spe- 
cies we're  working  with  and  about  some  of 
the  progress  we  are  making.  But  first,  I  want 
to  take  just  a  minute  and  maybe  leave  you 
with  another  concept.  I've  worked  closely 
with  the  Boy  Scouts  for  a  number  of  years, 
and  I  had  the  opportunity  to  take  them  to  a 
power  plant.  One  thing  that  impressed  us 
was  the  control  room.  In  that  control  room 
you  could  virtually  feel  the  whole  operation 
of  the  plant.  It  was  right  there;  you  knew 
what  was  happening,  and  when  there  was  a 
problem  somewhere  a  red  light  came  on.  The 
plant  operator  could  tell  where  that  problem 
was  from  the  red  light. 

I  would  submit  to  you  that  in  the  biologi- 
cal world  we  have  our  red  lights.  We  don't 
pay  much  attention  to  them,  or  haven't  done 
until  lately.  These  red  lights  are  our  endan- 
gered species.  I  think  that  is  a  good  concept. 
I  noticed  yesterday  morning  driving  to  the 
office  a  pickup  truck  that  I  was  following 
was  obviously  losing  its  antifreeze,  and  I 
could  predict  what  would  happen;  the  red 
light  came  on  and  the  truck  was  in  trouble. 
He  could  go  on  a  little  while,  but  eventually 
it  had  to  be  taken  care  of  or  that  truck  was 
doomed.  The  operator  obviously  paid  atten- 
tion to  the  warning  light  and  pulled  off  the 
road. 

In  the  biological  world  we  don't  pay  atten- 
tion to  our  red  lights  as  we  should.  We're  just 
beginning  to  do  this.  These  are  our  endan- 
gered species.  This  much-used  and  publicized 
terminology  connotes  a  wildlife  form  desper- 
ately trying  not  to  join  the  passenger  pigeon, 
heath  hen,  and  others  in  the  land  of  memory. 
Each  time  we  lose  a  species  one  of  our  red 
lights  goes  out. 

This  designation  of  endangered  species  has 
also  been  accused  of  holding  up  progress  and 
projects,  locking  up  land,  and  various  other 
alleged  abuses.  The  Endangered  Species  Acts 
of  1966  and  1969  were  relatively  innocuous 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


37 


in  that  they  recognized  the  status  of  certain 
species  and  hsted  them,  but  it  took  the  En- 
dangered Species  Act  of  1973  to  estabhsh  a 
national  policy  to  come  to  grips  with  the  is- 
sue and  determine  ways  and  means  to  at- 
tempt to  reverse  the  trends  of  certain  species 
toward  extinction. 

To  a  state  wildlife  administrator,  the  1973 
Act  with  its  attendant  rule  making  and  re- 
strictions has  been  the  source  of  much  soul 
searching.  I  believe  most  of  us  whole- 
heartedly agreed  with  the  philosophy  and  the 
intent  of  Congress.  We  have  vigorously  ob- 
jected to  the  early  federal  agency  approach 
that  absolutely  usurps  state  authority  in  en- 
dangered species  management.  Recent  devel- 
opments have  ameliorated  the  situation,  and 
on  the  horizon  I  can  see  finally  the  devel- 
opment of  a  much  closer  state-federal  work- 
ing relationship  with  the  goal  of  doing  all  hu- 
manly possible  to  restore  endangered  species 
to  a  viable  component  of  our  environment. 
The  sadness  in  the  situation  is  that  it  has 
taken  almost  five  years  to  get  to  this  point. 
This  is  time  that  we  can't  afford  to  waste. 
However,  in  defense  of  the  federal  agency's 
past  position,  let  me  add  that  the  act  itself, 
until  amended,  left  no  room  for  legitimate 
compromise.  This  in  itself  has  been  a  big 
stumbling  block. 

I  remember  another  Cottam  that  you  are 
well  acquainted  with  here  at  BYU,  and  that  is 
Dr.  Walter  Cottam.  He  said,  "Unless  you 
learn  somehow  to  compete  with  the  dollar, 
you  will  lose  the  conservation  battle."  In  my 
experience,  and  ever  since  I  have  been  in- 
volved, it  has  been  a  compromise  situation.  I 
am  afraid  the  direction  we  are  going  is  com- 
promise to  extinction  unless  we  reverse  that 
trend.  We  are  just  beginning  to  get  some 
tools  that  give  us  a  little  bit  of  an  edge  in  the 
compromise  situation.  Because  of  the  devel- 
opmental demands  in  our  environment,  it  is 
not  easy  to  carry  on  this  struggle  we  are  in. 
Believe  me,  it  is  discouraging.  I  can  remem- 
ber only  one  instance  when  a  developer  came 
on  his  own  to  a  wildlife  biologist  for  input 
into  a  development  project.  It  is  sad  that  we 
have  endangered  species  acts  and  other  legis- 
lation to  require  coordination  and  con- 
sultation between  developers  and  biologists. 

The  real  plus  for  the  act  has  been  the 
awakening  interest  in  the  amount  of  knowl- 


edge about  many  species  we  never  before 
considered  as  significant,  or  for  that  matter  as 
ever  existing.  In  retrospect,  our  formal  train- 
ing in  the  field  was  deficient  in  many  areas 
but  suited  the  times.  Unfortunately,  industri- 
alization, social  pressure,  and  human  de- 
mands accelerated  at  a  rate  faster  than  the 
state  of  the  art  of  wildlife  management.  Re- 
lated fields  of  plant  and  animal  science  have 
produced  knowledgeable  individuals  who 
have  "come  out  of  the  woodwork,"  so  to 
speak,  with  indisputable  evidence  regarding 
certain  species  that  state  management 
agencies  were  never  privy  to,  were  unaware 
of,  or  disregarded. 

For  many  years  we  have  been  game  orien- 
ted, not  always  by  choice,  but  by  the  unre- 
lenting force  of  simple  economics.  Until 
1975,  in  Utah,  our  entire  program  was  fi- 
nanced by  user  fees  in  the  form  of  hunting 
and  fishing  licenses,  fines  and  forfeitures, 
matching  federal  monies  also  paid  by  hunters 
and  fishermen,  and  miscellaneous  sources.  It 
is  obvious  our  primary  mission  has  been  to 
provide  for  and  produce  those  species  sought 
after  by  those  paying  the  bill.  In  1975  the 
Utah  Legislature  provided  general  funds  to 
iinplement  a  modest  nongame  section  within 
the  division  and  has  continued  that  support, 
still  modest  in  terms  of  total  budget.  There  is 
a  legitimate  need  to  increase  funding  for  non- 
game  programs,  to  increase  our  capabilities 
to  provide  basic  knowledge  and  solutions  to 
current  problems.  Appropriate  emphasis  is 
being  placed  on  endangered  species  within 
this  nongame  section. 

With  this  backgroimd,  let  me  detail  pro- 
grams related  to  endangered  species  in  Utah. 
First,  let  me  say  that  we  have  yet  to  enter 
into  a  formal  cooperative  agreement  with  the 
U.S.  Fish  and  Wildlife  Service  under  terms  of 
the  Endangered  Species  Act.  Recent  congres- 
sional action  provides  for  new  rule  making 
allowing  us  to  do  this,  and  we  expect  to  sign 
such  an  agreement.  However,  the  lack  of  a 
formal  agreement  dampened  neither  our  ded- 
ication nor  enthusiasm  to  get  on  with  the  job 
that  needed  doing. 

In  1973,  under  a  special  cooperative  agree- 
ment with  the  Denver  Regional  Office  of  the 
U.S.  Fish  and  Wildlife  Service,  funds  were 
provided  to  survey  historical  and  potential 
habitat   of  the  Utah  prairie  dog  {Cynomys 


38 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


parvidens).  This  is  our  start.  As  an  endan- 
gered species,  this  animal  has  had  an  erratic 
history.  It  was  first  added  to  the  hst  in  1969, 
removed  in  1970,  and  added  again  in  June 
1973.  Since  our  initial  effort  in  identifying 
habitat,  the  original  agreement  has  been 
amended  annually,  providing  funds  each  year 
to  continue  our  trapping  and  transplanting 
programs.  In  spite  of  its  endangered  species 
status,  based  on  overall  population  and  status 
of  colonies,  those  found  in  private  agricul- 
tural lands  have  provided  us  an  annual  prob- 
lem of  some  magnitude.  It  is  from  these  dam- 
age situations  that  we  trap  and  attempt  to 
establish  new  colonies  in  areas  of  historical 
occupancy  on  public  lands.  Trapping  com- 
mences in  the  spring  before  the  young  are 
born,  ceases  until  young  are  weaned,  and  re- 
sumes and  continues  until  late  summer.  Our 
most  recent  technique  attempts  to  livetrap 
family  groups  for  relocation.  The  work  is  car- 
ried out  using  seasonal  employees  supervised 
by  our  regional  office  in  Cedar  City  under 
guidelines  from  our  nongame  section. 

We  have  come  under  criticism  from  one 
animal  protection  organization  for  what  ap- 
pears to  them  to  be  a  low  success  rate  of  sur- 
vival and  establishment  from  our  transplant 
program.  Also,  that  organization  is  critical  of 
our  numbers  for  the  species  as  compared  to 
the  estimated  population  in  1973.  All  I  can 
offer  is  that,  because  we  are  not  sure  of  a 
percentage  to  project  for  a  total  population, 
we  will  continue  to  use  our  maximum  counts 
as  a  minimum  population  figure.  I  am  sure 
that  our  sincere  efforts  to  alleviate  agricul- 
tural damage  has  kept  some  landowners  from 
taking  matters  into  their  own  hands.  Even  if 
we  are  losing  large  numbers  in  an  attempt  to 
establish  a  new  colony,  it  appears  to  us  to  be 
a  wiser  decision  than  to  possibly  lose  the 
same  number  or  more  without  having  taken 
the  risk.  We  are  not  happy  with  the  odds  ei- 
ther, but  restoration  of  any  species  is  fraught 
with  failures,  disappointments,  and  frustra- 
tions. We  are  only  human  in  recognizing  and 
being  affected  by  them  but  feel  that  we  are 
also  professional  in  not  giving  up  and  in  gen- 
uinely trying  to  reduce  these  failures,  dis- 
appointments, and  frustrations.  We  are  con- 
fident that  the  Utah  prairie  dog  will  soon  be 
in  a  secure  enough  position  from  the  stand- 
point of  new  colonies  on  public  lands  that  we 


can  successfully  petition  for  delisting.  What 
we  attempt  to  do  is  investigate  the  problem, 
do  the  research  necessary,  and  give  some 
management  that  will  ensure  an  environment 
in  which  the  species  can  live  and  reproduce 
and  have  some  kind  of  continuance.  It  takes 
management. 

In  May  1975,  before  authorized  funding 
for  our  nongame  program  became  effective, 
we  concluded,  in  an  agreement  with  the  U.S. 
Fish  and  Wildlife  Service  and  Bureau  of 
Land  Management,  to  jointly  fimd  the  divi- 
sion position  of  raptor  biologist.  Our  share 
was  fimded  through  monies  received  as  con- 
tribution from  private  citizens.  This  arrange- 
ment continues  to  this  day,  except  that  our 
share  has  been  funded  by  legislative  appro- 
priation since  1  July  1976. 

Our  work  with  raptors  includes  all  species, 
with  emphasis  on  those  endangered,  sensitive, 
or  unique.  The  American  peregrine  falcon 
{Falco  peregrinus  anatum)  is  of  primary  con- 
cern in  view  of  its  current  national  status. 
Based  on  historic  records,  Utah  had  the  high- 
est rate  of  occupancy  by  this  subspecies  of 
any  western  state  with  the  possible  exception 
of  California.  You  are  all  aware  of  the  dra- 
matic decline  in  the  West  and  the  extirpation 
of  the  falcon  in  the  East  and  the  possible 
causes.  From  the  middle  sixties  to  1975  there 
were  no  known  active  peregrine  eyries  in 
Utah;  at  least  none  were  revealed  to  us.  In 
1978,  we  documented  occupancy  at  four 
sights,  but  fimding  limitations  allowed  no 
data  to  be  gathered  through  our  efforts— that 
was  because  of  a  lack  of  personnel.  We  do 
what  we  can.  Whether  the  peregrine  is  stag- 
ing a  comeback  is  a  matter  of  conjecture.  We 
doubt  it.  Increased  awareness  of  its  plight  is 
probably  the  reason  for  recent  docimienta- 
tion,  plus  limited  additional  effort  to  seek  out 
the  presence  of  the  species.  Evidence  avail- 
able indicates  pesticide  residues  are  still  too 
high  to  cause  much  optimism  at  this  point. 
We  will  continue  to  put  as  much  effort  to  de- 
termining status  as  fimds  and  personnel  will 
allow.  This  activity  will  increase  when  En- 
dangered Species  Act  funds  become  available 
to  us. 

This  year  the  bald  eagle  {Haliaeetus  leu- 
cocephalus)  was  added  to  the  list  of  U.S. 
threatened  and  endangered  species.  Pre- 
viously only  those  bald  eagles  nesting  south 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


39 


of  the  40th  parallel  were  listed.  This  action 
has  caused  us  no  little  concern  because  we 
have  no  documentation  of  nesting  bald  eagles 
in  Utah,  but  each  winter  we  are  visited  by 
over  600  eagles  produced  from  as  far  away  as 
northern  Saskatchewan.  The  population 
seems  thriving  and  secure  there,  and  we  are 
at  a  loss  to  explain  how  their  plight  changes 
as  they  wing  their  way  over  a  political 
boundary.  I  am  reminded  of  a  settler  who 
was  living  up  in  that  area  along  the  United 
States-Canadian  boundary  at  the  time  they 
surveyed  our  modern  boundary  lines.  He 
found  out  through  the  survey  that  he  was  ac- 
tually in  the  United  States.  He  said,  "Thank 
God.  I  couldn't  have  stood  another  Canadian 
winter.  " 

We  protected  the  listing  for  several  rea- 
sons, but  the  one  of  the  greatest  magnitude 
and  potential  problem  is  that  of  critical  habi- 
tat designation  if  the  action  ever  comes  to 
pass.  Every  canyon  used  for  night  roosting, 
every  tree  used  for  day  resting,  every  hunting 
area  could  come  under  the  designation.  What 
would  happen  to  our  waterfowl  management 
areas  upon  which  so  many  nonhunted  species 
depend  if  federal  funds  were  withheld  for 
failure  to  limit  hunting  because  of  the  pres- 
ence of  bald  eagles?  Today  there  hasn't  been 
a  hint  of  such  action,  but  stranger  things  have 
happened.  Before  the  recent  listing,  we  in- 
itiated a  survey  of  bald  eagle  visitants,  and 
for  the  past  five  years  have  documented 
number,  preferred  location  of  use,  and  gener- 
al arrival  and  departure  dates.  This  year,  in 
addition  to  our  own  winter  census,  we  will 
participate  in  the  national  one-day  bald  eagle 
census  in  cooperation  with  the  National 
Wildlife  Federation. 

I  want  to  talk  for  a  minute  about  one  other 
species,  mention  some  fishes,  and  then  wind 
it  up.  The  desert  tortoise  {Gophenis  agassizi) 
was  mentioned  earlier  this  morning.  Recently 
the  U.S.  Fish  and  Wildlife  Service  has  pro- 
posed, by  Federal  Register  publication,  listing 
of  the  desert  tortoise  as  an  endangered  spe- 
cies along  with  designation  of  38  square  miles 
of  the  Beaver  Dam  slope  in  Washington 
County  as  critical  habitat.  We  have  been  ac- 
tively involved  in  recent  years  in  document- 
ing the  current  status  of  the  tortoise  and  the 
condition  of  its  habitat.  While  sympathetic  to 
its  plight,  we  believe  this  move  to  be  pre- 


mature in  that  studies  currently  under  way  in 
Arizona  immediately  adjacent  should  be  fin- 
ished and  evaluated  and  the  entire  system 
looked  at  rather  than  drawing  political 
boundaries  to  attempt  management  of  a  spe- 
cies. 

I  will  touch  only  briefly  on  the  endangered 
fishes  here  in  Utah.  I  am  sure  Dr.  Deacon 
will  provide  more  in-depth  summary  in  his 
presentation.  There  are  presently  three  spe- 
cies in  Utah  in  this  category.  They  are  the 
Colorado  squawfish  {Ptychocheilus  lucius) 
and  humpback  chub  {Gila  cijpha)  in  the 
mainstream  Colorado  and  Green  rivers  in 
Utah  and  the  woundfin  {Plagoptenis  argentis- 
simus)  found  in  the  Virgin  River  below  La- 
Verkin  Springs.  There  are  three  more  species 
currently  under  consideration  for  either 
threatened  or  endangered  status— the  razor- 
back  sucker  {Xyrauchen  texanus)  and  bony- 
tail  chub  {Gila  elegans)  in  the  mainstream 
Colorado  system  and  the  Virgin  River  round- 
tail  chub  {Gila  robusta  seminuda).  Our  past 
work  with  these  has  been  very  limited,  pa- 
ricularly  with  the  Virgin  River  species.  Re- 
cently, we  have  been  more  involved  and  ex- 
pect to  fulfill  our  role  as  fish  and  wildlife 
managers  as  funds  are  made  available. 

It  now  appears  our  next  step  may  be  into 
the  area  of  endangered  plants.  In  a  few  min- 
utes you  will  hear  more  of  the  status  of  cer- 
tain plant  species  from  persons  more  knowl- 
edgeable than  I;  however,  the  Utah  Science 
Advisory  Committee  has  prepared  legislation 
for  introduction  at  the  general  session  of  the 
legislature  in  January  that  will  give  our  divi- 
sion jurisdiction  over  those  plant  species  de- 
clared threatened  or  endangered  under  the 
act.  It  also  provides  for  the  establishment  of  a 
position  of  taxonomist  and  funding  to  carry 
out  the  necessary  activities.  If  this  comes  to 
pass,  we  will  be  drawing  heavily  for  some 
time  on  the  expertise  of  several  of  the  speak- 
ers at  this  symposium. 

Our  involvement  with  endangered  species 
to  this  point,  though  not  deep,  has  been  sub- 
stantial considering  the  minimal  funding  re- 
ceived imder  the  act  for  just  one  facet  of  the 
program.  Recovery  teams  are  in  operation 
for  all  Utah  species,  and  we  have  representa- 
tives for  all  but  the  bald  eagle.  Our  participa- 
tion has  been  active  and  sincere.  We  take  the 
task  seriously  and  intend  to  continue  to  pro- 


40 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


vide  meaningful  input  for  the  sake  of  the  spe- 
cies involved.  We  also  intend  to  cooperate 
with  other  states,  federal  agencies,  and  all  in- 
terests to  ensure  that  endangered  species  are 
provided  for,  keeping  in  perspective  the 
needs  of  all  wildlife  as  well  as  those  various 
interests  of  our  human  resource.  I  hope  our 
efforts  will  be  interpreted  in  this  light. 

Questions  to  Mr.  Day 

Q.  We  agree  with  your  present  analysis  of  the  situation. 
If  you  find  a  better  solution,  please  let  us  know. 

A.  I  think  what  we  in  wildlife  management  have  to  do 
is  to  make  intelligent  decisions  concerning  endan- 
gered species  and  keep  the  pendulum  from  swinging 
too  far  the  other  way.  We  don't  want  to  lose  this 
tool,  as  I  mentioned  before,  and  I  think  you  can  see 
what  effect  the  politician  has  on  the  direction  we  go. 

Q.  I'm  not  sure  where  these  big  birds  move  in  from,  but 
in  the  Uinta  Basin  there's  quite  a  wintering  popu- 
lation of  bald  eagles  which  comes  in  and  feeds  on 
the  waterfowl  of  the  Pacific  flyway  that  goes 
through  that  area.  There  is  an  area  there  that  came 
to  be  recognized  as  a  roost  area  where  the  birds  go 
back  and  rest  in  the  evening  and  spend  the  night. 
Such  areas  have  been  given  refuge  status  in  Oregon. 

A.  Well  those  things  happen.  We  need  to  use  prudence 
in  recognizing  these  areas  or  things  can  get  out  of 
hand. 

Q.  Do  I  sense  an  opposition  to  listing  any  critical  habi- 
tat in  Utah? 

A.  From  our  division?  We  don't  list  it.  We  are  not  op- 
posed to  critical  habitat  designations  if  needed. 

Q.  Well,  Dr.  Murphy  said  the  same  thing  there  and  I 
was  wondering  if  .  .  . 

A.  No,  when  you  get  down  to  specific  cases,  whatever 
is  needed,  whatever  the  facts  require  to  ensure  the 
.survival  of  that  species  at  an  intelligent  level— that 
ought  to  be  the  way  we  are  managing  it.  You  can  see 
what  the  reaction  of  the  public  and  the  politician  is 
to  situations  where  we  go  overboard. 

Dr.  Murphy:  There  are  several  large  and  impor- 
tant roosts  that  would  fit  the  category  of  the  one  he 
mentions  in  the  Uinta  Basin  that  I  would  be  very 
happy  to  see  listed  as  critical  habitat,  but  it's  just 


that  the  wintering  population  becomes  very  dis- 
bursed and  small  groups  will  be  found  in  small  areas 
all  over  the  state.  It  becomes  almost  administratively 
impossible  to  keep  up  with  that  kind  of  a  situation. 

Q.  I  would  like  to  ask  you  a  question  that  is  perhaps  out 
of  your  realm,  and  that  is  "what  is  the  policy  of  the 
state  with  regard  to  endangered  species,  particularly 
plants  on  state  land?" 

A.  A  lot  of  people  have  been  asking  me  those  kinds  of 
questions  lately.  I  guess  first  we'd  have  to  know 
what  the  management  implications  are.  You've  got 
the  other  species  I  mentioned,  the  resources,  the  re- 
habilitation projects  going  on  for  game  species,  and 
that  type  of  thing.  I  can  only  answer,  just  in  a  gener- 
al way,  that  we're  interested.  We  want  to  see  these 
identified  and  take  intelligent  mea.sures  to  protect 
habitat  and  species. 

Q.  Specifically,  what  about  the  Cactus  rideii  on  the 
Mancos  Shale  in  the  Citros  Butte  area  of  Wayne 
County  which  is  being  strip  mined  for  coal  and  is  in 
an  area  of  critical  habitat  for  that  species? 

A.  You  remind  me  of  a  story  that  will  maybe  get  me  off 
the  hook.  This  fellow  was  a  well-known  speaker.  He 
gave  this  talk,  and  his  chauffeur  drove  him  around  to 
all  these  places,  and  his  chauffeur  said  one  day,  "Let 
me  give  this  talk  for  you.  I've  heard  it  so  many  times 
I  can  do  it  as  well  as  you  can." 

So  he  said,  "OK,  I'll  wear  your  chauffeur's  uni- 
form and  you  give  the  talk." 

That  happened.  The  audience  applauded,  and 
then  it  came  time  for  the  questions.  That's  the  situa- 
tion I'm  in.  A  question  like  this  came  up,  and  he 
said,  "That's  one  of  the  simplest  questions  I've  ever 
heard,  and  to  show  you  how  simple  it  is,  I'm  going 
to  let  my  chauffeur  answer  it."  The  problem  is  that  I 
didn't  bring  my  chauffeur. 

We'll  work  with  you.  Let  me  just  indicate  that 
state  lands  are  not  our  wildlife  lands,  but  lands  un- 
der the  State  Land  Board.  I'm  not  happy  with  the 
past  management  of  state  lands.  Overgrazing  has 
been  a  continual  problem  since  early  in  Utah  his- 
tory. We're  stuck  with  the  rehabilitation.  I've  seen 
that  overgrazing.  The  most  recent  time  was  the  bow 
himt  this  fall  on  the  Manti  Forest.  Y'ou  can  look  at 
the  museum  pictures  of  overgrazing  and  you  can  go 
out  on  Fred's  Flat  today  and  identify  those  same  pic- 
tures without  a  camera.  If  you  don't  learn  from  his- 
tory, you're  bound  to  make  the  same  mistakes. 


ENDANGERED  AND  THREATENED  FISHES  OF  THE  WEST 

James  E.  Deacon' 

,\bstract.—  The  endangered  and  threatened  fish  fauna  of  the  United  States  exhibits  problems  resulting  primarily 
from  habitat  modification  by  man.  The  evolutionary  history  of  the  fauna  has  left  it  especially  sensitive  to  biotic 
interactions.  In  addition,  many  forms  are  of  such  restricted  distribution  that  the  entire  taxon  can  be  destroyed  by 
very  minor  perturbations.  The  effects  of  habitat  modification  on  woundfin  and  roundtai!  chub  in  the  Virgin  River  of 
Utah,  Arizona,  and  Nevada  are  discussed.  Parasitism  by  Lernea  on  White  River  springfish  is  shown  to  coincide  with 
population  decline  in  some,  but  not  all,  cases.  Population  declines  of  Pahnunp  killifish  are  related  to  biotic  inter- 
actions with  both  goldfish  and  mosquitofish.  Population  size  of  Devils  Hole  pupfish  are  shown  to  be  quite  responsive 
to  small  changes  in  habitat  availability. 

Fishes  of  the  West  are  affected  by  the  same  general  kinds  of  ecological  problems  that  are  causing  extinctions 
throughout  the  world.  The  interplay  of  economics  with  perceived  value  in  society  has  led  us  into  the  numerous 
ecological  problems  facing  us  today.  There  is  some  evidence  to  suggest  that  society  is  making  some  preliminary  ef- 
fort to  slow  the  rate  of  extermination.  Perhaps  this  is  happening  because  the  conclusions  of  ecologists,  philosophers, 
and  theologians  regarding  the  relationship  of  man  and  environment  are  to  sopie  extent  being  translated  into  legisla- 
tion as  well  as  into  conventional  wisdom. 


The  fish  fauna  of  the  western  United  States 
has  frequently  been  characterized  as  one  hav- 
ing a  relatively  low  diversity  and  containing 
an  unusually  high  percentage  of  endemic 
taxa  exhibiting  limited  distributions  (Miller 
1959,  Smith  1978).  These  appear  also  to  be 
the  primary  features  contributing  to  the  fact 
that  much  of  the  fauna  is  threatened  to  some 
degree. 

Recently,  the  Endangered  Species  Com- 
mittee of  the  American  Fisheries  Society 
compiled  a  listing  of  threatened  fishes  of 
North  America  (Deacon  et  al.  1979).  The 
fishes  on  that  list  from  the  western  United 
States  are  presented  here  as  a  data  base  for 
the  general  discussion  (Tables  5  and  6).  The 
predominant  threats  to  all  taxa  listed  were 
generalized  into  five  broad  categories  and 
each  taxon  was  assigned  one  or  more  of  these 
categories.  Threat  categories  were  as  follows: 
(1)  The  present  or  threatened  destruction, 
modification,  or  curtailment  of  the  habitat  or 
range.  (2)  Ovenitilization  for  commercial, 
sporting,  .scientific,  or  educational  purposes. 
(3)  Disease  or  parasitism.  (4)  Other  natural  or 
manmade  factors  affecting  continued  exist- 
ence (hybridization,  introduction  of  exotic  or 
translocated  species,  predation,  competition). 
(5)   Restricted  range  of  the   taxon.   A   com- 


parison of  threats  to  western  fishes  north  of 
Mexico  with  those  to  eastern  fishes  is  of  gen- 
eral interest  and  illustrates  significant  differ- 
ences between  the  two  faunas  (Table  1). 

Habitat  modification  (Category  1)  is  clear- 
ly the  most  prevalent  threat  to  native  fishes 
throughout  the  world,  and  this  is  certainly 
tRie  in  North  America.  There  are  a  few  spe- 
cies in  the  West,  however,  that  are  not  now 
so  threatened.  No  eastern  species,  however, 
has  escaped  problems  raised  by  physical  al- 
teration of  the  habitat. 

No  western  species  has  been  or  is  threat- 
ened by  overexploitation  (Category  2),  but 
about  7  percent  of  the  eastern  fishes  on  the 
list  are  or  were  so  threatened.  Six  species  of 
ciscoes  occurring  in  the  Great  Lakes  were 
subjected  to  overfishing  by  commercial  fish- 
ermen, changes  resulting  from  the  in- 
troduction of  the  sea  lamprey,  and  general 
environmental  degradation  (Scott  and  Cross- 
man  1973).  In  addition,  the  Atlantic  whitefish 
has  been  subjected  to  overfishing  as  well  as 
habitat  alteration.  They  represent  the  only 
fish  taxa  in  the  United  States  or  Canada  to  be 
on  the  American  Fisheries  Society  list  of 
threatened  species,  in  part,  because  of  over- 
exploitation. 

Di.sease  and  parasiti.sm  (Category  3)  have 


'Department  of  Biological  Sciences,  University  of  Nevada,  Las  Vegas,  Nevada  89154. 


41 


42 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


apparently  not  been  involved  in  threats  to 
any  eastern  species  on  the  list  but  have  been 
factors  for  about  4  percent  of  the  western 
fishes.  It  is  probable  that  this  difference  re- 
sults from  the  fact  that  information  regarding 
incidence  of  disease  and  parasitism  in  native 
fishes  is  relatively  sparse.  In  addition,  though 
the  initial  major  decline  in  abundance  and 
distribution  of  eastern  fishes  probably  oc- 
curred prior  to  1850  (Trautman  1957),  in  the 
West  the  similar  event  occurred  subsequent 
to  1850  (Miller  1961).  Because  increased  in- 
cidence of  disease  and/ or  parasitism  as  an 
important  factor  in  a  population  decline  be- 
comes most  apparent  during  the  major  de- 
cline, it  must  be  detected  at  that  time  to  be 
recognized.  The  generally  earlier  decline  of 
eastern  fishes  during  a  time  when  increased 
incidence  of  disease  or  parasitism  would  have 
been  less  likely  to  have  either  been  detected 
or  associated  with  the  decline  probably  ex- 
plains its  absence  from  association  with  the 
eastern  faima.  This  factor  doubtless  has  been 
a  more  important  contributor  to  decline  of 
both  eastern  and  western  fish  populations 
than  is  apparent.  It  has  specifically  been 
identified  by  Wilson  et  al.  (1966)  and  Seetha- 
ler  (1978)  as  a  factor  in  the  decline  of  west- 
em  fishes. 

Biological  interactions  of  various  kinds 
(Category  4)  contribute  to  the  problems 
faced  by  54  percent  of  the  threatened  west- 
ern fauna  but  only  9  percent  of  the  threat- 
ened eastern  fauna.  The  marked  differences 
in  Category  4  point  to  distinctions  of  the 
western  fish  faima  that  have  been  repeatedly 
discussed.  Physical  barriers  to  dispersal  have 
resulted  in  relatively  low  colonization  rates 
throughout  the  West,  with  the  consequence 
that  western  fish  faunas  are  not  especially 


speciose  (Smith  1978).  Because  their  evolu- 
tionary experiences  have  been  with  relatively 
depauperate  faimas,  western  fishes  have  rela- 
tively low  tolerances  to  biological  inter- 
actions (Smith  1978,  Deacon  and  Minckley 
1974,  Hubbs  et  al.  1974). 

A  restricted  range  (occurring  in  only  a 
single  spring,  a  single  group  of  springs,  or  a 
short  stretch  of  stream  [Category  5])  is  a  fac- 
tor involved  in  giving  a  threatened  status  to 
21  percent  of  the  western  fishes  listed,  but 
only  about  7  percent  of  the  eastern  fishes. 
Category  5  illustrates  the  fact  that  one  group 
of  western  fishes  appears  to  have  a  high  de- 
gree of  "extinction  resistance"  (Smith  1978). 
The  consequence  is  that  many  western  taxa 
exist  as  relict  populations  in  single  habitats. 
They  found  their  way  onto  the  AFS  list  of 
threatened  fishes  because  of  that  fact.  They, 
like  many  western  fishes,  generally  have  high 
tolerances  to  physical  extremes  but  low  toler- 
ances to  biological  interactions  (Deacon  and 
Minckley  1974). 

Physical  Modification  of  Habitats 

While  western  fishes  have  in  general  de- 
veloped considerable  resistance  to  the  phys- 
ical extremes  imposed  upon  them  by  climatic 
factors,  they  have  also  been  most  strongly  af- 
fected by  general  and  specific  alterations  of 
physical  habitats  imposed  upon  them  by 
man.  Miller  (1961),  Hastings  and  Turner 
(1965),  and  Cottam  (1961)  have  dramatically 
shown  the  impact  of  slight  climatic  shifts  su- 
perimposed on  removal  of  vegetative  cover 
by  overgrazing  between  about  1880  and 
1900.  The  arroyo  cutting,  siltation,  and  de- 
watering  that  occurred  during  this  period 
were  probably  the  most  detrimental  20  years 


Table  1.  Comparison  of  general  kinds  of  threats  to  the  threatened  freshwater  fish  fauna  of  western  and  eastern 
North  America,  north  of  Mexico. 


General  threat  category 


Western  Fishes 

Eastern  1 

s-ishes 

Number 

Percent 

Number 

Percent 

of  taxa 

of  fauna 

of  taxa 

of  fauna 

(N  =  112) 

affected 

{N  =  90) 

affected 

109 

97.3 

90 

100 

0 

0 

6 

6.7 

5 

4.4 

0 

0 

60 

54 

8 

8.9 

24 

21 

6 

6.7 

1.  Habitat  modification 

2.  Overexploitation 

3.  Parasitism  and  disease 

4.  Biotic  interactions 

5.  Restricted  range 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


43 


of  all  time  to  fishes  and  aquatic  habitats  in 
the  western  United  States.  This  period  was 
followed  closely  by  a  very  active  period  of 
dam  building,  with  concomitant  increases  in 
irrigated  agriculture,  especially  since  about 
1930,  when  large  reclamation  projects  began 
providing  water  to  irrigate  what  is  now  some 
10  million  acres  of  land  in  the  West.  The  de- 
cline in  abundance  of  the  native  fishes  of  the 
mainstream  Colorado  River  is  associated 
closely  with  construction  of  these  mainstream 
dams  (Minckley  and  Deacon  1968,  Holden 
and  Stalnaker  1975  a,  b,  Seethaler  1978).  De- 
clines in  fishes  of  tributary  streams  are  also 
occurring  and  are  similarly  associated  with 
water  manipulations  of  various  kinds  that  re- 
sult in  dewatering  portions  of  fish  habitats. 
Recently,  McNatt  (1978)  has  described  the 
process  along  the  San  Pedro  River  of  Ari- 
zona. I  present  some  documentation  here  for 
similar  problems  along  the  Virgin  River  of 
Utah,  Arizona,  and  Nevada. 


The  Virgin  River  drains  southwestern  Utah 
and  flows  through  the  northwestern  comer  of 
Arizona  before  joining  the  Colorado  River  in 
Lake  Mead,  Nevada.  A  salt  spring,  LaVerkin 
Springs,  enters  the  river  180  km  upstream 
from  its  confluence  with  Lake  Mead,  forming 
the  upstream  limit  of  distribution  for  both 
the  Virgin  River  roundtail  chub,  Gila  robusta 
seminuda,  and  the  woundfin,  Plagopterus  ar- 
gentissimus.  Both  are  here  listed  as  endan- 
gered and  both  are  presently  restricted  to  the 
mainstream  of  the  Virgin  River  below  LaVer- 
kin Spring.  In  addition,  the  Virgin  spinedace, 
a  threatened  species,  occurs  both  below  and 
above  the  springs. 

Irrigation  diversions  have  been  established 
along  the  river  since  the  1860s.  Since  at  least 
the  early  1900s,  the  Hurricane  Diversion, 
Washington  Diversion,  and  Mesquite  Diver- 
sions (Fig.  1)  have  been  capable  of  diverting 
essentially  the  total  summer  flow  of  the  river 
at  each  of  these  three  diversion  points.  La- 


Santa  Clara  River 


Boulder  Dam 
Wash 

Mesquite 
Diversions 


Washington  Diversion 
UTAH 


LaVerkin  Creek 
Hurricane  Diversion 


Lake  Mead 


Fig.  1.  Mainstream  Virgin  River  below  Hurricane  diversion  showing  total  remaining  potential  habitat  for  the  en- 
dangered woundfin  and  roundtail  chub,  and  significant  modifications  currently  restricting  their  range. 


44 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


Verkin  Springs,  entering  just  below  the  Hur- 
ricane Diversion,  plus  inflow  from  LaVerkin 
and  Ash  Creeks,  maintain  permanent  stream 
flow  downstream  to  Washington  Diversion 
(Fig.  1).  Littlefield  Springs,  entering  at  the 
lower  end  of  the  narrows,  maintain  per- 
manent streamflow  downstream  to  the  Mes- 
quite  Diversion  (Fig.  1).  When  the  total 
streamflow  is  actually  used  at  the  above  di- 
version points,  only  about  52.5  km  (or  29  per- 
cent) of  the  remaining  180  km  of  potential 
habitat  for  the  two  endangered  species  re- 
stricted to  the  mainstream  is  actually  con- 
stantly available  to  them. 

The  narrows  (Fig.  1)  divides  the  main- 
stream into  an  upper  and  a  lower  component 
that  appears  to  effectively  isolate  the  con- 
tained fish  populations.  Elevation  and  cli- 
mate in  the  two  regions  differ  significantly. 
The  difference  was  reflected  by  the  nearly 
one-month  earlier  spawning  of  the  woundfin 
population  in  the  lower  river  in  the  spring  of 
1977  (Fig.  7). 

The  question  of  requirements  of  these  fish- 
es in  their  remaining  habitats  has  been  the 
subject  of  studies  conducted  at  various  levels 


of  intensity  since  1961  (Cross  1975,  78,  Wil- 
liams 1977,  Schumann  1978,  Peters  1970, 
Lockhart  1979,  Vaughn  Hansen  Associates 
1977).  The  drought  of  1977  resulted  in  some 
of  the  lowest  flows  on  record  in  the  Virgin 
River,  a  circumstance  which  allowed  signifi- 
cant insights  into  the  probable  effects  of  wa- 
ter development  projects  which  would  tend 
to  reduce  or  alter  flows  in  the  river.  The 
more  normal  flows  of  1978  provided  a  useful 
comparison  to  the  low-flow  conditions  of 
1977. 

Length-frequency  analysis  was  used  as  a 
convenient  means  of  examining  the  popu- 
lation structure  of  the  fishes  in  the  Virgin 
River.  Samples  were  taken  by  repetitively 
seining  an  area  until  the  number  of  fish  col- 
lected amoimted  to  less  than  10  percent  of 
the  highest  number  collected.  In  this  way  we 
insured  a  good  representative  sample  of  all 
fish  occurring  in  the  sampled  area.  Figure  2 
demonstrates  that  samples  taken  in  August 
1977  and  more  extensive  sampling  from  No- 
vember 1977  provide  essentially  the  same 
picture  of  population  structure  for  woundfin. 
This  suggests  that  sampling  done  in  both  Au- 


30. 


25. 


20. 


15- 


10. 


23Aug.  1977  (N=  70) 
25-26  Nov.  1977  (N=  370) 


18  20 


/\ry^^ 


30 


40 


50 


90     SIZE 


Fig.  2.  Length  frequency  of  woundfin  in  Virgin  River  above  the  narrows  during  fall  197 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


45 


gust  and  November  was  extensive  enough  to 
provide  a  good  representation  of  population 
structure  in  woundfin.  The  major  fact  re- 
vealed is  that  in  1977  young-of-the-year  com- 
prised a  very  small  (nearly  inconsequential) 
proportion  of  the  woundfin  population  above 
the  narrows.  By  contrast,  a  comparison  of 
population  structure  in  woundfin  above  the 
narrows  in  1977  and  1978  (Fig.  3)  indicates 
that  young-of-the-year  dominated  the  popu- 
lation in  1978. 

When  sampling  is  extensive  enough,  and 
stunting  can  be  discoimted  as  a  significant 
factor,  much  of  the  information  gleaned  from 
an  examination  of  length  frequency  can  be 
summarized  by  calculation  of  a  mean  length 
for  the  population.  In  this  case,  for  both 
woundfin  and  roundtail  chub,  small  mean 
length  indicates  relatively  high  reproductive 
success  and  vice  versa.  Figure  4  and  Table  2 
present  data  available  on  mean  length  of 
woundfin  above  the  narrows  in  1973,  1977, 


and  1978,  together  with  a  hydrograph  of 
mean  monthly  flows.  They  show  that  in  1973 
and  1978,  with  high  winter  and  spring  flows, 
reproductive  success  was  high,  but  in  1977, 
with  low  flows,  reproductive  success  was 
low. 

A  similar  situation  appears  to  have  existed 
for  the  roundtail  chub,  Gila  robusta  semi- 
niida  (Fig.  5,  Table  2),  except  that  the  species 
was  so  rare  in  1977  that  very  few  were  cap- 
tured in  spite  of  extensive  sampling  efforts. 
This,  of  course,  indicates  that  not  only  were 
environmental  conditions  in  Virgin  River 
during  1977  inimical  to  successful  spawning 
in  this  species,  they  also  apparently  reduced 
the  survival  of  adults.  Figure  5  does  show 
that  the  species  spawned  successfully  in  at 
least  one  location  on  the  upper  mainstream 
of  the  Virgin  River  in  1978.  Relatively  high 
population  density  or  evidence  of  a  successful 
hatch  was  not  found  at  any  other  location 
sampled  in  the  upper  or  lower  Virgin  River 


30. 

O-O  FALL  1977  (N=370) 
^-*    FALL  1978  (N  =  I53) 

25- 

POPULATION 

1 

o 

/ 

^    10. 

/ 

5. 

/ 

^ 

<^x^/ 

,><T       , -Ji , ^     *, 

=^:=-i? 

20         30 


40  50  60  70  80  90 

SIZE 


Fig.  3.  Comparison  of  length  frequency  of  woundfin  in  Virgin  River  above  the  narrows  in  fall  1977  and  fall  1978. 


46 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


Table  2.  Mean  size  of  woundfiii  and  roundtail  chub  in  Virgin  River.  The  0  indicates  collections  were  made  in  the 
area  but  no  individuals  of  the  species  were  taken.  The  —  indicates  the  area  was  not  collected.  Data  on  woundfin 
from  1973  were  provided  by  Mr.  Jerry  Lockhart.  He  probably  also  took  chubs;  however,  data  are  not  available. 


1973 


1977 


1978 


Aug  & 
Sept 


1-8 
June 


2.3-30 
Aug 


14-15 
Nov 


25-26 
Nov 


12 
April 


28 
Sept 


1 
Nov 


X 

N 

X       N       X       N       X       N       X       N 

X       N       X 

N      X       N 

Upper  river 

Woundfin 

52.1 

60 

69.3  172    74.3   70    71.2  416    72.3  .371 

76.2    190    46.0 

153 

Chub 

158.2      5  173          1                 0                 1 

0   67.6 

102 

Lower  river 

Woundfin 

50.2 

105 

44.0  177    53.6  202               -      56.6.383 

58.2    112   44.4 

427   48.6    46 

Chub 

45.0      1  173         1              -     158        3 

0   84.3 

4   70.0      1 

in  September  1978.  Perhaps  even  in  times  of 
"normal"  flows  there  are  relatively  few  op- 
timal habitats  for  the  roundtail  chub  remain- 
ing in  the  Virgin  River. 

In  addition  to  the  marked  differences  in  re- 
productive success  of  woundfin  and  roundtail 
chubs  in  1977  and  1978,  interesting  differ- 
ences in  population  structures  of  woundfin 
above  and  below  the  narrows  in  1977  were 
evident.  It  is  apparent  from  an  examination 
of  Figure  6  and  Table  2  that  young  woundfin 
comprised  a  far  greater  proportion  of  the 
woundfin  population  in  the  lower  river  in 
1977  than  was  true  in  the  upper  river.  The 
effect  of  the  drought  on  woundfin  population 
structure  in  the  upper  river  thus  appears  to 
have  been  more  severe  than  was  true  in  the 
lower  river.  In  the  lower  river,  however,  it  is 
apparent  that  by  fall  and  winter  1977  older 


or  larger  fish  tended  to  predominate  to  a 
greater  extent  than  was  true  in  either  fall 
1973  or  fall  and  winter  1978.  This  suggests 
(1)  that  growth  of  young  in  1977  may  have 
been  faster  than  was  the  case  in  1973  and 
1978,  (2)  survivorship  may  have  differentially 
favored  older  woundfin  during  summer  1977, 
(3)  spawning  may  have  occurred  earlier  in 
summer  1977  than  in  1973  or  1978,  or  (4) 
perhaps  more  probable,  the  later  secondary 
spawning  period  was  almost  entirely  unsuc- 
cessful in  1977,  whereas  in  1973  and  1978  it 
was  successful  and  resulted  in  a  significant 
contribution  to  the  population  in  the  fall 
(Fig.  1).  The  effect  of  the  two  spawning  peri- 
ods in  1978  is  apparent  in  Figure  2  as  two 
peaks  in  the  length-frequency  diagram  in  the 
size  range  below  60  mm. 

Figure  8  shows  dates  on  first  appearance  of 


10.000 


1000 


-3;  100 


90 

80  3 

CD 
O 

70  => 
I-  60"* 

50 
[  40 


1973  1977  1978 

Fig.  4.  Mean  monthly  flow  at  Hurricane  Gage  and  mean  size  of  woundfin  in  upper  Virgin  River  1973,  1977,  1978. 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


47 


woundfin  fry  at  various  locations  along  the 
Virgin  River  during  summer  1977.  Collec- 
tions were  made  at  one-  to  two-week  inter- 
vals until  fry  were  taken  at  each  location  in- 
dicated. The  uppermost  location,  indicated 
by  23  July  in  Figure  8  was  actually  below  the 
Hurricane  Diversion  but  above  LaVerkin 
Creek.  It  is  apparent  that  hatching  occurred 
earlier  in  the  lower  river  than  in  the  upper 
river.  Furthermore,  in  the  lower  river  hatch- 
ing appears  to  have  been  delayed  by  about 
two  weeks  at  the  lowermost  station  where 
habitat  modification  is  most  obvious. 

The  earlier  appearance  of  young  woundfin 
in  the  Arizona  segment  of  the  lower  river 
was  followed  by  relatively  good  survival  in 
1977  (Fig.  7).  By  contrast,  the  later  appear- 
ance of  young  woundfin  in  the  upper  river 
was  followed  by  very  poor  survival  in  1977 
(Fig.  3).  With  higher'  flows  in  1978,  both  up- 
stream and  downstream  populations  of 
woundfin  showed  good  reproduction,  and  by 
fall  1978  the  mean  size  was  nearly  identical 
in  the  two  populations  (Fig.  6). 


Comparisons  of  hydrographs  of  Virgin  Riv- 
er flows  for  1973,  1977,  and  1978  show  that 
the  major  differences  in  flow  occurred  during 
winter  and  spring.  Summer  flows  suggest  a 
relatively  greater  degree  of  similarity  for  all 
three  years  (Vaughn  Hansen  Associates  1977). 
If  winter  and  spring  flows  significantly  in- 
fluence reproductive  success  of  the  endan- 
gered fishes  of  the  Virgin  River,  the  effect 
should  be  discernable  in  the  population  struc- 
ture during  the  following  fall.  Figure  9  pres- 
ents data  comparing  mean  size  of  woundfin 
in  the  fall  in  both  the  upstream  and  down- 
stream populations  against  mean  flows  of  the 
river  during  the  spring.  Of  particular  signifi- 
cance is  the  fact  that  when  stream  flow  is 
low,  mean  size  is  high  and  vice  versa.  Inter- 
estingly, Figure  9  also  suggests  that  when 
mean  spring  flows  are  above  700  cfs,  repro- 
ductive success  may  be  slightly  poorer  than 
when  mean  spring  flows  are  between  400  and 
600  cfs.  Data  are  not  available  for  times 
when  mean  spring  flows  fall  between  100 
and  400  cfs,  but  at  about  100  cfs  it  is  clear 


25- 


9/28/78  (N=I02) 
11/25/77  (N=  3) 


2^_^ 


— I— 

150 


— r- 

180 


210 


240 


270 


300 


SIZE 


Fig.  5.  Length  frequency  of  roundtail  chub  in  Virgin  River  above  the  narrows.  The  o's  indicate  size  of  the  only 
three  individuals  taken  in  extensive  sampling  on  25  November  1977. 


48 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


that  reproductive  success  falls  off  dramatical- 
ly. Essentially,  the  same  relationships  exist  if 
mean  flows  from  January  to  June,  inclusive, 
are  compared.  This  examination  suggests  that 
reproductive  success  of  woundfin  (and  round- 
tail  chub)  in  their  only  remaining  habitat  is 
extremely  poor  when  mean  winter  and  spring 
flows  fall  to  about  100  cfs. 

The  drought  of  1977,  resulting  in  some  of 
the  lowest  flows  on  record  in  the  Virgin  Riv- 
er, has  permitted  a  significant  insight  into  the 
habitat  requirements  of  the  endangered  na- 
tive fishes  of  the  river.  It  is  apparent  that 
current  utilization  practices  of  the  water  re- 
sources permit  survival  of  the  native  fishes  in 
about  29  percent  of  their  remaining  potential 
habitat.  Intermittent  flows  coupled  with 
higher  summer  temperatures  throughout  the 
remainder  of  the  potential  range  (Schumann 


1978,  Lockhart  1979)  make  it  unreliable  as  a 
fish  habitat.  Within  the  remaining  29  percent 
of  the  potential  habitat,  reproduction  occurs 
during  years  of  normal  flow,  but  is  extremely 
poor  to  absent  during  years  of  low  flow.  This 
circumstance  suggests  that  at  present  the 
fishes  are  living  in  a  habitat  which  has  ex- 
tremely little  potential  for  further  devel- 
opment or  alteration  without  adverse  im- 
pacts on  the  endangered  species  present. 
Continued  monitoring  of  reproductive  suc- 
cess and  population  structure  under  varying 
conditions  of  stream  flow  will  permit  refine- 
ment of  flow  requirements.  It  is  apparent 
that  the  roundtail  chub  is  in  an  even  more 
precarious  position  than  is  the  woundfin  and 
that  both  species  require  higher  flows  in 
spring  and  winter  than  they  do  in  summer. 
Obviously,   problems  associated  with   the 


80. 


70 


60 


50 


40 


o  upper  river 
D  lower  river 


"T 1 1 1 1  •  I 

FALL     SPRING     FALL      WINTER  SPRING    FALL   WINTER 
'73  '77  '77         '77  '78         '78  '78 


Fig.  6.  Comparison  of  mean  size  of  woundfin  in  the  upper  and  lower  mainstream  Virgin  River  1973,  1977,  1978. 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


49 


effects  of  habitat  modifications  are  complex, 
often  having  been  developing  for  more  than 
a  century,  and  always  difficult  to  quantify  or 
even  specifically  identify.  The  problems 
identified  and  briefly  examined  here  for  the 
Virgin  River  have  numerous  counterparts 
throughout  the  West,  as  is  obvious  from  the 
fact  that  97  percent  of  the  western  fishes  list- 
ed herein  are  on  this  list  in  part  because  of 
the  present  or  threatened  destruction,  modifi- 
cation, or  curtailment  of  their  habitat  or 
range. 

Disease  and  Parasitism 

Wilson  et  al.  (1966)  and  Seethaler  (1978) 
have  suggested  that  parasitism  may  place  sig- 
nificant stress  on  western  fishes  being  sub- 
jected to  other  alterations  in  their  environ- 
ments. Examination  of  museum  specimens  of 
Crenichthys  boileiji  collected  since  1938,  sup- 
plemented by  examination  of  both  museum 


specimens  and  individuals  taken  in  the  field 
in  1965  and  1966,  yields  interesting  insights 
into  responses  to  stress.  Crenichthys  baileyi 
occurs  in  warm  springs  along  the  course  of 
the  Pluvial  White  River  of  eastern  Nevada. 
During  the  early  1960s  various  exotic  or  non- 
native  species  were  established  in  some  Cre- 
nichthys habitats  (Deacon  et  al.  1964,  Hubbs 
and  Deacon  1964). 

Figure  10  and  Table  3  show  the  incidence 
of  parasitism  by  Lernea  on  Crenichthys  bail- 
eyi populations  living  in  Crystal  Spring  and 
in  the  warm  headwaters  springs  of  the 
Moapa  River  from  1938  to  1966.  All  avail- 
able data  are  presented  in  Table  3.  Only  data 
resulting  from  an  examination  of  20  or  more 
individuals  are  plotted  in  Figures  10  and  11. 
During  this  period  no  nonnative  fish  were  es- 
tablished in  Crystal  Spring.  The  poulation  re- 
mained abundant  and  virtually  free  of  para- 
sitism by  Lernea. 

In   the  headwaters  of  Moapa   River,   the 


30 


25 


20 


15 


10 


5 


• — •  26  Nov.  ■77(N=383) 
O — o  28  Sept.  '78(N=427) 


20  30         40         50  60         70  80         90 

Fig.  7.  Length  frequency  of  woundfin  in  the  lower  Virgin  River,  fall  1977  and  fall  1978. 


50 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


23July 


Lake  Mead 


Fig.  8.  Dates  of  the  first  appearance  of  woundfin  fry  at  various  locations  along  the  mainstream  Virgin  River  dur- 
ing summer  1977.  Collections  were  made  at  all  locations  indicated  at  one-  to  two-week  intervals  until  fry  were 
taken. 


shortfin  molly  {Poecilia  mexicana)  was  in- 
troduced in  the  spring  of  1963  (local  testi- 
mony). No  mollies  were  taken  in  collections 
made  in  March  1963,  but  they  were  present 
in  collections  made  on  12  October  1963 
(Deacon  et  al.  1964).  In  addition,  the  mosqui- 
tofish  {Gambusia  affinis)  had  been  present  in 
the  area  since  before  1938  (Miller  and  Alcorn 


1946).  While  collections  of  C.  baileyi  made 
during  1963  showed  an  increased  incidence 
of  parasitism  by  Lernea,  the  fish  population 
remained  abundant  and  the  incidence  of  par- 
asitism declined  (Fig.  10).  In  addition,  there 
was  a  5  percent  incidence  of  parasitism  in 
1959  prior  to  introduction  of  mollies.  Per- 
haps the  several  spring  sources  in  the  head- 


Table  3.  Incidence  of  parasitism  by  Lernea  on  Crenichthys  haileiji.  N 
one  or  more  Learnea  attached. 


number  examined.  % 


perc 


ent  with 


Location 


1938 

N        % 


1940 

N        % 


1941 

N 


1947 

N 


1948 

N 


1949 

N 


1950 

N 


Headwaters  of 

Moapa  River 

250 

0 

7 

0 

.\sh  Spring 

5 

0 

8 

0 

Crystal  Spring 

Hiko  Spring 

1576 

0 

6 

0 

Mormon  Spring 

Preston  Town  Spring 

Preston  Big  Spring 

0 

1.58 

0 

11 

0 

11 

0 

106 

0 

64 

0 

20 

0 

64 

0 

83 

0 

54 

0 

52 

0 

58 
17 

0 
0 

1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


51 


70. 

• 

•  above  narrows 
0  below  narrows 

60. 

50- 

O 

• 
o 

• 

o 

40 

1 

1 1 — 

100     200    300    400   500    600     700    800    900    1000    1100 
MEAN    SPRING  FLDW  (CFS) 

Fig.  9.  Mean  spring  flows  in  Virgin  River  related  to  mean  size  of  woundfin  in  the  following  fall.  Data  are  from 
1973,  1977,  1978.  Mean  spring  flow  is  the  average  of  the  monthly  means  for  April,  May,  and  June. 


waters  were  invaded  by  mollies  at  different 
times;  in  any  case,  the  Crenichthys  popu- 
lation did  not  appear  to  either  sustain  or  re- 
flect any  permanent  damage  from  parasitism. 

Other  populations  for  which  historical  data 
are  not  so  extensive  but  which,  through  1966, 
were  not  subjected  to  stress  from  nonnative 
fishes  occur  at  Mormon  Spring  and  Preston 
Big  Spring  (Table  3).  In  addition,  while  gup- 
pies  Poecilia  reticulata  have  been  in  Preston 
Town  Spring  since  sometime  before  1961 
(Deacon  et  al.  1964),  we  have  seen  no  in- 
dication of  parasitism  by  Lernea  (Table  3).  Of 
course,  the  population  was  not  examined  im- 
mediately after  introduction  of  Poecilia. 

Figure  11  illustrates  changes  in  incidence 
of   parasitism   by   Lernea    for   populations 


which  became  rare  or  extinct.  In  Ash  Spring, 
mosquitofish  were  not  present  in  1946  (Miller 
and  Alcorn  1946)  but  were  present  in  1959 
(Miller  and  Hubbs  1960).  In  March  1963, 
Poecilia  was  not  present,  but  P.  latipinna,  P. 
mexicana,  and  Cichlasoma  nigrofasciatum 
were  present  and  breeding  on  3  June  1964. 
They  have  since  remained  abundant  in  Ash 
Spring  and  its  warm  outflow  stream.  In- 
cidence of  parasitism  by  Lernea  on  C.  baileyi 
was  significant  for  the  first  timme  in  1964 
and  remained  so  in  1965.  The  C.  baileyi  pop- 
ulation in  this  limnocrene  declined  in  abun- 
dance and  remains  extremely  rare  today.  The 
increase  in  parasitism  closely  followed  in- 
troduction of  the  exotics  and  was  followed  by 
a  dramatic  decline  in  abundance  of  the  na- 


Table  3  continued. 


1951      1954 

N   %   N 


1959 

N 


1960 

N   % 


1961 

N 


1962 

N 


1963 

N   % 


1964 

N   % 


1965 

N   % 


110 


19 

0 

920 

5.1 

11      9 

11 
01 

0 
0 

4 
82 

0 
0 

16  25 

25     0 

17  0 

68 


15 

0  1259    0 

253 

0 

90 

10     224    9 

5 

0 

2828      .04  356 

0 

69 

0    313  20 

27 

59 

159 

0  1051    0 

188 

0 

5 

0      25    0 

20 

0     704    0 

440 

0 

52 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


tive  fish  population. 

At  Hiko  Spring,  no  parasitism  was  evident 
until  1965  (Fig.  11).  Shortfin  mollies  (P.  mexi- 
cana),  mosquitofish,  and  largemouth  bass 
were  all  absent  from  collections  made  at 
Hiko  Springs  in  June  1964.  In  January  1965  a 
few  mosquitofish  were  seen  and  one  was  col- 
lected. In  February  1965  both  shortfin  mol- 
lies and  largemouth  bass  were  seen  in  the 
limnocrene,  and  in  March  mollies  began  to 
appear  in  the  monthly  collections.  Both  mol- 
lies and  mosquitofish  increased  in  abundance 
through  1965.  Lernea  first  appeared  on  Cre- 
nichthys  in  March  1965.  Incidence  of  para- 
sitism increased  to  February  1966,  at  which 
time  examination  of  the  population  was  dis- 
continued because  numbers  had  declined  too 
low  to  permit  continuation  of  the  study.  The 
population  was  extinct  before  June  1967. 


BioTic  Interactions 

Interactions  of  native  western  fishes  with 
introduced  species  have  resulted  in  extensive 
hybridization,  especially  in  trout,  plus  vari- 
ous kinds  of  competitive  and  predatory  con- 
sequences. One  example  which  is  especially 
interesting,  because  it  was  replicated,  oc- 
curred in  Manse  Spring,  Pahrump  Valley, 
Nye  Co.,  Nevada.  The  endemic,  and  cur- 
rently endangered,  Pahrump  killifish  (Emp- 
etrichthys  latos  latos)  was  restricted  to  the 
single  limnocrene  which  was  approximately 
triangular  with  maximum  dimensions  of 
about  25  X  15  m.  In  November  1961  six 
goldfish  were  introduced  into  the  spring  by 
one  of  the  farmhands.  They  had  reproduced 
by  July  1962  and  during  that  summer  the 
children  on  the  farm  removed  most  of  the 


30-, 


25- 


20. 


E 

o 

o 
CL 


10. 


■HaODD 


•—^  headwaters  of 
Moapa  River 
Crystal  Springs 

Exotic  Fish 
Introduced 


— I 1 1 1 1 1 1 — 

1940     1945       1950       1955       I960      1965      1970 


Fig.  10.  Incidence  of  parasitism  by  Lernea  on  CrenichtJujs  bailey i  populations  which  remained  abundant. 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


53 


submerged  aquatic  vegetation  from  the  pond 
to  make  a  better  swimming  pool  (Deacon  et 
al.  1964).  The  killifish  population  crashed 
during  the  winter  of  1962-63  to  almost  cer- 
tainly fewer  than  50  individuals  (Fig.  12). 
The  population  had  recovered  somewhat  by 
winter  1963  but  appeared  to  be  less  abundant 
through  early  1965  than  was  the  case  prior  to 
introduction  of  goldfish. 

In  July  1967,  Professors  Carl  L.  Hubbs  and 
R.  R.  Miller  and  I,  in  cooperation  with  our 


families  and  several  students  from  UNLV  and 
ASU,  attempted  to  remove  all  goldfish  from 
Manse  Spring  by  trapping,  seining,  using 
anesthetic,  and,  finally,  dynamiting.  All  kill- 
ifish captured  were  held  in  cages  in  a  nearby 
small  spring  and  all  goldfish  were  destroyed. 
A  total  of  1239  killifish  were  captured  and 
returned.  At  least  two  adult  goldfish  eluded 
us  and  spawned  by  the  end  of  the  summer. 
The  killifish  population  crashed  as  it  had  in 
1963,  reaching  a  low  point  of  probably  fewer 


60 


^ 


if) 


25 


20- 


10- 


•— •  Ash  Spring 
Q-oHiko  Spring 
^  Exotic  Fish  Introduced 


1940 


1945 


1950 


1970 


Fig.  11.  Incidence  of  parasitism  by  Lernea  on  Crenichthys  baileyi  populations  which  became  rare  or  extinct. 


54 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


than  50  individuals  in  July  1968.  This  low 
population  size  persisted  through  January 
1969  (Fig.  12),  but  by  August  1971,  when  a 
transplant  was  made  into  Corn  Creek  Spring, 
the  population  had  recovered  significantly. 
In  August  1975,  Manse  Spring  failed  as  a  re- 
sult of  excessive  pumping  of  groundwater  in 
the  area  (Soltz  and  Naiman  1978). 

Prior  to  making  the  killifish  transplant  into 
Corn  Creek  Spring  the  population  of  in- 
troduced largemouth  bass  and  mosquitofish 
(Gambusia  affinis)  was  removed.  A  few  mos- 
quitofish escaped  the  final  poisoning  efforts 
in  Corn  Creek  Spring,  but  by  November 
1973  the  original  stocking  of  29  killifish  had 
built  a  population  of  about  1300.  In  addition, 
mosquitofish  had  become  extremely  abun- 
dant. By  November  1974  approximately  250 
killifish  were  estimated  to  occur  in  Corn 
Creek  Spring.  The  population  had  not  in- 
creased by  July  1975.  In  April  1976,  165  kill- 
ifish were  removed  from  the  spring  and  it 
was  poisoned  in  a  second  effort  to  remove       ented  by  Soltz  and  Naiman  (1978).  Deacon 


mosquitofish.  The  effort  was  successful  and 
killifish  had  built  an  estimated  population  of 
2000  fish  by  November  1976  and  2500  by 
October  1977. 

These  data  show  that  on  two  occasions  in 
Manse  Spring  a  population  increase  of  gold- 
fish was  accompanied  by  a  marked  popu- 
lation decline  of  Pahnimp  killfish,  and  on  one 
occasion  in  Corn  Creek  Spring  a  population 
increase  of  mosquitofish  was  accompanied  by 
a  killifish  population  decline.  A  cause-effect 
relationship  is  strongly  suggested,  perhaps  re- 
lating to  competitive  interactions  of  the 
young  or  predation. 

Restricted  Range 

While  many  western  fishes  have  extremely 
restricted  ranges,  none  is  so  restricted  or  iso- 
lated as  the  Devils  Hole  pupfish,  Cyprinodon 
diabolis.  A  discussion  of  the  biology  of  this 
species  and  description  of  its  habitat  are  pres- 


a    TOTAL  CAPTURE 

0 

1200  . 

O    MARK  AND  RECAPTURE                                          A 

6oldfls^  Reettoblilhod 

1100. 

•    CATCH  PER  TRAP  HOUR                                       / 

1000  . 

/ 

900   . 

/ 

800. 

/ 

700. 

/ 

/ 

600. 

/ 

/ 

1 

500  . 

^^+-J^ 

\ 

1 

400  . 

Goldfith 

\  / 

/ 

300  . 

INTRODUCTION 

1/ 

%         / 

200  - 

l\ 

Y 

1^       / 

100  . 

[r 

\            / 

1961  1962        1963  1964         1965         1966  1967         1968 

Fig.  12.  Changes  in  population  size  of  Pahnimp  killifish  1961-1968. 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


55 


and  Deacon  (1979)  provide  a  detailed  de- 
scription of  fluctuations  in  population  size 
and  probable  causes  for  these  fluctuations 
through  December  1976.  Data  on  fluctua- 
tions in  population  size  presented  here  ex- 
tend through  December  1978  (Fig.  13,  Table 
4).  Figure  13  illustrates  the  direct  and 
marked  influence  of  relatively  small  changes 
in  water  level  in  Devils  Hole  on  minimum 
population  size  of  Cijprinodon  diabolis.  The 
water  levels  indicated  in  Figure  13  refer  to  a 
reference  point  established  by  USGS  above 
the  maximum  water  level.  Therefore,  depth 
of  water  in  the  habitat  increases  as  the  dis- 
tance below  the  reference  point  (in  feet)  de- 
creases. In  addition,  the  water  level  shown  is 
actually  the  minimum  level  permitted  by  the 


courts  during  the  time  indicated.  The  first 
level  indicated  (3.9)  represents  the  lowest  wa- 
ter level  reached  prior  to  intervention  of  the 
courts.  Water  levels  normally  fluctuated 
somewhat  above  the  level  indicated,  but  al- 
most never  below  that  level.  Generally,  wa- 
ter levels  were  highest  in  winter  and  very 
near  the  permissible  minimum  during  the 
summer  irrigation  season.  This,  of  course,  re- 
flects the  fact  that  the  water  level  in  Devils 
Hole  is  directly  and  rapidly  influenced  by 
pumping  of  groundwater  nearby. 

The  somewhat  erratic  population  fluctua- 
tions in  1972  and  1973  reflect  responses  to 
temporary  management  attempts  as  well  as 
to  scouring  floods  v/hich  occurred  during  this 
period  (Deacon  and  Deacon  1979).  Once 


550 

500 
450 

400 

350 
300 
250 

200 
150 
100 


1972        73         74  75         76  77         78 


Fig.  13.  Devils  Hole  pupfish  population  size  compared  to  minimum  water  levels  1972-1978. 


56 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


some  stability  was  achieved  in  water  levels,  it 
became  possible  to  attempt  management  of 
water  level  to  achieve  a  desired  minimum  an- 
nual population  size.  The  desired  minimum 
population  size  was  established  at  200  in  an 
effort  to  insure  that  the  population  would  not 
fall  so  low  as  to  tend  to  accelerate  toward  ex- 
tinction. The  present  court-mandated  level  of 
2.7  appears  to  be  just  maintaining  minimum 
population  size  (Fig.  13,  Table  4). 

This  example  illustrates  the  direct  and  rap- 
id impact  on  restricted  native  fishes  which 
can  result  from  even  modest  developments 
nearby.  Often,  as  was  true  in  this  case,  the 
developer  may  be  almost  entirely  unaware  of 
the  consequences  of  his  activities.  For  fishes 
living  in  restricted  environments,  this  lack  of 
awareness  can  mean  extinction. 

Discussion 

It  is  apparent  that  the  full  variety  of  rea- 
sons for  becoming  threatened  are  exemplified 


among  the  endangered  or  threatened  fishes  of 
the  West.  The  legitimate  question  arising 
from  this  and  every  consideration  of  endan- 
gered species  is  "Why  bother?  What  good 
are  they?"  The  answers  to  those  questions,  I 
believe,  must  include  at  least  two  parts:  (1) 
because  it  is  to  our  own  self-interest  to  do  so, 
and  (2)  because  our  society's  values,  as  ex- 
pressed through  federal  law,  require  us  to 
"bother."  The  second  answer  has  been  and 
will  continue  to  be  debated  and  perhaps 
modified.  The  first  is  really  the  core  of  the 
endangered  species  debate.  The  argument, 
simplified,  I  believe,  involves  at  least  the  fol- 
lowing considerations.  Because  populations 
are  dependent  upon  and  interact  within  eco- 
systems, extinction  is  an  indication  of  a  signif- 
icant change  in  the  ecosystem— in  general,  a 
reduced  capability  to  support  life  or  at  least 
to  support  diversity.  The  fact  that  an  endan- 
gered species  is  involved  may,  therefore,  be 
an  indication  that  the  long-term  carrying  ca- 
pacity of  an  ecosystem  may  be  exceeded  (the 


Table  4.  Estimated  population  size  of  the  Devils  Hole  pupfish  [Cijprinodon  diabolis)  in  Devils  Hole,  Nye  County, 
Nevada,  1972-1978.  Estimates  are  the  maximimi  number  of  fish  actually  coimted  visually  during  standardized  at- 
tempts at  counting  the  entire  population.  Data  prior  to  4  June  1974  were  taken  by  Dr.  R.  R.  Miller  and  subsequently 
by  J.  E.  Deacon. 


Population 

Population 

Population 

Date 

estimate 

Date 

estimate 

Date 

estimate 

1972 

1975 

1977 

6  April 

127 

22  Jan 

208 

20  Jan 

324 

2  June 

248 

20  Feb 

159 

24  Feb 

276 

28  July 

286 

18  Mar 

148 

24  Mar 

198 

27  Sept 

191 

10  Apr 

158 

5  May 

210 

14  Nov 

199 

19  May 

201 

6  June 

221 

16  June 

262 

27  June 

359 

1973 

30  Jvily 

278 

11  July 

330 

10  Jan 

252 

20  Aug 

294 

15  Aug 

553 

20  Feb 

191 

30  Sept 

260 

26  Sept 

490 

28  Mar 

208 

21  Oct 

279 

28  Nov 

381 

12  June 

184 

25  Nov 

261 

.30  Aug 

253 

16  Dec 

246 

1978 

6  Nov 

244 

16  Jan 

296 

1976 

2  Mar 

225 

1974 

17  Feb 

228 

16  Mar 

219 

5  Feb 

163 

3  Mar 

180 

24  Apr 

223 

29  Apr 

143 

30  Mar 

181 

19  May 

242 

5  June 

2.39 

27  Apr 

195 

19  June 

274 

11  Julv 

250 

18  May 

203 

20  Julv 

326 

22  Aug 

286 

22  June 

.316 

11  Aug 

388 

15  Sept 

.302 

2  Aug 

.345 

13  Sept 

358 

9  Oct 

277 

24  Sept 

410 

18  Oct 

441 

19  Nov 

250 

18  Oct 

385 

11  Dec 

361 

18  Dec 

238 

3  Dec 

334 

1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


57 


argument  of  the  canary  in  the  coal  mine). 
Thus,  it  follows  that  if  we  are  concerned 
about  the  ability  of  our  children  to  fimction 
in  the  ecosystem  in  a  manner  at  all  com- 
parable with  our  present  functioning,  it  may 
be  important  to  maximize  the  survival  of  spe- 
cies other  than  Homo  sapiens  who  are  also 
dependent  on  that  ecosystem. 

Another  major  line  of  argument  is  the  di- 
versity-stability one  (i.e.,  there  appears  to  be 
a  tendency  for  more  diverse  ecosystems  to  be 
more  stable).  Because  more  stable  ecosystems 
tend  to  permit  coping  with  times  of  poor 
productivity,  it  seems  that  enlightened  self- 
interest  would  dictate  that  we  make  efforts 
to  promote  stability.  Another  cogent  part  of 
this  argument  is  the  inverse  relationship  be- 
tween diversity  and  energy  flow  (in  molecu- 
lar systems,  ecological  systems,  and  in  organi- 
zation of  cities)  described  by  Watt  (1972, 
1973).  He  pointed  out  that  the  principle  ap- 
pears to  be  true  in  societal  organization  to 
the  extent  that  in  the  U.S.  we  find  fewer 
book  titles  per  capita  than  less  industrialized 
societies,  as  well  as  declining  numbers  of  au- 
tomobile and  airplane  manufacturers,  in- 
creasingly standardized  foods  in  super- 
markets and  restaurants,  symphony 
orchestras  almost  restricting  performances  to 
the  work  of  eight  men,  difficulties  with  pub- 
lishing innovative  books  or  trying  out  in- 
novative ideas,  and  declining  numbers  of  spe- 
cies (Watt  1972,  1973).  In  some  ill-defined 
way  this  general  reduction  in  environmental 
diversity  seems  to  result  in  a  search  for  re- 
placement of  the  satisfaction  or  sensory  stim- 
ulation which  it  provided.  Thus,  we  have  sig- 
nificant and  expanding  elements  in  our 
society  attempting  to  satisfy  their  senses 
through  membership  in  cults,  sexual  experi- 
mentation, use  of  drugs  and  alcohol,  etc. 
Basically,  it  seems  that  as  we  manufacture  a 
more  "efficient"  society  we  increase  its 
energy  flow  while  reducing  its  diversity.  This 
seems  to  result  in  a  search  for  diversity  by 
the  members  of  society.  Perhaps  the  most 
dramatic  demonstration  that  environmental 
stimulation  derived  from  experiences  with  or 
in  nature  is  essential  to  modern  man's  feeling 
of  well-being  comes  from  the  successes  real- 
ized in  the  treatment  of  "hopeless"  mental 
cases  (litis  1967).  Dramatic  improvements  re- 
sulted from  taking  these  people  on  camping 


trips.  Many  people  obviously  have  expe- 
rienced the  tremendous  release  of  tension 
that  can  be  felt  when  you  "get  away  from  it 
all,"  or,  to  put  it  another  way,  when  you 
have  an  opportunity  to  become  acquainted 
with  the  diversity  and  sensory  stimulation 
available  in  nature.  Finally,  the  availability 
of  genetic  diversity  in  plants  and  animals  as  a 
basis  for  producing  new  or  better  crops,  med- 
icines, and  pharmaceuticals  (Reisner  1978) 
has  been  emphasized  as  one  of  the  most  com- 
pelling arguments  for  saving  species. 

Thus,  there  are  a  number  of  biological  rea- 
sons to  justify  saving  endangered  species. 
These  usually  have  implications  that  extend 
to  other  areas  of  human  endeavor.  If  man's 
uniqueness  in  fact  is  his  knowledge  of  his 
world,  if  Homo  sapiens  is  the  knowing  one, 
then  each  extinction  diminishes  man's  capaci- 
ty of  know— and  to  that  extent  man's  human- 
ity. It  seems  to  me  that  the  Endangered  Spe- 
cies Act  represents  a  society  saying  "This  is 
as  far  as  we  will  go."  The  necessity  of  making 
such  a  statement  will  always  be  questioned, 
but  it  does  represent  an  attempt  at  insuring 
that  our  children  on  into  many  generations 
will  have  available  to  them  some  of  the  hu- 
manizing experiences  that  were  available  to 
us. 

Perhaps  we  have  taken  the  position  that 
the  extermination  must  stop  because  of  our 
general  awareness  that  there  is  no  other 
choice.  Human  civilization  has  always  had  a 
very  nomadic  character  about  it.  The  domi- 
nant center  of  Western  civilization  has 
shifted  from  the  fertile  crescent  of  Mesopo- 
tamia to  Egypt,  Greece,  Rome,  Europe, 
Great  Britain,  and  the  United  States  as  envi- 
ronmental overexploitation  has  forced  (or 
permitted)  these  nomadic  wanderings.  With 
the  entire  planet  occupied  by  civilized  so- 
cieties, there  is  no  way  to  continue  the  wan- 
derings of  civilization.  The  last  remnant  of 
the  tendency  appears  to  be  exportation  of  the 
environmental  degradation  required  to  sup- 
port the  kind  of  society  we  have  created. 
Thus,  no  longer  does  our  civilization  have  its 
primary  impact  confined  to  national  bound- 
aries. We  find  ourselves  responsible  for  de- 
struction of  tropical  rain  forests,  whales,  pup- 
fish,  woundfin,  and  any  number  of  other 
worldwide  resources,  both  renewable  and 
nonrenewable.  A  balance  of  payments  deficit 


58 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


is  clearly  one  serious  and  unacceptable  con- 
sequence, but  it  is  completely  overshadowed 
by  the  rapid  diminution  of  the  world's  ability 
to  support  the  biotic  diversity  so  essential  to 
man's  physical  and  mental  well-being. 

During  this  symposium  Lovejoy  (1979)  has 
provided  a  frightening  description  of  the  aw- 
ful magnitude  of  the  problem.  Clements 
(1979)  has  clearly  shown  that  it  is  our  own  so- 
ciety, not  societies  in  the  under-developed 
countries  of  the  tropics,  that  must  be  held 
primarily  responsible  for  such  all-pervasive, 
worldwide  environmental  degradation.  Per- 
haps an  understanding  of  these  important 
facts  will  hasten  the  hard  decisions  which 
must  be  made  to  apply  the  principles  of  the 
Endangered  Species  Act  on  a  worldwide 
scale.  Spencer  (1979)  provided  extensive 
documentation  to  show  that  the  very  difficult 
and  costly  decisions  essential  to  slowing  the 
rate  of  environmental  degradation  in  the 
United  States  are  being  made  in  some  specif- 
ic cases.  His  presentation  is  perhaps  the  most 
encouraging  evidence  presented  at  the  sym- 
posium to  indicate  that  there  are  forces  at 
work  in  our  society  which  have  a  slim  possi- 
bility of  forcing  the  significant  shifts  in  so- 
cietal values  which  Clements  (1979)  de- 
scribed as  essential  if  we  are  to  prevent  the 
collapse  of  our  system. 


The  answers  to  "Why  save  species?"  are 
many-faceted,  almost  always  translate  into 
"Why  save  ecosystems?"  and  clearly  demand 
searching  examination  of  human  values.  It 
seems  particularly  powerful,  therefore,  to 
find  philosophers,  theologians,  and  ecologists 
converging  on  essentially  the  same  answers  to 
these  questions.  Though  ecologists  tend  to 
understandably  emphasize  species  and  eco- 
systems and  theologians  tend  to  emphasize 
individuals  and  anthropocentricity,  pretty 
much  the  same  conclusions  emerge.  The  most 
succinct  and,  to  the  Christian  world,  prob- 
ably the  most  widely  understandable  con- 
clusion we  can  arrive  at  was  expressed  by 
Professor  Hugh  Nibley.  In  a  1978  essay  exam- 
ining man's  relationship  with  his  environ- 
ment he  said,  "Man's  dominion  is  a  call  to 
service,  not  a  license  to  exterminate." 


Acknowledgments 

Numerous  people  have  assisted  in  the  de- 
velopment of  data  and  ideas  presented  here- 
in. To  all  I  express  sincere  gratitude.  James 
D.  Williams,  Gail  Kobetich,  Thom  Hardy, 
and  the  American  Fisheries  Society  Endan- 
gered Species  Committee  were  instrumental 
in  development  of  Tables  5  and  6.  Jerry 


Table  5.  Described  taxa  of  threatened  freshwater  fishes  of  western  North  America:  1979. 


Present  ° 

Historical 

Common  name 

Scientific  name 

Status 

threat 

distribution 

Trouts,  family  Salmonidae 

Little  Kern  golden  trout 

Sahno  aqttabonita  whitei 
Jordan 

T 

1,4 

CA 

Arizona  trout 

•Srt/mo  apache  Miller  1972 

T 

1,4 

AZ 

Lahontan  cutthroat  trout 

Salmo  clarki  henshawi  Gill 
and  Jordan 

T 

1,4 

CA,NV,UT,WA 

Colorado  River  cutthroat 

Sulmo  clarki  pleuriticus 

SC 

1,4 

CO,UT,WY 

trout 

Cope 

Paiute  cutthroat  trout 

Salmo  clarki  seleniris  Snyder 

T 

1 

CA 

Greenback  cutthroat 

Sahno  chirki  stomias  Cope 

T 

1,4 

CO 

trout 

Utah  cutthroat  trout 

Sahno  clarki  titali  Suckley 

T 

1,4 

UT,WY,NV 

Rio  Grande  cutthroat 

Salmo  clarki  virginalis 

SC 

1,4 

CO,NM 

trout 

(Girard) 

Gila  trout 

Salmo  gilae  Miller 

T 

1 

NM,AZ 

Sunapee  trout 

Salvelinus  alpiniis  atircolus 
Bean 

T 

4 

ME,NH,ID 

Montana  Arctic  grayling 

Thymalhis  arcticus 

T 

1 

MT 

(stream  form) 

montanus  (Pallas) 

Mudminnows,  family  Umbridae 

Olympic  mudminnow  Sovumhra  hubhsi  Schultz 


SC 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


59 


Minnows,  family  Cyprinidae 
Mexican  stoneroller 

Devils  River  minnow 

Desert  dace 

Alvord  chvib 

Fish  Creek  Springs  Tiii 

chub 
Independence  Valley  Tui 

chub 
Mohave  Tui  chub 

Newark  Valley  Tui  chub 

Oregon  Lakes  Tui  chub 

Lahontan  Tui  chub 
Owens  Tui  chub 

Thicktail  chub 

Humpback  chub 
Bonytail 

Gila  chub 
Chihuahua  chub 
Yaqui  chub 
Gila  roundtail  chub 

Pahranagat  roundtail 

chub 
Virgin  River  roundtail 

chub 
Oregon  chub 
Least  chub 

White  River  spinedace 

Virgin  spinedace 


Big  Spring  spinedace 

Little  Colorado  spinedace 

Spikedace 

Moapa  dace 

Yaqui  Beautiful  shiner 

Rio  Grande  shiner 
Proserpine  shiner 

Bluntnose  shiner 
Woundfin 

Splittail 

Colorado  squawfish 
Relict  dace 


Campostoma  ornatum  SC 

Girard 
Dionda  diaboli  Hubbs  and  T 

Brown 
Eremichthys  dcros  Hubbs  T 

and  Miller 
Gila  ahordensis  Hubbs  and         SC 

Miller  1972 
Gila  bicolor  euchila  E 

Hubbs  and  Miller  1972 
Gila  bicolor  isolata  Hubbs  T 

and  Miller  1972 
Gila  bicolor  mohavensis  E 

(Snyder) 
Gila  bicolor  newarkensis  SC 

Hubbs  and  Miller  1972 
Gila  bicolor  oregonensis  SC 

(Snyder) 
Gila  bicolor  obesa  (Girard)  SC 

Gila  bicolor  snyderi  Miller  E 

1973 

Gila  crassicauda  (Baird  and  E 

Girard) 

Gila  cypha  Miller  E 

Gila  elegans  Baird  and  E 

Girard 

Gila  intermedia  (Girard)  SC 

Gila  nigrescens  (Girard)  E 

Gila  purpurea  (Girard)  E 

Cw7fl  robusta  graluimi  Baird  T 

and  Girard 

Gila  robusta  jordani  Tanner        E 

Gila  robusta  semintida  E 

Cope 
Hybopsis  crameri  Snyder  SC 

lotichthys  phlegethontis  T 

(Cope) 
Lcpidomeda  albivallis  T 

Miller  and  Hubbs 
Lepidomeda  inollispinis  T 

inollispinis  Miller  and 

Hubbs 
Lepidomeda  mollispinis  E 

pratensis  Miller  and  Hubbs 
Lepidomeda  vittata  Cope 
Meda  fulgida  Girard 
Moapa  coriacea  Hubbs  and 

Miller 
Notropis  formosus  mearnsi 

Snyder 
Notropis  jemezanus  (Cope) 
Notropis  porserpinus 

(Girard) 
Notropis  simiis  (Cope) 
Plagopteriis  argentissim  us 

Cope 
Pogonichtlnjs  SC 

macrolepidotus  (Ayres) 
Ptychocheilus  luciiis  Girard        E 
Rclictus  solitarius  Hubbs  SC 

and  Miller  1972 


1,3 

1 

L5 

1 

1,4,5 

1,4,5 

1,4 

1,5 

1 

1 
1,4,5 


1,4,5 


AZ,TX,(Mexico) 
TX 

NV 
NV.OR 

NV 

NV 

CA 

NV 

OR 

NV 
CA 


CA 

AZ,CO,UT,WY 
AZ,CA,CO,NV,UT,WY 

AZ,NM 

NM,Mexico(Ch) 
AZ,Mexico  (So) 
AZ,NM 


NV 
AZ,NV,UT 


OR 
UT 


NV 

Az,[/r 


,vv 


SC 

T 

E 

1,4 
1,3,4,5 

AZ 
AZ,NM 

NV 

SC 

AZ  (Mexico) 

SC 
T 

L4 

NM 
TX 

E 
E 

1,4 

NM,TX 
AZ,NV,UT 

1,3,4 
1 


CA 

AZ,CO,UT,CA,NM,NV,WY 

NV 


60 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


Independence  Valley 

Rhinichthijs  osculus 

E 

1,4,5 

NV 

speckled  dace 

lethoponis  Hubbs  and 
Miller  1972 

Ash  Meadows  speckled 

Rhinichthijs  oscidus 

E 

1,4 

NV 

dace 

nevadensis  Gilbert 

Clover  Valley  speckled 

Rhiniclitliijs  oscidus 

E 

1,4,5 

NV 

dace 

oligoponis  Hubbs  and  Miller 
1972 

Kendall  Warm  Springs 

Rhinichythijs  oscidus 

SC 

5 

WY 

dace 

thermalis  Hubbs  and 
Kuehne 

Moapa  speckled  dace 

Rhinichthijs  oscidus 
moapae  Williams  1978 

T 

1,3,4 

NV 

Loach  minnow 

Tiaroga  cobitis  Girard 

SC 

1,4 

AZ, 

Suckers,  family  Catostomidae 
Yaqui  sucker 

White  River  desert 

sucker 
Webug  sucker 

Zuni  bluehead  sucker 

Lost  River  sucker 

Modoc  sucker 

Warner  sucker 

Shortnose  sucker 

Cui-ui 
June  sucker 
Razorback  sucker 


Catostonius  bernardini 

Girard 
Catostomus  clarki 

intermedins  (Tanner) 
Catostomus  fecundus 

Cope  and  Yarrow 
Castostomus  dicobohis 

ijarrowi  Cope 
Catostomus  luxatus 

(Cope) 
Castostomus  microps 

Rutter 
Catostomus  warneiensis 

Snyder 
Chasmistes  brevirostris 

Cope 
Chasmistes  ciijus  Cope 
Chasmistes  liorus  Jordan 
Xyraiichen  texanus 

(Abbott) 


Freshwater  catfishes,  family  Ictaluridae 

Yaqui  catfish  Ictahtrus  pricei 

(Rutter) 
Widemouth  blindcat  Satan  eurijstomus  Hubbs 

and  Bailey 
Toothless  blindcat  Trogloglanis  pattersoni 

Eigenmann 


SC 

T 

SC 

T 

SC 

E 

E 

T 

E 

SC 

T 

SC 

T 

T 


Killifishes,  family  Cyprinodont 
Railroad  Valley 

springfish 
Leon  Springs  pupfish 

Devils  Hole  pupfish 

Comanche  Springs 

pupfish 
Gila  desert  pupfish 

Valley  Amargosa  pupfish 

Ash  Meadows  Amargosa 

pupfish 
Warm  Springs  Amargosa 

pupfish 
Owens  pupfish 
White  Sands  pupfish 


idae 
Crenichthijs  nevadae 

Hubbs 
Cyprinodon  hovinus 

Baird  and  Girard 
Cyprinidon  diabolis 

Wales 
Cyprinodon  elegans 

Baird  and  Girard 
Cyprinodon  macidarius 

macularitis  Baird  and  Girard 
Cyprinodon  nevadensis 

amargosae  Miller 
Cyprinodon  nevadensis 

mioncclcs  Miller 
Cyprinodon  nevadensis 

pectorahs  Miller 
Cyprinodon  radiosus  Miller 
Cyprinodon  tularosa  Miller 

and  Echelle  1975 


1 

1 

1,4 

1       c^jiu 

1,4 

1,4 

1,4 

1,4 

1 

1,4 

1,4 

1 

1 
1 


SC 

1 

T 

1,4,5 

E 

1,5 

E 

1 

T 

1,4 

SC 

1,4 

T 

1.4 

E 

1,4,5 

E 

1,4 

SC 

1,4,5 

AZ  (Mexico) 

NV 

UT 

NM 

CA,OR 

CA 

OR 

CA,OR 

NV 
UT 
AZ,CA,CO,NV,UT,WY 

AZ  (Mexico) 

TX 

TX 

NV 

TX 

NV 

TX 

AZ,  Mexico 

CA 

NV 

NV 

CA 

NM 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


61 


Pahrunip  killifish 


Empetrichthijs  latos  lotos  E 

Miller 


1,4,5 


NV 


Livebearers,  faniilv  Poecilidae 


Amistad  gambusia 

Gambusia  ajnistadensis 
Peden  1973 

E 

1,5 

TX 

Big  Bend  gambusia 

Gambusia  gaigei  Hubbs 

E 

1,5 

TX 

San  Marcos  gambusia 

Gambusia  georgei  Hubbs 
and  Peden 

E 

1,4,5 

TX 

Clear  Creek  gambusia 

Gambusia  heterochir  Hubbs 

T 

4 

TX 

Pecos  gambusia 

Gambusia  nobilis  (Baird 
and  Girard) 

SC 

1,4 

TX,NM 

Gila  topminnow 

Poeciliopsis  occidentalis 
(Baird  and  Girard) 

E 

1 

AZ,NM 

Sticklebacks,  family  Gasterosteidae 

Unarmored  threespine  Gasterosteus  aculeatus 

stickleback  williamsoni  Girard 


CA 


Sunfishes,  family  Centrarchidae 
Guadalupe  bass 


Micropterus  treculi  (Vaillant 
and  Bocourt) 


Perches,  family  Percidae 


SC 


TX 


Fountain  darter 

Etheostoma  fonticola 
(Jordan  and  Gilbert) 

E 

1,5 

TX 

Gobies,  family  Gobiidae 

O'opu  nakea 

Awaous  stamineus  (Eydoux 
and  Souleyet) 

SC 

1,4 

HI 

Tidewater  goby 

Eucijclogobius  newbernji 
(Girard) 

SC 

1 

CA 

O'opu  alamo'o 

Lentipes  concolor  (Gill) 

T 

1 

HI 

O'opu  nopili 

Sicydium  stimpsoni  Gill 

SC 

1,4 

HI 

Sculpins,  family  Cottidae 

Rougfi  sculpin 

Cottus  asperrimus  Butter 

SC 

1 

CA 

Utah  Lake  sculpin 

Cottus  echinatus  Bailey  and 
Bond 

E 

1,4 

UT 

Shoshone  sculpin 

Cottus  greenei  (Gilbert  and 
Culver) 

SC 

I 

ID 

°1— Present  or  threatened  destruction  of  habitat 
2— Overutihzation 
3— Disease 

4— Hybridization,  competition,  exotic  or  translocated 
5— Restricted  natural  range 


Lockhart  provided  data  on  woundfin  from 
1973.  Brian  Wilson  assisted  greatly  with  de- 
velopment of  data  on  parasitism,  which  could 
not  have  been  accumulated  without  accessi- 
bility to  fish  collections  at  the  University  of 
Michigan  Museum  of  Zoology  (R.  R.  Miller), 
the  University  of  Nevada— Reno  (Ira  LaRi- 
vers),  and  BYU  (Dave  White).  Encour- 
agement and  approval  of  permits  necessary 
to  the  work  has  been  provided  by  the  Ne- 
vada, Utah,  and  Arizona  Game  and  Fish  de- 
partments.    Stimulating     discussions     and 


searching  examination  of  values  have  been 
provided  by  my  family  (Maxine,  Dave,  and 
Jack  and  Cindy  Williams)  and  by  classes  at 
UNLV.  Financial  assistance  for  various  as- 
pects of  work  reported  herein  has  been  pro- 
vided by  the  U.S.  Fish  and  Wildlife  Service, 
National  Park  Service,  National  Science 
Foundation,  Sport  Fishing  Institute,  U.S.  Bu- 
reau of  Reclamation,  University  of  Nevada- 
Las  Vegas,  and  the  City  of  St.  George,  Utah, 
through  Vaughn  Hansen  Associates. 


62 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


Questions  for  Dr.  Deacon 

Once  a  species  is  on  its  way  to  recovery,  how  does 
one  determine  what  the  population  level  or  popu- 
lation density  would  be  for  the  species  to  be  consid- 
ered no  longer  in  danger? 

That  is  an  extremely  knotty  problem.  In  the  case  of 
the  Devils  Hole  pupfish  we  were  primarily  con- 
cerned with  maintaining  a  large  enough  population 
to  prevent  population  instabilities  that  might  tend 
to  accelerate  the  process  of  extinction.  It  is  generally 
understood  that  populations  have  a  minimum  size 
below  which  they  are  unlikely  to  maintain  viability. 
Bob  Miller  at  the  University  of  Michigan  did  some 
experimental  rearing  of  other  species  of  pupfish  in 
the  1940s  and  also  performed  a  number  of  trans- 
plants into  springs  devoid  of  fish.  His  work  indicated 
that  experimental  populations  started  with  small 
numbers  of  individuals  tended  to  decline  in  abun- 
dance after  a  few  generations,  sometimes  to  extinc- 
tion. His  numerous  transplants  of  pupfish  into  other 
natural  waters  were  never  successful  if  fewer  than 
200  individuals  were  transplanted,  and  in  only  two 
instances  were  they  successful  when  more  than  200 


individuals  were  transplanted.  During  the  middle 
1960s  a  graduate  student  of  mine,  Carol  James  (now 
Ivy),  did  some  work  on  the  Devils  Hole  pupfish 
which,  in  retrospect,  indicated  that  its  population 
had  probably  never  fallen  below  200  individuals.  Fi- 
nally a  transplant  of  24  Devils  Hole  pupfish  into  an 
artificial  pond  below  Hoover  Dam  resulted  in  a  pop- 
ulation maximum  of  about  200  individuals,  followed 
by  a  decline  to  about  50  individuals.  This  pattern 
suggested  loss  of  viability  may  be  occurring  in  the 
transplanted  population  of  Devils  Hole  pupfish.  This 
line  of  argimient  was  successful  in  establishing  the 
fact  that  it  would  be  unacceptably  dangerous  to  per- 
mit the  population  of  Devils  Hole  pupfish  to  fall  be- 
low 200  individuals.  Once  that  point  was  established 
it  was  not  difficult  to  show,  with  four  or  five  years  of 
monthly  data  on  estimated  population  size,  that  a 
water  level  of  2.7  was  necessary  to  sustain  a  popu- 
lation of  no  fewer  than  200  individuals.  These  eco- 
logical relationships  are  being  reported  in  the  sym- 
posium volume  on  research  in  the  national  parks  to 
be  published  in  1979. 
Q.  At  what  level  do  you  consider  the  population  to  not 
be  threatened? 


Table  6.  Undescribed  taxa  of  threatened  freshwater  fishes  of  western  North  America:  1979. 


Present  ° 

Historical 

Common  name 

Scientific  name 

Status 

threat 

distribution 

Trouts,  family  Salmonidae 

Alvord  cutthroat  trout 

Salmo  clarki  ssp. 

SC 

1 

OR 

Humboldt  cutthroat  trout 

Salmo  clarki  ssp. 

SC 

1 

NV 

Redband  trout 

Salmo  sp. 

SC 

1,4 

ca,or,id,nv 

Minnows,  family  Cyprinidae 

Catlow  Tui  chub 

Gila  bicolor  ssp. 

SC 

1 

OR 

Sheldon  Tui  chub 

Gila  bicolor  ssp. 

SC 

5 

NV 

Cowhead  Lake  Tui  chub 

Gila  bicolor  ssp. 

SC 

1 

ca 

Hutton  Spring  Tui  chub 

Gila  bicolor  ssp. 

T 

1 

OR 

Borax  Lake  chub 

Gila  sp. 

T 

1,5 

OR 

Foskett  Spring  speckled 

Rhinichthys  osctitus  ssp. 

T 

1,5 

OR 

dace 

Killifishes,  family  Cyprinodontidae 

Preston  White  River  Crenichthijs  baileyi  ssp. 


springfish 
Southern  White  River 

springfish 
Warm  Springs  White 

River  springfish 
Devils  River  Conchos 

pupfish 
LeConte  desert  pupfish 
Quitobaquito  desert 

pupfish 


Crenichthijs  baileyi  ssp. 

Crenichtliys  baileyi  ssp. 

Cyprinodon  eximius  ssp. 

Cyprinodon  macidariiis  ssp. 
Cyprinodon  macularius  ssp. 


T 

4,5 

NV 

T 

1,3,4 

NV 

SC 

1,4,5 

NV 

T 

1 

TX 

E 

1,4 

CA 

SC 

1,5 

AZ 

Sculpins,  family  Cottidae 

Malheur  mottled  sculpin         Cottus  bairdi  ssp. 


SC 


OR 


•  1— Present  or  threatened  destruction  of  habitat 
2— Overutilization 
3— Disease 

4— Hybridization,  competition,  exotic  or  translocated 
5— Restricted  natural  range 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


63 


A.  I  consider  200  piipfish  to  be  one  which  puts  the  spe- 
cies in  approximately  the  position  it  was  prior  to  the 
appearance  of  man— not  completely  in  that  position, 
but  approximately.  Now  it's  as  threatened  as  it  al- 
ways was  because  of  its  restricted  habitat,  but  it  is 
no  more  threatened  because  of  man's  activities. 

Q.  Would  cleaning  up  the  waters  here  in  the  West  af- 
fect the  species  population? 

A.  In  those  areas  where  pollution  is  a  problem  it  cer- 
tainly would.  Almost  anything  that's  proposed  which 
will  modify  habitats  must  be  examined  with  respect 
to  the  possibilities  of  adversely  affecting  species, 
whether  or  not  they  are  endangered.  It  doesn't  nec- 
essarily mean  that,  for  instance,  salinity  control  pro- 
jects will  affect  the  woundfin  minnow.  In  fact,  some 
of  my  work  has  demonstrated  that  there  is  probably 
a  good  opportunity  to  design  salinity  control  projects 
that  will  be  unlikely  to  affect  the  mainstream  fishes 
of  the  Virgin  River.  That  conclusion  is  expandable  to 
many  other  instances  in  the  Southwest.  The  impor- 
tant thing  is  to  design  projects  that  are  compatible 
with  the  habitat  requirements  of  the  species  im- 
pacted. In  other  words,  cleaning  up  the  waters  of 
the  West  could  affect  species  in  a  number  of  ways, 
both  adversely  and  favorably. 

Q.  I'm  not  convinced  that  what  you  have  said  about  the 
proposal  to  not  go  ahead  with  the  power  plant  in 
Dixie  is  reasonable.  The  suggestion  was  that  they  di- 
vert some  of  the  water  from  the  Virgin  River  into  a 
reservoir  in  Warner  Valley  and  with  that  carry  on 
with  their  electrical  work.  Now,  of  course,  it  would 
be  a  coal  plant  and  this  would  be  cooling  water  for 
the  hydro  plant.  What  is  the  problem?  How  is  it  go- 
ing to  endanger  that  fish? 

A.  The  question  is  how  is  the  Warner  Valley  Project 
likely  to  add  to  the  threats  to  the  woundfin  minnow 
and  roundtail  chub  in  the  mainstream  Virgin  River. 
Thanks  very  much  for  asking  it,  Vasco  (Tanner).  This 
obviously  is  not  a  simple  problem.  The  basic  answer 
I  see  is  that  the  Warner  Valley  Project  as  projected 
will  alter  the  flows  of  the  mainstream  Virgin  River. 
The  hydrologists  point  out  that  most  of  the  water 
will  be  taken  during  the  winter  and  spring.  Data  I 
presented  here  today  indicate  that  during  the  low- 
flow  winter,  spring,  and  summer  of  1977,  woundfin 
and  roimdtail  chub  reproduction  was  extremely  low. 
To  the  extent  that  the  Warner  Valley  Project  in- 
creases the  frequency  with  which  flows  similar  to 
1977  occur,  that  project  will  adversely  impact  the 
endangered  fishes  living  there.  Essentially,  the  prob- 
lem is  that  the  data  so  far  demonstrate  that  1977, 
which  was  a  low-flow  year,  resulted  in  conditions  in- 
compatible with  very  much  reproduction  of  those 
two  species.  If  you  cut  off  that  reproduction,  you're 
likely  to  cause  an  extinction.  Certainly  every  time 
you  modify  the  flow  regime  of  the  Virgin  River  such 
that  the  native  fish  populations  living  there  miss  a 
year  of  reproduction,  you're  very  demonstratively  af- 
fecting the  capability  of  those  species  to  maintain 
themselves  in  the  river.  My  conclusions  here  are 
really  based  on  the  fact  that  we  have  demonstrated 
very  poor  reproduction  during  a  time  which  repre- 
sents the  kind  of  postproject  flows  we  could  expect. 

Q.   Of  course  I've  seen  that  river  fluctuate  from  great  to 


almost  nothing,  so  naturally  I  don't  see  that  there  is 
any  justification  for  not  going  ahead  with  it.  They're 
going  to  get  water  from  Warner  Valley  as  well  as 
just  divert  a  little  from  the  Virgin  River  into  the  res- 
ervoir. 

A.  The  crux  of  the  matter,  I  think,  is  what  flows  are 
necessary  to  permit  reproduction  of  the  woundfin 
minnow.  The  data  I  presented  suggest  that  flows  in 
the  neighborhood  of  1(X)  cubic  feet  per  second  are 
necessary  to  permit  reproduction  of  woundfin  and 
roundtail  chub.  In  fact,  there  is  some  suggestion  that 
winter  flows  must  be  somewhat  higher.  If  the  Warn- 
er Valley  project  doesn't  reduce  winter  and  spring 
flows  below  about  110  cubic  feet  per  second,  then  I 
would  say  that  there  is  likely  to  be  no  adverse  im- 
pact. On  the  other  hand,  if  it  does,  and  it  was  dem- 
onstrated by  the  hydrological  study  that  it  would, 
then  it  does  represent  an  impact.  I'm  not  saying  you 
shouldn't  have  the  project.  AH  I  am  saying  is,  if  you 
reduce  flows,  you're  going  to  impact  the  minnow 
and  the  chub. 

Q.  Just  a  comment  more  than  a  question.  I  understand 
the  Warner  Project  during  1977  would  not  have 
been  allowed  to  divert  because  the  water  was  so  low 
that  project  requirements  would  not  have  permited 
diversion.  The  1977  situation  would  not  be  repeated 
unless  there  was  another  low-water  year. 

A.  If  that's  the  case,  then  I  fail  to  see  the  basis  for  the 
rather  marked  objections  that  have  been  raised  to 
the  conclusions  I  have  reached. 

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Basin  Nat.  Mem.  3:11-16. 

CoTTAM,  W.  P.  1961.  Our  renewable  wild  lands— a  chal- 
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Cross,  J.  N.  1975.  Ecological  distribution  of  the  fishes  of 
the  Virgin  River  (Utah,  Arizona,  Nevada).  Un- 
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1978.  Status  and  ecology  of  the  Virgin  River 

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Deacon,  J.  E.,  C.  Hubbs,  and  B.  J.  Zahuranec.  1964. 
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Deacon,  J.  E.,  G.  Kobetich,  J.  D.  Williams,  and  S. 
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LovEjOY,  T.  E.  1979.  The  epoch  of  biotic  impover- 
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McNatt,  R.  1979.  Fish  habitat  loss  in  the  San  Pedro 
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RARE  AQUATIC  INSECTS,  OR  HOW  VALUABLE  ARE  BUGS? 

Richard  W.  Bauinann' 


Abstract.—  Insects  are  an  important  element  in  the  analysis  of  aquatic  ecosystems,  (1)  because  the  limited  dis- 
persal abilities  of  many  aquatic  species  means  that  they  must  make  a  living  under  existing  conditions,  and  (2)  be- 
cause they  are  often  sensitive  to  slight  changes  in  water  and  stream  quality,  thus  making  excellent  indicators  of  the 
physical  and  chemical  conditions  in  a  system.  Examples  of  rare,  ecologically  sensitive  species  are  presented  from  the 
Plecoptera,  Ephemeroptera,  and  Trichoptera.  Detailed  studies  of  rare  aquatic  insect  species  should  produce  impor- 
tant information  on  critical  habitats  that  will  be  useful  in  the  protection  of  endangered  and  threatened  species  in 
other  groups  of  animals  and  plants. 


I  use  the  term  rare  instead  of  endangered 
or  threatened,  because  no  aquatic  insects  are 
presently  on  the  United  States  hst  of  endan- 
gered fauna.  The  term  is  still  relative, 
though,  because  my  experience  indicates  that 
nearly  every  species  can  be  plentiful  if 
sought  at  the  right  place  at  the  right  time. 

Aquatic  insects  are  useful  to  anyone  study- 
ing aquatic  habitats  because  they  usually 
meet  two  criteria  that  are  essential  in  assess- 
ing aquatic  systems.  First,  they  often  have 
very  limited  dispersal  abilities,  which  means 
that  they  must  stay  and  make  a  living  under 
existing  conditions.  Second,  they  are  often 
sensitive  to  slight  changes  in  water  quality,  so 
their  presence  or  absence  tells  something 
about  the  physical  and  chemical  conditions  in 
the  system. 

Because  the  conditions  present  in  a  given 
habitat  determine  which  species  can  live 
there,  these  organisms  become  living  in- 
dicators of  water  quality  in  aquatic  ecosys- 
tems. If  these  organisms  are  invertebrates 
which  exist  at  low  levels  in  the  food  web,  this 
is  an  advantage.  Invertebrates  are  easier  to 
study  than  are  larger  animals,  because  they 
are  more  abundant  and  usually  do  not  carry 
the  emotional  stigma  associated  with  large 
vertebrates.  They  can  also  indicate  adverse 
habitat  problems  sooner,  so  that  adjustments 
can  be  made  in  water  or  stream  quality  be- 
fore the  top  carnivores  are  severely  affected. 

During  my  studies  of  aquatic  insects  in 
western  North  America,  I  have  found  that 


the  distribution  patterns  of  certain  species  fit 
nicely  with  a  model  of  island  biogeography. 
Many  stoneflies  (Plecoptera)  are  mostly  re- 
stricted to  pristine  habitats  characterized  by 
cold,  clean  continuously  flowing  streams  at 
high  elevations  or  in  special  spring-fed  habi- 
tats. It  thus  follows  that  if  the  particular  hab- 
itat in  which  they  occur  is  threatened,  then 
they  almost  automatically  become  rare  and 
may  become  extinct.  Such  species  popu- 
lations are  often  considered  relicts  of  faunas 
that  were  once  more  prevalent  when  more 
ideal  conditions  occurred. 

Studies  on  the  stonefly  genus  Amphine- 
mura  (Baumann  and  Gaufin  1972,  Bauman 
1976)  showed  that  it  was  a  Palearctic  genus 
that  had  extended  into  the  Neotropical 
Realm  and  was  still  present  in  western  North 
America  in  limited  relictual  populations.  Al- 
though four  species  showed  fairly  wide  distri- 
bution patterns  in  the  United  States  and  Mex- 
ico, three  species  were  restricted  to  a  single 
mountain  range.  Amphinemura  apache  oc- 
curred in  the  Chiricahua  Mountains  of  Ari- 
zona, A.  reinerti,  was  limited  to  Sierra  Potosi, 
Mexico,  and  A.  piiehhi  was  found  in  a  moun- 
tain drainage  near  Veracruz,  Mexico. 

These  A7nphinemiira  species  are  poor  fliers 
and  almost  need  a  water  connection  for  dis- 
persal. They  live  only  in  small  streams  that 
flow  all  year  around  and  are  of  high  quality. 
Their  distribution  patterns  closely  follow  the 
spruce-fir  and  high  pine  forests  in  the  south- 
western United  States  and  Mexico.  They  are 


'Monte  L.  Bean  Life  Science  Museum  and  Department  of  Zoology,  Brigham  Young  University,  Prove,  Utah  84602. 


65 


66 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


thus  good  indicators  of  a  special  aquatic  habi- 
tat in  western  North  America. 

Another  example  of  restricted  distribution 
in  the  stoneflies  is  Capnia  lacustra  Jewett, 
which  only  occurs  in  Lake  Tahoe.  It  carries 
on  its  entire  life  cycle  under  water  at  depths 
of  100-400  feet  (Jewett  1963,  1965).  Only 
one  other  similar  stonefly  is  known,  and  that 
is  the  genus  Baikaloperia  (Zapekina-Dulkeit 
and  Zhiltzova  1973),  in  Lake  Baikal,  Siberia. 
It  is  also  wingless  and  possesses  similar  mor- 
phological and  ecological  traits.  It  is  not  sur- 
prising that  these  two  deep,  ancient  lakes 
contain  similar  rare  species  which  evolved 
under  specialized  conditions  and  will  be  lost 
if  their  habitat  is  destroyed. 

Much  attention  has  been  given  to  several 
fish  species  that  occur  in  the  Colorado  River 
drainage  such  as  the  Humpback  Chub,  Ra- 
zorback  Sucker,  and  Colorado  River  Squaw- 
fish.  These  fish  developed  through  time  in 
another  type  of  specialized  habitat  that  ex- 
cluded the  salmonids  and  allowed  other  taxa 
to  radiate  into  the  open  niches.  Invertebrate 
species  have  also  developed  imder  similar 
conditions  and  several  forms  also  occur  in  the 
Colorado  River  drainage.  Edmunds  (1976) 
lists  several  mayfly  species  which  are  rare 
and  restricted  to  the  Colorado  River  drainage 
and  similar  large  warm  rivers  in  western 
North  America. 

The  following  are  a  few  examples  of  rare 
mayfly  species  and  an  indication  of  where 
they  occur  in  the  United  States:  Analetris 
eximia.  Green  River;  Lachlonia  saskotchewa- 
nensis.  Green,  Colorado,  and  White  Rivers; 
Anepeorus  rusticus.  Green  River;  Home- 
oneuria  sp.  Escalante  and  Colorado  Rivers. 
These  invertebrate  species  provide  additional 
evidence  that  our  large,  warm,  western  rivers 
contain  animal  species  that  have  adapted  to 
special  conditions  critical  for  their  survival. 

Caddisflies  or  the  Trichoptera  are  inter- 
esting insects  that  occur  in  a  wide  variety  of 
aquatic  habitats.  Most  are  good  fliers  and  dis- 
tribute freely,  but  many  species  are  restricted 
to  a  certain  habitat  because  of  the  larval  re- 
quirements. 

Wiggins  (1977)  published  an  outstanding 
work  that  makes  it  possible  for  any  trained 
biologist  to  classify  caddisfly  larvae  to  genus. 
Thus  it  provides  another  tool  for  evaluating 
habitats  using  aquatic  insects.  A  few  inter- 


esting examples  and  their  special  habitat  re- 
quirements are:  Goriella  baiimanni,  organic 
ooze  in  spring  seeps;  Psychronia  costalis, 
small  meadow  streams  above  8,000  feet;  Des- 
mona  bethida,  small  spring  streams. 

The  number  of  rare  aquatic  insects  is  quite 
large  because  of  the  number  of  different 
aquatic  habitats  available  and  the  ability  of 
insects  to  fit  into  relatively  small  niches  with- 
in those  habitats.  This  is  actually  a  positive 
value,  however,  because  it  allows  the  re- 
searcher to  more  closely  understand  the  eco- 
system since  it  can  be  divided  into  smaller 
parts. 

Two  final  examples  of  rare  insects  that 
have  very  specific  habitat  requirements  are 
the  met-winged  midges  and  the  water  penny 
beetles. 

Net-winged  midges  are  flies  which  have 
become  adapted  to  living  in  torrenticolus 
habitats.  The  larvae  are  greatly  modified  into 
chitonlike  organisms  that  attach  themselves 
to  the  substrate  by  sucking  discs.  They  live 
only  in  clean,  cold,  well-aerated  waters 
which  have  a  stable,  smooth-grained  sub- 
strate. Thus  they  can  be  excellent  indicators 
of  these  habitat  conditions  that  occur  at  falls 
and  quick-flowing  mountain  torrents.  Hogue 
(1973)  lists  several  Blephariceridae  species 
that  are  presently  known  only  from  a  single 
locality  or  mountain  range.  This  is  not  simply 
an  artifact  of  incomplete  collecting,  but  a  re- 
sult of  poor  adult  dispersal  ability  plus  the 
very  specialized  habitat  requirements  of  the 
larvae  noted  earlier. 

Water  penny  beetles  have  an  adult  stage 
tliat  looks  like  a  terrestrial  beetle  but  a  larval 
stage  that  is  highly  modifed  for  life  on  the 
bottom  of  streams.  The  larva  is  greatly  flat- 
tened so  that  the  head  and  appendages  are 
completely  hidden  under  the  thoracic  and 
abdominal  sclerites.  The  single  eastern  spe- 
cies Psephenus  herricki  is  rather  widely  dis- 
tributed, but  the  five  known  western  species 
have  very  restricted  distributions  (Brown  and 
Murvosh  1974).  Two  species,  P.  montanus 
(White  Mountains,  Arizona)  and  P.  arizo- 
nensis  (Chiricahua  Mountains,  Arizona)  have 
very  limited  areas  of  occurrence.  An  inter- 
esting note  is  that  this  type  of  limited  distri- 
bution pattern  is  also  exhibited  by  several 
species  in  the  Plecoptera,  Trichoptera,  and 
Ephemeroptera. 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


67 


Many  more  examples  of  "rare"  aquatic  in- 
sects could  be  given  which  probably  fit  into 
the  endangered  or  threatened  categories  as 
presently  understood.  They  are  exciting  to 
me  for  pure  scientific  studies  of  zoogeo- 
graphy and  phylogeny.  However,  I  feel  that 
the  real  value  is  not  simply  to  say  "I  found 
another  rare  creature,"  but  instead  to  make 
us  more  sensitive  about  the  critical  habitat 
conditions  which  produced  these  rare  species. 

Insects  tend  to  be  more  abundant  and  are 
tlius  easier  to  study  without  affecting  popu- 
lation dynamics.  They  are  also  usually  more 
economical  and  easier  to  sample  because 
tliey  are  less  mobile  and  can  be  effectively 
studied  by  fewer  people  with  less  sophis- 
ticated equipment. 

On  the  other  hand,  politicians  and  business 
people  may  question  the  value  of  an  insect. 
Who  cares  about  bugs?  How  much  is  a  bug 
really  worth? 

This  problem  can  be  illustrated  by  an  in- 
cident with  which  I  was  involved  while  at 
the  Smithsonian  Institution.  Soon  after  my 
arrival  in  Washington,  D.C.,  I  was  asked  to 
look  through  the  aquatic  insects  for  which  I 
was  responsible  as  curator  and  add^any  spe- 
cies to  a  list  of  organisms  that  could  be  con- 
sidered both  rare  and  restricted  to  the  Chesa- 
peake Bay  area.  In  Ross  and  Ricker  (1971)  I 
foimd  a  stonefly  species,  AUocapnio  zekia, 
that  was  known  only  from  the  Zekiah 
Swamp,  La  Plata,  Charles  County,  Maryland. 
I  added  it  to  the  list  and  forgot  about  it. 
About  three  years  later,  I  received  a  tele- 
phone call  from  a  man  who  wanted  to  know 
all  about  the  "Zekiah  Stonefly."  At  first  I  did 
not  know  what  he  was  talking  about,  but 
when  he  mentioned  the  Chesapeake  Bay  spe- 
cies list,  I  remembered.  I  did  some  quick  re- 
search and  indicated  that  the  species  was 
based  on  a  single,  male  holotype  and  might 
possibly  be  a  synonym  of  a  widespread  east- 
ern species.  He  nearly  exploded  when  I  re- 
ported this  to  him,  because,  he  said,  that  "Ze- 
kiah Stonefly"  was  holding  up  the 
construction  of  a  water  plant  in  a  nearby 
community  and  was  costing  a  lot  of  people  a 
lot  of  time  and  money. 

In  summary,  it  is  important  to  understand 
our  special  environmental  problems  here  in 
North  America.  If  this  can  be  better  facil- 
itated by  using  aquatic  insects,  then  we 


should  place  renewed  emphasis  on  studies  of 
them.  We  must,  however,  be  aware  of  the 
fact  that  people  in  general  do  not  imderstand 
the  scientific  value  of  insects  and  might  react 
poorly  to  "bugs"  being  used  to  justify  the 
preservation  and  conservation  of  special  eco- 
systems. However,  scientific  investigations  of 
high  quality  must  utilize  all  possible  avenues 
of  investigation  if  problems  are  to  be  solved 
with  a  minimum  expenditure  of  time,  effort, 
and  resources. 

It  is  also  important  that  we  do  not  attempt 
to  overstate  the  value  of  "rare"  species  as 
habitat  indicators.  Some  states,  for  example, 
have  placed  entire  orders  such  as  the  Plecop- 
tera  (stoneflies)  and  Ephemeroptera  (may- 
flies) on  lists  or  proclamations  and  have  di- 
luted their  value.  When  this  is  done  it 
becomes  difficult  to  study  these  organisms, 
because  of  the  problem  involved  in  obtaining 
permits  and  permission  to  collect  specimens. 
Collecting  alone  will  probably  never  se- 
riously harm  an  aquatic  insect  population,  as 
has  occurred  with  many  butterfly  species,  but 
habitat  manipulation  will. 

Literature  Cited 

Baumann,  R.  W.  1976.  Amphinemuia  reinerti,  a  new 
stonefly  from  northern  Mexico  (Plecoptera: 
Neniouridae).  Southwest.  Natur.  20:517-521. 

Baumann,  R.  W.,  and  a.  R.  Gaufin.  1972.  The  Am- 
phinemiira  ventista  complex  of  western  North 
America  (Plecoptera:  Neniouridae).  Natur.  Hist. 
Mus.  Los  Angeles  Co.  Contr.  Sci.  226:1-16. 

Brown,  H.  P.,  and  C.  M.  Murvosh.  1974.  A  revision  of 
the  genus  Psephenus  (Water-Penny  Beetles)  of 
the  United  States  and  Canada  (Coleoptera,  Dryo- 
poidea,  Psephenidae).  Trans.  Amer.  Entomol. 
Soc.  100:  289-340. 

Edmunds,  G.  F.,  Jr.,  S.  L.  Jensen,  and  L.  Berner.  1976. 
The  mayflies  of  North  and  Central  America. 
Univ.  Minnesota  Press,  Minneapolis. 

HoGUE,  C.  L.  197.3.  The  net-winged  midges  or  Blepha- 
riceridae  of  California.  Bull.  Calif.  Insect  Sur.  15: 
1-83. 

Jewett,  S.  G.,  Jr.  1963.  A  stonefly  aquatic  in  the  adult 
stage.  Science  139:  484-485. 

1965.  Four  new  stoneflies  from  California  and 

Oregon.  Pan-Pacific  Entomol.  41:  5-9. 

Ross,  H.  H.,  and  W.  E.  Ricker.  1971.  The  clas.sification, 
evolution,  and  dispersal  of  the  winter  stonefly 
genus  A//oca^ni«.  Illinois  Biol.  Monog.  45:  1-166. 

Wi(;r,iNS,  G.  B.  1977.  Larvae  of  the  North  American 
caddisfly  genera  (Trichoptera).  Univ.  Toronto 
Press,  Toronto,  4  dp. 

Zapekina-Dulkeit,  J.  I.,  and  L.  A.  Zhiltzova.  1973.  A 
new  genus  of  stoneflies  (Plecoptera)  from  Lake 
Baikal.  Entomol.  Obozv.  52:  340-345. 


ENDANGERED  AND  THREATENED  PLANTS  OF  UTAH:  A  CASE  STUDY 

Stanley  L.  Welsh' 

,\bstract.—  Endangered  and  threatened  plants  of  Utah  are  evaluated  as  to  their  distribution  in  phytogeographic 
subdivisions,  substrates,  plant  communities,  elevations,  and  geological  strata.  The  phytogeographic  subunits  were 
partitioned  and  comparisons  made  of  distribution  as  outlined  for  the  parameters  cited  above.  A  predictive  model  is 
suggested  based  on  the  nonrandom  distribution  of  endemic  plant  species. 


The  Endangered  Species  Act  of  1973,  Pub- 
lic Law  93-205  (as  ammended  1978),  was  an 
outgrowth  of  decades  of  concern  regarding 
the  future  of  that  portion  of  our  heritage  of 
hving  things,  which,  by  the  nature  of  their 
distributional  patterns,  could  most  easily  be 
eradicated  as  man  pressed  to  exploit  the  re- 
sources of  the  earth,  both  finite  and  renew- 
able. The  act  dictated  an  orderly  process  for 
development  of  lists  of  endangered  and 
tlireatened  species,  defined  terminology,  and 
provided  for  development  of  criteria  for  de- 
termining candidate  species. 

Plants  are  the  mantle  of  the  land,  nour- 
ishers  of  life's  feast,  holders  of  soil,  suppliers 
of  construction  materials,  of  medicines,  and 
of  other  substances  too  numerable  to  men- 
tion. They  provide  the  basis  of  all  life  on 
earth,  save  some  few  living  things  which  are 
capable  of  chemosynthetic  utilization  of 
energy.  This  fact  and  the  list  of  materials  that 
flows  from  plants  need  not  be  mentioned. 
Yet,  the  spread  of  mankind  over  the  face  of 
the  earth,  his  development  of  agriculture, 
and,  more  especially  perhaps,  his  devel- 
opment and  spread  of  an  industrial  society 
with  its  great  demands  on  space  and  mate- 
rials has  resulted  in  a  direct  competition  for 
the  space  that  was,  or  is,  occupied  by  the  in- 
digenous flora  of  the  earth. 

The  clearing  of  agricultural  land  for  plan- 
ting of  crop  plants,  as  selected  from  that  in- 


digenous genetic  stock  available  as  portions 
of  the  total  flora,  was  possibly  the  beginning 
of  the  role  of  mankind  as  a  major  agent  for 
reduction  of  plant  species.  Even  those  from 
which  the  crop  plants  were  developed  were 
not  spared  from  destruction  or  modification. 

Agriculture  is,  nevertheless,  a  more  ef- 
ficient means  for  the  production  of  biological 
materials  that  can  be  consumed  by  man  and 
by  his  livestock  than  from  the  previously  em- 
ployed methods  of  gathering  and  hunting. 

Industrialization  merely  speeded  the  pro- 
cess by  which  agricultural  lands  could  be 
cleared  of  native  plants  and  those  lands  then 
maintained  in  single  crop  cultures.  With  in- 
dustrialization came  the  explosion  of  de- 
mands for  resources  of  many  kinds:  ferrous 
and  nonferrous  metals,  chemical  compounds 
of  all  kinds,  sand  and  gravel,  coal  and  oil, 
uranium,  and  other  naturally  occurring  mate- 
rials. 

The  mantle  of  the  land  gave  way  as  each 
new  source  was  discovered.  Roads  were  cut 
through  the  vegetation.  Quarries,  open  pit 
mines,  portals,  corridors,  industrial  plant 
sites,  pipelines,  villages,  towns,  cities,  gar- 
bage dumps,  litter,  and  other  features  of  civ- 
ilization were  placed  atop  the  shrinking  veg- 
etation. 

Into  the  vast  array  of  plant  species 
marched  also  an  infinitesimally  small  cadre  of 


'Life  Science  Museum  and  Department  of  Botany  and  Range  Science,  Brigham  Young  University,  Prove,  Utah  84602. 


70 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


persons  determined  to  know  about  the  plants 
themselves— to  name  them,  to  describe  them, 
to  plot  where  they  grew,  and  to  recognize 
that  there  is  an  intrinsic  value  in  each  plant 
species,  no  matter  how  insignificant  it  might 
be  considered.  Botanists  they  were  called, 
whether  by  training  or  by  inclination  they  ar- 
rived at  a  point  where  plants  become  their 
pursuit.  At  first,  all  botanists  were  tax- 
onomists.  Later,  not  even  all  taxonomists 
were  taxonomists. 

Late  in  the  human  story  the  taxonomists 
began  to  catalogue  the  vegetation  of  the 
earth.  Systematic  surveys  of  vegetation  and 
collections  of  plant  species  began  in  earnest 
only  in  the  eighteenth  century,  in  North 
America  not  until  the  nineteenth  century, 
and  in  Utah  the  main  thrust  did  not  come  un- 
til the  twentieth  century. 

By  the  beginning  of  the  third  decade  of  the 
present  century,  the  common  plant  species 
and  their  general  areas  of  growth  were  well 
known.  The  work  of  the  various  government 
surveys  and  of  pioneer  botanists  had  pene- 
trated even  to  some  of  the  most  remote  re- 
gions of  western  North  America.  Discovered 
were  some  of  the  most  rare  of  species,  but 
others  remained  undiscovered. 

Cognizant  of  the  increasing  demands  of  a 
growing  population  and  an  expanding  civ- 
ilization, botanists,  always  too  few  for  the 
task,  were  hard  pressed  to  survey  all  of  the 
remote  regions  in  a  systematic  manner.  Col- 
lections were  taken  in  a  haphazard  way.  A 
trip  to  the  hot  desert  in  springtime,  another 
to  the  cool  mountains  in  midsummer,  and  by 
autumn  the  enthusiasm  for  collecting  was  cut 
short,  too  often  by  the  need  for  gainful  em- 
ployment—because botanists  could  seldom  be 
gainfully  employed  as  botanists. 

As  the  search  areas  narrowed,  and  as  col- 
lections were  taken  in  a  more  systematic 
manner,  the  number  of  known  narrowly  re- 
stricted plants  increased  proportionally.  A 
still  finer  search  may  yet  yield  many  addi- 
tional narrowly  adapted  endemics.  They  are 
plants  of  all  elevational  ranges,  but  they  are 
most  common  in  highly  specialized  habitats, 
those  which  are  likely  to  be  occupied  by  oth- 
er narrowly  restricted  plants  also. 

Often  the  species  belong  to  difficult  or  to 
purportedly  difficult  taxonomic  groups,  such 
as  Astragalus,  Eriogonum,  Erigeron,  and  oth- 


ers. Few  people  have  taken  the  time  to  un- 
derstand these  complex  assemblages,  or  to 
even  collect  and  attempt  to  identify  them. 
Fortunately,  monographers  have  examined 
many  of  the  problem  genera  and  have  clari- 
fied the  nature  of  taxonomic  limits,  often  on 
the  basis  of  very  limited  materials. 

Passages  of  the  Endangered  Species  Act 
found  botanists  in  most  regions  of  the  United 
States  ill  prepared  to  provide  definitive  infor- 
mation regarding  candidate  plant  taxa,  which 
had  been  included  in  the  act  mainly  as  an  af- 
terthought. Despite  the  lack  of  specific  infor- 
mation, the  act  called  for  the  secretary  of  the 
Smithsonian  Institution  in  Washington,  D.C., 
to  report  to  Congress  within  one  year  on  all 
of  the  "species  of  plants  which  are  now  or 
may  become  endangered  or  threatened"  in 
the  United  States  (Section  12,  Public  Law  23- 
205).  In  December  1974,  the  secretary  of  the 
Smithsonian  Institution,  S.  Dillon  Ripley, 
submitted  a  "Report  on  Endangered  and 
Threatened  Plant  Species  of  the  United 
States"  to  Congress. 

That  report  formed  the  basis  of  the  1  July 
1975  Federal  Register  (Vol.  40,  No.  124: 
27824-27924),  which  contained  a  review  of 
the  endangered  and  threatened  plant  species. 
The  number  of  species  assigned  to  those  cate- 
gories for  the  twelve  western  states  (exclusive 
of  Hawaii)  is  presented  in  Table  1.  That  pre- 


Table  1.  Number  of  species  reviewed  as  endangered 
and  threatened  in  1975  and  proposed  as  endangered  in 
1976,  in  twelve  western  states. 


Date 

1975 

1976 

Status 

Status 

STATE 

E 

T 

E 

Alaska 

9 

21 

6 

Arizona 

65 

106 

66 

California 

236 

412 

286 

Colorado 

23 

17 

32 

Idaho 

21 

41 

21 

Montana 

2 

8 

3 

Nevada 

43 

84 

50 

New  Mexico 

15 

26 

20 

Oregon 

43 

135 

51 

Utah 

56 

101 

66 

Washington 

16 

72 

18 

Wyoming 

3 

18 

8 

Total 

582 
Grant  total  = 

1623 

1041 

627 

1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


71 


liminary  list  of  1975  was  based  on  the  best  in- 
formation available  to  scientists  at  the  Smith- 
sonian Institution  working  in  collaboration 
with  those  from  the  Department  of  the  Inte- 
rior. The  lists  were  reviewed  by  selected  spe- 
cialists and  botanists  at  a  workshop  held  at 
the  Smithsonian  in  September  1974. 

That  the  1975  lists  were  preliminary  is  to 
be  found  in  the  differences  in  numbers  of  en- 
dangered species  published  in  the  Federal 
Register  (Vol.  41,  No.  117:  24524-24572) 
published  on  16  June  1976  (Table.  1).  Even  in 
such  states  as  California,  with  its  formidable 
niunber  of  qualified  professional  taxonomists 
and  amateurs,  the  number  of  endangered 
plant  candidates  increased  significantly  be- 
tween 1975  and  1976.  No  such  comparable 
list  is  available  for  candidate  threatened 
plants,  but  some  of  the  increase  in  endan- 
gered species  is  represented  in  change  of  stat- 
us from  threatened  to  endangered  (Kartesz 
and  Kartesz  1977). 

Impetus  for  acquisition  of  knowledge  of 
rare  plant  species  was  generated  by  the  lists 
of  1975  and  1976,  and  by  the  policy  of  active 
search  for  information  required  by  govern- 
mental agencies,  which  was  built  into  the  act. 
Funds  were  forthcoming  from  various  federal 
agencies  to  make  determinations  of  range, 
habitat,  condition,  impacts,  and  potential  im- 
pacts, and  for  other  information  on  the  candi- 
date species.  Rule  making  was  entered  into 
by  the  U.S.  Fish  and  Wildlife  Service,  De- 
partment of  the  Interior,  and,  at  present, 
some  20  species  of  plants  have  been  deter- 
mined as  endangered  or  threatened.  Two  of 
these.  Astragalus  perianus  Barneby  and  Pha- 
celia  argillacea  Atwood,  are  from  Utah  (see 
Federal  Registers  Vol.  40,  No.  81: 
17910-17916,  and  Vols.  43,  No.  189: 
44810-44812,  respectively).  The  former  is 
listed  as  threatened,  and  the  latter  is  listed  as 
endangered. 

Impacts  of  the  act  have  been  widespread. 
It  has  been  subjected  to  political  and  emo- 
tional, as  well  as  to  scientific,  evaluations. 
The  act  has  been  modified  to  some  extent  as 
a  result,  but  those  evaluations  are  not  the 
basis  of  this  contribution.  Rather,  I  intend  to 
pursue  the  developmental  basis  of  informa- 
tion dealing  with  endangered  and  threatened 
species,  and  to  outline  one  basis  of  the  nature 
of  those  critical  plants. 


Biology  of  Endangered  and  Threatened 
Species 

The  biology  of  endangered  and  threatened 
species  in  Utah  is,  with  few  exceptions,  the 
biology  of  narrowly  restricted  endemics. 
Therein  lies  the  basis  for  disparity  between 
lists  and  category  representations.  The 
amount  and  quality  of  botanical  knowledge 
of  common  species  is  seldom  sufficient  to  al- 
low more  than  generalizations;  that  for  rare 
species  is  likely  to  be  lacking  altogether.  The 
task  of  surveying  vast  areas  for  narrowly  re- 
stricting plants  is  a  huge  one,  carried  out  in 
the  past  largely  by  individuals  with  much  de- 
votion and  little  financing. 

Too,  the  fact  that  a  plant  is  an  endemic 
and  is  rare  has  often  been  considered  as  evi- 
dence of  endangerment.  Lists  are  replete 
with  such  examples,  but  studies  have  in- 
dicated that  rare  plants  might  not  be  endan- 
gered or  threatened,  and  that  plants  thought 
to  be  rare  were  in  fact  relatively  common 
and  widely  distributed.  For  a  plant  to  be  a 
candidate  for  inclusion  on  final  lists  of  endan- 
gered and  threatened  plant  species,  it  must 
have  endangerment,  both  quality  and  quan- 
tity, clearly  demonstrated. 

Contemporary  studies  are  under  way  to 
aid  the  Department  of  the  Interior  with  deci- 
sions necessary  for  final  rule  making.  Studies 
of  distribution,  population  numbers,  degrees 
of  endangerment,  and  many  other  facets  are 
being  undertaken,  which  will  lead  to  devel- 
opment of  information  summaries  of  all  spe- 
cies which  have  been  reviewed,  proposed,  or 
recommended. 

Much  information  has  already  been 
gleaned  from  the  specimens  extant  in  her- 
baria. For  the  purpose  of  this  paper,  endan- 
gered and  threatened  plant  species  from  Utah 
will  be  used  to  illustrate  the  contemporary 
knowledge  of  status  of  those  species,  and  to 
provide  the  model  for  a  case  study  of  the  na- 
ture of  those  species. 

A  list  of  endemic  and  rare  plants  of  Utah 
was  prepared  by  Welsh,  Atwood,  and  Reveal 
(1975).  In  that  publication,  some  382  vascular 
plant  taxa  were  considered,  with  66  regarded 
as  endangered,  198  as  threatened,  7  extinct, 
and  20  extirpated.  Only  225  species  were 
considered  to  be  endemic  to  Utah.  The  num- 
bers are  not  comparable  to  those  published  in 


72 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


the  Federal  Registers  due  to  consideration  of 
species  with  broad  distribution,  a  portion  of 
which  includes  Utah,  within  the  threatened 
and  endangered  categories.  In  later  com- 
putations the  number  of  endemic  species  is 
cited  as  239  (Table  2).  Welsh  (1978)  pub- 
lished a  reevaluation  of  the  endangered  and 
threatened  plants  of  Utah,  in  which  some  53 
species  are  regarded  as  endangered  and  99  as 
threatened.  Numbers  in  this  latter  pub- 
lication are  not  comparable  to  those  of  the 
Federal  Register  lists  due  to  deletions  and  ad- 
ditions. 

That  the  biology  of  endangered  and  threat- 
ened species  is  that  of  restricted  local  endem- 
ics is  found  in  the  nonrandom  distribution  of 
those  species.  Utah  can  be  divided  into  elev- 
en phytogeographic  subunits,  each  topo- 
graphically, geologically,  and  phytologically 
different  (Table  2).  The  numbers  of  endan- 
gered and  threatened  plants  is  approximately 
proportional  to  the  number  of  endemic  spe- 
cies in  each  phytogeographic  subunit.  En- 
demics constitute  27  percent  of  the  total  for 
the  Navajo  Basin;  endangered  and  threatened 
plant  species  of  that  basin  make  up  28  per- 
cent of  the  total  for  the  state.  Proportions  are 
similar  for  Plateau,  Tavaputs,  Uinta  Basin, 
and  all  Qher  phytogeographical  regions.  Ap- 
proximately 64  percent  of  all  endemic  spe- 
cies in  these  areas  are  considered  as  endan- 
gered or  threatened.  It  is  axiomatic  that 
endemics  should  constitute  the  endangered 
and  threatened  candidates  when  the  small 
areas  occupied  by  them  are  considered. 


Endangered  and  threatened  species  of  the 
Navajo  Basin  and  Plateau  subunits  constitute 
half  of  the  total  number  for  Utah.  Other  im- 
portant regions  include  the  Uinta  Basin  (13 
percent),  Great  Basin  (13  percent),  and  Mo- 
have (14  percent).  The  remaining  areas  in- 
clude only  11  percent  of  the  species  on  can- 
didate lists  in  total. 

In  general,  endangered  and  threatened 
plant  taxa  in  Utah  occupy  harsh  substrates 
which  are  perceived  by  man  as  barren  or 
nearly  barren  of  vegetation.  Hence,  these 
critical  species  tend  to  occur  in  areas  where 
there  is  little  competition.  Survival  of  the 
species  depends  on  maintenance  of  the  habi- 
tat in  a  condition  wherein  other  species  do 
not  become  competitive.  Protection,  as  here- 
in conceived,  involves  guarantees  against 
man-caused  destruction  of  habitat.  Natural 
changes  should  not  be  treated  as  endan- 
germent. 

Phytogeographic  Subunits  and 
Endangered  and  Threatened  Species 

The  distribution  of  critical  species  does  not 
appear  to  be  at  random  on  the  substrates 
available,  and  those  substrates  which  support 
these  species  are  not  occupied  uniformly. 
Rather,  specific  portions  of  apparently  sim- 
ilar substrates  are  occupied,  while  others  are 
not.  Clays  and  other  fine-textured  coUuvial  or 
aeolian  materials  and  limestones  are  the  most 
commonly  occupied  substrates  (Table  3).  To- 
gether, they  form  the  substrates  of  81  percent 


Table  2.  Comparison  of  endemic,  endangered,  and  threatened  plant  taxa  by  phytogeographic  subdivision  within 
Utah. 


Phytogeographic  unit 


Endemi 

ics 

Endangered 
Number  Percent  N 

Threatened           Total  I 
umber  Percent  Number 

•  &t 

Number  P« 

jrcent 

Percent 

7 

3 

1 

1 

1 

1 

65 

27 

17 

32 

25 

25 

42 

28 

48 

20 

11 

21 

22 

22 

33 

22 

3 

1 

2 

4 

2 

1 

25 

10 

8 

15 

12 

12 

20 

13 

4 

0 

4 

4 

4 

3 

3 

1 

2 

2 

2 

1 

23 

10 

1 

2 

6 

6 

7 

5 

35 

15 

7 

13 

13 

13 

20 

13 

26 

11 

' 

13 

14 

14 

21 

14 

Colorado  canyons 

Navajo  Basin 

Plateau 

Tavaputs 

Uinta  Basin 

Uinta  Mts. 

Wyoming 

Wasatch  Mts. 

Great  Basin 

Mohave 

Pine  Valley  Mts. 


239 


53 


100 


99 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


73 


Table  3.  Endangered  and  threatened  plant  species  arranged  by  substrate  within  Utah. 

Endangered                 Threatened 

Total 

Substrate                                                                               Number     Percent      Number     Percent 

Number     Percent 

Clay,  silt,  mud 

Sand 

Gravel 

Igneous  gravel 

Limestone 

Talus 

Loam-humus 

Water 

Unknown 


L5 
2 
9 

8 
101 


100 


of  the  taxa  on  critical  lists.  Water-washed  al- 
luvial deposits  tend  to  support  a  greater 
plant  cover  than  do  the  in  situ  substrates  or 
those  deposited  by  wind.  Hence,  probably 
because  of  the  greater  amount  of  cover  and 
competition,  the  vast  areas  covered  by  water- 
borne  alluvial  deposits  mainly  lack  critical 
species.  The  exceptions  include  some  gravel 
deposits,  especially  those  derived  from  ig- 
neous extrusive  or  intrusive  stocks. 

Critical  species  are  present  in  several  of 
the  major  vegetative  types  within  the  state. 
As  with  other  criteria,  the  taxa  are  not  ran- 
domly distributed  in  all  of  the  plant  commu- 
nities. Pinyon-juniper,  desert  shrub,  warm 
desert  shrub,  and  salt  desert  shrub  vegetative 
types  bear  65  percent  of  all  endangered  and 
threatened  candidates  (Table  4).  These  are 


communities  which  lie  within  a  low  precipi- 
tation regime,  wherein  edaphic  features  are 
not  insulated  from  plants  by  well-developed 
soil  horizons  or  by  organic  matter  within  the 
soils.  Edaphic  features  are  the  main  con- 
trolling factors  within  low-elevation  plant 
communities. 

Even  where  plants  of  a  critical  nature  are 
present  within  a  community  which  tends  to 
occupy  most  of  the  surface  area,  and  where 
soils  are  well  developed,  thus  preventing  di- 
rect edaphic  control,  the  endemic  species  are 
found  mainly  in  clearings,  along  bluff  mar- 
gins, on  ridge  tops,  and  on  other  poorly  vege- 
tated micro-habitats. 

Adiabatic  and  lapse  rate  differentials  are 
reflected  in  elevational  differences.  High  ele- 
vation areas  are  cooler  and  receive  propor- 


Table  4.  Endangered  and  threatened  plant  species  arranged  by  plant  community  (the  plant  communities  in  ap- 
proximate order  by  elevation). 


Community 


Alpine 

Spruce-fir 

Aspen 

Mountain  brush 

Ponderosa  pine 

Pinyon-juniper 

Sagebrush 

Desert  shrub 

Warm  desert  shrub 

Salt  desert  shnib 

Hanging  garden 

Aquatic 

Other 

Unknown 


Endar 

igered 
Percent 

Threatened 

Total 

Number 

Number 

Percent 

Number 

Percent 

5 

5 

5 

3 

3 

6 

14 

14 

17 

11 

2 

4 

1 

1 

3 

2 

1 

2 

1 

1 

2 

1 

2 

4 

7 

7 

9 

6 

17 

.32 

27 

27 

44 

29 

2 

4 

3 

3 

5 

3 

12 

23 

4 

4 

16 

11 

5 

9 

9 

9 

14 

9 

4 

8 

22 

22 

26 

17 

1 

1 

1 
1 

1 
1 

1 
1 

1 

1 
1 
1 

4 

8 

4 

4 

8 

5 

53 

101 

99 

99 

152 

100 

74 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


tionally  greater  amounts  of  precipitation,  re- 
sulting in  production  of  mesophytic  plant 
communities  in  those  sites.  Plant  species  of  a 
critical  nature  are  mainly  xerophytes,  regard- 
less of  the  community  type  within  which 
they  occur.  The  large  portion  of  species, 
some  60  percent  of  those  designated  as  en- 
dangered or  threatened,  exist  below  the  6000 
foot  (1930  m)  contour  (Table  5).  Possibly  the 
reason  for  the  great  number  of  species  at  the 
lower  elevations  is  due  to  the  proportionally 
greater  number  of  sites  in  arid  lands  which 
are  open  to  colonization. 

Chemical  and  water  relations  of  substrates 
are  closely  allied  to  geological  strata.  Eda- 
phic  control  by  geological  formations  is 
greatest  in  areas  where  the  strata  are  ex- 
posed. Layers  of  alluvium,  which  represent 
mixtures  of  materials  from  different  sources, 
tend  to  insulate  vegetation  which  grows  on 
that  alluvium  from  the  chemical  and  water 
relations  peculiarities  of  the  individual  stra- 
tum per  se.  Soil  development  reinforces  sepa- 
ration of  parent  materials  from  plants. 
Hence,  geological  control  of  vegetative  cover 
is  greatest  at  lower  elevations,  where  strata 
of  many  kinds  are  exposed  over  vast  reaches. 
Soils  as  such  are  poorly  developed  or  nonex- 
istant  due  to  low  rainfall  and  the  corollary 
lack  of  leaching  of  soluble  salts. 

There  are  regions  at  moderate  to  high  ele- 
vations where  edaphic  factors  of  geological 
strata  are  controlling  due  to  peculiarities  of 
topography  and  geomorphology.  Cliff  faces 
and  breaks  at  the  margins  of  plateaus  and 
ridge  crests  are  examples  of  such  places.  In 
others,  substrates  which  are  very  acidic  or 
basic,  as  in  some  igneous  or  limestone  strata, 
tend  not  to  be  insulated  due  to  lack  of 
growth  of  dense  vegetation.  Plant  species  of  a 
critical  nature  occur  on  a  series  of  geological 
strata  ranging  in  age  from  Quaternary  to  Pre- 
cambrian  (Table  6). 


There  does  not  appear  to  be  any  particular 
stratum  which  bears  a  disproportionately 
large  number  of  endangered  or  threatened 
species.  The  largest  number  is  found  on  Qua- 
ternary alluvia,  mainly  on  dunes  or  stabilized 
dune  sand  and  on  residual  accumulations  on 
the  formations  from  which  they  were  pro- 
duced. Even  this  small  number  represents 
only  17  percent  of  the  included  species. 
Dunes  are  open  habitats.  They  are  mesophyt- 
ic sites  in  otherwise  arid  lands.  They  repre- 
sent an  anomaly  wherein  competition  is  low, 
but  where  water  is  relatively  abundant  and 
available. 

If  mudstone,  siltstone,  and  shale  strata  are 
considered  collectively,  some  37  percent  of 
the  species  reside  on  them.  Limestone  or  oth- 
er highly  calciferous  formations,  such  as 
Flagstaff,  Wasatch,  and  the  Carboniferous 
strata,  provide  substrates  for  17  percent  of 
the  total  plant  species.  Sandstone  and  con- 
glomeritic  formations  account  for  only  10 
percent  of  the  taxa. 

Partitioning  of  the  phytogeographic  sub- 
divisions demonstrates  differences  and  sim- 
ilarities in  areas  of  distribution,  and  in  the 
control  of  that  distribution.  Disparity  in  geo- 
logical strata  is  obvious  from  one  subunit  to 
the  next,  and  potential  substrates  differ  be- 
cause of  the  different  kinds  of  strata  avail- 
able. The  Paleozoic  strata  of  the  Great  Basin 
and  of  the  Wasatch  Mountains  present  an  en- 
tirely different  array  than  do  the  Uinta 
Mountains,  Uinta  Basin,  Navajo  Basin,  and 
Mohave  subunits.  Plant  communities  reflect 
those  substrate  differences,  often  in  subtle 
ways.  Additionally,  the  phytogeographic  sub- 
imits  are  topographic  features  whose  defini- 
tions are  tied  to  elevation. 

Despite  the  problems  associated  with  com- 
parison, and  the  obvious  differences— which 
should  not  require  discussion— an  analysis  of 
the  various  phytogeographic  subunits  will  be 


Table  5.  Endangered  and  threatened  plant  species  arranged  by  elevation  stratification. 


Elevation 


<6000  feet  (1830  m) 
6000-9000  feet  (1830-2745  m) 
>9000  feet  (2745  m) 
Unknown 


Endan 

gered 
Percent 

Threa 

tened 

Total 

Number 

Number 

Percent 

Number 

Percent 

34 

64 

58 

58 

92 

61 

13 

24 

30 

30 

43 

28 

3 

6 

10 

10 

13 

9 

3 

6 

1 

1 

4 

3 

53 


100 


152 


100 


1979                                      The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium  75 

instructive  in  attempts  at  management  of  limestone.  The  other  phytogeographic  sub- 
lands  in  the  respective  areas  as  regards  en-  vmits  bear  so  few  species  as  to  not  demon- 
dangered  and  threatened  species.  The  total  strate  trends. 

numbers  of  species  in  a  given  subunit  might  When  plant  communities  are  compared  for 

be  indicative  of  trends  (Tables  7,  8,  9,  and  each  of  the  phytogeographic  subunits,  it  is 

10).  clear    that    pinyon-juniper    and    the    various 

Summaries  of  species  number  and  percent-  kinds  of  desert  shrub  communities  support 

ages  for  substrates  in  each  of  the  phytogra-  most  of  the  endangered  and  threatened  plant 

phic    subunits   demonstrates   similarities   be-  species  in  the  Navajo  Basin,  Uinta  Basin,  and 

tween   the   Navajo   Basin,   Uinta   Basin,   and  Mohave  subunits  in  Utah  (Table  8).  Spruce- 

Mohave  subunits  (Table  7).  In  each  of  these,  fir,  ponderosa  pine,  and  pinyon-juniper  com- 

clay,  mud,  silt,  and  sand  constitute  the  sub-  munities  are  the  sites  of  occurrence  of  some 

strates  of  more  than  85  percent  of  all  critical  71   percent  of  the  critical  species  in  the 

plant  species.  Plateau  subunit  differs  in  bear-  Plateau  subunit.  Alpine  and  spruce-fir  are  the 

ing  more  than  50  percent  of  the  included  main   communities   of  those   species   in   the 

species    on    limestone,    and   with    igneous  Uinta  and  Wasatch  mountains, 

gravels  being  second  with  18  percent.  Pat-  The  Navajo,  Uinta,  Great  Basin,  and  the 

terns  in  the  Great  Basin  are  obscure,  with  no  Mohave  subunits  bear  80  to  100  percent  of 

single  substrate  supporting  more  than  25  per-  the  species  below  6000  feet  in  elevation.  In 

cent  of  the  species.  Six  of  the  seven  species  Plateau,  Tavaputs,  Uinta  Mountains,  and 

from  the  Wasatch  Mountains  are  known  from  Wasatch  Mountains  all  species  are  above  the 

Table  6.  Geological  strata  as  substrates  of  endangered  and  threatened  Utah  plant  species  (Note:  species  were 

assigned  to  only  one  stratum,  the  major  one,  even  if  they  occurred  on  more  than  one.  Strata  without  numbers  of 
species,  indicated  by  a  dash,  are  known  to  support  critical  species;  those  not  marked  are  not  known  to  support 
them.) 


Strata 

Quaternary 

Flagstaff 

Green  River 

Bald  Knoll 

Wasatch 

Duchesne  River 

Tertiary  Igneous 

Kaiparowits 

VVahweap 

Straight  Cliffs 

Mancos  Shale 

Tropic  Shale 

Mowry 

Arapien 

Cedar  Mt. 

Morrison 

Entrada 

Carmel 

Navajo 

Wingate 

Chinle 

Moenkopi 

Cutler 

Cedar  Mesa 

Paradox 

Carboniferous 

Precambrian 

Unknown 


Threatened 

Endangered 
Number     Percent 

Total 

Number 

Percent 

Number 

Percent 

18 

18 

8 

1.5 

26 

17 

2 

4 

2 

1 

.3 

3 

10 

19 

13 

8 

9 

9 

4 

8 

13 

8 

5 

5 

5 

3 

9 

9 

1 

2 

10 

7 

2 

2 

2 

1 

1 

1 

1 

1 

5 

5 

4 

8 

9 

6 

1 
1 

1 
1 

2 

4 

3 

1 

2 

1 

4 

1 

4 

1 

4 

1 

3 

1 

— 

— 

1 

1 

1 

2 

2 

1 

2 

3 

2 

1 

1 

3 

6 

4 

3 

5 

5 

3 

6 

8 

5 

1 

1 

1 

1 

7 
1 

7 
1 

5 
1 

9 

2 

12 

2 

8 

1 

1 

1 

1 

2 

2 

1 

12 

12 

1 

2 

13 

8 

.3 

3 

3 

2 

7 

7 

4 

8 

12 

8 

99 

99 

53 

99 

152 

99 

76 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


Table  7.  Substrates  of  endangered  and  threatened  plant  species  by  phytogeographic  subdivision  in  Utah. 


Substrate 


Colorado 

Navajo 

Uinta 

Canyons 

Basin 

Ni 

Plateau 

Basin 

Number    Percent 

Number    Pe 

rcent 

umber 

Percent 

Number    Percent 

23 

55 

2 

6 

16             80 

1            100 

16 

38 

4 

12 

3             15 
1               5 

11 

2 

6 
17 

18 

52 

1 

2 

1 

2 

2 

1 
1 

4 
3 
3 

Clay,  silt,  mud 

Sand 

Gravel 

Igneous  gravel 

Limestone 

Talus 

Loam-humus 

Water 

Unknown 

TOTAL 


100 


2b 


6000-foot  contour  (Table  9).  Part  of  the  ex- 
planation for  this  correlation  is  based  on  the 
definition  of  the  subunits.  The  basins  are 
mainly  below  6000  feet  in  elevation,  and  the 
mountains  are  mainly  above  that  figure. 

Similarities  of  geological  formations  in 
chemical  and  physical  structure  seem  to  be 
more  important  than  the  geological  strata  by 
themselves.  Cutler,  Moenkopi,  Chinle,  Car- 
mel,  phases  of  the  Entrada,  Morrison,  Ara- 
pien.  Tropic  Shale,  Mancos  Shale,  and  Du- 
chesne River  formations  tend  to  resemble 
each  other  texturally,  and  in  having  high 
amounts  of  soluble  salts.  Each  of  these  sup- 
port one  or  more  of  the  endangered  or 
threatened  species,  some  of  which  might  be 
expected  on  others  of  those  formations  also. 
Indeed,  some  do  occur  on  more  than  one  for- 


mation, even  though  Table  10  is  presented 
with  only  the  major  formation  that  serves  as 
substrate  represented.  Differences  and  sim- 
ilarities between  the  subunits  of  the  state  are 
obvious.  Geological  strata  in  subunits  of  the 
Colorado  drainage  system  tend  to  be  most 
similar,  but  even  in  those  there  is  a  tendency 
for  plants  to  react  differentially,  despite  the 
similarities  of  stratigraphy. 

Predictive  Capability 

Because  of  the  nonrandom  distribution  of 
narrowly  restricted  species  in  Utah,  it  is  pos- 
sible to  prepare  a  model  with  predictive  ca- 
pability which  will  aid  in  the  search  for  these 
critical  plants.  The  model,  a  sample  of  which 
is  presented  in  Table  11,  is  based  on  deduc- 


Table  8.  Plant  communities  of  endangered  and  threatened  plant  species  by  phytogeographic  subdivision  in  Utah. 


Plant  Comm. 

Alpine 

Spruce-fir 

.\spen 

Mountain  Brush 

Ponderosa  pine 

Pinyon-juniper 

Sagebrush 

Desert  shrub 

Warm  desert  shnib 

Salt  desert  shnib 

Hanging  garden 

Aquatic 

Other 

Unknown 


Colorado 
Canyons 


Navajo 
Basin 


Plateau 


Tavaputs 


Number    Percent    Number    Percent    Number  Percent    Number    Percent 

12  2  6 

9  27 

1  3 


100 


99 


100 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


77 


Table  7  continued. 


Uinta 

Wasatch 

Great 

Mts. 

Wyoming 

Mts 

Basin 

Moh 

lave 

Tavaputs 

Number    Percent 

Number    Percent 

Number    '. 

Percent 

Number 

Percent 

Number 

Percent 

Number    Percent 

5 

25 

9 

43 

2           100 

2           100 

4 
2 

1 

20 
10 
5 

9 

43 

6 

86 

5 

25 

2 

10 

1             25 

3             75 

1 

5 

1 

14 

2 

10 

1 

5 

4           100 

2           100 

7 

100 

20 

100 

21 

101 

2           100 

tions  derived  from  the  nature  of  the  distribu- 
tion of  those  species  evakiated  above.  The 
reasoning  behind  the  model  is  based  on  the 
unequal  occurrence  of  the  species  with  re- 
gard to  several  parameters.  The  probabilitv 
of  occurrence  is  determined  by  use  of  a  nu- 
merically weighted  system  in  which  the  pa- 
rameters are  given  a  value  of  zero,  one,  or 
two  as  indicated  by  the  known  presence  of 
the  species  on  specific  portions  of  the  state. 
For  example,  most  of  the  species  of  restricted 
plants  occur  on  the  finely  textured  soils,  the 
next  highest  proportion  on  dunes,  in  situ 
sand,  and  limestone,  and  the  lowest  on  soils 
consisting  of  gravel,  talus,  loam,  and  humus. 
Hence,  these  substrate  types  are  rated  as  two, 
one,  and  zero,  respectively. 

The  example  outlined  in  Table  11  is  sug- 


gested for  the  state,  but  more  finely  parti- 
tioned models  are  suggested  for  each  of  the 
phytogeographic  subunits.  It  would  not  be 
logical  to  apply  a  high  numerical  weighting 
to  elevations  below  6000  feet  for  areas  within 
the  Plateau  phytogeographic  subunit  where 
practically  all  the  known  critically  restricted 
plants  are  above  that  elevation. 

Despite  the  usefulness  of  the  suggested 
model,  and  its  modifications,  it  is  suggested 
that  the  model  should  be  used  as  a  planning 
tool  only.  There  is  no  substitute  for  on- 
ground  inspection  and  the  collection  of  the 
general  flora  to  provide  information  on  ac- 
tual presence  of  plant  species.  Wherever  pos- 
sible such  on-site  investigations  should  pro- 
vide herbarium  materials  for  deposit  in 
herbaria,  taken  in  such  manner  as  not  to  con- 


Table  8  continued. 


Uinta 
Basin 

N: 

Uir 
Ml 

ita 
:s. 

Wyoming 

Wasatch 
Mts. 

Great 
Basin 

Mohave 

Number 

Pe 

ircent 

umber 

Percent 

Number    Percent 

Number    Percent 

Ni 

jmber 

Percent 

Number 

Percent 

3 

1 

60 

20 

1 
5 

14 
71 

8 

40 

1 

20 

1              50 

1 

14 

1 
3 

5 
15 

1 

7 

5 

.33 

9 
3 

45 
15 

1             50 

10 
4 

2 

50 
20 

10 

2 
9 

2 

10 
43 

10 

20 

100 

7 

100 

2           100 

7 

99 

20 

100 

21 

101 

78  Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs  No.  3 

Table  9.  Elevation  of  endangered  and  threatened  plant  species  by  phytogeographic  subdivision  in  Utah. 


Colorado 
Canyons 


Navajo 
Basin 


Plateau 


Tavaputs 


Elevation 


Number    Percent    Number    Percent    Number    Percent    Number    Percent 


< 6000  ft. 
6000-9000  ft 
> 9000  ft. 
Unknown 


100 


100 


33 


100 


100 


stitute  a  threat  in  and  of  itself.  This  will  guar- 
antee that  information  gained  in  field  surveys 
will  not  be  lost  in  the  files  of  agencies  and  in- 
dustries attempting  to  work  on  the  lands  of 
the  state. 

Perspective  on  the 
Endangered  Species  Act 

Value  judgements  as  to  the  role  of  plants  of 
limited  distribution  have  not  stopped,  slowed 


down,  or  even  modified  the  course  of  human 
expansion  through  all  of  history  until  now. 
Tlie  present  society  has  asked  whether  plant 
species  should  be  eradicated  as  a  part  of  the 
common  good  of  our  civilization.  Value  is  a 
time-oriented  function;  that  considered  as 
valueless  today  might  be  judged  as  very  valu- 
able in  the  future.  Numerous  examples  of 
minerals  are  known  which  support  this  obser- 
vation.  Plants  have  been  surveyed  many 


Table  10.  Geologic  strata  serving  as  substrates  of  threatened  plant  species  by  phytogeographic  subdivision  in 


Strata 

Quaternary 

Flagstaff 

Green  River 

Bald  Knoll 

Duchesne  R. 

Wasatch 

Tertiary 

Kaiparowits 

Wahweap 

Straight  Cliffs 

Mancos 

Tropic 

Dakota 

Mowry 

Arapien 

Cedar  Mt. 

Morrison 

Entrada 

Carmel 

Navajo 

Wingate 

Chinle 

Moenkopi 

Cutler 

Cedar  Mesa 

Paradox 

Carboniferous 

Precambrian 

Unknown 


Colorado 
Canyons 

Navajo 
Basin 

Plateau 

Tavaputs 

Number    Percent 

Number    Percent 

Number 

Percent 

Number    Percent 

4 

10 

3 
2 

9 
6 

2            100 

2 

5 

14 

7 
2 

42 

21 

6 

1 
8 
3 
1 

2 
20 
67 

2 

1            100 

1 
1 
3 
3 
4 

3 
2 
2 

2 
2 
7 
7 
10 

7 
5 
5 

1 
2 

3 
6 

3 

7 

2 

6 

1           100 

41 

98 

a3 

99 

2            100 

1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


79 


Table  9  continued. 


Uinta 
Basin 

Uinta 
Mts. 

Wyoming 
Number    Percent 

Wasatch 
Mts. 

Great 
Basin 

Mohave 

Number    Percent 

Number    Percent 

Number    '. 

Percent 

Number 

Percent 

Ni 

umber    Percent 

20            100 
20           100 

2 

3 

5 

40 
60 

100 

1 

1 
2 

50 

50 
100 

5 

2 

7 

71 
29 

100 

17 

1 

2 
20 

85 
5 

10 
100 

19             90 
2             10 

21            100 

times  for  sources  of  biologically  active  mate- 
rials, e.g.,  alkaloids,  vitamins,  hormones,  won- 
der drugs,  and  cortical  steroids.  Now  they  are 
again  being  surveyed  for  antitumor  agents. 
Common  plants  are  being  surveyed  first,  pri- 
marily because  of  their  ready  availability. 
The  rare  plants  will  be  reviewed  as  material 
becomes  available.  It  would  be  a  tragic  irony 
if  the  best  anticarcinogenic  agent  should  be 
discovered  in  the  leaves  of  a  herbarium  speci- 


men of  a  species  which  had  just  become  ex- 
tinct. 

Extinction  occurs  as  a  function  of  natural 
forces,  or  as  a  function  of  man-caused  factors. 
The  former  is  selective  in  reducing  popu- 
lations of  living  things.  The  latter  is  non- 
selective. 

The  reasons  for  extinction  of  narrowly  re- 
stricted plants  on  the  same  outcrop  might  in- 
volve loss  of  a  pollinator  for  one  species,  in- 


Table  10  continued. 
Utah  (Note:  Only  the  major  formation  is  indicated  where  plants  occupy  more  than  one.) 


Uinta 
Basin 


Uinta 
Mts. 


Wyoming 


Wasatch 
Mts. 


Great 
Basin 


Mohave 


Number    Percent    Number    Percent    Number    Percent    Number    Percent    Number    Percent    Number    Percent 


50 


35 


20 


20  100 


20 
100 


100 
100 


25 

15 
100 


5 
101 


80 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


festation  by  insects  or  disease  for  another.  A 
construction  project  might  cause  wholesale 
extirpation  by  removal  of  the  entire  commu- 
nity. The  rate  of  man-caused  extinction  far 
exceeds  the  natural  rate.  Thus,  extinction 
caused  by  man  is  not  a  part  of  the  natural 
scheme. 

The  Endangered  Species  Act  of  1973  made 
it  possible  for  future  generations  to  be  in- 
volved in  the  value-oriented  decisions.  The 
act  provides  an  advocate  for  generations  yet 
unborn. 

Genetic  pathways  are,  despite  all  of  the 
possibilities,  essentially  one-way  streets.  The 
route  by  which  a  species  is  formed  is  as  im- 
portant as  the  end  result.  The  reconstitution 
of  the  pathway  requires  the  same  criteria  as 
were  present  in  the  past,  a  functional  impos- 
sibility to  recreate.  Thus,  the  loss  of  any  spe- 
cies terminates  a  line  which  cannot  be  re- 
formed. And,  once  gone,  the  question  of 
value  to  mankind  is  deprived  of  practical  sig- 
nificance. 

The  reason  most  of  the  proposed  endan- 
gered and  threatened  plants  are  considered 
thusly  is  because  the  known  populations  are 
small  and  exist  in  very  limited  areas.  Average 
distributional  densities  of  one  endangered 
species  to  each  two  or  three  thousand  square 
kilometers,  and  of  threatened  species  to  val- 
ues of  roughly  half  that  figure,  give  an  ap- 
proximation of  their  true  paucity.  Further, 
only  a  very  small  part  of  the  total  land  sur- 
face is  involved. 

Distribution  of  rare  species  is  not  equal,  as 
has  been  discussed  above.  Certain  areas  ap- 
pear to  lack  them  altogether,  while  other 
areas  support  concentrations  of  several  spe- 


cies. Unless  a  specific  mineral  to  be  exploited 
is  located  within  one  outcrop  which  supports 
one  or  more  species,  or  unless  the  area  to  be 
occupied  by  a  particular  development  is 
large,  there  is  no  reason  why  modern  expan- 
sion should  impress  any  of  the  currently 
known  endangered  or  threatened  species. 
Even  in  these  two  exceptional  instances  there 
is  no  real  reason  to  displace  indigenous  en- 
dangered and  threatened  species;  the  best  site 
for  industrial  development  is  not  always  the 
only  good  alternative. 

Thus,  if  developers,  and  if  the  govern- 
mental agencies  which  control  development 
on  federal  lands,  follow  the  requirements  as 
set  forth  in  the  act,  there  is  little  question 
that  many,  if  not  all,  of  the  plant  species 
which  are  ultimately  determined  as  endan- 
gered or  threatened  can  persist  in  perpetuity. 
The  question  of  value  of  these  plants  is  not 
an  issue;  the  areas  occupied  by  these  plants 
can  be  avoided. 

Literature  Cited 

Kartesz,  J.  T.,  AND  R.  Kartesz.  1977.  The  biota  of 
North  America.  Part  1.  Vascular  plants.  Volume 
I— Rare  plants.  Bonac,  Pittsburg,  Pa.  361  pp. 

Welsh,  S.  L.  1978.  Endangered  and  threatened  plants  of 
Utah;  A  reevaluation.  Great  Basin  Nat.  38:  1-18. 

1978.  Status  reports  of  endangered  and  threat- 
ened plants  of  Utah.  U.S.  Fish  and  Wildlife  Ser- 
vice (unpubl.  ms.). 

Welsh,  S.  L.,  N.  D.  Atwood,  and  J.  L.  Reveal.  1975. 
Endangered,  threatened,  extinct,  and  rare  or  re- 
stricted Utah  vascular  plants.  Great  Basin  Nat. 
35:  327-376. 

Welsh,  S.  L.,  and  K.  Thorne.  1979.  Identification  man- 
ual of  endangered  and  threatened  plants  of  Utah. 
U.S.  Fish  and  Wildlife  Service  publication.  399 
pp. 


Table  11.  Outline  of  a  predictive  model  for  establishing  priority  areas  for  study  of  endangered  and  threatened 
plants  of  Utah. 


Numerical 
weighting 

Substrate 

Community 

Elevation 

Geology 

Phyto  Subunit 

0 

Gravel,  talus, 
loam,  humus 

Other 

9000 

Other 

Colorado 
Canyons, 
Wyoming, 
Pine  Valley 

1 

Dunes,  in  situ 
sand,  limestone 

Spruce-fir 
Ponderosa 

6000-90(X) 

Sandstone, 
in  situ  sand 
and  limestone 

Wasatch  Mts., 
Uinta  Mts., 
Tavaputs  PI., 
Plateau 

2 

Clay,  silt,  mud 

Pj-Des 

Sh  variations 

6000 

Shale  mud 
and  siltstone 

Navajo,  Uinta, 
Mohave,  Great 
Basin 

MANAGEMENT  PROGRAMS  FOR  PLANTS  ON  FEDERAL  LANDS 

Diiaiie  Atvvood' 


.\bstr\ct.—  The  plant  phase  of  the  Endangered  Species  Program  is  discussed  from  the  point  of  view  of  a  profes- 
sional botanist  in  government  service.  Some  of  the  new  amendments  are  also  discussed  from  a  botanical  standpoint. 
Federal  agency  programs  and  policies  in  the  western  United  States  are  briefly  reviewed.  The  strength  of  the  Endan- 
gered Species  Program  is  dependent  upon  input  from  qualified  professional  biologists  in  and  out  of  government  ser- 
vice. Some  of  the  problems  encountered  in  the  program  are  outlined. 


The  comments  I  would  like  to  make  today 
are  based  on  my  experience  with  government 
agencies  over  the  past  several  years.  I  do  not 
speak  as  a  representative  of  any  government 
agency,  although  I  have  had  experience  with 
the  Bureau  of  Land  Management  (BLM), 
Fish  and  Wildlife  Service  (FWS),  and  the 
Forest  Service  (FS).  First  of  all,  let  me  point 
out  that  professional  people  who  work  for 
government  agencies  have  a  very  frustrating 
and  difficult  task.  They  want  to  get  on  with 
the  job  that  should  and  could  be  done,  but 
cannot  because  of  regulations,  policies,  and 
conflicts  with  the  management  and  planning 
staff.  There  is  a  communication  gap  between 
professionals  and  managers  and  planners  that 
needs  to  be  bridged  somehow.  Until  recently, 
some  of  these  agencies  were  strictly  manage- 
ment and  planning  oriented.  Passage  of  new 
federal  laws  and  regulations,  such  as  the  En- 
dangered Species  Act  (ESA),  created  a  need 
for  these  agencies  to  hire  professionals  with 
specialized  training.  It  must  be  recognized 
that  managers  and  planners  have  a  difficult 
job  making  the  proper  decisions  for  the  best 
uses  of  our  natural  resources  and  still  be  in 
time  with  the  multiple  use  concept.  Our  job 
as  professionals  is  to  supply  managers  and 
planners  with  sufficient  data  on  any  given 
problem  or  project,  as  it  relates  to  our  area  of 
responsibility  and  expertise,  so  they  can  eval- 
uate the  pros  and  cons  and  in  turn  make  the 
proper  decisions.  The  active  support  of  the 
Endangered  Species  Program  (ESP)  varies 
from  agency  to  agency  and  from  state  to 
state  within  a  given  agency.   For  example. 


California  has  an  excellent  and  effective 
Threatened  and  Endangered  (T/E)  plant  pro- 
gram at  both  the  state  and  federal  level.  Both 
state  and  federal  agencies  there  have  active, 
qualified  botanists.  Additional  professionals 
outside  of  government  have  also  taken  an  ac- 
tive interest  in  the  ESP. 

In  discussing  various  topics  with  the  par- 
ticipants of  this  symposium,  I  was  impressed 
with  the  need  to  clarify  the  responsibilities  of 
the  different  agencies  that  participate  in  the 
ESP.  As  most  of  you  know,  the  Fish  and 
Wildlife  Service  has  taken  the  lead  in  this 
program  for  terrestrial  species  and  has  the  re- 
sponsibility for  developing  and  implementing 
regulations  to  guide  other  federal  agencies 
and  the  states  in  meeting  the  purpose  and  in- 
tent of  the  ESP.  To  accomplish  this  task  they 
have  published  guidelines  to  implement  the 
Convention  on  International  Trade  for  En- 
dangered Species  of  Fauna  and  Flora,  prohi- 
bitions on  certain  uses  of  endangered  and 
threatened  plants,  criteria  for  determining 
critical  habitat,  and  the  Inner  Agency  Coop- 
erative Section  7  Regulations.  In  addition, 
the  Fish  and  Wildlife  Service  has  the  respon- 
sibility for  the  consultation  process,  as  re- 
quired by  the  Section  7  Regulations,  and  the 
listing  and  delisting  processes.  To  most  of  us 
here  the  listing  process  is  the  activity  the 
Fish  and  Wildlife  Service  should  be  moving 
forward  with  most  rapidly.  However,  they 
have  a  disproportionate  share  of  the  work 
load  and  budgeting  restrictions  have  been 
placed  on  them.  Other  major  responsibilities 
of  the  Fish  and  Wildlife  Service  include  law 


'Uinta  National  Forest,  Forest  Service,  U.S.D.A.,  88  West  100  North,  Pn 


81 


82 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


enforcement,  land  acquisition,  cooperative 
agreements  with  states,  and  development  of 
recovery  plans  and/or  teams.  The  new 
amendments  to  the  ESA  require  some 
changes  in  the  program.  One  of  the  new 
amendments  now  allows  for  the  acquisition 
of  land  for  plants.  Prior  to  these  new  amend- 
ments. Section  5  of  the  act,  regarding  land 
acquisition,  was  only  for  wildlife  species  or 
plants  officially  listed  and  concluded  in  ap- 
pendices to  the  convention.  This  new  amend- 
ment is  a  breakthrough  for  plants.  As  I  un- 
derstand it,  the  Forest  Service,  as  well  as  the 
Department  of  the  Interior,  can  now  acquire 
land  for  plants.  Formerly,  the  Department  of 
the  Interior  was  the  only  federal  department 
that  could  acquire  land.  Additionally,  there  is 
the  new  requirement  for  development  of  re- 
covery plans  for  all  officially  listed  endan- 
gered and  threatened  species.  In  Utah  we 
have  two  plant  species  officially  listed  that 
are  either  on  or  adjacent  to  Forest  Service 
Lands.  We  will  be  developing  additional 
background  data  for  use  in  these  two  recov- 
ery plans.  I  have  two  slides  on  them.  The  first 
is  of  Astragalus  perianus,  which  is  endemic 
to  two  locations  in  the  central  part  of  Utah  at 
high  elevations.  The  species  was  originally 
collected  in  1905  by  some  of  our  early  botan- 
ists, but  was  not  rediscovered  until  1976.  The 
other  species  is  Phacelia  argiUacea,  which  is 
endemic  to  the  Green  River  Shale  formation 
along  the  railroad  right-of-way  in  Spanish 
Fork  Canyon.  This  is  the  only  existing  popu- 
lation that  we  know  of,  and  only  nine  indi- 
vidual plants  exist,  based  on  counts  made  in 
1978.  In  view  of  the  restricted  nature  of  this 
species,  the  Fish  and  Wildlife  Service  will 
place  this  one  high  on  their  priority  list  for 
development  of  a  recovery  plan. 

The  various  phases  of  the  program  that  the 
Fish  and  Wildlife  Service  are  trying  to  devel- 
op and  implement  directly  affect  the  activi- 
ties of  other  federal  agencies,  particularly 
land-managing  agencies  such  as  the  BLM, 
Forest  Service,  and  National  Park  Service.  As 
most  of  you  know,  the  Forest  Service  and 
BLM  are  trying  to  develop  active  programs. 
The  National  Park  Service  apparently  takes 
the  position  that  threatened  and  endangered 
species  in  the  parks  are  already  protected 
and  that  they  don't  really  need  to  do  any- 
thing. However,  as  Stan  Welsh  pointed  out. 


the  influx  of  people  into  these  areas  does 
have  a  detrimental  effect  on  many  T/E  spe- 
cies that  exist  there.  Some  of  the  other 
agencies  who  have  no  lands  to  manage  but 
have  an  impact  on  endangered  and  threat- 
ened species  are  the  Bureau  of  Reclamation, 
the  Soil  Conservation  Service,  and  the  Navy, 
Army,  and  Air  Force.  For  example,  projects 
with  which  the  Bureau  of  Reclamation  is  in- 
volved will  destroy  habitat.  There  is,  there- 
fore, a  direct  conflict  with  the  purpose  and 
intent  of  the  ESA  when  endangered  or 
threatened  species  are  impacted  by  those 
projects.  Some  of  those  agencies  are  making 
no  effort  to  determine  the  impact  their  proj- 
ects have  on  these  species.  We  as  profes- 
sionals, I  feel,  have  the  responsibility  to  be- 
come aware  of  their  projects  and  to  help 
provide  these  agencies  with  data  and  exper- 
tise. The  trend  among  federal  agencies  is  to 
solicit  information  and  public  opinion  on  var- 
ious projects.  How  many  of  you  are  respond- 
ing? 

To  comply  with  the  objectives  and  policies 
of  the  Endangered  Species  Program,  the 
BLM,  Forest  Service,  and  Fish  and  Wildlife 
Service  have  developed  the  following  policy 
to  insure  protection  for  T/E  species  prior  to 
official  listing  and  protection  under  the  En- 
dangered Species  Act.  These  agencies  are 
considering  all  species  that  are  likely  to  be- 
come endangered  or  threatened  as  though 
they  are  already  officially  listed  to  insure 
their  actions  do  not  jeopardize  the  existence 
of  these  species  or  modify  their  critical  habi- 
tats. The  degree  of  implementation  varies 
within  each  agency  from  state  to  state  and 
even  within  a  given  state.  The  strength  of  the 
program  at  these  levels  is  dependent  upon 
the  professionals  available  to  insure  program 
development.  There  are  very  few  plant  tax- 
onomists  in  government  to  help  guide  the 
program.  Therefore,  the  scientific  commu- 
nity must  become  more  involved  if  we  are  to 
achieve  a  realistic  program.  The  benefits  of 
such  a  policy  are  fourfold:  (1)  protection  of 
sensitive  species  prior  to  listing,  which  can 
and  will  meet  the  purpose  and  intent  of  the 
1973  ESA,  thereby  (2)  preventing  the  need 
for  official  listing  of  many  T/E  Species,  (3) 
resulting  in  fewer  legal  restrictions  and  more 
management  options  for  agencies,  and  (4) 
creating   more  benefits   to   the   species  and 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


83 


project  development.  A  major  concern  of 
federal  agencies  is  to  meet  the  requirements 
of  Section  7  of  the  ESA,  which  reads 

The  Secretary  shall  review  all  programs  administered 
by  him  and  utilize  such  programs  in  hirtherance  of  the 
purpose  of  this  act.  All  other  federal  departments  and 
agencies  shall  in  consultation  with  and  with  the  assist- 
ance of  the  Secretary  utilize  their  authorities  in  furthe- 
rance of  the  purposes  of  this  act  by  carrying  out  pro- 
grams for  the  conservation  of  endangered  species  and 
threatened  species  listed  pursuant  to  Section  4  of  this 
act  and  by  taking  such  action  as  necessary  to  insure  that 
actions  authorized,  fimded,  or  carried  out  by  them  do 
not  jeopardize  the  continued  existance  of  such  endan- 
gered and  threatened  species  or  result  in  the  destruction 
or  modification  of  habitat  of  species  which  is  deter- 
mined by  the  Secretary  after  a  consultation  with  the  af- 
fected states  to  be  critical. 

However,  the  overriding  concern  is  to 
meet  the  purpose  and  policy  of  the  ESA, 
"...  to  provide  a  means  whereby  ecosystems 
upon  which  endangered  species  and  threat- 
ened species  depend  may  be  conserved,  to 
provide  a  program  for  the  conservation  of 
such  endangered  species  and  threatened  spe- 
cies . .  .  [and  the]  .  .  .  policy  of  Congress  that 
all  Federal  departments  and  agencies  shall 
seek  to  conserve  endangered  species  and 
threatened  species  and  shall  utilize  their  au- 
thorities in  furtherance  of  the  purposes  of 
this  Act." 

It  is  my  interpretation  that  the  intent  in 
the  purpose  and  policy  of  the  act  is  to  con- 
serve and  protect  species  likely  to  be  endan- 
gered or  threatened  with  extinction  in  the 
foreseeable  future.  John  Spinks  has  indicated 
that  the  Fish  and  Wildlife  Service  will  only 
be  able  to  list  20  to  30  species  of  plants  in 
1979.  This  is  less  than  1  percent  of  the  1785 
proposed  species.  The  Forest  Service  and  Bu- 
reau of  Land  Management  policy,  if  it  is  en- 
forced, will  provide  the  necessary  protection 
for  species  which  would  otherwise  become 
extinct  due  to  the  slow  listing  process.  Fur- 
thermore, such  a  policy  will  minimize  the 
need  for  official  listing  under  the  ESA. 

Two  other  major  problems  in  the  plant 
program  come  to  mind:  (1)  a  lack  of  data  on 
candidate  and  proposed  species,  and  (2)  in- 
adequate lists  of  threatened  and  endangered 
plants.  The  latter  is  a  result  of  insufficient 
data.  Therefore,  we  must  emphasize  the  need 
for  additional  inventories  to  determine  the 
range  of  these  species,  their  habitats,  infor- 
mation on  population  biology,  threats  to 


their  survival,  and  management  problems. 
Presently  a  lack  of  funds  is  the  biggest  ob- 
stacle in  developing  an  efficient  data  base. 
Some  contracts  have  been  let,  and  the  cur- 
rent trend  is  to  acquire  these  data  through 
new  contracts.  Once  we  determine  the  loca- 
tions of  the  T/E  plants,  we  have  to  go  back 
to  these  specific  locations  and  obtain  suf- 
ficient data  for  use  in  management  programs. 
My  assigned  topic  today  was  on  management 
programs  for  plants  on  federal  lands.  The  fact 
is  federal  agencies  have  formulated  few  or  no 
management  programs  for  most  plants  be- 
cause we  are  in  the  inventory  stage  at  the 
present  time.  We  do  have  sufficient  data  on 
some  species  to  make  recommendations  on 
listing  or  delisting  from  candidate  and  pro- 
posed lists  and  establish  monitoring  studies 
for  others.  The  purpose  of  these  monitoring 
studies  is  to  acquire  additional  data  on  the 
status  of  the  populations,  their  trends,  condi- 
tion of  the  habitat,  and  the  biological  needs 
of  the  species  to  develop  realistic  manage- 
ment programs  for  their  protection  and  re- 
covery, if  possible. 

California  has  an  active  program  that 
places  them  well  ahead  of  other  states.  Most 
of  the  other  western  states  are  developing 
programs.  Much  of  this  effort  is  from  the  pro- 
fessional and  private  sectors  and  the  rest 
from  federal  and  state  agencies.  The  state 
government,  in  most  states,  has  shown  the 
least  interest  and,  in  general,  leans  more  to 
development.  Four  federal  agencies  will  issue 
contracts  for  plant  inventories  in  Utah  this 
year.  It  is  hoped  these  studies  will  be  con- 
ducted by  qualified  professionals.  In  addition, 
we  have  established  coordinating  committees 
for  state,  federal,  professional,  and  amateur 
botanists  in  most  of  the  western  states  to 
avoid  duplication  of  effort  and  coordinate 
program  activities.  Botanists  in  Utah  have 
now  established  a  Utah  Native  Plant  Society. 
One  function  of  the  society  will  be  to  help 
implement  a  T/E  plant  program  for  the 
state.  It  is  hoped  our  program  will  be  as  suc- 
cessful as  that  in  California.  We  solicit  your 
membership  if  you  have  an  interest  in  the  na- 
tive flora  of  Utah. 

Most  federal  agencies  do  not  employ  plant 
taxonomists.  Fortunately,  they  do  have  some 
biologists  with  sufficient  interest  and  back- 
ground to  help  develop  a  plant  program.  The 


84 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


Forest  Service  will  hold  training  sessions  for 
existing  range  and  wildlife  staff  to  familiarize 
them  with  T/E  species  in  their  areas  of  re- 
sponsibility. As  a  zone  botanist,  I  am  respon- 
sible for  the  Forest  Service  T/E  plant  pro- 
gram in  Utah  and  Nevada.  Within  this  area 
there  will  be  from  two  to  three  hundred  proj- 
ects requiring  site  inspections  for  T/E  plants. 
With  the  current  level  of  funding  and  avail- 
able staff  we  can  expect  to  look  at  only  10 
percent  of  these  projects  until  more  funding 
and  personnel  are  available.  We  have,  there- 
fore, prioritized  the  species  and  areas  to  be 
worked  on.  The  initial  effort  is  on  critically 
endangered  species.  The  following  slides  il- 
lustrate some  of  these.  The  first  is  Phacelia 
argillacea,  which,  as  I  mentioned  earlier,  is 
officially  listed.  Next  is  Townsendia  oprica.  It 
is  known  only  from  two  populations  and,  as 
Stan  Welsh  indicated,  one  population  had 
been  destroyed  by  a  gypsum  operation.  Only 
one  population  remains.  Aictomecon  humilis 
is  restricted  to  the  Moencopi  formation  in 
Washington  County,  Utah.  It  is  more  com- 
mon, but  the  impacts  to  the  area  are  so  se- 
vere that  immediate  listing  is  necessary  to  in- 
sure protection. 

Government-funded  inventory  contracts 
have  resulted  in  range  extensions  for  many  of 
the  proposed  species,  as  well  as  the  discovery 
of  new  species.  Psoralea  pariensis  is  a  species 
described  in  1975.  Just  a  few  years  ago.  Pri- 
mula specuicola  was  known  only  from  a  few 


collections  along  the  Colorado  River  drain- 
age system.  Recent  studies,  as  a  result  of  the 
ESA,  have  provided  many  new  locations  and, 
even  though  from  30  to  40  percent  of  the 
habitat  has  been  inundateed  by  Lake  Powell, 
official  listing  is  not  necessary. 

In  the  West,  much  of  the  land  is  adminis- 
tered by  federal  agencies.  Table  1  illustrates 
the  number  of  acres  under  Forest  Service, 
Bureau  of  Land  Management,  National  Park 
Service,  and  Fish  and  Wildlife  control.  Prob- 
ably 5  percent  or  less  of  all  these  acres  will 
constitute  critical  habitat  requiring  pro- 
tection for  T/E  plant  species.  However,  until 
our  inventories  are  complete,  we  will  not 
know  where  that  5  percent  of  the 
632,992,185  acres  is.  Again  we  must  use  a 
priority  system  for  inventories,  based  on  the 
minimal  data  available.  To  show  another 
relationship,  I  have  outlined  the  number  of 
candidate,  possibly  extinct,  proposed  and  of- 
ficially listed  species  by  state.  Currently 
there  are  15  plant  species  officially  listed. 
More  than  half  of  them  occur  in  California. 

The  new  amendments  now  include  plants 
in  Section  6  of  the  act  under  Cooperative 
Agreements.  Table  2  outlines  the  status  of  co- 
operative agreements  with  states  prior  to  the 
new  amendments.  Even  though  plants  were 
not  included  in  Section  6  of  the  act,  original- 
ly four  states  submitted  proposals  to  the  FWS 
requesting  funds  for  plants.  Naturally,  none 
have  qualified.  However,  Utah  submitted 


Table  1.  Number  of  acres  and  T/E  plants  in  the  western  United  States. 


(1975  FR) 

(1976  FR) 

Number  of 

(1975  FR) 

Number  of 

BLM 

USES 

NPS 

FWS 

Candidate 

Possibly 

Proposed 

Officially  listed  plants' 

admin. 

admin. 

admin. 

admin. 

threatened 

extinct 

endangered 

State 

acres 

acres 

acres 

acres 

species 

species 

species 

Threatened    Endangered 

Alaska 

272,673,528 

20,622,014 

7,306,037 

22,236,273 

21 

6 

Arizona 

12,596,043 

11,219,839 

1,629,943 

877,200 

106 

5 

65 

California 

15,577,909 

20,327,515 

4,258,2123 

68,944 

415 

28 

282 

13 

Colorado 

8,354,671 

13,773,966 

535,050 

51,947 

18 

3 

32 

Idaho 

11,985,079 

20,342,387 

86,425 

40,944 

41 

21 

Montana 

8,141,498 

16,767,962 

1,159,505 

539,340 

8 

1 

3 

Nevada 

48,373,664 

5,112,7.55 

262,321 

2,202,045 

85 

6 

48 

New  Mexico 

12,956,665 

9,106,299 

241,621 

316,183 

26 

3 

19 

Oregon 

15,739,792 

15,486,367 

160,881 

466,011 

135 

2 

51 

Utah 

22,641,037 

7,990,271 

888,936 

97,944 

102 

7 

65 

1                        1 

Washington 

306,692 

9,069,287 

1,801,428 

128,466 

72 

2 

19 

Wyoming 

17,536,891 

8,679,047 

2,310,653 
20,640,923 

44,787 
7,070,084 

18 
1,047 

3 
60 

8 
619 

Totals 

446,883,469 

158,397,709 

1                      14 

•22  species  of  the  T/E  plants  have  been  officially  listed. 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


85 


their  proposal  in  June  1977  for  both  plants 
and  animals  and  is  close  to  qualifying.  This  is 
based  on  my  conversation  with  the  Washing- 
ton office  of  the  FWS.  Some  states  have  heri- 
tage programs,  and  research  natural  area 
councils  that  have  been  extremely  helpful  in 
developing  plant  programs  for  the  respective 
states. 

Your  attendance  at  this  symposium  is  evi- 
dence of  the  interest  shared  by  many  Ameri- 
cans in  preserving  our  unique  flora  and 
fauna.  We  can  have  the  necessary  devel- 
opment to  sustain  us  and  still  preserve  these 
valuable  resources  by  having  an  open  mind 
to  the  problems  at  hand.  Let's  help  close  the 
communication  gap  between  scientists,  envi- 
ronmentalists, and  politicians. 

Questions  for  Dr.  Atwood 

Q.  Is  the  listing  of  these  taxa  being  coordinated  because 
there  are  so  few  that  are  going  to  be  hsted?  There 


are  strategies  whereby  protecting  one  species  in  a 
very  interesting  habitat  would  preserve  maybe  four 
or  five  others  in  the  same  area. 

A.  It's  my  understanding  that  the  Fish  and  Wildlife 
Service  in-house  policy  is  to  develop  listing  packages 
on  individual  species.  I  think  the  best  approach 
would  be  an  ecosystem  concept  where  there  are  two 
or  three  species,  such  as  in  Utah,  where  we  have 
Thelypodiopsis  argillacea,  Glaucoc(ir})inn  mffrutes- 
cens,  and  Crijtantha  barnebyi  in  the  Uinta  Basin 
that  occur  in  very  similar  habitats  that  are  close  to- 
gether. This  could  be  a  neat  package,  and  we  may 
incorporate  Cnjptantha  grahamii,  which  is  nearby, 
and  Penstemon  gralumiii  so  you  could  have  four  or 
five  in  one  package.  Now  that  they  have  the  new 
regulations  for  conducting  public  hearings,  one  pub- 
lic hearing  would  take  care  of  all  of  those. 

Q.  Ninety  percent  of  the  projects  are  being  completed 
without  an  inventory.  Isn't  that  contrary  to  the  law? 

A.  Not  really.  It's  contrary  to  in-house  policy,  but  not 
to  law.  The  law,  of  course,  is  only  for  listed  species. 
We  have  few  listed  species,  and  the  projects,  of 
course,  are  not  impacting  those.  Those  are  on  our 
priority  list.  If  they  were  impacted,  we  wouldn't  al- 
low the  projects  to  continue. 


Table  2.  State  programs  for  T/E  plants  in  the  western  United  States. 


States" 


Cooperative  Agreements 
Under  Sec.  6  of  the  ESA 


Other  State  Programs 


Animals 


Plants 


Research 

natural 

Heritage 

areas 

Signature  stage 

Yes,  inactive 

Signature  stage 

Active  program 

Proposal  stage 

? 

Proposal 

Idaho  Natural  Areas 

Coord.  Committee 

Established  in  1975, 

None 

now  handled  by 

state  fish  and  game 

None 

None 

Established  in  197.3 

State  Natural  Areas 

Preserves  Committee 

None 

Started  Fall  1977 

Natural  Areas 

Advisory  Preserve 

Committee 

Established  in  1978 

■p 

Proposal  State 

p 

Arizona 
California 
Colorado 
Idaho 

New  Mexico 


Nevada 
Oregon 

Utah 

Washington 

Wyoming 

Montana 
reviewed 


None  None 

Qualified  on  6/2.3/76  None 

Qualified  on  6/23/76  None 

Trying  to  qualify  None 

Qualified  on  6/23/76  None 


None 

None 


None 
None 


Trving  to  qualify  Proposal  submitted 

by  state  on  5/04/77 

Qualified  on  6/23/76  Proposal  submitted 
in  1976 

None  Proposal  submitted 

by  state  on  2/11/75 
State  program  being      State  program  being 
reviewed  by  FWS 


°23  states  have  qualified  for  cooperative  agreement  for  wildlife  programs. 


STRATEGIES  FOR  PRESERVATION  OF  RARE  PLANTS  AND  ANIMALS 

G.  Ledyard  Stebbins' 

.\bstract.-  Human  preservation  of  endangered  species  apparently  commenced  prior  to  recorded  history  with 
Ginks  hiloba,  in  China,  a  tree  now  known  only  under  cultivation.  A  niunber  of  species  have  become  extinct  because 
man  either  failed  to  recognize  their  value  or  did  not  act  quickly  enough  to  preserve  them  even  when  their  value  was 
appreciated.  A  philosophy  of  conservation  must  be  based  upon  cooperation  with  others  looking  to  the  future.  Appro- 
priate strategies  that  could  be  adapted  from  the  military  to  achieve  the  objectives  of  species  conservation  include:  (1) 
Know  your  enemy,  his  strengths  and  weaknesses,  and  the  tactics  he  is  likely  to  employ.  (2)  Inferior  forces  cannot 
hope  to  annihilate  or  completely  neutralize  an  enemy,  but  can  deflect  him  from  his  course.  (3)  If  you  have  limited 
manpower,  don't  try  to  do  too  many  things  at  once;  concentrate  on  primary  objectives.  (4)  Seek  the  most  powerful 
allies  you  can  find  and  learn  to  cooperate  with  them  as  nearly  on  their  own  terms  as  is  compatable  with  your  objec- 
tives. (5)  Soften  the  enemy  by  harrassment,  when  possible,  before  beginning  the  final  attack.  (6)  Make  use  of  all  the 
time  that  is  available;  do  not  risk  defeat  by  premature  attack.  (7)  Never  give  in  as  long  as  there  is  hope.  (8)  The  most 
important  principle  of  all,  never  underestimate  what  you  are  doing. 


The  first  rare  species  to  have  been  pre- 
served by  humans  was  Ginkgo  biloba,  the 
Chinese  Maiden  Hair  Tree.  Nobody  has  ever 
seen  it  as  a  wild  tree.  The  first  Europeans  to 
see  and  name  it  found  it  in  the  courtyards  of 
the  temples  of  China.  Fossils  indicate  that 
during  the  Tertiary  period,  30  or  more  mil- 
lion years  ago,  it  was  widespread  through  the 
Northern  Hemisphere,  but  by  the  time  hu- 
mans had  appeared  on  the  scene  it  was  al- 
ready confined  to  China.  Where  did  it  grow 
as  a  native  and  why  was  it  preserved  in  culti- 
vation? A  possible  answer  to  these  questions 
is  provided  by  clues  given  me  by  a  good  sci- 
entific friend  of  mine,  the  late  Edgar  Ander- 
son. He  had  one  of  the  most  remarkable  per- 
ceptions for  understanding  cultivated  plants 
and  their  relationships  to  their  wild  ances- 
tors. He  said,  "Ledyard,  have  you  ever 
thought  about  this  fact— that  the  trees  which 
are  most  successful  along  the  streets  of  our 
cities  are  those  which  are  native  to  the  banks 
of  great  rivers  or  deltas?  This  is  because  a  riv- 
er tree  is  used  to  being  flooded  at  one  season 
and  parched  dry  at  another  season,  having 
heavy  soil  dumped  on  it,  and  big  logs  fall 
over  it,  receiving  all  the  punishment  that  a 
tree  gets  under  street  conditions."  Ginkgo  is 
such  a  tree.  I  was  impressed  by  this  many 
years  ago  when  I  was  working  at  Columbia 


University  in  a  laboratory  suite  on  the  eighth 
floor  of  the  biology  building  there.  I  looked 
out  every  morning  at  the  top  of  the  Ginkgo 
tree  eight  stories  above  the  courtyard  where 
that  tree  had  been  planted.  In  the  middle  of 
New  York  City,  it  was  certainly  a  very  suc- 
cessful tree. 

The  Chinese  plain  is  traversed  by  two  huge 
rivers,  the  Yangtse  and  the  Hoang  Ho  (the 
Yellow  River).  Although  the  climate  of  China 
is  a  forest  climate,  those  plains  are  now  com- 
pletely denuded  of  native  trees.  Cultivation 
extends  right  to  the  edges  of  the  rivers.  Pre- 
sumably those  forests  were  cut  down  long  be- 
fore the  Christian  Era.  My  speculation  is  that 
Ginkgo  was  an  element  in  ancient  Chinese  ri- 
parian forests.  When  the  forests  were  being 
cut  down,  the  priests  of  the  temples  thought 
it  an  unusual  tree,  and  having  medicinal 
properties.  They  brought  in  the  seeds  and 
saved  trees  in  the  temple  courtyards.  They 
were  the  first  conservationists  I  can  think  of. 
We  come  from  a  long  and  honorable  lineage. 

Nevertheless,  the  concept  of  conservation 
became  almost  extinct  during  the  earlier  cen- 
turies of  our  own  millennium.  The  past  500 
years  have  witnessed  the  most  extensive  ex- 
tinction of  animal  species  due  to  a  single 
cause  to  have  happened  during  a  500-year 
period  throughout  the  evolutionary  history  of 


'Department  of  Genetics,  University  of  Califomia,  Davis,  California  95616. 


87 


88 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


animals.  That  cause  is  human  interference 
with  nature.  Among  the  well-known  victims 
of  human  destruction  are  the  dodo,  the  great 
auk,  the  passenger  pigeon,  the  plains  bison, 
the  moas  of  New  Zealand,  the  Asiatic  lion, 
the  European  forest  horse,  and  the  native 
wild  horses  that  formerly  roamed  the  Ameri- 
can plains.  Many  others  could  be  mentioned. 
Must  this  destruction  continue  or  can  we  stop 
it?  Before  considering  means  of  reversing  this 
trend,  we  must  be  fully  aware  of  the  problem 
we  face.  Our  opponents  are  not  merely  a  few 
greedy  men  who  are  out  to  make  a  fast  buck 
in  total  disregard  of  other  human  values.  We 
certainly  must  face  and  neutralize  such 
enemies  by  any  means  available  to  us.  In  ad- 
dition, we  must  realize  that  our  efforts  are 
running  counter  to  a  life-style  that  was 
adopted  by  prehumans  long  before  our  own 
species.  Homo  sapiens,  came  into  existence. 
Recently  acquired  knowledge  about  human 
evolution  suggests  strongly  the  belief  that 
when  human  ancestors  left  the  shelter  of  the 
tropical  forests  that  were  their  original 
homes  and  began  to  live  by  hunting  game  in 
savanna  areas,  they  adopted,  partly  in  a  sub- 
conscious way,  a  life-style  that  was  based 
upon  two  objectives:  destroy  or  annihilate 
the  enemy  and  exploit  the  resource.  The  first 
enemies  of  humanity  were  predators.  Hence 
the  extinction  of  the  Asiatic  lion  a  short  time 
after  the  Christian  Era  and  in  very  recent 
times,  the  destruction  of  the  California  griz- 
zly bear,  the  symbol  of  our  state,  during  the 
19th  century. 

Many  more  species  have  become  extinct  as 
a  result,  either  directly  or  indirectly,  of  the 
philosophy:  exploit  the  resource.  Before  hu- 
mans started  to  cultivate  fields  or  domes- 
ticate animals,  the  resources  were  wild  game 
animals  as  well  as  wild  plants  that  provided 
edible  seeds,  fruits,  and  roots— consequently 
early  exploitation  of  wild  horses  took  place  in 
most  of  their  range.  Anthropologists  have  un- 
covered, particularly  in  the  new  world,  many 
sites  suggesting  that  primitive  humans  drove 
horses  over  cliffs,  slaughtering  them  whole- 
sale, picking  up  the  bodies  of  those  they 
could  carry  and  using  them  for  food,  hides, 
and  other  purposes.  This  to  them  was  a  nor- 
mal way  of  life.  The  destruction  of  flightless, 
slow-moving  island  birds  such  as  the  dodo 
and  the  great  auk  by  European  sailors  and 


the  moas  in  New  Zealand  by  colonizing 
Maori  people  came  about  as  a  natural  result 
of  a  desire  for  fresh  meat  on  the  part  of  men 
who  had  been  deprived  of  it  for  a  very  long 
time.  Other  species  have  become  totally  ex- 
tinct or  preserved  only  in  cultivation  or  do- 
mestication because  their  existence  involved 
competition  with  resources  of  agriculture  or 
domestication.  Ginkgo  has  already  been  men- 
tioned. Another  is  probably  the  ancestor  of 
domestic  cattle.  As  is  shown  so  beautifully  in 
paintings  made  by  men  who  lived  in  Europe 
from  15,000  to  20,000  years  ago,  wild  bulls 
were  hunted  as  game.  Archaeological  records 
suggest  that  the  first  domestication  of  cattle 
was  connected  with  religious  rites.  Bearing 
curved  horns  that  resembled  a  crescent 
moon,  cattle  were  regarded  by  some  ancient 
tribes  as  sacred  to  the  moon  goddess.  Sacred 
bulls  of  ancient  Crete  are  well  known  to  his- 
tory, and,  in  India,  sacred  cows  that  cannot 
be  killed  still  cause  trouble.  The  expression 
"holy  cow"  is  more  than  a  casual  bit  of  mod- 
ern slang.  It  follows  a  long  and  venerable  his- 
tory. Domestication  of  cattle  was  one  cause 
for  the  near  extinction  of  wild  animals.  A 
beast  as  strong  as  a  bull  could  be  handled 
only  if  reasonably  tame,  yet  whenever  cows 
belonging  to  herds  of  domestic  cattle  were 
covered  by  wild  bulls  and  produced  calves 
from  those  bulls,  genes  for  wildness  in- 
troduced in  this  fashion  must  have  counter- 
acted the  effects  of  primitive  husbandmen  to 
breed  tractable  herds.  Wild  cattle  became 
not  only  a  resource  to  be  exploited,  but  also 
enemies  to  domestication.  Modern  history 
gives  us  similar  examples  of  species  that  have 
become  extinct  or  nearly  so  because  of  com- 
petition with  various  kinds  of  human  efforts. 
The  senseless  slaughter  of  plains  bison  and 
passenger  pigeons  during  the  last  century 
were  not  the  only  cause  for  the  extinction  of 
these  species.  Nesting  grounds  for  the  passen- 
ger pigeon  were  in  rich  bottom  lands  highly 
suitable  for  agriculture.  Farm  produce  was 
regarded  not  only  by  the  farmers  themselves, 
but  by  everybody  as  more  important  than 
nests  of  pigeons.  The  buffalo  competed  with 
both  cattle  and  dry  farmers.  Once  the 
prairies  were  fenced  in,  the  wanderers  could 
no  longer  survive  because  their  basic  way  of 
life  had  become  impossible.  More  recently, 
plant  species  have  become  extinct  because 


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89 


growing  cities  have  destroyed  their  habitat. 
Of  two  species  that  once  grew  only  within 
the  crowded  city  hniits  of  San  Francisco,  one 
of  them,  Sanicuki  maritima,  is  completely  ex- 
tinct and  another,  Arctostapliylas  francis- 
cana,  the  San  Fransisco  Manzanita,  is  repre- 
sented by  a  single  wild  shrub  plus  many  in 
gardens. 

These  examples  should  teach  us  the  follow- 
ing lesson:  the  main  barrier  to  preserving  our 
priceless  heritage  of  rare  animals  and  plants 
is  not  human  greed.  It  is,  rather,  the  natural 
tendency  for  people  of  all  kinds  to  be  short- 
sighted and  to  prefer  to  satisfy  immediate 
needs  rather  than  long-term  benefits,  particu- 
larly those  which  will  be  enjoyed  only  by 
their  progeny  of  successors. 

Moreover,  conservationists  are  allied  with 
a  whole  series  of  people  who  realize  the  need 
for  reversing  a  life-style  that  has  dominated 
humanity  for  over  a  million  years.  Annihila- 
tion and  liquidation  must  be  replaced  by  col- 
laboration, or  at  least  tolerance  on  all  fronts. 
Exploitation  must  be  replaced  by  con- 
servation. The  future  existence  of  humanity 
depends  on  the  success  of  efforts  toward  this 
reversal.  Saving  rare  plants  and  animals  is  a 
small  but  highly  significant  part  of  mankind's 
vital  efforts  to  survive  during  the  coming 
centuries. 

From  the  above  considerations,  a  philoso- 
phy of  conservation  must  be  based  more 
upon  cooperation  with  others  and  looking  to- 
ward the  future.  Education  that  might  con- 
vert apathy  into  a  true  realization  of  the 
problem  is  preferable  to  a  direct  attack  on  an 
enemy,  who  is  painted  in  black  colors  of  un- 
compromising greed.  Conservation  Is  a  form 
of  politics,  whether  we  like  it  or  not.  In  a  de- 
mocracy or  in  a  community  of  free  nations, 
political  action,  especially  when  it  is  prac- 
ticed of  necessity  by  a  small  minority,  de- 
pends for  its  success  on  adopting  and  exploit- 
ing to  the  limit  strategies  that  are 
appropriate  for  each  particular  goal.  The  fol- 
lowing well-known  military  strategies  are 
particularly  appropriate  for  conservationists 
who  are  seeking  to  preserve  rare  animals  and 
plants.  First,  know  your  enemy,  his  strengths 
and  weaknesses,  and  the  tactics  he  is  likely  to 
employ.  Potential  enemies  are  any  group  of 
people  who  for  reasons  that  may  seem  to  be 
completely  valid  and  justifiable  are  likely  to 


destroy  rare  plants  and  animals  and  their  nat- 
ural habitat.  Among  them  are  people  en- 
gaged in  agriculture,  livestock  raising,  oper- 
ators of  mines  or  quarries,  prospectors,  urban 
and  suburban  developers,  developers  of  mass 
recreational  facilities  such  as  golf  courses  and 
ski  slopes,  and  conservationists  who  believe 
the  greatest  need  for  future  civilizations  is 
water  backed  up  in  giant  dams  and  water 
power  projects.  Each  of  these  groups  is 
armed  with  verbal  weapons  that  may  appear, 
on  the  surface,  to  be  equally  or  more  pow- 
erful than  any  of  those  in  our  arsenal. 

The  growing  population  needs  more  food. 
New  resources  of  minerals  and  energy  pro- 
vided by  coal,  oil,  and  gas  are  vital  to  the  na- 
tion's growing  economy.  The  greatest  need  of 
the  United  States  is  more  and  better  housing. 
Recreational  development  such  as  golf 
courses  and  ski  slopes  make  life  more  enjoy- 
able for  millions.  The  rare  plants  and  rare  an- 
imals of  the  wilderness  can  be  appreciated 
and  enjoyed  only  by  a  small  cult  of  nature 
lovers.  The  realistic  way  to  provide  for  future 
generations  is  to  build  dams  that  will  make 
more  water  and  power  available  to  people. 
All  of  these  arguments  sound  logical,  realis- 
tic, and  incontrovertible.  In  a  way  they  are. 
Attempts  to  refute  them  directly  will  cer- 
tainly end  in  failure.  Our  strategy  must  be  to 
recognize  the  partial  validity  of  these  and 
similar  arguments.  We  must  work  around 
them,  not  try  to  overthrow  them. 

Tlie  second  principle  is:  inferior  forces 
cannot  hope  to  annihilate  or  completely  neu- 
tralize an  enemy,  but  they  can  deflect  the 
enemy  from  its  course.  On  this  basis,  reason- 
able answers  to  the  arguments  mentioned 
above  could  be  found.  Surely  more  food, 
minerals,  energy  resources,  and  housing  are 
needed,  but  with  few  exceptions  these  can  be 
had  by  developments  that  do  not  destroy  pre- 
cious and  irreplacable  habitats  and  the  native 
species  they  contain.  The  same  can  be  said 
even  more  justifiably  about  the  development 
of  golf  courses  and  ski  slopes.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  I  have  taken  part  in  opposition  to  devel- 
opment projects  that  are  ill  advised  and  ill 
conceived  from  a  strictly  economical  point  of 
view,  regardless  of  conservation.  Opposition 
from  conservationists  in  those  cases  called  at- 
tention to  the  unsound  nature  of  these  proj- 
ects and,  by  causing  them  to  be  abandoned, 


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saved  the  developers  or  their  innocent  cHents 
from  economic  embarrassment  or  possible 
disaster. 

One  of  these  is  located  in  the  north  coast 
ranges  of  California.  It  was  a  proposed  resort 
development  on  the  shore  of  Boggs  Lake,  a 
large,  vernal  pool.  In  April  or  May,  during 
the  wet  season,  Boggs  Lake  is  a  sheet  of  blue, 
limpid  water  almost  a  mile  in  diameter  sur- 
rounded by  gently  sloping  gravelly  beaches, 
behind  which  is  a  cool  pine  forest.  Situated  in 
the  mountains  almost  3000  feet  above  level, 
far  from  the  nearest  city  or  freeway,  it  would 
seem  to  be  an  ideal  place  for  a  hideaway 
where  a  cool  forest  glade  and  pure  mountain 
water  could  be  enjoyed.  That  description, 
and  accompanying  photos  used  by  developers 
were  based  only  on  its  spring  condition.  Its 
appearance,  however,  is  highly  deceptive. 
Boggs  has  no  spring-fed  inlet  and  is  exposed 
continuously  for  five  months  throughout  the 
California  summer  to  a  hot,  dry  sun.  If  one, 
therefore,  visits  this  "lake"  in  August  or  Sep- 
tember, the  former  lake  has  become  a  dry 
and  dusty  flat  with  a  few  soggy  places  in  its 
center.  Pine  forests  are  still  there,  but  they 
too  have  become  hot  and  dry  and  present  a 
continuous  fire  hazard. 

Pools  of  this  kind  usually  harbor  several 
rare  and  endemic  species.  Boggs  Lake  is  one 
of  the  best  of  this  kind  for  botanical  research. 
When  members  of  the  California  Native 
Plant  Society  heard  about  a  proposed  resort 
planned  along  its  shores,  we  went  in  great 
number  to  a  hearing  in  the  Lake  County 
Courthouse  to  present  our  views.  Before 
doing  so,  we  took  the  trouble  to  walk  around 
the  area  carefully  and  acquired  a  greater  fa- 
miliarity with  the  terrain  than  had  the  devel- 
opers. Their  publicity  was  based  chiefly  upon 
an  airplane  survey.  Our  view  of  the  situation 
was  strong  enough  to  dissuade  both  the  coun- 
ty supervisors  and  the  developers  from  con- 
tinuing the  project.  Boggs  Lake  was  then  ac- 
quired by  the  Nature  Conservancy  and  its 
imique  habitat  is  premanently  preserved. 

The  third  principle  is,  if  you  have  limited 
manpower,  don't  try  to  do  too  many  things  at 
once.  Concentrate  on  primary  objectives.  In 
terms  of  conservation  strategy,  do  not  spend 
valuable  time  on  every  species  that  is  rare 
and  local.  Most  of  the  rare  species  that  live  in 
national  parks,  state  parks,  wilderness  areas, 


that  have  been  set  aside  by  the  national  park 
and  similar  privately  controlled  areas,  need 
only  occasional  monitoring  to  see  that  provi- 
sions and  rules  for  preservation  are  being  car- 
ried out.  Sometimes  the  officials  need  to  be 
informed.  I  remember  an  example  of  a  grass 
in  the  Sierra  Nevada,  a  rare  species,  Stipo  la- 
tiglumis,  known  from  only  about  three  local- 
ities. I  had  a  suspicion  about  its  origin.  I  sus- 
pected that  it  evolved  in  what  now  is  a 
genetically  familiar  fashion:  crossing  between 
two  other  species  of  Stipa  and  doubling  the 
chromosome  number:  an  allopolyploid.  The 
most  accessible  place  for  this  species,  accord- 
ing to  herbarium  labels,  was  Lost  Arrow 
Camp  in  Yosemite  Valley.  In  Yosemite  Na- 
tional Park,  as  in  other  parks,  a  collecting 
permit  is  required.  Collecting  permits  always 
say  in  very  large  capitals,  NO  COLLEC- 
TING OF  ANY  KIND  IS  PERMITTED  ON 
THE  FLOOR  OF  THE  VALLEY.  Never- 
theless, I  went  to  the  park  naturalist's  office 
to  ask  for  a  permit.  When  I  explained  what  I 
wanted,  the  park  naturalist  himself  received 
me.  He  said,  "Where  does  it  grow  in  the  val- 
ley?" 

"The  labels  say  Lost  Arrow  Campground." 

"This  is  where  the  government  center  is 
built." 

"Do  you  think  there  are  any  native  areas 
here?" 

"I  think  I  know  them  pretty  well,  but  I 
don't  think  you'll  find  anything  unusual  here 
at  all." 

"May  I  look?  And  if  I  find  it  here,  may  I 
collect'it?" 

"Well,  I  guess  you  can." 

We  started  looking.  We  found  it  in  the 
front  yard  of  the  private  residence  of  the 
park  naturalist  himself.  Its  allopolyploid  na- 
ture was  demonstrated  by  Dr.  Richard  Pohl. 

Other  rare  species,  not  in  the  national 
parks  or  preserved  areas,  nevertheless  grow 
in  such  inaccessible  spots  that  they  are  very 
unlikely  to  be  destroyed.  An  example  is  a 
species  of  the  genus  Eupotorium  that  many 
years  ago  I  discovered  on  a  north-facing 
limestone  cliff  near  Lake  Shasta.  Eupatorium 
shastensis  is  always  perched  on  cliffs,  and  80 
percent  of  the  plants  of  it  are  so  high  up  on 
the  cliffs  that  no  one  can  reach  them  except 
by  specialized  rock  climbing  techniques. 
There  is  danger,  possibly,  from  prospecting 


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91 


or  blasting  of  these  limestone  cliffs,  except 
for  the  fact  that  they  are  in  very  rugged  ter- 
rain, one  of  them  isolated  from  any  highway 
by  the  waters  of  Lake  Shasta  and  the  other 
on  the  summit  of  a  very  rugged  mountain. 
Bringing  in  equipment  to  mine  these  areas 
would  be  extremely  expensive.  Because  it  is 
on  their  land,  the  Forest  Service  knows  about 
it  and  I  believe  will  not  issue  permits  for 
prospectors  or  mining  on  these  rather  unusu- 
al limestone  cliffs.  This  case  requires  mon- 
itoring, even  if  there  is  no  formal  preserva- 
tion. 

General  applications  of  this  strategy,  I  be- 
lieve, is  to  keep  lists  of  rare  and  endangered 
species  as  short  as  practicable,  to  pay  as 
much  attention  as  possible  to  the  amount  of 
danger  and  the  nature  of  the  danger  to  which 
a  species  might  be  exposed  and  to  determine 
actual  rarity  in  terms  of  space  occupied  and 
actual  numbers  of  individuals  in  each  popu- 
lation. Government  officials  and  leaders  of 
general  conservationist  organizations,  such  as 
the  Sierra  Club,  should  not  be  presented  with 
lists  of  two  or  three  hundred  species  with  un- 
familiar names.  I  suspect  that  in  many  in- 
stances these  are  filed  in  some  cabinet,  which 
a  secretary  might  open  every  six  months  or 
so.  Here  is  a  situation  where  the  more  we 
know  about  potential  and  imminent  danger, 
the  better  off  we  are. 

The  fourth  principle  is  to  seek  the  most 
powerful  allies  you  can  find  and  learn  to  co- 
operate with  them  on  as  nearly  their  own 
terms  as  is  compatible  with  your  objectives. 
My  happiest  experience  with  powerful  allies 
resulted  in  partial  preservation  in  an  area 
that  for  25  years  previously  had  been  very 
dear  to  my  heart.  This  is  a  little-known  por- 
tion of  the  fabulously  scenic  Monterey  Penin- 
sula on  the  coast  of  central  California.  That 
area,  a  small,  ancient  "raised  beach"  millions 
of  years  old  (Pliocene),  is  underlaid  by  a  ster- 
ile, hard,  and  impervious  "hard  pan"  soil.  Its 
plant  communities  contain  so  many  problems 
in  evolution  and  plant  geography  that  I  have 
nicknamed  it  "Evolution  Hill."  Its  most  dis- 
tinctive tree  species  are  the  Bishop  pine  and 
the  narrowly  endemic,  rare  dwarf,  Gowen 
cypress.  Each  time  I  have  taken  students  to 
this  area  it  has  given  me  cause  for  apprehen- 
sion. We  could  traverse  by  foot  a  network  of 
trails  and  rough  roads.  The  owners  had  the 


trees  and  bnish  cut  so  that  they  could  very 
easily  be  converted  into  paved  streets  and  the 
whole  place  put  into  a  resort  development. 
Ownership  is  in  the  hands  of  an  exclusive 
multimillion  dollar  organization,  Del  Monte 
Properties,  which  was  then  the  fiefdom  of 
one  of  the  most  prominent  citizens  of  north- 
ern California,  Samuel  F.  B.  Morse.  One  day 
during  the  1950s  I  obtained  an  appointment 
with  Mr.  Morse  to  discuss  the  future  of  Evo- 
lution Hill.  The  great  man  was  polite  and 
cordial.  He  said  that  he  too  was  much  inter- 
ested in  saving  the  area  and  to  see  that  it  re- 
mained preser^/ed  as  long  as  he  remained  in 
control.  He  could  not,  however,  make  com- 
mitments that  would  tie  the  hands  of  his  suc- 
cessors. Mr.  Morse  at  that  time  was  in  his  late 
seventies  and  he  had  clearly  given  me  only  a 
temporary  stay  of  execution.  Several  years 
later,  after  Mr.  Morse's  death,  the  blow  fell.  I 
received  a  telephone  call  from  a  prominent 
resident  of  the  peninsula,  the  director  of  a 
nearby  laboratory.  He  said,  "I  want  you  to 
come  down  to  Salinas  to  attend  a  meeting  of 
the  County  Planning  Commission.  The  new 
director  of  Del  Monte,  who  used  to  be  vice- 
president  of  the  Corning  Glass  Works,  wants 
to  start  a  sand  quarry  for  glass  in  the  forest 
right  behind  our  house."  I  realized  at  once 
that  Evolution  Hill  was  in  danger,  but  also 
that  we  members  of  the  California  Native 
Plant  Society  had  powerful  allies.  Several  of 
the  most  wealthy  and  prominent  home- 
owners who  had  bought  and  built  in  the  for- 
est in  order  to  have  quiet  solitude  with  undis- 
turbed woodlands  for  hiking  and  horseback 
riding  felt  that  their  life-style  was  severely 
threatened  and  that  the  hundreds  of  thou- 
sands of  dollars  they  had  invested  in  their 
homes  might  go  down  the  drain.  The  result 
of  the  first  hearing  was  noncommital,  but  the 
stay  of  execution  was  maintained.  No  permit 
to  quarry  was  issued.  We  then  organized  a 
joint  fact-finding  site  visit  attended  by  more 
than  100  members  of  the  Native  Plant  So- 
ciety plus  several  homeowners.  Such  an  event 
deserved  and  received  good  newspaper  pub- 
licity in  the  area.  Hearings  and  litigation  con- 
tinued for  about  two  years.  Finally  the 
quarry-minded  individuals  from  the  Del 
Monte  Company  gave  up  the  sponge.  They 
donated  a  portion  of  the  hill  to  the  county  to 
be  set  aside  as  the  S.F.B.  Morse  Preserve  and 


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Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


agreed  not  to  quarry  for  sand  in  an  area  near 
the  established  homes.  We  would  have  pre- 
ferred to  see  the  preservation  of  all  of  Evolu- 
tion Hill,  and  this  may  still  be  possible.  Ten 
years  after  this  partial  victory,  it  is  still  as  I 
first  saw  it;  no  homes  have  been  built  in  the 
area. 

The  fifth  principle  of  strategy:  if  possible, 
soften  the  enemy  by  harrassment  before  be- 
ginning the  final  attack.  This  principle  is  well 
illustrated  by  an  experience  we  had  a  few 
years  ago  in  an  endemic  area  in  the  Sierra 
Foothills,  known  as  Pine  Hill.  This  hill,  25 
miles  east  of  the  state  capitol  of  Sacramento, 
about  2000  feet  high,  has  a  number  of  en- 
demic species.  The  most  spectacular  of  these 
is  a  flannel  bush,  Fremontodendron  deciim- 
bens,  described  by  Dr.  Robert  Lloyd.  It  is 
noted  for  its  prostrate  habit  and  its  copper- 
colored  flowers,  where  most  flannel  bushes 
have  bright  yellow  flowers.  It  is  a  very  dis- 
tinctive species,  not  known  anywhere  except 
on  Pine  Hill.  I  say  with  some  confidence  that 
my  friends  and  I  have  combed  over  every  hill 
in  the  neighborhood  that  could  possibly  hold 
it  and  we  have  never  found  it,  so  I'm  certain 
the  central  ridge  of  Pine  Hill  is  the  only 
place  where  this  shrub  grows. 

One  day  a  member  of  the  Native  Plant  So- 
ciety visited  Pine  Hill  only  to  find  that  the 
Forest  Service,  in  order  to  construct  a  fire 
break,  had  cut  down  almost  all  of  the  shrub 
of  Fremontodendron,  and  it  looked  as  if  it  was 
gone.  His  reaction  was  immediate  and  posi- 
tive. He  wrote  a  strongly  worded  article  that 
was  soon  published  in  our  society's  journal. 
The  article  brought  a  flood  of  letters  from 
outraged  members  of  the  Native  Plant  So- 
ciety to  the  office  desk  of  the  district  man- 
ager. That  was  in  May.  In  October  I  got  a 
letter  from  a  friend  in  the  nearest  town,  Pla- 
cerville:  "Ledyard,  I  want  you  to  come.  I've 
got  to  go  out  with  the  ranger  to  Pine  Hill." 
Why?  "Because  they  want  to  put  in  a  little 
powerplant,  about  10  X  20  feet  and  they 
want  to  do  it  without  having  all  the  flack 
that  we  gave  them  on  the  fire  break."  So  we 
went  up  there  and  we  told  them  where  to 
put  it,  a  place  where  there  were  almost  no 
plants.  Soon  after,  we  were  able  to  enlist  the 
powerful  ally.  The  husband  of  the  secretary 
of  our  Sacramento  chapter  of  the  Native 
Plant  Society,  Warner  Marsh,  had  been  in 


the  Sacramento  office  of  the  State  Forest  Ser- 
vice for  many  years  and  was  highly  respected 
by  all  personnel  in  that  service.  So,  Warner 
went  out  with  one  or  two  other  people  and 
the  ranger  and  put  a  little  pink  ribbon  on 
every  shrub  of  the  Fremontodendron.  Fortu- 
nately, it  is  quite  a  resilient  shrub.  Cutting 
down  the  branches  didn't  destroy  the  roots, 
and  so  new  branches  came  up.  They're  back 
again  and  now  the  California  State  Forest 
Service  isn't  going  to  disturb  them.  We  are 
having  other  problems  with  Pine  Hill  be- 
cause of  changes  in  the  state  government  or- 
ganization, but  we're  still  very  optimistic 
that  the  whole  area  will  be  preserved. 

The  sixth  principle  of  strategy  is  to  make 
use  of  all  the  time  that  is  available.  Do  not 
risk  defeat  by  premature  attack.  Many  con- 
servationists who  are  aware  that  an  unusual 
habitat  is  threatened  by  mining,  quarrying, 
development,  or  some  other  way,  tend  to 
magnify  the  threat  and  particularly  its  imme- 
diacy. Sometimes  this  attitude  is  justified  and 
necessary;  other  times  it  is  not.  Surely,  if  the 
developer  is  known  to  have  his  eyes  on  one 
of  our  favorite  spots,  we  must  act  quickly 
with  all  resources  at  our  command.  Never- 
theless, we  cannot  be  stampeded  by  a  poten- 
tial danger  which  may  not  be  realized  for 
some  time.  Here  again  precise  knowledge  of 
the  danger  that  threatens  a  rare  species  or 
community  is  of  the  utmost  importance. 

The  seventh  principle  is  never  give  in  as 
long  as  there  is  hope.  One  can  lose  several 
battles  but  still  win  the  campaign.  The  last 
two  principles  are  well  illustrated  by  the 
campaign  to  save  the  lone  Manzanita  area  on 
the  eastern  margin  of  California's  central  val- 
ley, one  of  the  most  dramatic  of  California's 
ecological  islands.  I  call  it  an  ecological  is- 
land because  the  soil  is  so  different  from  the 
surrounding  soils  that  the  species  living  there 
are  isolated  as  if  they  were  on  an  oceanic  is- 
land surrounded  by  a  sea  of  grass  and  oaks. 
Another  inhabitant  of  the  barrens  is  a  species 
of  buckwheat,  Eriogenum  opricum,  described 
about  25  years  ago  by  J.  T.  Howell. 

When  the  California  Native  Plant  Society 
was  formed,  one  of  our  objectives  I  thought 
of  almost  immediately  was  saving  lone  Man- 
zanita, so  a  group  of  us  went  to  the  Amador 
County  Courthouse  first  to  find  out  who 
owned  it.  The  results  were  not  encouraging. 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


93 


The  whole  area  belongs  to  a  syndicate  con- 
trolled by  a  large  San  Francisco  bank,  which 
leases  land  to  miners  and  quarriers  because 
there  is  a  clay  of  extremely  high  value.  When 
we  approached  one  of  the  officials  of  this 
company,  we  got  a  very  emphatic  reply, 
"We'll  mine  every  blank  blank  cubic  foot  of 
that  sand  and  clay  and  we  dare  you  blank 
blank  s.  o.  b.'s  to  stop  us." 

Somewhat  later,  we  were  still  trying  to 
find  a  way  around  them  and  went  on  a  Sun- 
day when  we  thought  nobody  would  be  there 
to  look  for  another  spot  for  the  Eriogonum 
epricum.  We  ran  into  some  people  who 
turned  out  to  be  miners  who  were  not  mining 
on  Sunday,  but  were  hunting  quail  or  some- 
thing like  that.  They  said,  "What  are  you 
doing  in  our  place?"  We  explained  what  we 
were  doing.  "You  better  get  off.  We're  hon- 
est miners  and  we've  been  working  this  for 
20  years.  This  place  is  full  of  rattlesnakes  and 
I  wish  there  were  twice  as  many  of  them  to 
keep  you  blank  blank  blanks  from  going  on 
to  it."  Well  we  haven't  given  up.  We've  had 
articles  in  our  journals.  We've  had  publicity 
wherever  we  could  find  it.  We've  discussed  it 
with  the  California  Department  of  Parks  and 
Recreation  and  other  groups,  and  we  have 
gained  some  allies.  Meanwhile  the  quarries 
that  existed  for  some  time  are  still  there  and 
still  working,  but  they  haven't  invaded  any 
more  territory  than  they  had  when  we  first 
started  in  1966.  So  while  there's  life  there  is 
hope. 

(NOTE:  As  this  article  was  going  to  press, 
I  received  a  welcome  announcement:  The 
central  heart  of  the  lone  Manzanita  area  has 
been  purchased  by  the  Nature  Conservancy.) 

The  eighth  and  last  principle— the  most  im- 
portant principle  of  all— never  underrate  the 
importance  of  what  you  are  doing.  Human 
civilization  is  built  on  two  great  pillars.  A 
pillar  of  knowledge  and  a  pillar  of  beauty 
and  its  aesthetic  appreciation,  whether  it  be 
the  beauty  of  nature,  artistic  creation,  or  the 
beauty  of  the  spirit.  Drs.  Lovejoy  and  Cle- 
ment this  morning  showed  us  part  of  a  world- 
wide effort  to  save  humanity  from  its  own 
destruction.  Fountains  of  knowledge  can  be 


bound  up  in  the  most  ugly  and  unattractive 
weeds  we  are  trying  to  save. 

A  plant  known  only  in  a  few  suburban 
areas,  which  is  now  severely  threatened,  is  a 
tar  weed  known  as  Holocarphra  macradenia. 
Now  tar  weeds  are  among  the  nastiest  weeds 
in  California  pastures.  To  try  and  tell  a  ran- 
cher that  you  want  to  save  a  tar  weed  is  just 
like  telling  him  to  stop  drinking  beer.  Well,  it 
so  happens  that  this  species  was  part  of  a 
large-scale  research  project  carried  on  by  I. 
Clausen  and  D.  D.  Keck  25  or  30  years  ago. 
They  discovered  that  what  the  taxonomists 
had  called  two  species  are  actually  four  mor- 
phologically recognizable  ones.  Among  those 
four  species,  hybrids  between  almost  any  col- 
lections from  two  different  localities  were 
sterile  or  couldn't  be  made.  In  other  words, 
hiding  under  first  two  and  then  four  species  is 
a  whole  series  of  little  narrow  endemic  spe- 
cies, the  nature  of  which  is  associated  with 
chromosomal  difference.  In  our  quest  for  un- 
derstanding the  mechanisms  of  the  origin  of 
species,  the  tarweeds,  including  Holocarpha 
macradenia,  could  be  a  key  group.  Now  we 
will  have  to  resist  the  desire  to  succumb  to 
the  developers  and  keep  the  species  alive,  at 
least  under  cultivation.  After  all,  the  habitat 
will  be  gone  anyway.  The  place  where  it  has 
been  known  for  the  last  50  years  is  in  associ- 
ation with  wild  oats  and  other  introduced 
species.  Its  prehuman  habitat  was  gone  long 
ago.  This  is  an  example  of  a  humble  sticky, 
smelly,  nasty  weed  which  could  be  a  gold 
mine  of  scientific  information. 

Now  we  should  then  come  to  the  aesthetic 
value.  My  illustrations  cannot  equal  the  beau- 
ty you  saw  in  the  booklet  of  the  National 
Wildlife  Federation  we  all  received  this 
morning.  I'll  show  finally  just  two  slides 
which  give  a  modest  impression  of  the  beauty 
of  plant  species.  One  is  a  Monterey  cypress, 
growing  on  the  granite  cliffs  facing  the  blue 
Pacific  Ocean,  with  its  picturesque  branches 
and  trunk  growing  out  of  solid  granite.  The 
other  is  a  pure  white  flower  of  the  California 
rose  mallow  centered  with  the  deep  maroon 
spot  in  the  middle  of  the  flower,  growing  in 
the  hot  valley  in  the  middle  of  the  summer. 


STRATEGIES  FOR  PRESERVATION  OF  RARE  PLANTS 

Arthur  H.  Holmgren' 

.\bstract.—  Preservation  of  the  habitat  is  the  only  logical  strategy  to  save  endangered  species  from  earlv  extinc- 
tion. Ecological  amplitudes  of  rare  species  are  very  narrow,  so  transplantation  to  such  alien  sites  as  botanical  gardens 
is  not  a  solution.  Protection  may  not  be  the  answer.  We  must  learn  as  much  as  we  can  about  the  biology  of  the 
species  in  question,  in  the  field  and  under  laboratory  conditions.  The  first  steps  must  be  to  determine  the  distribu- 
tion. This  would  be  followed  by  analysis  of  soils  by  means  of  physical  and  chemical  studies.  Pollination  ecology, 
associated  species,  phenological  records,  and  genetic  and  cytological  studies  must  be  a  part  of  the  biological  studies. 
Such  studies  would  require  teamwork  by  qualified  botanists. 


I  suspect  I  was  asked  to  take  this  assign- 
ment because,  as  several  of  you  know,  I  have 
cultivated  many  of  our  western  native  plant 
species.  Most  of  these  plants  were  introduced 
into  my  gardens  so  I  could  have  laboratory 
material  for  my  taxonomy  classes.  I  had  great 
success  with  Penstemons  and  at  one  time  I 
had  33  species  in  this  genus.  Many  of  my 
Penstemons  hybridized  under  prolonged 
flowering  conditions  in  my  gardens  until  it 
was  difficult  or  nearly  impossible  to  deter- 
mine parents  of  most  of  my  hybrids.  Some  of 
my  introductions  in  other  genera  became 
troublesome  weeds.  These  are  not  the  kinds 
of  species  we  are  concerned  with  in  this  sym- 
posium. 

I  will  devote  my  time  to  strategies  for 
preservation  of  rare  plants.  My  answer  and 
only  logical  strategy  is  to  preserve  the  habi- 
tat of  the  threatened  and  endangered  species 
so  that  we  may  save  them  from  early  extinc- 
tion. Species  inevitably  become  extinct,  in 
times  past  by  natural  forces,  but  in  recent 
times  greatly  accelerated  by  man's  destruc- 
tive activities. 

Extant  knowledge  of  rare  species  indicates 
that  ecological  amplitudes  are  very  narrow 
and  thus  transplantation  to  such  alien  sites  as 
botanical  gardens  is  not  a  solution.  And  still, 
Franklinia  alatamaha  Marsh  was  preserved 
in  cultivation.  The  lost  camellia  or  Franklin 
tree,  originally  from  someplace  in  the  coastal 
plain  of  Georgia,  was  discovered  by  John  and 
William  Bartram  in  1765  and  has  not  been 


seen  in  its  native  place  since  1790.  Many  bot- 
anists have  searched  long  and  hard  for  the 
lost  camellia.  Dr.  Ritchie  Bell  of  the  Botany 
Department  at  the  University  of  North  Caro- 
lina has  made  several  expeditions  with  gradu- 
ate students  in  search  for  the  lost  camellia 
that  has  been  in  cultivation  for  nearly  200 
years. 

In  the  absence  of  hard  data,  habitat  preser- 
vation is  the  only  option  open,  and  it  is  in- 
creasingly at  hazard  because  not  even  the  sci- 
entific community  understands  the  problems. 
Habitat  preservation  is  seen  as  a  powerful 
threatening  tool  to  the.  public  at  large  and  es- 
pecially to  those  who  are  anxious  to  develop 
our  natural  resources.  Elected  office  holders 
and  seekers  are  afraid  to  line  up  with  the  bi- 
ologist who  sees  the  need  to  preserve  habitats 
of  threatened  and  endangered  species.  We 
have  no  idea  yet  how  much  area  to  protect 
or  even  if  protection  is  the  answer. 

Two  species  come  to  mind  that  thrive  in 
disturbed  sites.  Astragalus  patjsonii  (Rydb.) 
Barneby  is  usually  found  in  burned-over  areas 
in  Wyoming  and  Mertensia  toijahensis 
Macbr.  thrives  in  similar  habitats  in  the 
Toiyabe  Range  in  Lander  County,  Nevada. 
Many  species  make  a  living  in  disturbed  sites, 
but  it  is  unusual  to  find  rare  species  in  .such 
habitats.  Perhaps  more  fieldwork  will  show 
that  the  two  species  mentioned  here  are  not 
as  rare  as  we  have  thought. 

Dr.  Howard  S.  Irwin,  president  of  the  New 
York  Botanical  Garden,  said  in  a  letter  to  me 


'Professor  Emeritus  of  Biology  and  Acting  Curator  of  the  Intermountain  Herbarium,  Utah  Stale  University.  Logan.  Utah  84322. 


95 


96 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


dated  16  October  1978:  "The  most  desperate 
need  is  a  federal  program  that  would  encour- 
age students  to  study  the  biology  of  species' 
rarity,  more  or  less  in  the  manner  followed 
by  Dr.  Lazarus  Walter  Macior  at  Akron  Uni- 
versity in  investigating  the  Furbish  louse- 
wort." 

I  contacted  Dr.  Macior  and  received  a 
prompt  reply  dated  14  November  1978.  Dr. 
Macior  enclosed  a  copy  of  his  manuscript 
which  will  appear  in  the  October-December 
1978  issue  of  the  Bulletin  of  the  Torreij  Bot- 
anical Club.  All  papers  published  in  the  Bul- 
letin of  the  Torrey  Botanical  Club  are  copy- 
righted, so  the  manuscript  was  sent  to  me 
for  my  personal  use  only.  Dr.  Macior's  work 
with  the  Furbish  lousewort  will  certainly  be- 
come a  model  for  experimental  studies  on 
rare  species. 

The  first  step  in  a  strategy  for  preserving 
rare  plants  must  be  to  learn  as  much  as  pos- 
sible about  them  in  the  field  and  under  con- 
trolled conditions  in  the  laboratory.  Every  ef- 
fort must  be  made  to  determine  the 
distribution  of  the  taxon  in  question.  Sme- 
lowskia  hohngrenii  Rollins  was  thought  to  be 
confined  to  one  rock  prominence  in  the  To- 
quima  Range,  but  Sherel  Goodrich  discov- 
ered that  this  unusual  species  was  actually 
more  common  in  the  Toiyabe  Range  to  the 
west.  The  known  distribution  at  this  writing 
includes  four  stations  in  the  Toquima  Range 
and  10  populations  in  the  Toiyabe  Range,  so 
the  species  is  not  considered  to  be  in  the  pre- 
carious situation  suspected  prior  to  the  1978 
field  season.  This  unusual  mustard  is  a  dis- 
tinctive species,  and,  as  is  true  so  many  times 
in  this  family,  species  are  easier  to  recognize 
than  the  problem  of  assigning  them  to  gen- 
era. I  still  have  difficulty  thinking  of  this  spe- 
cies as  belonging  to  the  genus  Smelowskia. 
To  me,  it  seems  to  have  closer  affinities  with 
the  genus  Bray  a,  far  to  the  north.  It  may  turn 
out  that  we  have  a  new  genus.  Arahis 
shockleyi  Munz  is  another  species  that  may 
turn  out  to  be  more  common  than  we  have 
thought.  Only  a  few  widely  scattered  collec- 
tions have  been  made  from  Tooele  County, 
Utah,  to  the  San  Bernardino  Mountains  in 
California.  The  paucity  of  collections  prob- 
ably illustrates  how  poorly  some  of  our  desert 
ranges  are  known. 

Detailed  field  studies  would  vary  to  some 


extent  with  different  species.  The  Smelowskia 
of  central  Nevada  is  found  in  crevices  of  an- 
desite  rocks,  and  future  studies  on  this  species 
may  show  that  it  has  a  preference  for  this 
kind  of  a  substrate.  Arctomecon  humilis  Cov- 
ille  and  A.  californica  Torrey  and  Fremont 
probably  require  gypsum  soils,  often  referred 
to  as  "gumbo"  clay. 

Detailed  biological  studies  would  begin  af- 
ter the  distribution  of  the  species  has  been 
determined.  Biological  studies  of  rare  species 
would  investigate  the  ecological  adaptations 
of  the  species  as  to  edaphic  factors  and  biotic 
environment.  Soil  samples  would  be  taken 
from  many  sites  and  thoroughly  analyzed 
with  every  sophisticated  chemical  and  phys- 
ical means  we  know.  Weather  records  would 
be  analyzed  or  gathered.  Total  precipitation 
means  little  unless  we  know  the  distribution 
throughout  the  year.  Climatic  characteristics 
in  a  broad  sense  would  also  include  solar 
radiation  and  temperature  records. 

Pollination  ecology  may  be  a  key  as  to 
why  a  species  is  rare  and  perhaps  even  on  the 
verge  of  becoming  extinct.  The  loss  of  a  pol- 
linator through  spray  programs  may  place  a 
species  in  imminent  danger  of  becoming  ex- 
tinct. 

Phenological  records  should  be  kept  and 
associated  species  recorded.  What  are  the  re- 
quirements for  seed  germination?  Much  re- 
mains to  be  learned  about  seed  germination 
and  especially  for  rare  species.  Under  what 
conditions  is  flowering  initiated?  How  soon 
after  flowering  are  fruits  matured,  and  what 
is  the  mode  of  seed  dissemination?  Are  cer- 
tain species  usually  associated  with  a  taxon 
we  are  studying,  or  is  a  niche  so  inhospitable 
that  our  species  has  the  habitat  without  a 
competitor? 

Cytological  studies  would  help  in  possibly 
determining  closely  related  species.  Dr. 
James  Reveal  and  I  prepared  a  paper  several 
years  ago  on  Cilia  caespitosa  A.  Gray  that 
was  never  submitted  for  publication.  The 
chromosome  number  of  this  rare  and  restrict- 
ed species  was  determined  to  be  the  same  as 
the  wide-ranging  and  highly  variable  G.  sub- 
nuda  A.  Gray,  2n  =  16.  Gilia  caespitosa  is 
restricted  to  white,  decomposed  sandstone 
one  mile  south  of  Teasdale  in  Wayne  County, 
Utah.  Dr.  Dieter  H.  Wilken  has  prepared  a 
fine  paper  on  G.  caespitosa  in  much  more  de- 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposi 


97 


tail,  "The  Status  of  Gilia  caespitosa  A.  Gray 
(Polemoniaceae),"  which  has  been  accepted 
for  pubHcation  in  Madrono.  Dr.  Wilken  has 
concluded  that  G.  caespitosa  has  a  close  rela- 
tionship with  G.  subnuda.  Reduced  speci- 
mens of  G.  subnuda  are  very  similar  to  the 
uniform  specimens  of  G.  caespitosa.  Dr.  Wil- 
ken suggests  that  G.  caespitosa  may  represent 
one  of  he  more  primitive  elements  within 
Gilia.  In  my  Honor  Lecture  in  1977  at  Utah 
State  University  in  Logan,  Utah,  I  pointed 
out  that  this  beautiful  little  perennial  may 
have  arisen  from  an  extreme  biotype  of  the 
variable  and  common  G.  subnuda.  If  a  wide- 
spread species  becomes  established  in  an  un- 
usual edaphic  situation,  it  will  carry  only  a 
small  part  of  the  genetic  variability  of  the 
original  species.  Inbreeding  and  random  fix- 
ation will  tend  further  to  make  this  insular 
population  more  uniform  and  still  more  dif- 
ferent from  the  ancestors  as  the  years  of  iso- 
lation continue.  The  individual  plants  of  this 
beautiful  species  appear  to  be  as  nearly  gen- 
etically alike  as  separated  parts  of  a  clone.  It 
does  not  seem  logical  that  this  species  is  a  se- 
nescent species.  It  probably  evolved  where  it 
is  found  today  and  adapted  to  a  single  eco- 
logical niche.  It  seems  unlikely  that  it  occu- 
pied a  larger  area  in  past  times. 

The  biological  studies  outlined  above  are 
all  a  part  of  the  first  phase  in  learning  about 
rare  species,  but  the  studies  obviously  do  not 
stop  here.  If  the  species  is  threatened  in  part 
of  its  range,  some  natural  populations  must 
be  preserved  in  situ  for  further  study.  This  is 
especially  true  for  the  three  species  of  Ar- 
ctomecon.  Each  species  is  confined  to  a  pre- 
carious habitat  and  all  three  are  fast  dis- 
appearing. The  fact  that  requirements  for 
seed  germination  are  not  known  and  that  the 
plants  cannot  be  transplanted  make  it  im- 
perative that  these  plants  be  studied  in  situ. 
Housing  developments,  trail  bikes,  and  gyp- 
sum processing  plants  doom  at  least  two  of 
these  bear  poppies.  Oh,  yes,  I  had  better  not 
forget  to  point  a  finger  at  the  plant  tax- 
onomist.  I  was  appalled  when  I  discovered 
how  many  specimens  we  had  in  the  Inter- 
moutain  Herbarium.  It  is  well  known  that 
numbers  of  specimens  in  a  herbarium  are  no 
indication  of  rarity. 

Another  step  in  preserving  a  rare  species 
may  be  in  attempting  to  cultivate  plants  in 


identical  habitats  or  very  similar  to  the  origi- 
nal ones.  This  would  involve  attempts  to  ger- 
minate seeds  for  transplanting  of  garden  or 
greenhouse-grown  plants  and  transplanting 
growing  plants  from  natural  habitats.  This 
does  not  excite  me,  as  we  have  attempted  to 
grow  several  rare  species.  Leila  M.  Shultz, 
curator  of  the  Intermountain  Herbarium,  suc- 
ceeded in  germinating  seeds  of  the  rare 
Sphaeromeria  mtJiiae  Holmgren,  Shultz,  and 
Lowrey  from  Zion  National  Park.  At  the 
present  time,  we  have  two  potted  plants 
growing  in  my  home  greenhouse  in  soil  from 
the  type  locality.  After  two  years  of  vacil- 
lating from  "Looking  good"  to  "Will  they 
make  it?"  I  begin  to  wonder  if  my  specimens 
will  ever  flower.  So  many  things  come  to 
mind.  What  about  solar  radiation,  length  of 
day,  and  on  and  on?  I  have  successfully  trans- 
planted and  multiplied  Cijpripedium  cal- 
ceolus  L.  from  the  mouth  of  the  Logan  Can- 
yon that  was  in  the  way  of  a  new  home.  I 
have  divided  the  clumps  several  times  and 
even  moved  the  entire  population  when  we 
moved  from  our  old  Logan  home  to  a  site 
near  the  base  of  the  mountain  just  north  of 
the  mouth  of  Logan  Canyon.  There  are  more 
plants  today  in  my  garden  than  the  original 
population  contained  35  years  ago.  I  have 
thought  of  moving  a  few  plants  to  sites  in  Lo- 
gan Canyon  to  habitats  that  would  probably 
support  this  lovely  orchid,  but  I  hesitate 
when  I  think  of  the  pressure  of  every  foot  of 
bank  area  along  Logan  River  by  fishermen. 
The  plants  I  am  growing  represent  the  only 
known  living  plants  of  this  species  in  Utah. 
Extirpation  would  once  again  remove  a  spe- 
cies from  the  wild  that  ranged  from  Logan  to 
Provo  when  the  Mormon  pioneers  came  to 
Utah. 

I  have  attempted  to  grow  the  rare  hetero- 
stylous  Primida  maouirei  Williams  that  is 
known  only  from  a  nine-mile  stretch  in  Lo- 
gan Canyon  and  consisting  of  only  seven 
known  populations.  Plants  flowered  the  first 
year  and  emerged  the  second  year  without 
flowering,  and,  after  languishing  for  a  short 
time,  disappeared  from  my  garden  spot, 
which  I  had  thought  was  quite  similar  to  the 
canyon  habitats.  1  hope  to  see  a  graduate  stu- 
dent work  out  the  biology  of  Primula  ma- 
guirei  in  the  near  future.  Howard  Irwin  re- 
ports that  the  New  York  Botanical  Garden 


98 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


recently  got  a  grant  to  conduct  studies  of  the 
New  York  Monkshood,  Aconititm  novabores- 
cense  A.  Gray,  initially  to  determine  its  dis- 
tribution and  also  to  get  some  biological 
study  imderway.  This  unusual  monkshood  is 
presently  known  from  a  few  localities.  This  is 
the  way  to  go,  and  sometime  in  the  future  we 
will  have  hard  data  to  give  us  a  better  under- 
standing of  past  and  present  histories  of  floras 
and  species. 

The  most  important  strategy  of  all  has  to 
be  for  us  to  win  public  support  and  thereby 
gain  support  of  elected  officials  on  all  levels. 
Unless  we  gain  this  support,  there  will  be  no 
funding  for  the  work  that  is  just  beginning. 

We  have  made  gains  since  Earth  Day,  22 
April  1970,  but  in  other  important  ways,  we 
have  lost  ground  (no  pun  intended  here).  The 
radical  rhetoric  of  street  protests  has  been  re- 
placed by  legal  briefs.  There  are  probably 
more  than  8  million  members  of  environmen- 
tal groups  who  make  contributions  totaling 
nearly  70  million  dollars  a  year.  The  Audu- 
bon Society  and  Sierra  Club  were  the  first  of 
the  conservation  groups,  but  they  have  been 
joined  by  many  more.  State  native  plant  so- 
cieties are  organizing,  with  several  new  so- 
cieties each  year.  We  know  of  the  accom- 
lishments  in  California  and  what  the 
potentialities  are.  We  have  just  organized  a 
Utah  Native  Plant  Society.  This  is  the  way 
we  can  get  our  message  to  the  state  and  local 
levels. 

I  share  the  anxiety  of  Howard  Irwin,  Walt 
Macior,  and  Dieter  Wilken  in  preserving  rare 
species;  but,  in  the  meantime,  we  cannot  be 
sympathetic  with  those  who  would  preserve 
them  only  as  instruments  for  political  strate- 
gy. Those  who  have  taken  strong  stands  pro 
or  con  without  sufficient  knowledge  have 
hurt  our  cause.  In  the  meantime,  let's  study 
our  rare  species  intently  with  qualified,  pro- 
fessional botanists. 


Questions  to  Dr.  Holmgren 

Q.  There  is  a  big  problem  in  that  information  available 
is  not  keeping  up  with  the  demand.  The  gentleman 
from  the  Forest  Service  said  they  had  200  cited  to 
survey  and  funds  to  do  20.  The  problem  is  even 
greater  in  private  industry.  The  company  proposes  a 
project  and  requires  a  survey  and  the  information  is 
just  not  generally  available.  Do  you  foresee  a  way 
out  of  that  dilemma? 


A.  I  just  don't  see  a  way  out  of  it.  In  fact,  very  often  we 
see  proposals  or  requests  for  proposals  come  across 
our  desks  and  we  are  supposed  to  have  something  in 
on  it  a  week  before  the  proposals  came  to  us.  Some- 
times we  have  about  six  weeks  to  work  this  out. 
There  is  no  way  we  can  do  it.  To  pretend  that  some 
of  these  things  can  be  done  in  such  a  hurry  is  not 
being  honest  with  the  problems  that  are  at  hand.  It 
is  going  to  take  some  time.  Very  often  these  things 
have  been  under  planning  stages  for  a  long,  long 
time,  but  the  problems  do  not  come  to  us  until  the 
last  minute.  No  one  plans  a  $100  million  plant  with- 
out having  gone  through  a  lot  of  planning,  and  then 
in  the  final  stages  the  requests  come  across  our 
desks.  What  can  we  do?  It  is  going  to  take  some 
time. 

Comment:  The  Forest  Service  is  developing  a  policy 
now  that  would  require  all  external  organizations 
proposing  projects  on  Forest  Service  land  to  hire  a 
professional  botanist  to  inspect  the  project  for  T/E 
species,  so  we'll  get  a  lot  of  these  covered  in  that 
way. 

Q.  Does  the  cultivation  of  plants  and  plant  planning 
hold  a  better  opportunity  than  we  have  experienced 
with  animals? 

A.  Sometimes  it  does.  Janice  Beetley  brought  in  some 
seeds  oi  Arctomecon,  and  she  succeeded  in  germinat- 
ing them  but  they  never  flowered  for  her.  We  know 
that  is  a  genus  where  transplanting  is  an  impossibi- 
lity. It  surprises  me  because  so  many  members  of  the 
poppy  family  can  be  grown  from  cuttings,  but  this 
particular  one  defies  that.  I  used  to  think  I  could 
grow  anything  if  I  knew  the  right  witchcraft,  but 
I've  discovered  there  are  all  degrees  of  absolute  suc- 
cess, to  the  point  where  you  have  weeds  coming 
along  in  your  garden  to  the  point  of  absolute  failure 
on  the  other  end.  In  my  years  of  experience  with  na- 
tive plants,  I  could  plug  in  something  all  along  the 
wav  so  that  I  would  go  imperceptibly  from  complete 
success  to  failure. 

Comment:  A  comment  really  to  the  gentleman's  earlier 
comment.  I  believe  there  are  a  growing  number  of 
industrial  concerns  who  recognize  the  problem  of 
endangered  species  to  the  point  that  they  would 
much  rather  incorporate  biological  knowledge  ear- 
lier in  the  planning  process  than  face  litigation  later 
on.  In  this  way  I  think  there  is  progress  being  made 
in  this  area. 

A.  I'm  sure  there  is.  I  think  that  is  one  of  the  good 
things  about  some  of  the  problems  we've  had  along 
the  way  that  these  people  have  discovered.  As  they 
begin  to  plan,  this  is  one  part  that  has  to  be  in  the 
planning  stages  right  from  the  very  beginning.  I 
think  there  were  references  to  that  in  talks  we  heard 
yesterday.  People  are  beginning  to  come  to  some  of 
these  agencies,  and  Doug  Day  has  had  several 
people  come  to  him  and  ask  for  help  as  they  were 
beginning  to  plan  a  study.  I  think  we  are  going  to 
have  more  of  that  to  a  point  where  I  hope  that  final- 
ly we  can  get  the  public  on  our  side.  It's  going  to  be 
a  long  education,  but  every  day  when  I  pick  up 
newspapers  now  I  read  articles  by  different  authors, 
DeLong  and  several  others,  who  are  writing  very 
well-written  essays  on  the  problems  we  are  now  fac- 
ing. 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


99 


Q.  One  thing  I'm  surprised  no  one  has  mentioned.  I'd 
hke  to  know  if  the  Fish  and  WildUfe  Service  has 
contacted  either  BYU  or  the  Intermountain  Herba- 
rium. \t  the  present  time  Stan  Welsh  has  com- 
puterized all  the  herbaria  for  Colorado,  Wyoming, 
North  Canada,  and  North  Dakota.  Listed  in  their 
computer  program  is  every  sample  surveyed  of  those 
herbaria.  Any  agency  or  industry  person  interested 
in  developing  a  project  need  simply  place  a  phone 
call  to  Fort  Collins  asking  them  to  print  the  species 
list.  It  has  a  tremendous  option  on  it.  Included  on  it 
are  all  the  rare  and  endangered  species  in  a  specific 
geographic  area  and  I've  heard  nmiors  from  work- 
shops held  in  Fort  Collins  that  they  plan  on  expand- 
ing this.  Have  you  been  contacted  about  that? 

.\.    I  haven't.  Have  you,  Leila  Shultz? 

Comment:  No,  but  I  do  have  a  comment  on  it.  Herbaria 
standardly  have  40  to  70  percent  misidentifications 
and  so,  as  good  as  the  information  is,  it's  nice  to 
have  it  available.  But  if  you  want  lots  of  mis- 
information you  can  get  it  quick. 

A.  Yes,  there  are  so  many  people  who  will  look  at  a  her- 
barium label  and  the  identification  on  that  becomes 
the  gospel  truth.  We  know.  We  get  plants  from  oth- 
er institutions  that  are  not  even  in  the  right  genus, 
and  sometimes  the  species  is  a  long  ways  away  (but 
not  from  the  BYU).  We're  glad  we  have  such  good 
working  relationships  with  all  universities. 

Comment:  I  have  talked  to  Colorado  State  about  possi- 
bly getting  on  this  sytem,  and,  although  there  are 


misidentifications,  I  think,  where  you  have  the  com- 
puter printout,  if  something  comes  out  in  the  distri- 
bution very  different  from  what  you  expect,  it  comes 
to  your  attention  in  a  hurry.  I  think  there  is  good  po- 
tential in  it. 

\.  I  was  trying  to  get  Leila's  attention  because  for  the 
last  several  years  she  has  been  listed  as  the  assistant 
curator,  but  I'll  have  you  all  know  that  she  is  the 
curator.  She's  done  it  all  and  I've  been  happy,  but 
sometimes  it  has  given  her  more  than  a  person  ought 
to  carry. 

Comment:  I  have  one  comment  here.  Perhaps  the  infor- 
mation or  the  lack  of  information  here  with  regard 
to  the  private  industries  approach  to  endangered 
and  threatened  plants  needs  to  be  traded.  Until  now 
it  hasn't  been,  so  I  will  take  it  upon  myself  to  give 
you  my  own  professional  view  of  it  with  regard  to 
the  private  industries  I  have  dealt  with.  Private  in- 
dustry is  willing  to  cooperate  with  the  endangered 
species  program.  They  do  not  wish  to  interdict  any 
of  the  endangered  or  threatened  species.  They  are 
willing  to  do  what  is  necessary  in  order  that  they 
may  fall  in  place,  but  they  do  need  to  be  able  to  sur- 
vive the  regulations  so  that  they  can  carry  on  their 
businesses.  The  problem  arises  though,  not  with  the 
private  industries,  but  with  the  general  public.  The 
general  public  is  the  place  where  we  really  need  to 
do  our  education  job  and  not  with  the  private  in- 
dustries. The  private  industries  are  ordinarily  with 
us. 


STRATEGIES  FOR  THE  PRESERVATION  OF  RARE  ANIMALS 

Clayton  M.  White' 


,\bstract.—  Strategies  used  to  enhance  or  help  restore  rare  and  endangered  animal  species  are  reviewed.  No  new 
strategies  are  presented,  but  rather  a  review  of  various  levels  at  which  programs  can  be  initiated  are  indicated. 
Nearly  93  percent  of  the  recognized  endangered  animals  are  vertebrates.  Programs  to  help  restore  vertebrates  can  be 
aimed  at  either  the  habitat  or  the  organism  level.  Habitat  restoration  or  preservation  is  the  more  difficult  to  achieve 
and,  accordingly,  most  strategies  are  aimed  at  the  organism.  Species,  populations,  or  communities  and  ecosystems 
can  be  treated,  but  most  often  each  requires  a  separate  approach.  Among  organisms  the  species  level  attracts  most  of 
the  enhancement  effort  because  species  are  easier  to  understand  and  deal  with.  Numerous  strategies  are  being  tried 
with  species,  and  several  examples,  such  as  the  Aleutian  Canada  goose,  Galapagos  tortoise,  a  wingless  undescribed 
orthropteran,  and  fish  species  requiring  turbid  water,  are  given.  Populations  or  communities  of  animals  are  more 
difficult  to  work  with,  but  some  strategies  such  as  faunal  reserves  are  likely  to  be  successful.  A  table  listing  .39  exam- 
ples of  endangered  species  from  across  the  animal  kingdom,  along  with  the  major  reasons  for  their  declines  and 
currently  working  strategies  or  possible  ones  to  help  them  recover,  is  presented. 


This  report  reviews  strategies  used  to  en- 
hance or  help  restore  rare  or  endangered  ani- 
mal species,  and,  as  such,  the  approaches  are 
clearly  different  than  most  of  the  strategies 
reviewed  by  Holmgren  (this  volume)  for 
plants.  This  report,  however,  is  not  intended 
to  be  an  exhaustive  review  of  all  the  various 
plans,  mechanisms,  or  strategies  that  have 
been  used  with  all  animal  species. 

At  the  outset,  it  must  be  recognized  that 
most  ideas  advanced  thus  far  apply  to  verte- 
brates and  are  not  necessarily  applicable  to 
invertebrates.  In  part,  our  knowledge  of  the 
population  dynamics  of  many  rare  in- 
vertebrates lags  behind  that  of  the  verte- 
brates. As  pointed  out  earlier  by  Lovejoy 
(this  volume),  the  invertebrates  are  also  cur- 
rently treated  administratively  in  a  different 
manner  than  vertebrates.  Those  animals  offi- 
cially recognized  as  rare  or  endangered  by 
federal  or  international  conventiorr  as  of  1 
December  1978  (U.S.  Department  of  the  In- 
terior 1978)  are  in  the  following  categories: 


lammals 

irds 

leptiles 

Jiiphibians 

•ish 

281      Snails                         8 

214      Clams                      25 

68      Crustaceans               1 

16      Insects                        8 

51 

'he  above  total 

to  672  kinds,  plus  there  are 

an  additional  158  kinds  proposed.  Of  those 
listed,  about  74  percent  are  mammals  and 
birds  and  nearly  93  percent  are  vertebrates. 

Before  approaching  the  topic  of  discussion, 
I  think  it  fair  to  conclude  that  endangered 
species  programs  and  concerns  are  mainly 
generated  in  affluent  societies  where  people 
have  the  leisure  time  and  the  monies  to  con- 
sider such  problems  (cf.  Smith  1976).  Roland 
Clement  (this  volume),  however,  ironically 
pointed  out  that  it  is  the  affluent  societies 
themselves  which,  because  of  their  exploitive 
nature,  have  been  the  root  of  the  causes  of 
habitat  destruction  and  thus  species  endan- 
germent.  The  basic  question  seems  to  be 
"What  will  man  as  a  species  tolerate?"  In 
nonaffluent  regions  they  appear  to  tolerate 
considerable,  even  the  loss  of  part  of  their 
faunal  heritage.  Myers  (1971),  in  discussing 
the  preservation  of  fauna  in  Uganda,  has  cor- 
rectly pointed  out  that  the  wildlife  heritage 
of  that  country  is  of  international  concern, 
and  that  the  land  .should  be  developed,  con- 
served, and  managed  in  accordance  with 
sound  ecological  principles.  Sociological  con- 
cerns also  play  an  important  role  in  such  is- 
sues. 

Another  curious  paradox  is  that  the  bald 
eagle  {Haliaeetus  leucocephalus),  which  we 
have  declared  as  part  of  our  heritage  by  af- 


'Department  of  Zoology,  Brigham  Young  University,  Provo,  Utah  84602. 


101 


102 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


fording  it  the  status  of  the  symbol  of  our 
country,  is  endangered.  Similarly  the  quetzal 
{Pharomachriis  mocinno)  is  endangered  in 
Middle  America,  where  it  is  represented  on 
the  coinage  and  is  a  national  symbol  in 
Guatemala  (Lovejoy,  this  volume). 

Levels  of  Organization 

There  are  at  least  two  major  levels  of  or- 
ganization from  which  strategies  for  preser- 
vation have  been  or  can  be  approached, 
namely,  (1)  the  habitat  (environment)  level 
and  (2)  the  organism  level. 

The  only  clear  way  to  preserve  animals  is, 
of  course,  to  preserve  or  maintain  habitat  in 
large  enough  blocks  of  land  to  maintain  the 
species  diversity.  This  leads  basically  to  the 
concept  of  the  "megazoo"  as  developed  by 
Sullivan  and  Shaffer  (1975).  Among  others. 
Diamond  (1975,  1976),  Terborgh  (1974),  and 
Wilson  and  Willis  (1975)  also  discuss  the  hab- 
itat approach  to  organism  preservation  and 
the  strategies  achieved  by  maintaining  signif- 
icantly large  tracts  of  habitat. 

The  habitat  and  the  organism  level  have 
rather  different  approaches.  For  example, 
zoological  gardens  may  be  used  if  simple 
preservation  of  the  rare  or  endangered  ani- 
mal is  desired  (Conway  1967,  1978).  Such 
preservation,  however,  can  be  and  most  fre- 
quently is  independent  of  any  approximation 
of  habitat  because  the  animals  are  simply 
bred  and  maintained  in  cages.  Nonetheless, 
there  are  currently  26  species  of  rare  mam- 
mals that  have  self-sustaining  populations  in 
zoos  (Finder  and  Barkham  1978).  These  rep- 
resent one  species  of  marsupial,  2  primates,  8 
carnivors,  3  perissodactyles,  and  12  arti- 
odactyles.  In  some  cases,  there  may  be  as 
many  or  more  individuals  in  zoos  than  there 
are  in  the  wild.  The  Asiatic  lion  has  96  in 
captivity  and  an  estimated  177  in  the  wild, 
the  Siberian  tiger  has  about  450  in  captivity 
and  perhaps  200  in  the  wild,  and  the  Pere 
David  deer  is  extinct  in  the  wild  but  about 
777  remain  in  captivitv  (Finder  and  Barkham 
1978). 

Before  strategies  for  preservation  can  be 
formulated,  it  is  necessary  to  determine  the 
reasons  for  endangerment  and  that,  in  turn, 
may  lead  to  a  basic  knowledge  of  the  biology 
of  the  animal  to  be  dealt  with  specifically.  It 


is  difficult  to  understand  an  animal's  rareness 
when  we  don't  understand  its  population  dy- 
namics (see  Drury  1974  and  Smith  1976). 
Simon  (1969)  discussed  some  of  this  when  he 
described  the  status  of  86  rare  mammals  in 
33  countries;  examples  follow: 

Feru  — Vicuiia  {Vicagna  vicugna):  infor- 
mation inadequate  and  conflicting, 
field  surveys  needed. 

Brazil  — Thin-spined  porcupine  {Chaet- 
omys  siibspinosiis):  little  known 
about  species  beyond  fact  that 
range  is  restricted,  deforestation 
modifying  habitat,  and  field  stud- 
ies needed. 

Morocco— Barbary  hyaena  {Hyaena  hyaena 
barbara):  status  precarious,  true 
position  obscure,  and  studies 
needed. 

Following  Simon's  (1969)  assessment.  Mill- 
er Rottman,  and  Taber  (1973)  studied  the 
vicufia  in  South  America  and  determined  that 
the  present  stocks  are  occupying  suboptimal 
habitat  and  that  the  carrying  capacity  of  the 
present  available  habitat  (in  terms  of  pre- 
ferred forage  etc.)  is  about  10  times  the  pres- 
ent numbers.  The  current  range  is  less  well 
watered  than  the  optimum  range.  Because 
the  species  need  to  water  daily,  the  answer  to 
improving  the  population  status  seems  to  lie 
in  providing  watering  localities  in  areas 
where  forage  is  adequate  but  no  water  exists. 
Aside  from  habitat  improvement,  hunting  for 
fur  also  needs  to  be  controlled. 

It  is  surprising  how  little  we  know  about 
the  biology  and  evolutionary  dynamics  of 
even  the  most  common  species.  Both  the 
house  sparrow  (Passer  domesticus)  and  Eu- 
ropean tree  sparrow  (Passer  montanus)  were 
introduced  into  the  U.S.  in  the  1850s  and 
1870s,  respectively  (Kendeigh  1973).  The 
house  sparrow  has  become  continent-wide, 
while  the  tree  sparrow  has  remained  in  the 
general  locality  of  St.  Louis,  where  it  was  in- 
troduced. As  a  correlary,  house  and  European 
tree  sparrows  were  also  introduced  into  Aus- 
tralia in  the  1850s  and  1860s,  respectively 
(Frith  1977).  The  former  species  now  covers 
more  than  one-third  of  the  continent,  but  the 
latter  has  expanded  to  a  few  hundred  kilome- 
ters between  Melbourne  and  Sidney.  These 
two  examples  both  suggest  that  on  the  Amer- 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


103 


ican  and  Australian  continents  some  sort  of 
competitive  interaction  or  pressure  which  we 
don't  understand  is  being  exerted  that  is  not 
operative  in  their  native  Eurasian  range.  We 
certainly  do  not  understand  their  behavioral 
interactions. 

If  we  now  turn  to  the  animal  level  as  the 
working  unit,  there  can  be,  once  again,  an  or- 
ganizational breakdown  for  preservation  or 
restoration  as  follows  (the  ecosystem  or  com- 
munity level  approaches  the  concept  of  habi- 
tat preservation  just  mentioned): 

1.  Species  level 

2.  Population  level 

.3.  Community  or  ecosystem  level 


The  Species  Level 

Concern  here  may  center  at  the  local  or 
geographic  population  of  the  species  rather 
than  at  the  species  over  its  total  range.  For 
example,  the  southern  populations  of  the  bald 
eagle,  which  are  endangered,  may  be  of  con- 
siderable importance  in  decision  making,  as 
opposed  the  northwest  and  Alaskan  popu- 
lations, which  are  abundant.  The  peregrine 
falcon  {Faico  peregrinus  tiindrius)  from  arctic 
and  subarctic  regions  is  rare  or  endangered 
over  parts  of  its  range,  but  the  eastern  U.S. 
population  (F.  p.  anattim)  is  extinct.  Strate- 
gies for  preservation  or  restoration  of  the  two 
falcon  populations  are  basically  different. 
The  former  faces  reduction  because  of  chem- 
ical pollutants  along  the  migratory  route  or 
on  its  Latin  American  wintering  grounds 
(White  and  Cade  1977).  Preservation  seem- 
ingly involves  a  land  treatment  practice 
change  in  those  countries.  In  the  case  of  the 
latter,  which  has  already  been  extirpated 
from  its  range,  the  strategy  being  employed 
is  the  reintroduction  of  captive-bred  stocks 
into  its  former  range.  To  help  design  the  ra- 
tionale and  process  necessary  to  effect  a  re- 
covery of  population  numbers,  as  with  the 
falcons  just  mentioned,  and  to  provide  a  fi- 
nancial basis  to  help  accomplish  that  process, 
the  concept  of  the  recovery  plan  (Porter  and 
Marshall  1977,  Marshall  1978)  was  con- 
ceived. 

Concern  may  be  for  the  species  on  its 
breeding  grounds  because  those  breeding 
grounds  may  be  limited  or  localized,  rather 


than  for  the  animal  at  other  times  of  the 
year.  For  example,  the  northern  fur  seal  {Cal- 
lorhinus  ursinus)  breeds  locally  on  the  Pribi- 
lof  Islands,  but  at  other  times  of  the  year  it 
can  be  widespread  in  the  Pacific  Ocean  and 
Bering  Sea.  The  short-tailed  shearwater  {Puf- 
finus  tenuirostris)  is  localized  as  a  breeder  in 
southeastern  coastal  Australia,  but  in  the  non- 
breeding  season  it  is  very  widespread  and 
even  common. 

A  now  common  strategy  at  the  species  lev- 
el is  captive  breeding  or  propagation  for  lat- 
er release  into  the  wild.  The  recent  book  on 
endangered  birds  edited  by  Temple  (1978) 
covers  this  strategy  in  great  detail,  along  with 
numerous  other  species-oriented  strategies. 
Zimmerman  (1975)  has  also  chronicled  sever- 
al of  these  strategies  and  refers  to  what  he 
calls  clinical  ornithology,  or  the  development 
and  implementation  of  techniques  for  specif- 
ic actions. 

Genetic  manipulation  is  a  strategy  not  yet 
fully  explored.  The  rare  Edward's  pheasant 
{Lophura  edwardsii)  is  being  crossed  with  the 
more  common  and  closely  related  look-alike 
Swinhoe's  pheasant  {Lophura  sivinhoii).  The 
F-1  offspring  are  then  Ijackcrossed  with  Ed- 
ward's pheasant  and  so  forth  with  successive 
backcrosses,  each  time  diluting  the  amount  of 
Swinhoe's  genetic  material.  The  design  of 
this  strategy  is  to  genetically  "rebuild"  the 
Edward's  pheasant.  Wilson  and  Willis  (1975) 
carry  this  concept  further  and  suggest  that 
certain  strains  of  animals  might  be  molded 
genetically  to  fit  into  communities  where 
none  now  fit  or  where  one  has  become  ex- 
tinct. 

Genetic  engineering  (cloning,  etc.)  is  also 
now  a  very  real  possibility  for  the  saving  of 
some  animals  by  producing  large  numbers  of 
them  from  a  single  individual.  Such  tech- 
niques, were  they  to  become  developed  to 
the  necessary  extent,  could  save  literally  hun- 
dreds of  dollars  in  the  production  of  costly, 
hard-to-breed  species  .such  as  the  peregrine 
falcon.  On  the  negative  side,  however,  gen- 
etic diversity  would  become  drastically  re- 
duced. 

Foster  parenting  and  cross-fostering  are 
other  species  strategies  that  have  proven  suc- 
cessful with  such  birds  as  falcons  and  the 
whooping  crane  (Grus  americana)  (cf.  Dre- 
wien  and  Bizeau  1978,  Fyfe  et  al.  1978,  and 


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Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


Temple  1978a). 

At  this  time,  some  of  the  strategies  that 
can  be  devised  frequently  have  only  species- 
specific  application.  Beyond  that,  the  real 
need  is  to  design  approaches  and  strategies 
that  will  have  more  general  and  widespread 
application,  where  several  species  may  fit  un- 
der the  same  program  in  an  effort  to  reduce 
the  financial  burden.  A  list  of  some  species, 
the  cause  for  endangerment,  and  strategies 
projected  to  reduce  their  endangerment  is 
given  in  Table  1. 

The  Population  Level 

At  this  level  we  must  first  determine  what 
the  critical  or  effective  breeding  size  of  the 


population  really  is.  Knowledge  of  that  pa- 
rameter may  alter  the  approach  used  to  help 
the  population.  It  has  been  suggested  that  the 
Laysan  duck  {Anas  laijsanensis)  was  reduced 
to  but  one  pair,  and  from  there  the  popu- 
lation has  rebounded  to  a  self-sustaining  wild 
population  plus  several  score  in  captivity. 
The  Mauritius  kestrel  {Falco  punctatus)  re- 
bounded from  4  individuals  in  the  wild  in 
1973  to  12  in  1976  after  they  adopted  a  new 
nesting  habitat  free  from  maurading  monkeys 
(Temple  1978b).  Populations  reduced  to  such 
low  levels  may  be  subject  to  the  in- 
corporation of  genetic  weakness,  as  suggested 
by  Bonnell  and  Selander  (1974)  in  their  study 
of  the  elephant  seal  {Mirounga  angustriostris). 
Populations   that  have   not  been   reduced 


Table  1.  Examples  of  rare  or  endangered  taxa  showing  known  or  probable  major  contributory  causes  of  endan- 
germent and  possible  or  currently  working  strategies  for  preservation  or  trend  reversal.  There  may  be  multiple 
causes  or  strategies,  but  only  those  that  are  seemingly  the  major  contributors  are  given.  This  table  is  meant  solely  to 
provide  examples  of  the  array  of  strategies  and  is  not  intended  to  be  complete. 


Cause  of  endangerment 


Strategy  for  preservation 


California  Condor 

{Gijmnogyps  califomianus) 

Puerto  Rican  Parrot 

{Amazona  vittata) 

Aye-Aye 

{Daiibentonia  madagascariensis) 

Malagasy  lemurs 
(Lemuridae) 

Night  Parrot 

(Geopsittlacus  occidentalis) 

Ground  Parrot 

{Pezoporus  ivalliciis) 

Houston  Toad 

{Bttfo  houstonensis) 

Western  Swamp-turtle 
(Pseitdemydiira  umhrina) 

Noisy  Scrub-bird 

(AtrichoJirnis  clamosus) 

Hawaiian  Stilt 

{liimantopiis  mexiranus 
knudsoni) 

Socorro  Isopod 

{Exosphaeroma  tlunnophiluni) 


Masked  bobwhite 

{Coliniis  virginiantis  ridgwaiji) 

Black  Robin 

{Petroica  traversi) 


Loss  of  habitat  and  food  base, 
disturbance,  perhaps  pesticides 

Predation,  over-exploitation,  loss  of 
habitat 

Habitat  loss 

Habitat  loss  and  persecution 

Habitat  loss 

Habitat  loss 

Habitat  loss 

Habitat  loss 

Habitat  loss 

Restricted  habitat  with  habitat  loss 

Restricted  habitat  with  habitat  loss 

Habitat  loss  or  alteration 
Habitat  loss  or  alteration 


Habitat  purchase  for  preserves, 
supplemental  feeding,  captive 
breeding 

Preserves,  altered  nesting 
conditions 

Habitat  reserves 

Habitat  reserves 

Habitat  reserves 

Habitat  reserves 

Habitat  reserves 

Protected  habitat  reserves,  captive 
breeding  colonies 

Protected  habitat  reserves 

Habitat  acquisition  and 
preservation 

Maintenance  of  water  levels, 
maintenance  of  artificial  habitat, 
reestablishment  into  natural 
habitat 

Reintroduction  into  habitat 
reserves 

Reintroduction  into  habitat 
reserves 


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The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


105 


Red  Wolf 
{Cunis  nifus) 

Palila 

(Psittirostra  baillciii) 

Hairy-nosed  Wombat 
{Lasiorhin us  krefftii) 

Bridled  Nail-tailed  Wallaby 
{Omjchogalea  fraenaUt) 

P;ilinimp  Killifish 
(Einpctriclithys  latos) 

Pupfish 

(Cijprinodon  sp.) 

Stock  Island  Tree  Snail 
{Ortlialicus  reses) 

Callippe  Silverspot  Butterfly 
(Speijeria  callippe) 

Cranes 
(Gniidae) 

Whooping  Crane 
{Grits  amehcana) 

Bermuda  Petrel 
{Pterodroma  cahow) 

Giant  Pied-billed  Grebe 
(Podihjmhiis  gigas) 

Utah  Prairie  Dog 
{Cynomijs  parcideiis) 

Hawaiian  Goose 

(Branta  sandvicensis) 

Kirtland  Warbler 
(Dendroica  kirthindi) 

Sea  turtles 

(Cheloniidae  and 
Dennachelyidae) 

Whales 
(Cetacea) 

Black-footed  Ferret 
[Mustelo  nigripes) 

jaguar 

[Panthera  onca) 

Bald  niis 

(Gewnticus  cremita) 

Giant  Otter 

(Pteronura  I)nisiliensis) 

Ryuku  Rabbit 

(Pentalogiis  furnessi) 

South  American  River  Turtle 
(Podocnemis  expansa) 

Golden  Frog 

[Atelopus  varius  zeteki) 

Peregrine  Falcon 

[Falco  peregiinus  anatum) 

Arabian  Oryx 
(Ori/.r  leuconjx) 


Habitat  alteration  followed  bv 
hybridization 

Habitat  loss  and  competition 

Habitat  loss  and  competition 

Habitat  loss  and  introduced 
predators 

Restricted  habitat,  habitat  loss,  and 
introduced  competitors 

Restricted  habitat,  habitat  loss,  and 
introduced  competitors 

Habitat  loss  or  alteration  becavise 
of  commercial  development 

Habitat  loss  or  alteration  because 
of  commercial  development 

Winter  habitat  loss 

Habitat  loss,  over-exploitation 


Introduced  and  other  predators, 
over-exploitation 

Hunting,  introduced  predators, 
habitat  loss 

Over-exploitation,  habitat  loss 


Habitat  loss,  over-exploitation, 
introduced  predators 

Relict,  limited  habitat,  habitat 
alteration,  nest  parasites 

Commercial  and  other  over- 
exploitation,  habitat  loss 

Over-exploitation 

Loss  of  prey  base,  direct 
exploitation 

Over-e;xploitation,  persecution  for 
pelts 

Precise  causes  unknown,  direct 
persecution? 

Persecution  for  pelt 
Predators,  overliunting 
Persecution  for  food 
Collecting 
Chemical  pollutants 
Overhunting 


Secured  habitat  without  related 
can  ids 

Elimination  of  competitors  from 
reserves 

Establishment  of  additional 
colonies  in  protected  areas 

Protected  reserves 

Managed  habitat  reserves 

Managed  habitat  reserves 

Protected  reserves 

Protected  reserves 

Reserves,  artificial  feeding  stations 

Manipulated  nesting  biology,  cross- 
fostering  young,  captive  rearing 

Habitat  preservation,  nest  site 
modification 

Habitat  preservation 

Relocation,  habitat  preservation, 
legal  protection 

Reintroduction  into  habitat 
preserves;  captive  breeding 

Manage  reserves,  reduce  parasites 


Legal  protection,  captive  rearing 
reintroduction 


Legal  protection 

Habitat  and  prey  base 
preservation,  reintroduction 

Legal  protection  from  hunting 

Alteration  and  preservation  of 
nesting  substratum 

Legal  protection  from  hunting 

Maintenance  of  reserves, 
elimination  of  stray  dogs 

Legal  protection 

Legal  protection 

Captive  breeding  and 
reintroduction 

Captive  breeding  and 
reintroduction,  preserves 


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Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


below  that  effective  size  for  self-mainte- 
nance, although  there  may  be  few  individ- 
uals, can  probably  be  maintained  within 
large  patches  of  habitat  or  natural  reserves 
(Diamond  1975,  Terborg  1974). 

Unfortunately,  natural  reserves  often  end 
up  being  national  parks  and  the  like.  When 
national  parks  are  relegated  to  unused  por- 
tions of  land  or  are  built  around  scenic  at- 
tractions, they  may  fail  to  preserve  animals  in 
the  manner  needed.  Pickett  and  Thompson 
(1978)  have  designed  reserve  concepts  based 
on  a  "minimum  dynamic  area"  or  what  they 
also  call  "patch  dynamics"  wherein  reserves 
must  be  large  enough  to  maintain  internal  re- 
colonization  sources  (cf.  Lovejoy's  comments, 
this  volume,  on  minimum  critical  size  of  eco- 
systems). Such  a  reserve  would  be  in  effect 
sort  of  a  megazoo.  These  areas  should  have 
the  following  properties:  (1)  large,  (2)  circu- 
lar, (3)  undivided  or,  if  divided,  connected  by 
corridors,  and  (4)  close  to  one  another.  Figure 
1  depicts  a  schematic  drawing  of  such  re- 
serves and  is  based  on  Diamond  (1976)  and 
Wilson  and  Willis  (1975).  Notice  that  nation- 
al parks  or  monuments  seldom  have  these  cri- 
teria. Hence,  such  reserves  must  be  set  aside 
specifically  for  the  saving  of  certain  popu- 
lations or  groups  of  species.  In  dealing  with 
this  approach  in  tropical  rain  forest  in- 
vertebrates, Elton  (1975)  has  concluded  that 
these  reserves  must  be  very  large  indeed  to 
insure  success  (self-sustaining  populations) 
within  these  forests,  because  the  organisms 
are  at  such  low  densities. 

The  Community  or  Ecosystem  Level 

The  final  level  at  which  strategies  can  be 
aimed  is  the  community  or  ecosystem  level. 
This  is  probably  the  level  at  which  deteriora- 
tion that  eventually  leads  to  endangerment 
generally  first  starts.  King  (1978),  for  ex- 
ample, shows  that  65.3  percent  of  the  cases 
of  the  rare  or  endangered  birds  is  caused  by 
ecosystem  (habitat)  destruction. 

It  is  at  the  ecosystem  level  that  ecological 
engineering  may  be  effective.  Wilson  and 
Willis  (1975)  discuss  the  orphan  species,  or 
those  organisms  on  the  brink  of  extinction  in 
their  native  range  but  capable  of  being  fitted, 
in  the  ecological  sense,  into  certain  alien 
communities.   Such  "fittings"  have  manipu- 


lative overtones  characteristic  of  ecological 
engineering.  An  example  of  such  a  fitting 
through  transplanting  of  a  species,  but  not  a 
true  orphan  species  {sensu  stricto)  in  the  con- 
text of  Wilson  and  Willis,  comes  to  mind 
when  thinking  of  the  Norfolk  Island  parrot 
{Cyanoramphiis  novaezelandiae  cookii).  This 
population  is  unique  to  Norfolk  Island,  where 
some  40  or  so  remain  (J.  M.  Forshaw,  pers. 
comm.).  A  closely  allied  population  did  occur 
on  Lord  Howe  Island,  but  was  eliminated  by 
persecution  from  early  residents  of  the  island 
(both  islands  are  in  the  Tasman  Sea  between 
New  Zealand  and  Australia).  Here  then,  on 
Lord  Howe,  an  appropriate  habitat  exists  in- 
tact but  there  is  no  parrot  to  fill  it.  The  prob- 
lem of  endangerment  on  Norfolk  is  the  result 
of  the  introduction  of  another  parrot,  the 
crimson  rosella  {Platycercus  elegans),  an  ag- 
gressive, competitive  species  that  is  dis- 
placing the  Norfolk  Island  parrot.  A  seem- 
ingly workable  strategy  is  to  transplant  the 
Norfolk  birds  to  Lord  Howe  Island,  where 
they  are  free  from  another  competitive  par- 
rot and  in  a  habitat  similar  to  the  one  from 
which  they  were  taken. 

Spellerberg  (1975)  has  worked  with  the 
three  snakes  and  three  lizards  in  Britain  (es- 
sentially the  entire  British  reptilian  fauna), 
where  they  are  being  threatened  by  the  loss 
of  habitat  to  land  development  or  by  man- 
caused  fires.  By  examining  their  behavior  and 
ecological  physiology,  he  concludes  that  the 
strategy  best  suited  to  the  saving  of  these  spe- 
cies is  the  reconstruction  of  islands  of  habitat 
into  which  the  entire  reptilian  communities 
can  be  relocated. 

Holt  and  Talbot  (1978)  and  Wagner  (1977) 
have  described  the  value  of  ecosystem  man- 
agement rather  than  species  management. 
Holt  and  Talbot  suggest  that  when  manage- 
ment is  for  single  stocks  or  species  it  is  often 
done  so  to  the  exclusion  of  a  knowledge  of: 

1.  Relationships  within  trophic  levels 

2.  Relationships  between  trophic  levels 

3.  Impact  on  symbiotic  or  commensal 
relationships 

4.  Changes  in  carrying  capacity  due  to 
factors  such  as  climate,  pollution,  or 
other  human  influences 

Regardless  of  the  level  at  which  one  wishes 
to  approach  a  given  strategy,  much  of  what 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


107 


BETTER 


WORSE 


g    o  o  o   o 


B 


c? 


o°o 


o°  O 

Fig  1  The  conceptual  design  of  faunal  reserves.  These  configurations  are  based  on  current  theory  of  biogeo. 
gra^h'y  as  IlatiTo  aL  of  habLt,  extinction,  and  recolonization  rates.  A  a  ^f^--J^;^^^T::^Z 
peninsular  effect  of  a  long,  narrow  one.  B:  closely  clumped  reserves  are  better  because  of  d'^^'^^^.^^f^^*  ,^^^;7'^^- 
connected  by  corridors  of  habitat  are  better  than  disconnected  ones.  D^a  cont.nuous  --^^  ^  ^^J^^,;*^-  ^^^^^^^f 
mented  one  because  of  the  effect  of  area.  (These  data  are  modified  from  Diamond  1976  and  W.lson  and  W.ll.s  1975). 


108 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


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is  done  will  depend  on  whether  the  goal  is  to 
preserve  or  protect  the  animal  or  to  restore 
it,  or  whether  the  treatment  is  aimed  at  the 
proximal  or  the  ultimate  cause  of  endan- 
germent.  Many  of  the  federal  or  international 
acts  and  conventions  are  in  reality  strategies 
that  function  in  providing  a  certain  level  of 
protection  until  a  plan  to  aid  the  species  in 
whatever  way  necessary  can  be  enacted 
(Schreiner  and  Ruhr  1974,  Schreiner  and  Se- 
necal  1978). 

With  the  higher  vertebrates  most  of  the 
endangered  forms  have  biological  character- 
istics of  a  K-selected  rather  than  an  R-se- 
lected  species  (Pianka  1970)  and  are,  also,  ei- 
ther plagued  with  reduced  survivorship  or 
reduced  fecundity.  These  parameters  were 
among  those  considered  by  Adamus  and 
Clough  (1978),  Ramsay  (1976),  and  Sparrowe 
and  Wight  (1975)  in  evaluating  species  or  set- 
ting priorities  for  the  inclusion  of  species  into 
reserves  or  natural  areas  or  for  program  man- 
agement. The  priorities  were  given  to  ani- 
mals based  on  such  species  characteristics 
and  properties  as  (1)  suitability  (mobility, 
area  size  needs,  etc.)  or  (2)  desirability  (scar- 
city, endemicity,  vulnerability,  etc.).  Ramsay 
(1976)  has  suggested  that,  regardless  of 
whether  the  problem  is  approached  through 
environment  (eco-unit),  preservation,  or  the 
maintenance  of  species  diversity,  a  priority 
system  at  the  species  level,  based  on  econom- 
ic, biological,  or  cultural  and  aesthetic  values 
can  be  developed. 

Specific  Strategies 

Let  me  now  cite  a  few  specific  examples 
where  a  given  strategy  has  been  employed  or 
can  be  clearly  viewed  as  the  means  to  em- 
ploy. The  examples  will  apply  to  the  species 
level  because  most  of  the  knowledge  is  there 
and  the  problems  at  the  population,  commu- 
nity, or  ecosystem  level  are  just  now  being 
approached.  These  are  also  selected  strate- 
gies with  simple  approaches. 

Example  1.:  Introduced  predator  or  com- 
petition from  domestic  live- 
stock as  a  major  cause  of  en- 
dangerment. 

The  plains  wanderer  (Pedionomus  tor- 
quatus),  pig-footed  bandicoot  {Chaeropus 


ecoudatiis),  and  grass  owl  {Tyto  long- 
imembris)  in  Australia;  Aleutian  Canada 
goose  {Branta  canadensis  lencopareia)  in 
North  America;  and  the  Galapagos  tortoise 
{Geochelone  elephatopiis)  are  some  examples 
of  these.  In  the  case  of  the  Aleutian  goose, 
the  artic  fox  {Alopex  lagopus)  introduced  onto 
the  islands  nearly  brought  about  the  goose's 
total  demise  by  its  predation  (Springer  et  al. 
1978).  The  foxes  were  eliminated  from  sever- 
al islands  and  captive-bred  geese  (from  the 
single  wild-breeding  population  rediscovered 
in  the  early  1960s  on  Buldir  Island,  where 
about  500  pairs  breed)  were  then  trans- 
planted back  onto  the  islands  where  fox  had 
been  removed.  The  major  obstacle  now 
seems  to  be  the  geese  being  able  to  make  a 
successful  migration  from  their  breeding 
grounds  to  their  California  wintering  grounds 
and  back  to  the  Aleutians.  The  success  of  this 
plan  remains  yet  to  be  achieved.  It  is  of  inter- 
est that  during  the  decades  between  the 
1930s  and  the  1970s  the  goose  was  shot  on  its 
wintering  grounds,  and  yet  the  Buldir  Island 
population  appears  to  be  at  carrying  capaci- 
ty. Total  protection  may  produce  some  inter- 
esting changes  in  the  nonbreeding  population 
structure,  although  all  of  this  remains  to  be 
documented  over  the  next  decade  or  so. 

The  Galapagos  tortoises  on  Hood  Island 
were  reduced  to  one  male  and  5  or  6  females 
by  introduced  rats  {Rattus  sp.)  that  ate  young 
and  feral  goats  {Capra  sp.)  that  destroyed  the 
tortoises  vegetative  food  sources  (Michael 
Harris,  pers.  comm.,  1978).  All  the  adults 
were  taken  into  captivity  and  about  100 
young  tortoises  were  raised.  Goats  have  now 
been  removed  from  Hood  Island  (M.  Harris, 
pers.  comm.)  and  the  tortoises'  food  supply 
appears  to  be  coming  back.  Once  the  young 
tortoises  reach  about  four  years  of  age  they 
are  large  enough  to  be  released  and  rats  will 
not  depredate  them.  Because  the  tortoises  do 
not  breed  until  about  40-60  years  of  age, 
there  will  be  time  to  work  on  the  problem  of 
eliminating  the  introduced  rats.  Apparently 
there  have  been  no  young  tortoises  raised  this 
century  on  Duncan  Island  because  of  rat  pre- 
dation (M.  Harris,  pers.  comm.). 

In  Australia  there  is  a  wingless,  undes- 
cribed  orthropteran  called  P-42  (Key,  1978) 
that  survives  in  only  six  localized  areas  of 
lightly  grazed  pastures.  There  they  are  asso- 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


109 


ciated  with  one  of  the  native  composite 
plants  of  the  genus  Helichnjsum.  This  com- 
posite is  ehminated  by  heavy  Hvestock  graz- 
ing. The  apparent  strategy  is  a  simple  one  of 
controlling  or  eliminating  grazing  from  these 
localities.  If  some  of  these  localities  are  on 
Crown  Lands,  the  task  of  controlling  grazing 
will  be  made  easier. 

Most  populations  on  islands  (either  habitat 
or  geographic  islands)  can  be  protected  by 
simply  controlling  the  introduction  of  pre- 
dators or  by  eliminating  them  from  islands 
where  they  have  previously  been  introduced. 
Many  of  the  examples  in  Table  1  fall  into  this 
category. 

Example  2.:  Major  habitat  alterations  or 
losses  as  a  principal  cause  of 
endangerment. 

A  prime  example  in  such  a  case  can  be 
seen  in  the  bony-tail  chub  {Gila  elegans),  ra- 
zor-back sucker  {Xijmuchen  texanus),  and 
Colorado  squawfish  {Ptychocheihis  hicius)  in 
the  Colorado  River.  The  construction  of 
dams  or  direct  use  of  the  water  by  man  has 
caused  at  least  two  major  classes  of  change, 
namely,  (1)  alterations  of  natural  water  cycles 
(dam,  dewatering,  stream  flow  changes,  etc.) 
and  (2)  water  quality  changes  (silt  loads,  tem- 
perature, pollution,  etc.)  (Seethaler  1978, 
Minckley  1973).  The  introduction  of  exotic 
fishes  may  also  have  helped  to  reduce  these 
species  to  critical  levels.  Breeding  cycles, 
correlated  with  such  parameters  as  silt  loads, 
stream  bottom  morphology,  and  temper- 
ature, have  been  reduced  or  eliminated  and, 
although  attempts  at  spawning  by  the  chub 
and  squawfish  are  observed,  juveniles  are  in- 
frequent or  lacking.  A  nice  correlary  exists 
with  the  Macquarie  perch  {Maequoria  aiis- 
tralasica),  trout  cod  (Maccullochella  mit- 
chelli),  and  Murray  cod  {Maccullochella  mac- 
quariensis)  of  the  Murray-Darling  river 
system  in  Australia.  These  fish  need  high  silt 
loads,  flooding,  and  fluctuating  river  condi- 
tions, as  are  common  with  spring  rains,  to  in- 
itiate spawning  (Lake  1971).  Dams  and  reser- 
voirs have  flattened  out  fluctuations  and 
lowered  silt  loads.  On  one  portion  of  the  riv- 
er there  has  been  no  flooding  since  1939  be- 
cause of  dams  (Roughley  1951).  The  fisheries 
industry  and  introduced  European  carp 
{Cyprinus  cai-pio)  have  also  had  their  impact 


on  reducing  these  species.  One  solution  to 
this  problem  in  both  North  America  and  Aus- 
tralia is  to  introduce  these  species  into 
streams  with  the  neces.sary  parameters  where 
dams  do  not  occur.  Currently,  of  about  50 
species  of  Australian  fresh  water  fishes  (most 
are  endemic),  about  one-third  are  endangered 
or  threatened,  many  because  of  man-caused 
changes  in  water  conditions  (Lake  1971). 

The  above  examples  tend  to  be  very 
straightforward  causes  of  endangerment,  and 
in  some  cases  the  solution  to  alleviating  the 
problems  is  rather  simple.  Most  frequently, 
however,  there  are  not  single  but  multiple 
causes  of  endangerment.  These  have  no  easy 
or  readily  obvious  workable  strategies  for  sol- 
ving the  problem.  The  Higgins  eye  mussel 
{Lampsilis  higginsi)  of  the  Mississippi  River 
system  is  an  example  wherein  at  least  the  fol- 
lowing six  factors  have  a  measurable  adverse 
impact: 

1.  Excessive  commercial  exploitation 

2.  Water  quality  degradation  (industrial 
wastes,  pesticide  run  off,  etc.) 

3.  Increased  siltation  and  turbidity 

4.  Dredging 

5.  The  effective  impact  of  exotic  clams 
which  dislodge  the  Higgins  eye  from  at- 
tachment locations 

6.  Possible  reduction  of  host  fish  species 
for  larvae 

As  a  final  statement,  perhaps  the  most  im- 
portant and  critical  strategy  at  this  stage  is  to 
engage  young,  innovative  minds  in  determin- 
ing quickly  and  efficiently  what  the  problems 
are,  wed  the  multiple  interests  and  groups 
into  a  common  cause,  decide  what  the  prior- 
ities should  be,  and  solve  the  specific  prob- 
lem at  a  minimum  effective  financial  cost. 
Something  as  simple  as  convincing  the  Aus- 
tralian farmer  that  dead  snags  of  the  river  red 
gum  {Eucalyptus  camaldulensis)  do  not  take 
up  significant  space  and  that  he  should  leave 
them  in  his  field  may  be  all  that  is  needed. 
These  trees  contain  many  cavities  and  pro- 
vide nesting  places  for  a  myriad  of  species. 
That  one  simple  judgement,  not  to  burn 
down  the  dead  tree,  may  have  far-reaching 
impact.  Ramsay  (1967)  has  rightly  pointed 
out  that  our  judgments  must  be  preceded  by 
as  much  forethought  and  rationality  as  pos- 
sible because  developing  priorities  for  preser- 


110 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


vation  decisions  favors  an  analysis  of  species 
from  the  viewpoint  of  human  values.  These 
values  may  indeed  not  be  the  critical  ones  for 
the  integrity  of  a  healthy  ecosystem.  None- 
theless, some  value  judgements  (Myers  1976 
and  Holliday  1978)  as  to  the  worth  of  species 
and  man's  stewardship  must  be  the  first  step 
in  the  long  and  never-ending  process  of 
maintaining  a  diverse  ecosystem. 

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RARE  SPECIES  AS  EXAMPLES  OF  PLANT  EVOLUTION 

G.  Ledyaid  Stebbins' 

.\bstract.-  Rare  species,  including  endangered  ones,  can  be  very  valuable  sources  of  information  about  evolution- 
arv  processes.  They  may  be  rare  and  valuable  because:  (1)  they  are  evolutionary  youngsters  and  could  represent  an 
entirelv  new  evolutionary  strategy  of  great  scientific  and  practical  value;  (2)  they  are  evolutionary  relicts  that  have 
stored  enormous  amounts  of  genetic  information  of  great  worth;  (3)  they  may  represent  endemic  varieties  that  har- 
bor a  great  deal  of  the  genetic  variability  in  the  gene  pool  that  would  be  of  enormous  value  to  a  plant  geneticist;  the 
rarity  of  the  plant  is  not  necessarily  correlated  with  the  size  of  its  gene  pool;  (4)  they  may  represent  unique  ecologi- 
cal adaptations  of  great  value  to  future  generations.  Studies  of  gene  pools  and  the  genetics  of  adaptation  constitute  a 
new  and  developing  field  of  the  future. 


This  morning  I'm  talking  about  a  some- 
what different  topic  than  yesterday  evening 
and  one  more  in  hne  with  my  usual  interest 
because,  as  many  of  you  know,  I  am  primari- 
ly an  evolutionist.  The  theme  that  I  would 
like  to  develop  is  that  rare  species,  including 
the  endangered  ones,  can  be  very  valuable 
.sources  of  information  about  evolutionary 
processes.  To  illustrate  that  theme,  I  am  go- 
ing to  give  you  examples  of  four  alternative, 
but  not  mutually  exclusive,  theories  that  have 
been  suggested  for  the  reason  that  species  are 
rare.  One  of  the  oldest,  which  was  cham- 
pioned in  the  early  part  of  the  20th  century 
by  J.  C.  Willis,  was  that  the  rare  endemic 
species  were  youngsters.  They  appeared  on 
the  earth  recently  and  haven't  had  time  to 
spread.  He  wrote  a  whole  book  on  the  sub- 
ject, which  he  called  Age  and  Area.  I  first 
heard  of  that  book  from  my  systematics  pro- 
fessor, M.  L.  Fernald,  who  was  very  much  in- 
terested in  rare  species.  He  regarded  them  as 
senescent  relics,  and  strongly  opposed  Wil- 
lis's theory.  However,  Willis  was  partly  cor- 
rect. We  have  perhaps  more  direct  evidence 
of  this  than  for  any  other  hypotheses.  This  is 
expected,  because  the  origin  of  some  new 
species  would  be  recent  enough  that  we 
would  know  when  it  appeared.  A  now  classic 
example  is  that  presented  by  the  late  Marion 
Ownbey,  of  Washington  State  University, 
with  respect  to  the  goatsbeard  genus,  Trag- 
opogon. 


Projected  on  the  screen  is  a  chart  which 
Ownbey  put  in  the  American  Journal  of  Bot- 
any in  1950.  The  three  species  which  are  list- 
ed all  have  the  chromosome  number  2n=  12. 
They  are  well-known  European  plants  in- 
troduced as  weeds  into  North  America. 
There  are  no  species  of  Tragopogon  in  the 
Old  World  that  have  chromosome  numbers 
higher  than  2n=12  and  n  =  6.  However,  in 
the  backyards  and  railroad  yards  around  Pull- 
man, Washington,  Ownbey  found  two  differ- 
ent entities  having  24  chromosomes,  twice 
the  number  of  all  the  others  in  the  genus.  By 
a  series  of  ingenious  hybridizations  and  analy- 
ses of  chromosomes,  he  established  without 
doubt  that  one  of  them,  described  as  a  new 
species,  T.  miscellus,  was  derived  from  hy- 
bridizations between  T.  ditbius  and  T.  pra- 
tensis.  Its  chromosome  number  has  been 
doubled  either  before  or  after  the  initial 
hybridization,  giving  us  a  stable  intermediate, 
a  principle  long  known  to  geneticists.  A  sec- 
ond species,  T.  minis,  has  originated  in  the 
same  way  from  a  cross  between  T.  porrifoUus 
and  T.  duhius.  Because  T.  dubiiis  did  not  ex- 
ist in  western  North  America  before  about 
the  1890s,  the  age  of  these  two  species  when 
he  first  found  them  was  not  more  than  a  half 
century.  They  now  are  spreading.  They  are 
known  in  one  or  two  places  in  Montana. 
There  is  another  locality  in  Arizona.  They 
are  certainly  not  endangered.  A  hundred 
years  from  now,  they  may  have  become  com- 


artmenl  of  Genetics,  University  of  California.  Davis,  California  ( 


113 


114 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


mon  weeds. 

There  are  other  very  young  examples,  not 
quite  so  young  as  these.  Indirect  evidence 
suggests  that  some  species  have  arisen  since 
the  retreat  of  the  glacial  ice  from  northern 
North  America  and  the  drying  up  of  the  cli- 
mate in  places  like  California  where  the 
Pleistocene  was  a  rainy  or  pluvial  period. 

One  example  is  that  of  three  species  in  the 
genus  Laijia,  or  "tidy  tips,"  an  annual  plant 
of  the  composite  family,  or  Asteraceae.  The 
three  species  involved  are  L.  jonesii,  L.  mun- 
zii,  and  L.  leucopappa.  They  are  very  closely 
related,  on  the  l3order  line  of  becoming  spe- 
cies. They  can  be  hybridized  easily  and  the 
hybrid  is  partly  fertile.  They  are  more  dis- 
tantly related  to  L.  fremontii  and  L.  platij- 
glossa. 

Their  distributions  are  as  follows:  Laijia  jo- 
nesii occurs  near  the  coast  of  south  central 
California,  not  far  from  San  Luis  Obispo; 
Laijia  miinzii  is  found  in  the  small  valleys  of 
the  inner  south  coast  ranges;  and  L.  leuco- 
pappa, in  the  central  valley  of  California,  on 
one  or  two  hillsides  not  far  from  Bakersfield. 
They  are  closely  related  entities  occupying 
neighboring  areas  in  the  same  general  region. 
The  climate  of  this  region  was  drastically 
changed  in  the  Pleistocene.  It  seems  likely 
that  the  splitting  of  these  three  populations 
from  each  other  is  post-Pleistocene,  about  six 
to  eight  thousand  years  ago. 

Layia  miinzii  is  on  the  border  line  of  being 
rare  in  a  dry  season,  but  is  certainly  not  en- 
dangered. Layia  jonesii,  being  on  the  coast, 
might  be  endangered.  Layia  leucopappa,  in 
the  highly  cultivated  central  valley,  definite- 
ly is  endangered.  A  nature  conservancy 
group,  located  in  Bakersfield,  is  very  much 
interested  in  it.  It  occurs  on  a  large  private 
range  area,  the  manager  of  which  says  they 
are  going  to  preserve  it  for  us.  This  is  a  case 
of  a  young  species  which  is  on  the  rare  and 
endangered  list. 

Another  example  of  a  similar  nature  is  a 
species  of  larkspur.  Delphinium  hesperinm  is 
a  common  widespread  species  of  the  oak 
woodlands  in  the  inner  coast  ranges  of  Cali- 
fornia. Delphinium  recurvatum  is  foimd  in 
the  central  valley  and  bottom  lands  and  Del- 
phinium gypsophilum,  as  the  name  implies, 
lives  in  gypsumlike  soil  on  the  hills  bordering 
the  valley.  It  occupies  a  habitat  between  the 


other  two  species.  Delphinium  hesperinm  and 
D.  recurvatum  have  been  crossed.  The  hybrid 
is  partly  fertile  and  looks  like  D.  gypsophi- 
lum. The  interesting  thing  is  that  when  the 
F-1  hybrid  is  crossed  with  native  D.  gyp- 
sophilum it  is  found  to  be  more  compatible 
than  the  cross  with  either  of  its  own  parents. 
This  is  pretty  good  evidence  that  the  native 
D.  gypsophilum  is  derived  from  hybridization 
between  the  two  other  species.  This  again  is 
a  recent  species.  It  is  too  common  to  be  on 
the  rare  and  endangered  list,  but  it  is  cer- 
tainly recent  and  uncommon  relative  to  its 
ancestors. 

An  ancient  species  is  the  California  Big 
Tree,  Sequoiadendron  giganteum.  It  is  con- 
fined to  certain  groves  in  the  Sierra  Nevada 
in  California,  extending  from  Sequoia  Na- 
tional Forest  in  the  south  in  Tulare  County 
into  ever-smaller  groves,  to  a  very  tiny  one  in 
the  northernmost  area  in  Placer  County  to 
the  west  of  Lake  Tahoe.  It  does  not  have  a 
much-restricted  gene  pool.  Horticulturists 
have  found  they  can  extract  various  modifi- 
cations of  it  by  simple  inbreeding.  Daniel  Ax- 
elrod,  with  his  brilliant  studies  of  the  pa- 
leobotany of  western  Nevada,  has  shown  that 
California  Big  Tree  was  very  abundant  in 
Pliocene  forests,  six,  seven,  or  eight  million 
years  ago  in  western  Nevada  when  the  Sierra 
Nevada  didn't  exist  and  the  climate  of  Ne- 
vada, due  to  moist  winds  from  the  ocean,  was 
still  relatively  mesic.  Because  of  the  Pleisto- 
cene changes  in  climate,  it  has  become  re- 
stricted in  two  ways:  (1)  the  elimination  of 
the  stands  to  the  east  of  the  Sierra  Nevada  by 
aridity  and  (2)  the  reduction  of  the  stands  in 
California  by  the  increasing  length  of  the 
rainless  dry  summer.  I  say  this  because  of  re- 
search by  the  late  Woodbridge  Metcalf,  ex- 
tension forester  at  Berkeley.  He  showed  that 
the  big  tree  would  seed  itself  only  in  a  year 
when  the  dry  season  from  May  till  October  is 
shorter  than  usual.  If  it  gets  a  few  of  these 
short  dry  seasons  between  seed  germination 
and  the  time  when  the  trees  are  8-10  years 
old,  then  it  competes  with  sugar  pine,  white 
fir,  and  other  forest  species.  If  young  trees 
are  exposed  to  a  succession  of  normal  dry 
summers,  they  cannot  compete  with  the 
seedlings  of  the  other  species.  This,  then,  is 
an  example  of  an  ancient  species. 

There  are  some  others.  One  of  the  inter- 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


115 


esting  things  that  Professor  Jack  Major  and  I 
worked  out  some  years  ago  is  that  the  con- 
centration of  rare  rehctual  species,  which 
were  more  common  in  the  past,  is  bipolar  in 
Cahfornia.  It  represents  two  elements,  first  a 
northwestern  element  which  is  related  to  the 
Pacific  Northwest  and  Asia.  The  species  in- 
volved are  mainly  trees  or  shrubs  related  to 
holarctic  members  of  the  same  genera.  Exam- 
ples are  the  Weeping  Spruce  {Picea  brewe- 
riana),  which  is  narrowly  restricted  to  this 
area.  The  Sadler  Oak  {Qiiercus  sadleriana)  is 
related  to  the  Chestnut  Oaks  of  the  eastern 
United  States,  and  is  restricted  to  the  Sis- 
kivoii  Mountain  area.  The  Port  Orford  Cy- 
press (Cliamaecijparis  lawsoniana)  is  in  this 
area.  It  contains  several  endemic  species  of 
mesic  genera  like  Vancouveria  and  some  gen- 
era of  the  saxifrage  family. 

In  the  southern  area  occur  rare,  endemic 
species  like  Hesperocallis  of  the  Lily  family, 
the  jojoba  shrub,  Simmondsia,  not  particu- 
larly rare  but  certainly  relictual. 

Bv  contrast,  central  California  contains  en- 
demic species,  which  seem  to  be  new  like 
those  of  ArctostapJnjlos  or  Manzanita,  al- 
ready discussed,  and  other  annuals.  Because 
central  California  has  received  the  greatest 
disturbance  in  relatively  recent  times,  one 
can  get  some  idea  of  whether  a  species  is  re- 
lictual or  not,  both  by  its  taxonomic  affinities 
and  by  the  geographic  areas  in  which  it 
grows. 

An  example  of  an  herbaceous  species  from 
the  northern  relictual  area  is  Darlingtonia 
caUfornica.  It  does  not  have  official  preserva- 
tion that  I  know  of  in  California.  It  should, 
because  it  is  an  attractive  species,  an  insect- 
digesting  pitcher  plant.  Every  high  school  bi- 
ology teacher  wants  one  in  the  classroom, 
and  people  also  like  them  in  their  homes. 
There  is  danger  to  them  from  vandalism.  I 
sometimes  blush  when  I  go  up  the  Oregon 
Coast  Highway  and  see  that  Oregon  has  a 
preserved  area  of  Darlingtonia  labeled  as 
such,  while  California  doesn't. 

The  next  group  of  rare  and  endangered 
species  are  of  an  entirely  different  nature. 
Here,  I  want  to  state  publicly  that  one  of  my 
articles  written  in  1942,  and  often  quoted, 
apparently  is  not  correct.  In  1942,  I  made  the 
speculation  that  rare  and  restricted  species 
would  usually  be  so  because  of  restricted  gen- 


etic diversity.  At  that  time  I  was  influenced 
by  the  work  of  Sewall  Wright  on  inbreeding 
and  its  ramifications,  which  was  very  popular 
at  that  time.  Now  we  have  data  on  restricted 
species  like  Clarkia  franciscana,  which  grows 
in  only  a  single  hillside  in  the  city  of  San 
Francisco  and  which,  as  my  colleague  Leslie 
Gottlieb  has  shown,  has  as  much  biochemical 
variability  in  it  in  terms  of  enzyme  alleles  as 
Clarkia  ruhicunda,  which  is  much  more 
widespread  throughout  the  San  Francisco 
Peninsula.  I  now  reduce  the  category  of  spe- 
cies that  are  rare  because  of  restricted  gene 
pool  to  a  rather  small  one  consisting  of  spe- 
cies that  have  not  only  become  inbred  be- 
cause of  small  population  size,  but,  in  addi- 
tion, because  of  the  shift  from  cross- 
fertilization  to  self-fertilization  or  pre- 
dominant fertilization.  Again,  Leslie  Gottlieb 
has  shown  with  his  work  on  enzyme  varia- 
bility that  in  eastern  Oregon  there  is  a  wide- 
spread species  of  the  composite  genus  Steph- 
anomeria  {Stephanomeria  coronaria),  which 
has  an  enormous  amount  of  genetic  varia- 
bility, but  right  next  to  it  there  is  a  very  re- 
stricted species  along  Malheur  Lake  in  east- 
em  Oregon,  Stephanomeria  malheurensis, 
which  has  very  little  variability.  One  differ- 
ence between  the  species  is  that  S.  coronaria 
is  largely  outcrossed  and  S.  malheurensis  is 
almost  completely  inbred.  The  inbreeding  as 
much  as  the  restriction  in  size  of  the  popu- 
lation and  habitat  was  responsible  for  the  re- 
duction in  size  of  the  gene  pool.  The  same 
situation  exists  in  some  species  of  animals  like 
the  burrowing  rodents  of  the  Middle  East, 
studied  by  several  Israeli  zoologists,  and  cer- 
tain fishes  in  Mexican  caves  which  have  very 
restricted  gene  pools.  One  that  is  rather 
widespread,  the  southern  alligator,  apparent- 
ly has  extremely  low  variability  in  its  gene 
pool.  The  whole  hypothesis  that  there  is  a 
strong  correlation  between  rarities  and  en- 
dangeredness  and  the  size  of  the  gene  pool 
must  be  greatly  modified,  if  not  entirely  re- 
jected. In  my  own  thinking,  I  am  substituting 
the  concept  of  ecological  traps.  Plant  species 
may  be  hemmed  in  by  environments  that  are 
so  different  from  the  ones  in  which  they 
grow  that  they  do  not  have  the  genetic  po- 
tential to  colonize  those  habitats.  Sometimes 
the  "traps"  are  quite  clearly  defined  so  that  I 
call  them  ecological  islands.  Usually  the  soil 


116 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


is  so  different  on  the  islands,  relative  to  that 
of  the  surrounding  islands,  that  the  plants  are 
as  if  they  were  on  an  oceanic  island  sur- 
rounded by  a  sea  of  unfavorable  soil  condi- 
tions. Such  an  island  is  Pine  Hill,  25  miles 
east  of  Sacramento.  It  consists  of  basic  intru- 
sives,  a  very  distinctive  type  of  rock,  sur- 
rounded by  the  various  metamorphic  rocks 
commonly  found  in  the  Sierra  Nevada  foot- 
hills. Interestingly  enough,  this  particular  is- 
land is  believed  to  have  once  been  an  oceanic 
island.  Dr.  Eldredge  Moore  of  our  geology 
department  at  Davis,  in  association  with  the 
new  theory  of  Plate  Tectonics,  points  out 
that  basic  intrusives  are  associated  with  the 
roots  of  volcanos.  The  situation  could  be  ex- 
plained if  the  rocks  now  exposed  at  Pine  Hill 
were  the  roots  of  an  ancient  submarine  vol- 
cano that  arose  in  the  Pacific  Ocean  to  the 
west  of  what  then  was  the  seashore,  but  is 
now  the  eastern  edge  of  the  central  valley. 
Because  of  cnistal  movements,  this  ancient  is- 
land jammed  itself  against  the  older  rocks. 

A  striking  endemic  on  Pine  Hill  is  Fe- 
montodendron  californicum  ssp.  decumhens, 
a  prostrate  shrub  that  bears  highly  distinctive 
copper-colored  flowers. 

Another  ecological  island  is  in  the  area  by 
Monterey  and  Pacific  Grove.  There  are  two 
species  of  rare  endemic  cypresses  of  the  area. 
Neither  of  them  is  in  danger  now,  because 
both  are  preserved.  One  is  the  well-known 
Monterey  cypress  {Ciipres.sus  macrocwpa), 
found  only  on  the  granite  ledges  near  the 
shore.  The  other  is  the  Gowen  cypress,  found 
only  in  the  hard  pan  of  the  raised  beach,  in 
the  interior  of  the  peninsula. 

Monterey  pine  is  confined  to  the  Monterey 
ecological  island  plus  two  others  in  Califor- 
nia, one  50  miles  north,  the  other  120  miles 
south.  There  is  evidence  that  it  is  not  restrict- 
ed in  its  colonizing  ability,  if  it  has  the  right 
conditions,  so  that  it  could  get  out  of  its  eco- 
logical trap.  This  is  evident  from  what  the 
Monterey  pine  has  done  in  the  southern  hem- 
isphere, in  Chile,  New  Zealand,  and  Austra- 
lia. In  all  three  regions,  extensive  forests  of 
this  species  have  been  planted  that  in  many 
places  look  quite  natural.  Some  trees  are  far 
taller  than  those  in  California,  reaching 
heights  of  100  to  150  feet. 

Most  interesting  of  all,  in  the  vicinity  of 
Canberra,  Australia,   I  have  seen  Monterey 


pine  seedlings  invading  a  forest  of  native  Eu- 
calyptus. 

A  well-known  ecological  island  exists  in 
the  Sierra  foothills  of  California,  near  the 
town  of  lone.  It  is  based  on  a  hard  pan  soil 
which  is  of  Eocene  age,  about  40  million 
years  old.  It  was  a  sea-beach  terrace  facing 
the  Pacific  Ocean,  which  at  that  time  cov- 
ered all  of  the  present  central  valley.  It  is 
dominated  in  many  areas  by  an  olive-colored 
shrub,  Arctostoplujios  mijiiifolia,  the  lone 
manzanita.  There  is  a  margin  of  the  common 
gray  manzanita,  Arctostoplujios  viscida,  and 
interior  live  oak,  but  most  of  the  area  sur- 
rounding it  is  grassland  consisting  of  in- 
troduced annual  grasses  and  scattered  blue 
oaks  and  digger  pines  that  are  the  normal 
dominant  vegetation  of  the  area.  The  plants 
that  are  rare  and  endangered  are  held  in 
check  by  the  very  special  ecological  condi- 
tions that  prevail  here.  There  is  really  an  is- 
land within  an  island  because  a  buckwheat, 
Eriogonum  apricum,  which  is  confined  to  the 
lone  manzanita  island,  grows  only  in  the  few 
most  barren  parts  of  it. 

The  gene  pool  of  E.  apricum  is  most  inter- 
esting. There  are  three  patches  of  it.  The 
maximum  distance  from  one  to  another  is 
about  10  miles  and  there  is  one  about  half- 
way in  between.  Rod  Myatt  of  UC  Davis  did 
a  master's  study  on  morphological  variability 
and  found  that  the  different  patches  can  be 
distinguished  morphologically.  They  are 
races.  There  is  not  only  a  lot  of  variation 
within  each  of  these  patches,  but  distinctive 
differences  between  patches.  In  other  words, 
it  appears  as  if  the  lone  manzanita  within  its 
area  of  10  miles  has  as  much  morphological 
variability  as  does  another  buckwheat, 
Eriogonum  nudum,  within  an  area  of  equal 
size,  10  miles  in  diameter  in  the  Sierra  foot- 
hills. The  difference  is  that  Eriogonum  nu- 
dum, one  of  the  most  common  buckwheats  in 
California,  has  a  multitude  of  races  that  are 
adapted  to  all  sorts  of  climatic  conditions 
over  this  extensive  area.  Another  fact  is  that 
E.  nudum  is  a  much  bigger  species  and  its 
seeds  are  much  bigger.  Its  seedlings  are  prob- 
ably much  more  competitive  so  that  it  could 
colonize  new  areas  more  easily  than  could 
Eriogonum  apricum.  Perhaps  E.  apricum  is  a 
relic  of  the  days  when  annuals,  even  native 
annuals,  were  much  fewer  than  they  are  now. 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


117 


It  may  have  colonized  the  barren  places  that 
no  other  perennials  could  live  in,  when  there 
wasn't  so  much  annual  competition.  That's 
pure  speculation.  This  again  emphasizes  the 
ecological  entrapment  which  I  believe  is  the 
basis  for  imderstanding  the  distribution  of 
most  of  our  rare  and  endangered  species,  in- 
dependent of  age  and  independent  of  quan- 
titative sizes  of  gene  pools. 

The  final  example  is  similar.  It  is  Convict 
Canyon  in  the  eastern  Sierra  Nevadas.  It  is 
distinctive,  because  while  most  of  the  Sierra 
is  either  granitic  or  ancient  acidic  crystalline 
volcanics  of  Mesozoic  age  or  earlier.  Convict 
Canyon  has  a  vein  of  limestone  running 
through  it.  It  is  the  only  sizable  part  of  the 
Sierra  Nevada  that  has  limestone  in  associ- 
ation with  alpine  or  subalpine  conditions. 

Mount  Baldwin,  12,000  feet  high,  supports 
a  rare  rock  cress,  Draba  nivalis,  and  is  the 
only  locality  in  the  Sierra  Nevada.  The  near- 
est to  it,  as  far  as  I  know,  are  the  Ruby 
Mountains  in  eastern  Nevada. 

One  of  the  most  remarkable  plants,  how- 
ever, in  this  area,  is  a  willow  which  is  related 
to  a  Rocky  Mountain  species.  Salix  brachyo- 
carpa.  Another  species  is  a  relative  of  the 
sedges,  perhaps  ancestral  to  the  genus  carex 
Kobresia  mijosuroides  and  an  extremely  local- 
ized dwarf  bullrush,  Scirpus  rollandii,  some- 
times put  in  the  species  Scirpus  pumilus, 
which  has  been  the  subject  of  interest  for  arc- 
tic alpine  botanists  for  many  years.  The  two 
discoverers  of  these  species  were  Jack  Major 
and  Sam  Bamberg. 


Now,  why  do  these  rare  plants  grow  here? 
It  isn't  because  they  are  lime-loving  calco- 
philes.  The  Kobresia  grows  on  Mount  Evans 
in  Colorado  which  is  acidic  granite.  Certainly 
Scirpus  rollandii  is  to  a  certain  extent  a  cal- 
ceophile,  but  it  doesn't  seem  as  though  the 
limestone  is  the  basic  reason.  The  other  fac- 
tor is  this— limestone  is  porous.  Because  it 
holds  water,  on  a  steep  slope  like  the  one 
which  supports  the  rare  plants,  water  oozes 
out  from  the  ground  throughout  the  summer. 
Remember  that  the  Sierra  Nevada,  in  con- 
trast to  the  Rocky  Mountains  or  the  Wasatch 
Range,  has  very  few  summer  storms.  They  ex- 
ist, but  they're  small  and  most  of  them  hardly 
wet  the  ground.  Much  of  the  sierran  area  in 
the  well-drained  slopes  becomes  very  dry  in 
the  summer,  and  the  mesic  plants  have  to 
grow  where  they  get  heavy  snowfall  during 
the  winter.  The  rare  plants,  however,  grow 
on  a  bench  area  that  gets  relatively  less  snow 
during  the  winter  which  is  constantly  coming 
out  of  the  limestone  formation.  This,  I  be- 
lieve is  responsible  for  the  unusual  nature  of 
the  environment. 

My  final  remark  has  become  obvious  from 
what  I've  had  to  say.  Ecological  genetics  is  a 
relatively  new  field.  The  combination  be- 
tween studies  of  gene  pools  and  the  genetics 
of  adaptation,  I  predict,  is  a  field  which  is 
just  beginning  to  emerge  and  will  be  explo- 
sive in  the  next  half  century.  Young  scientists 
who  are  interested  in  native  environments 
and  wish  to  study  them  in  depth  from  an  ana- 
lytical point  of  view  will  have  an  exciting  ca- 
reer of  discovery  ahead  of  them. 


THE  MEANING  OF  "RARE"  AND  "ENDANGERED" 
IN  THE  EVOLUTION  OF  WESTERN  SHRUBS 

Howard  C.  Stiitz' 

.\bstract.—  In  the  evolutionary  process,  species  continually  come  and  go.  Consequently,  all  species  on  earth 
today  were,  at  one  time,  "rare  and  endangered"  while  in  their  infancy,  and  most  will  become  "rare  and  endangered" 
once  more  as  they  are  replaced.  Therefore,  decisions  relative  to  protecting  rare  and  endangered  species  are  largely 
meaningless  if  based  on  numbers  alone.  They  must  include  information  about  their  biology  and  evolutionary  history. 
Lists  of  endangered  forms  currently  being  prepared  apparently  include  ouly  those  which  are  (1)  scarce  (rare  and  of 
restricted  distribution),  (2)  named,  and  (.3)  sponsored.  Their  biological,  economic,  and  academic  values  may  be  more 
important,  but  apparently  are  not  often  considered.  As  abundantly  illustrated  in  western  shrubs,  genetically  rich 
genotypes  are  sometimes  maintained  by  only  a  few  individuals,  whereas  uniform,  and  therefore  rare,  genotypes  may 
in  some  circumstances,  be  represented  by  many  individuals  in  uniform  environments.  Wise  management  decisions 
cannot,  therefore,  come  from  numbers  alone. 


Interpretations  of  the  origin  of  species  in- 
dicate that  all  species  now  on  earth  were  at 
one  time  rare  and  endangered.  Whether  they 
arose  slowly  by  accumnlating  mutations  that 
permitted  divergence  from  parental  forms, 
explosively  as  polyploid  derivatives,  or  as  re- 
combinants from  interspecific  hybrids,  they 
all  had  humble,  precarious  beginnings.  Fur- 
thermore, they  represent  but  a  tiny  fraction 
of  all  that  might-have-been.  Many  are  un- 
doubtedly inferior  to  former  contempo- 
raneous taxa  which,  although  superior  gen- 
etically, were  lost  by  fortuitous  accidents 
during  their  infancy. 

As  species  come  and  go  in  response  to  the 
challenge  of  an  ever-changing  world,  some 
are  rare  simply  because  they  are  new,  others 
are  rare  because  they  are  being  replaced  by 
more  adaptive  competitors.  All  species  are 
endangered  in  the  sense  that  they  are  success- 
ful only  as  long  as  the  environment  in  which 
they  are  superior  endures,  or  until  other 
modified,  improved  competitors  replace 
them. 

Intelligent  intervention  in  this  efficient,  .sif- 
ting, ever-improving  drama  in  the  guise  of 
protecting  threatened  species,  requires  there- 
fore understanding  the  evolutionary  dynam- 
ics which  define  them.  Because  artificial  pro- 
tection of  any  species  may  concomittantly 


impose  intensified  selection  against  all  other 
associated  species,  utmost  care  and  caution  is 
essential  in  management  decisions  designed 
to  deliberately  favor  specified  taxa.  Some 
species,  represented  by  many  individuals  but 
which  are  genetically  uniform,  in  certain  cir- 
cumstances may  be  far  more  in  danger  of  ex- 
tinction than  "rare"  species  which  are  gen- 
etically diversified. 

Protective  measures  aimed  at  preserving 
one  particular  taxon  may  be  detrimental  to 
the  entire  ecosystem.  However,  rare  forms 
which  are  of  high  intrinsic  value  because  of 
their  potential  for  improving  an  ecosystem, 
or  for  providing  a  fountain  of  genetic  varia- 
bles from  which  other  new  improvements 
can  arise,  or  for  providing  economic  or  aes- 
thetic benefits  for  mankind  may  deserve 
deference  and  intense  protection. 

Decisions  regarding  management  of  eco- 
systems designed  to  preserve  "rare"  and  "en- 
dangered" species  are  therefore  always  pre- 
carious and  are  essentially  indefensible  unless 
founded  on  intimate  knowledge  of  the  gen- 
etics and  genealogy  of  affected  species. 

As  rosters  of  rare  and  endangered  species 
begin  to  emerge,  it  is  important  that  defin- 
able criteria  be  used  for  deciding  whether  or 
not  a  species  is  to  make  the  roster.  Apparent- 
ly, to  date,  only  three  ingredients  are  re- 
quired: 


'Department  of  1 


and  Range  Science,  Brigham  Young  University,  Provo,  Utah  i 


119 


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(a)  Scarcity  (rare  and  of  restricted  distribu- 
tion) 

(b)  A  name 

(c)  A  sponsor 

Apparently  it  has  had  nothing  at  all  to  do 
with  value.  Also,  (b)  is  not  independent  of  (a) 
nor  is  (c)  independent  of  (b).  If  scarce,  a  spe- 
cies may  not  have  a  name;  if  unnamed,  it  will 
almost  never  have  a  sponsor. 

Actually,  however,  because  favoring  one 
species  may  concomitantly  disfavor  another, 
decisions  cannot  really  evade  value  judge- 
ments. In  my  opinion,  they  should  not.  I 
would  recommend  that  they  deliberately  in- 
clude at  least  the  following: 

(a)  Aesthetic  values,  including  beauty, 
uniqueness,  antiquity,  etc. 

(b)  Biological  values,  particularly  in  rela- 
tionship to  genetic  potential  and  con- 
tributions to  the  ecosystem. 

(c)  Economic  values  which  would  include 
their  contribution  to  wildlife,  to  range 
use,  to  industry,  to  recreation,  etc. 

(d)  Academic  values  including  contribu- 
tions to  the  interpretations  of  evolu- 
tionary history,  geological  events, 
climatological  changes,  and  ecological 
succession. 

Illvistrations  of  rare  forms  which  are  being 
replaced  and  may,  therefore,  not  invite  hu- 
man intervention  for  their  protection,  as  well 
as  forms  which  are  "brand-new,"  exciting, 
promising,  arrivals  and  may,  therefore,  prof- 
itably be  enhanced,  are  abundant  in  western 
North  America.  Recent  major  geological  and 
climatological  changes  have  provided  a  mul- 
titude of  new  habitats  in  which  newly  formed 
species  have  been  and  still  are  being  favored. 
Concomitantly,  similar  other  populations 
have  become  reduced  or  extinguished  as  their 
required  niche  disappeared.  Examples  may 
be  found  in  nearly  all  groups  of  plants  and 
animals;  the  following  are  illustrative: 

1.  The  Rose  Family 

In  the  rose  family,  Cercocarpus,  Purshia, 
and  Coivania  have  all  shown  explosive  re- 
sponse to  recent  habitat  changes.  However, 
management  decisions  concerning  the  ac- 
companying rare  and  endangered  forms  of 
these  genera  will  of  necessity  vary,  simply 
because  each  has  a  distinctive  evolutionary 
meaning. 


In  Cercocaijms,  three  principal  species  are 
known  in  the  Great  Basin:  C.  montaniis,  C. 
ledifolius,  and  C.  intricatus.  Natural  hybrids 
are  common  between  C.  ledifolius  and  each 
of  the  other  species,  but  are  rare  between  C 
montanus  and  C.  intricatus,  even  when  they 
are  sympatric  (Plummer  et  al.  1957,  Pyrah 
1964).  Cercocai-pus  intricatus  is  the  most  xer- 
ic  of  the  three,  often  growing  on  steep,  ex- 
posed limestone  cliffs,  but  it  is  found  only  in 
Utah  and  the  immediate  borders  of  neighbor- 
ing states.  In  areas  where  C.  intricatus  and  C 
ledifolius  grow  together,  there  is  often  such  a 
continuum  of  intermediates  that  individual 
plants  are  difficult  to  define.  For  these  rea- 
sons, it  appears  that  C.  intricatus  has  been  re- 
cently derived  from  C.  ledifolius,  having  ac- 
quired adaptive  attributes  by  rapid  genetic 
assimilation  of  drought-resistant  phenotypes 
which  were,  and  still  are,  latent  in  C.  ledi- 
folius. Similar  evidence,  although  less 
straightforward,  suggests  that  C.  montanus 
may  also  have  been  derived  from  C.  ledi- 
folius by  selection  of  types  that  were  more 
competitive  in  the  more  densely  vegetated 
mountain  brush  zone.  The  requirement  for 
broader  leaves,  an  apparent  prerequisite  for 
competition  with  Quercus  gambellii,  Ayne- 
lanchier  alnifolia,  and  Prunus  melanocarpa, 
was  apparently  possible  only  if  these  broad 
leaves  also  became  deciduous  to  escape  the 
long  winter  drought  of  frozen  soil. 

If  these  interpretations  of  the  recent  and 
continuing  evolution  of  Cercocarpus  are 
valid,  what  might  our  decisions  be,  relative 
to  the  component  rare  and  endangered 
forms?  Cercocarpus  intricatus,  although  re- 
cently derived  and  somewhat  rare,  is  cur- 
rently not  endangered  and  probably  needs 
little,  if  any,  artificial  protection.  Its  habitat 
is  not  often  used  by  man  nor  by  domesticated 
animals.  Very  little  of  the  current  impact  of 
human  civilization  appears  to  be  in  any  way 
threatening  this  species. 

Hybrids  and  hybrid  derivatives,  however, 
are  a  different  story.  Not  only  are  they  very 
rare  but  they  are  also  very  important  reser- 
voirs of  potential  diversity  and,  in  many 
cases,  severely  threatened.  They  are  of  value 
as  demonstrations  of  biological  evolution,  as 
fountains  of  genetic  combinations  from 
which  both  C.  montanus  and  C.  intricatus 
might  be  enriched  and  from  which  even  oth- 


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121 


er  species  might  arise,  and  as  beautiful,  rare 
specimens,  with  simple  intrinsic  aesthetic 
value.  Although  these  populations  may  not 
represent  species,  they  are  important  and  in 
many  instances  deserve  deliberate  protection. 
However,  because  they  are  unnamed  and, 
perhaps,  even  unnamable,  because  the  indi- 
vidual plants  are  the  unique  rare  entities, 
they  may  never  make  the  roster. 

Furshia  and  Cowania,  two  other  genera  of 
the  rose  family,  are  also  rapidly  evolving  and 
have  recently  produced  several  new  adaptive 
products  (Stutz  and  Thomas  1964).  While 
some  of  the  new  forms  may  have  come  from 
new  mutations,  almost  all  appear  to  have 
come  as  adaptive  segregation  products  from 
intergeneric  hybrids  between  them. 

Purshia  tridentata  is  distributed  from 
southern  Utah  northward  into  Canada.  Cow- 
ania stanshiinjana  grows  from  northern  Utah 
southward  into  Old  Mexico.  Consequently, 
almost  the  entire  state  of  Utah  is  an  overlap 
zone  in  the  distribution  of  these  species.  In 
many  places  in  Utah,  where  these  two  species 
come  together,  hybrids  and  hybrid  deriva- 
tives are  common.  So  commonplace  is  such 
hybridization  there  appear  to  be  no  popu- 
lations of  Purshia  tridentata  in  all  of  Utah 
which  do  not  contain  introgressants  from 
Cowania  (Stutz  and  Thomas  1964).  Many, 
perhaps  most,  are  one  of  a  kind.  They  appar- 
ently continually  come  and  go  with  few  if 
any  ever  being  superior  to  their  progenitors. 

Here  then  is  an  example  of  species  in 
which  rare  and  endangered  forms  are  ramp- 
ant. But,  as  interesting  as  they  are  or  as  po- 
tentially valuable  as  they  may  be,  attempts  to 
protect  them  all  would  be  absurd.  Selected 
forms,  or  even  selected  individuals,  may  be 
locally  desirable,  but  it  would  be  impossible 
to  preserve  every  noble  segregant.  The  Cow- 
ania X  Purshia  Fj  hybrid  and  the  segregat- 
ing hybrid  swarm  northeast  of  Provo,  de- 
scribed in  detail  by  Stutz  and  Thomas  (1964), 
might  have  been  profitably  spared  but,  be- 
cause they  have  both  already  been  com- 
pletely obliterated  by  a  recent  housing  devel- 
opment, that  is  now  impossible.  Protection  of 
similar  known  F^  hybrids  and  hybrid  segre- 
gants  is  probably  unwarranted.  However, 
specific  products  that  show  unique  adaptive 
promise  may  be  profitably  protected. 

Near   Clarkston,   Cache   County,    Utah,   a 


distinctive  population  derived  from  Coivania 
X  Purshia  parentage  is  on  the  verge  of  being 
exterminated  by  overgrazing.  Although  con- 
siderable segregation  is  still  evident,  many  of 
the  plants  appear  to  be  stabilizing  around  a 
unique  combination  of  characteristics  which 
are  apparently  adaptive  in  this  area.  The 
fniits,  leaves,  and  habit  are  all  intermediate 
between  their  putative  parents.  Because  it  is 
unlikely  that  this  small  population  will  sur- 
vive long  under  present  grazing  pressures, 
adjustments  in  management  of  this  area 
would  seem  highly  desirable.  However,  it  is 
unnamed  and  unnamable  and  will  probably 
not  make  the  roster  even  with  me  as  its  spon- 
sor. 

Other  adaptive  products  from  this  parent- 
age include  a  species  of  recent  origin,  Purshia 
glandulosa  Curran,  and  a  series  of  popu- 
lations of  Purshia  tridentata  throughout 
Idaho,  Oregon,  and  Montana  that  have  been 
enriched  with  Cowania  genes  by  in- 
trogressive  hybridization.  Because  the  in- 
trogressed  populations  are  being  differen- 
tially favored  by  current  grazing  practices, 
they  apparently  require  no  deliberate  pro- 
tection. Sheep  apparently  prefer  Purshia  tri- 
dentata plants  that  contain  no  Cowania 
genes,  so  introgressed  populations  are  becom- 
ing increasingly  abundant.  These  "rare" 
forms  are  therefore  not  at  all  endangered  and 
may  eventually  prove  to  be  very  abundant 
and  perhaps  even  detrimental  as  range  for- 
age. In  this  case,  the  rare  does  not  at  all 
equate  with  endangered.  Already  it  is  becom- 
ing difficult  to  find  "pure"  nonintrogressed 
populations  of  P.  tridentata.  In  time,  they 
may  indeed  become  the  rare  and  endangered 
representatives. 

Each  population  of  P.  glandidosa  is  also 
somewhat  genetically  unique.  The  particular 
combination  of  Cowania  and  Purshia  genes 
that  identifies  the  adaptive  features  of  P. 
glandulosa  is  common  to  all  populations,  but 
other  characteristics,  under  less  severe  selec- 
tion, apparently  segregate  somewhat  ran- 
domly. Consequently,  plants  in  every  popu- 
lation are  similar  with  respect  to  the  unique 
features  which  characterize  them  as  P. 
glandulosa,  but  they  differ  considerably  in 
other  segregating  attributes.  Already  P. 
glandulosa  as  a  taxon  is  sufficiently  well  es- 
tablished that  it  is  far  from  being  rare  or  en- 


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Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


dangered.  Although  individual  variants  may 
be  "rare,"  they  appear  to  be  of  little  con- 
sequence in  the  evolutionary  drama  that  is 
producing  P.  glandidosa  as  a  newly  derived 
species.  Consequently,  there  appears  to  be 
little  wisdom  in  deliberately  preserving  them 
even  though  they  meet  the  rare  and  endan- 
gered criteria. 

2.  The  Oaks 

Much  of  the  variation  in  Quercus  gambeJii 
in  northern  Utah  appears  to  be  the  result  of 
introgression  from  Q.  turbinella.  Although  in 
Utah  these  species  are  currently  sympatric  in 
only  a  limited  area  in  the  southern  part  of 
the  state,  hybrids  are  common  along  the 
Wasatch  Front  200  miles  to  the  north  (Cot- 
tam  et  al.  1959).  According  to  those  authors, 
the  hybrids  were  apparently  left  behind  dur- 
ing the  altithermal  postglacial  period  when, 
because  of  milder  climates,  Q.  turbinella  was 
able  to  grow  that  far  north.  Although  most  of 
the  intermediate  forms  are  much  alike  and 
mav  be  mostly  Fj  hybrids,  some  segregation 
is  apparent.  Both  "Fj  hybrids"  and  segregants 
are  severely  restricted  to  a  narrow  temper- 
ature-inversion belt  at  about  5,400  feet  eleva- 
tion where  temperatures  are  normally  higher 
than  either  above  or  below  (Cottam  1959). 

These  rare  hybrid  specimens  are  of  high 
aesthetic  value  and  apparently  also  of  high 
biological  significance.  If,  as  appears  likely, 
much  of  the  expressed  variation  in  Q.  gam- 
belii  is  due  to  introgression  from  Q.  tiirbmella 
via  these  hybrids,  they  have  already  made 
great  biological  contributions  and  promise  to 
continue  to  do  so  as  long  as  we  permit  them 
to  remain. 

However,  many  of  these  valuable  speci- 
mens have  already  been  destroyed  and  most 
of  those  that  remain  are  threatened  with  ex- 
tinction. One  very  unusual  hybrid  derivative 
near  the  mouth  of  Immigration  Canyon,  east 
of  Salt  Lake  City,  Utah,  has  recently  been  re- 
placed by  a  house.  This  particular  plant 
differed  from  both  parents  and  all  other  seg- 
regants in  having  oval  leaves  with  serrate 
margins.  The  leaves  resembled  superficially 
those  of  chokecherry  {Primus  melunocm-pa). 
It  was  a  magnificent  specimen  with  a  speed 
of  about  40  feet.  It  should  have  been  pre- 
served. If  anything  can  be  done  to  save  the 
others,  they  will  have  longlasting  significance 


biologically,  aesthetically,  and  economically. 
But  these  unusual  plants  {Q.  X  pauciloba) 
may  never  make  the  roster. 

3.  The  Saltbushes 

Many  of  the  new  habitats  which  have  re- 
cently become  available  in  North  America 
are  still  completely  vmoccupied.  Species  have 
not  yet  evolved  that  can  accommodate  the 
niunerous  steep  mud  hills,  salt  flats,  and  alka- 
li playas  that  characterize  much  of  the  west- 
ern deserts.  The  plants  at  the  borders  of  these 
sterile  islands,  and  therefore  closest  to  in- 
vading them,  are  almost  all  members  of  the 
family  Chenopodiacea:  Salicornia,  Allen- 
rolfia,  Suedo,  Sorcobatus,  Salsolo,  Hologeton, 
Graijia,  and  Atriplex.  Most  of  these  genera 
are  represented  by  only  a  few  species  and  are 
therefore  probably  there  because  of  charac- 
teristics acquired  elsewhere  that  made  them 
preadapted  to  these  harsh  sites.  The  principal 
exception  is  Atriplex.  This  genus  is  represent- 
ed by  numerous  species  and  varieties,  many 
of  which  appear  to  be  of  very  recent  origin. 
In  some  cases  new  successful  forms  appear  to 
be  no  more  than  a  few  years  old. 

Every  known  evolutionary  force  appears 
to  be  operative  in  Atriplex  at  an  accelerated 
rate  (Stutz  1978).  Species  appear  to  be  aris- 
ing from  new  mutations,  from  introgressive 
hybridization,  as  new  hybrid  segregants  from 
interspecific  hybrids,  as  autopolyploids,  and 
as  allopolyploids.  Rare  and  endangered  forms 
are  therefore  abundant.  Some  are  of  obvious 
high  value;  many  others  are  undoubtedly  im- 
portant. 

One  of  the  most  successful  species  of  Atri- 
plex to  invade  western  North  America  is  A. 
conescens  (fourwing  saltbush).  It  has  the 
widest  distribution  of  all  native  perennial 
species,  growing  from  central  Mexico  to  Can- 
ada and  from  the  Dakotas  to  the  Pacific 
Coast.  With  such  a  wide  distribution,  it  is 
probably  not  surprising  that  it  is  a  highly  var- 
iable species.  Some  of  the  variation  is  due  to 
phenotypic  plasticitv,  but  most  of  it  appears 
to  be  genetic. 

Four  different  chrosome  levels  in  Atriplex 
canescens  are  known:  diploids,  tetraploids, 
hexaploids,  and  twelve-ploids.  Rare  and  en- 
dangered forms  are  foimd  in  each. 

A.  The  diploids  (2n  =  18) 

Individual  diploid  plants  have  been  found 


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The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


123 


sporadically  in  several  polyploid  populations 
and  hence  are  probably  derived  by  poly- 
haploidy.  They  are  certainly  rare,  and  cer- 
tainly endangered.  But  should  they  be  pro- 
tected? Probably  not.  None  appears  to  have 
any  capacity  for  increasing  (partly  because, 
being  rare  in  a  polyploid  population,  they 
can  leave  only  sterile  offspring).  With  more 
knowledge,  some  of  them  might  be  recog- 
nized as  potentially  valuable  entities  and 
might  therefore  warrant  careful  propagation 
and  ultimately  increase  for  some  specific  use. 
For  the  most  part,  however,  we  might  expect 
these  to  be  continually  produced  and  contin- 
ually discarded  as  novel  but  nonadaptive  var- 
iants. Being  rare  and  endangered  in  this  case 
is  probably  insufficient  license  to  receive  any 
special  protection. 

Three  distinctive  diploid  varieties  are 
known,  however,  which  are  highly  successful 
in  specific  habitats  and  are  therefore  very 
valuable.  At  least  one  of  them  is  sufficiently 
rare  to  be  considered  endangered.  All  are 
probably  relics  derived  from  ancestral  dipl- 
oids rather  than  polyhaploids  derived  from 
polyploids. 

The  most  abundant  of  these  diploids,  and 
probably  the  most  ancient,  is  a  form  which  is 
common  in  southern  Arizona  and  also  report- 
ed from  southwestern  New  Mexico  by  Max 
Dunford  (oral  comm.).  It  appears  to  be  the 
most  drought  resistant  of  all  forms  of  A.  ca- 
nescens,  growing  sympatrically  with  creosote 
bush  {Larrea  tridentata)  and  mesquite  (Proso- 
pis  glandulosa). 

The  other  two  diploids  are  narrowly  en- 
demic. One  (A.  ganettii)  grows  only  in  loose 
sandstone-talus  along  the  Colorado  River  and 
at  the  mouths  of  its  tributaries  from  10  miles 
northeast  of  Moab,  Utah,  to  Lake  Powell. 
Many  populations  of  this  species  disappeared 
with  the  impounding  of  water  in  Lake  Pow- 
ell. 

Atriplex  ganettii  is  a  very  fragile  species 
and  would  probably  be  facing  extinction 
were  it  not  for  the  protection  afforded  by  its 
inaccessibility  in  the  steep  canyons  and  nar- 
row gorges  along  the  stretch  of  the  river 
where  it  grows. 

The  third  diploid  form  is  restricted  to  the 
Little  Sahara  sand  dunes  in  central  Utah.  It  is 
strikingly  different  from  other  A.  canescens 
in  its  gigas  habitat.  Its  growth  rate  is  nearly 


twice  that  of  the  tetraploid  forms  that  grow 
nearby  (Stutz  and  Melby  1968).  This  rare 
form  is  becoming  increasingly  threatened. 
The  sand  dune  retreat  has  apparently  pre- 
served it  to  date  by  excluding  herbivores  that 
have  difficulty  in  walking  on  the  dunes.  Re- 
cent development  of  recreational  facilities  on 
the  dunes  by  the  BLM  as  a  resort  for  dune 
buggy  enthusiasts  may  spell  its  doom.  Many 
plants  are  damaged  directly  by  dune  buggies; 
others  are  destroyed  by  people.  Because  this 
is  almost  the  only  woody  plant  available  in 
this  area,  it  is  sometimes  used  as  fuel.  It  is 
also  highly  palatable  to  livestock  and  has 
been  harvested  to  feed  horses.  Other  uses  in- 
clude mattresses  for  sleeping  bags  and  make- 
shift windshelters.  The  handsome  fruiting 
stalks  are  often  gathered  for  home  decora- 
tion. During  the  annual  spring  dune  buggy 
racing  events,  thousands  of  people  swarm 
over  these  dunes.  Even  the  games  they  play 
take  a  toll. 

Although  requests  have  been  made  to  pro- 
tect this  fragile  population  by  restricting  ve- 
hicle use  to  a  small  area,  it  is  apparently  go- 
ing to  be  difficult  to  accomplish.  This  is  a 
rare  and  endangered  form  which,  although 
identified  by  a  very  vocal  sponsor,  has  still 
failed  to  make  the  roster. 

B.  Tlie  tetraploids 

Although  collectively  the  tetraploids  are 
abundant  and  widespread,  numerous  local- 
ized small  populations  are  genetically 
imique.  Many  of  these  are  obviously  of  signif- 
icant biological  value.  Several  deserve  and 
need  protection;  others  appear  capable  of 
holding  their  own. 

Although  some  of  the  variation  between 
tetraploid  forms  may  reflect  separate  poly- 
ploid origins,  most  variations  occur  as  prod- 
ucts of  interspecific  hybridization.  The  fol- 
lowing three  examples  are  among  the  most 
common. 

(1)  Atriplex  canescens  X  confertifolia. 

Hybrids  between  these  very  different  spe- 
cies have  been  previously  reported  by  Plum- 
mer  et  al.  (1957),  Plummer  and  Drobnick 
(1966),  and  Hanson  (1969). 

The  first  one  I  found  was  in  Elko  County, 
Nevada,  10  miles  west  of  Wendover.  It  was 
in  an  area  which  later  became  the  median 
between  the  lanes  of  a  freeway  and  was 


124 


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No.  3 


therefore  destroyed.  From  seeds  harvested 
from  it,  however,  17  seedHngs  were  obtained 
which  are  now  growing  in  the  BYU  nursery. 
All  of  these  plants  appear  very  much  alike  in 
habit  and  leaf  characteristics  but  are  dis- 
tinctively different  from  either  parent  and 
from  all  other  species  oi  Atriplex.  Differences 
in  fruit  characteristic  are  apparently  due  to 
only  a  few  genes  which  permit  clear  segrega- 
tion in  this  small  population.  Other  charac- 
teristics, such  as  habit,  spininess,  and  leaf 
characters,  do  not  conspicuously  segregate, 
suggesting  a  more  complex  genetic  control. 
Surprisingly,  the  males  show  regular  meiosis, 
which  implies  that  most  of  the  differences  ac- 
quired by  these  two  very  distinct  species 
have  come  from  gene  mutations  unaccompa- 
nied by  gross  chromosomal  aberrations. 

A  large  number  of  hybrids  from  this  par- 
entage have  now  been  collected  and  progeny 
from  them  assembled  in  a  common  garden. 
From  these,  it  appears  that  at  least  some  of 
the  natural  variation  present  in  both  parental 
species  has  come  from  introgression  from 
these  hybrids.  Near  Honey  Lake,  California, 
a  small  population  of  A.  canescens  is  ob- 
viously heavily  introgressed  with  A.  confer- 
tifolia  genes.  Near  Garrison,  Utah,  a  popu- 
lation of  A.  confertifolia  appears  to  have 
received  genes  from  A.  canescens. 

Should  these  hybrids  and  introgressed  pop- 
ulations be  included  on  the  rare  and  endan- 
gered roster?  Individually,  they  appear  to  be 
fully  qualified.  They  are  highly  important  as 
sources  for  new  adaptive  combinations.  Some 
possibly  might  represent  the  beginnings  of 
valuable  species  if  they  are  spared.  Will  they 
need  names  to  make  the  preferred  list? 

(2)  Atriplex  canescens  X  A.  cuneata. 

Although  A.  canescens  is  a  large  woody 
plant  and  A.  cuneata  is  a  low-statured  her- 
baceous perennial,  hybrids  between  them  are 
common.  They  have  been  reported  by  Plum- 
mer  et  al.  (1957),  Plummer  and  Drobnick 
(1966),  and  Hanson  (1969).  Stavast  (unpubl. 
no.)  reported  an  extensive  population  of 
hybrid  segregants  west  of  Hanksville,  Sevier 
Coimty,  Utah. 

From  natural  hybrids,  segregating  seed- 
lings have  been  grown  to  maturity  in  the 
BYU  nursery.  While  most  of  them  are  more 
like  A.   canescens   than   like  A.   cuneata   in 


habit  and  fruit  characteristics,  cuneata  in- 
fluence is  unmistakable. 

From  observations  of  these  garden-grown 
segregants,  it  has  since  been  possible  to  iden- 
tify several  distinct  introgressed  populations 
in  nature.  One  particularly  striking  form  is 
becoming  established  near  Ferron,  Emery 
County,  Utah,  as  a  low-statured  form,  with 
small  fruits  and  a  capacity  for  growing  with 
and  favorably  competing  with,  Ceratoides  la- 
nata  and  Xanthocephalum  sarothrae,  which 
neither  parent  can  do.  It  now  occupies  only 
about  40  acres  so  is  still  rare  and,  of  course, 
endangered.  It  may  be  the  beginning  of  a 
very  valuable  addition  to  our  rangelands  if 
we  can  preserve  it. 

Other  novel  adaptive  combinations  from 
this  same  parentage  are  likely  also  forthcom- 
ing if  the  source  is  protected. 

(3)  Atriplex  canescens  X  A.  gardneri 

Many  years  ago  A.  Nelson  reported  hy- 
brids between  A.  canescens  and  A.  gardneri 
and  named  them  A.  aptera  (Nelson  1904). 
Such  hybrids  are  still  common  west  of  La- 
ramie, Wyoming,  and  elsewhere  where  these 
two  species  meet.  They  appear  to  have  given 
rise  to  a  series  of  very  successful  derivatives 
which  now  occupy  the  banks  of  most  of  the 
tributaries  of  the  Missouri  River  in  Montana, 
southern  Alberta,  southern  Saskatchewan, 
North  and  South  Dakota,  and  northwestern 
Nebraska.  It  was  a  specimen  of  this  form 
which  was  collected  by  Lewis  and  Clarke  in 
1804  north  of  Chamberlain,  South  Dakota, 
and  to  which  the  name  A.  canescens  was  as- 
signed. In  most  places  it  is  low  growing  and 
shows  vigorous  root-sprouting,  but  some  are 
quite  woody.  Some  have  broad  wings  on  the 
fruiting  bracts;  some  show  only  small  traces 
of  wings.  Apparently  segregation  is  still  going 
on  as  unique  combinations  find  habitats  in 
which  they  are  competitive. 

Collectively  these  hybrid  products  are  not 
at  all  rare  or  endangered,  but  local  unique 
populations  certainly  are.  Should  tliey  re- 
ceive protection? 

Several  other  interspecific  hybrids  in- 
volving tetraploid  A.  canescens  from  which 
segregating  progeny  are  sometimes  abundant 
and  stabilized,  sometimes  rare  and  variable, 
have  been  found  in  western  North  America. 
Some  have  already  yielded  new  adaptive  in- 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


125 


cipient  species;  others  may  yet  do  so  from 
the  rich  common  gene  pool.  Some  of  them 
will  obviously  require  protection  if  they  are 
to  become  established.  Others  already  appear 
to  be  sufficiently  established  to  be  able  to 
continue  even  with  human  assaults. 

C.  TJie  hexaploids 

Within  many  tetraploid  populations  of  A. 
canescens,  occasional  hexaploid  plants  have 
been  found.  They  are  apparently  contin- 
uously and  sporadically  produced  from  unre- 
duced gametes.  For  the  most  part,  they  have 
not  become  established  as  separate  adaptive 
derivatives.  This  is  probably  due  primarily  to 
the  high  improbability  of  two  such  hexaploid 
plants  being  produced  simultaneously  in  suf- 
ficiently close  proximity  to  each  other  to  in- 
terbreed, and  also,  even  if  they  did,  it  would 
be  imusual  for  their  offspring  to  be  an  im- 
provement over  the  parental  forms. 

Even  so,  a  few  exceptional,  small,  localized 
hexaploid  populations  have  been  found  in 
isolated  pockets.  In  the  White  Sands  National 
Monument,  New  Mexico,  some  very  promis- 
ing hexaploids  have  become  established  in  lo- 
calized colonies  fairly  close  to  the  more 
abundant  tetraploid  form.  In  the  BYU  nur- 
sery, they  show  a  shorter,  more  compact 
habit  than  the  tetraploids  and  may  have  attri- 
butes which  would  be  superior  in  particular 
range  conditions.  Because  they  are  still  few 
in  number  and  sporadic  in  distribution,  they 
could  profitably  use  protection,  but  under 
current  policy  they  appear  to  have  little 
chance  of  receiving  it  though  their  existence 
under  circumstances  that  severely  hinder 
their  establishment  suggests  they  may  have 
great  potential  for  success  once  they  get 
started. 

The  ephemeral  hexaploids  that  appear  as 
single  plants  in  tetraploid  populations,  al- 
though rare  and  of  course  endangered,  prob- 
ably do  not  merit  legislated  protection,  sim- 
ply because  they  cannot  demonstrate 
particular  values  until  removed  from  their 
tetraploid  neighbors  and  manipulated  by 
plant  breeders.  Their  potential  may  be  high, 
but  protecting  them  in  their  ephemeral  in- 
fancy is  probably  not  warranted,  although 
they  apparently  meet  all  current  prerequi- 
sites except  for  having  designated  names. 

In  contrast  to  rare,  ephemeral,  and  local- 


ized small  pockets  of  autohexapaloids,  there 
are  several  allohexaploids  that  appear  to  hold 
great  promise  as  new  additions  to  the  desert 
ranges.  One  of  these  is  already  abundant  in 
the  north-south-oriented  valleys  of  Nevada.  It 
appears  to  have  been  derived  from  the  par- 
entage 4N  A.  canescens  X  2N  A.  falcata. 
Apparently  doubling  of  the  chromosomes  in 
the  triploid  F^  hybrid  gave  rise  to  a  remark- 
ably well-adapted  new  taxon.  It  is  a  short- 
statured  form  that  often  flowers  during  its 
first  year  of  growth.  Because  there  are 
marked  differences  between  different  popu- 
lations, they  have  apparently  arisen  repeat- 
edly at  different  places.  Although,  collec- 
tively, this  hexaploid  is  well  established, 
successful,  and  apparently  capable  of  with- 
standing intensified  grazing  pressures,  some 
of  the  individual  component  populations  are 
genetically  distinct  and  apparently  suffi- 
ciently rare  to  be  endangered.  Should  we  at- 
tempt to  protect  these  new  arrivals  during 
their  fragile  infancy,  or  shall  we  settle  for  the 
already  acquired  forms  which  are  performing 
at  least  satisfactorily? 

Another  hexaploid  fourwing  derivative 
that  appears  to  offer  unique  and  exciting 
promise  as  a  new  adaptive  taxon,  has  appar- 
ently come  from  the  parentage  4N  A.  canes- 
cens X  6N  A.  tridentata.  This  interesting 
form  occupies  only  about  80  acres  east  of 
Grantsville,  Tooele  County,  Utah.  It  is  up- 
right and  woody  like  typical  nearby  tetra- 
ploid A.  canescens  plants,  but  it  has  soft-tex- 
tured furfuraceous  leaves  and  late-maturing 
flowers  and  fruits  like  A.  tridentata.  It  also 
grows  on  heavy  clay  soils  as  does  A.  triden- 
tata. 

This  small  population  appears  to  be  re- 
markably adapted  to  this  valley  and  is  appar- 
ently spreading.  Currently  almost  entirely 
within  a  military  reserve,  it  is  already  receiv- 
ing needed  protection  during  its  infancy. 
However,  if  that  protection  were  removed, 
the  entire  population  could  very  quickly  be 
lost.  Indeed,  were  it  not  for  the  presence  of 
the  reserve,  it  may  have  never  survived 
beyond  its  birth. 

A  hexaploid  A.  tridentata-\ike  derivative 
from  this  same  parentage  has  apparently 
come  into  existence  only  during  the  past  dec- 
ade. It  is  still  confined  to  the  roadsides  along 
a  30-mile   stretch   of  freeway  between  Salt 


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Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


Lake  City  and  Wendover.  Because  the  free- 
way itself  is  only  about  a  decade  old,  the  new 
adaptive  derivative  must  also  be  no  older 
than  that.  In  the  center  of  the  population,  A. 
tridentata  and  A.  canescens  are  sympatric. 
Hybrids  and  hybrid  products,  as  well  as  the 
new  stabilized  segregant,  are  all  present.  In 
the  summer  of  1977,  an  actual  count  was 
made  of  the  plants  of  this  new  form.  On  the 
roadsides  of  the  lanes  leading  westward  into 
Wendover,  17,600  plants  were  counted.  As- 
suming approximately  the  same  number  on 
the  roadside  of  the  lanes  leading  eastward  to- 
ward Salt  Lake  City,  the  total  population 
consists  of  only  about  35,000  plants.  It  is  still 
rare,  but  as  long  as  the  highway  is  there  there 
is  little  threat  to  its  continuation.  This  por- 
tion of  the  freeway  is  mostly  across  empty 
salt  flats,  so  grazing  and  other  biological 
pressures  are  essentially  absent.  Conceivably, 
these  robust,  unique  plants  may  be  pre- 
adapted  for  occupying  areas  other  than  the 
side  of  the  freeway,  in  which  case  they  may 
one  day  find  an  escape  from  this  restricted  is- 
land, in  any  case,  legislated  protection  is 
probably  meaningless,  despite  their  rarity 
and  high  intrinsic  aesthetic  and  scientific  val- 


D.  The  twelve-ploids 

Atriplex  canescens  var.  laciniata  Parish  is 
distinguished  by  fruit  bracts  that  are  thin  and 
lacy.  It  is  common  sporadically  in  much  of 
the  Mojave  Desert,  with  extensive  popu- 
lations near  Barstow,  California,  and  around 
the  Salton  Sea.  It  is  apparently  an  allopoly- 
ploid derived  from  the  hybrid  A.  canescens 
X  A.  pohjcapra. 

Although  this  extraordinary  species  is  now 
well  established  and  apparently  in  no  need  of 
protection,  it  hybridizes  freely  with  both  A. 
canescens  and  A.  pohjcarpa,  yielding  numer- 
ous novel  progeny,  each  one  of  which  is  rare. 
Although  most  are  aneuploids,  some  of  them 
may  be  preadapted  for  habitats  yet  uninha- 
bited. 

Parallel  examples  can  be  drawn  from  other 
groups  of  saltbushes  and  probably  from  many 
other  desert  plants.  Rare  taxa  and  endan- 
gered taxa  are  commonplace  in  these  rapidly 
changing  environments.  The  problem  then  is 
not  one  of  finding  them  or  defining  them. 


but,  rather,  understanding  them.  Not  until  we 
know  their  biology  and  their  genealogy  can 
sound  decisions  be  made  concerning  their 
management.  Large,  genetically  uniform 
populations  may  be,  biologically,  much  more 
endangered  than  smaller  but  heterogenous 
populations.  Genetically  they  are  certainly 
more  rare. 

In  terms  of  management  then,  it  is  far 
more  important  to  identify  rare  and  endan- 
gered genotypes  than  rare  species.  In  some 
instances  species  having  abundant  genetic 
variation  and  few  individuals  may  be  much 
less  endangered  than  species  having  limited 
genetic  variation,  albeit  many  individuals. 


Conclusion 

It  appears  clear,  therefore,  that  the  mean- 
ing of  "rare  and  endangered"  must  extend 
beyond  mere  head  counting.  Abundant  indi- 
viduals may  not  always  mean  abundant  and 
therefore  secure  genotypes,  and  vice  versa: 
species  represented  by  only  a  few  individuals 
may  be  so  rich  genetically  that  their  continu- 
ance, under  almost  any  normal  environmen- 
tal assault,  is  essentially  certain.  Equally  im- 
portant, in  view  of  the  cost  to  ecosystems,  to 
human  society,  and  to  other  contemporary 
organisms,  some  rare  forms  may  not  warrant 
preservation  at  all.  A  sterile,  weak  poly- 
haploid  derivative  with  essentially  no  poten- 
tial for  amounting  to  anything  of  value  can- 
not justify  protective  measures  merely 
because  it  is  rare  and  endangered.  A  dinosaur 
pet,  as  fun  as  it  might  be  to  have,  would  be 
prohibitively  costly  just  to  feed— let  alone  to 
house  and  to  exercise.  On  the  other  hand, 
new  exciting  infant  forms  with  rich  potential 
for  high  aesthetic,  biological,  economic,  or 
academic  values  should  be  encouraged  and 
their  establishment  and  growth  accelerated. 
To  tell  which  of  the  rare  forms  are  coming 
into  existence  and  which  are  going  out  re- 
quires intimate  knowledge  of  their  biology 
and  genealogy.  Simply  enumerating  named 
taxa  which  are  rare  is  not  enough.  If  we  are 
going  to  meddle  in  the  evolutionary  process, 
let  us  do  it  intelligently.  Otherwise  it  would 
be  better  that  we  do  not  meddle  at  all. 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


127 


Questions  for  Dr.  Stutz 

Q.  Howard,  how  are  you  going  to  choose  wliicli  ones 
voii  are  going  to  save? 

A.  I  would  expect  that  vakie  judgements  will  be  used 
just  like  we  use  them  in  creating  priorities  in  every 
decision  we  make  in  life.  We  categorize  them.  So  I 
think  that  if  I  were  given  an  array  of  choices  I  could 
make  that  decision  on  the  basis  of  relative  value.  But 
it's  not  going  to  be  a  simple  recipe.  It's  going  to  be 
based  on  intimate  knowledge  of  the  species  being 
considered. 

Q.  But  you  mean  they  are  going  to  be  entirely  based  on 
man? 

A.  In  the  absence  of  that,  then  we  would  have  to  do  as 
has  been  suggested  by  several,  including  Dr.  Steb- 
bins  and  Dr.  White.  We  simply  maintain  the  ecosys- 
tems, refrain  from  imposing  our  personal  prefer- 
ences, and  let  natural  selection  make  the  choice. 
Then  we're  removed  from  that  dilemma.  I  think,  in 
many  cases,  ultimately  that's  what  has  to  happen. 
It's  obvious  we  cannot  put  everything  into  a  wilder- 
ness protected  area,  but  we  need  to  have  preserves. 
We  need  to  provide  opportunities  where  the  evolu- 
tionary process  can  proceed  without  our  inter- 
vention. On  the  other  hand,  there  are  situations 
where  we  must  evaluate.  We  will  have  to  decide 
whether  to  plow  that  field  or  to  put  in  that  hydro- 
electric plant.  When  it  is  necessary  to  impose  hu- 
man decisions,  then  we  must  also  impose  human  val- 
ue judgements.  At  that  point  we  need  all  of  the 
biological  information  we  can  possibly  get  to  make 
those  decisions.  Thev  must  not  come  simply  from  a 
knowledge  of  numbers  of  individuals  alone. 

Dr.  Stebbins:  First  I  think  this  is  a  fascinating  topic,  but 
I'd  like  to  bring  this  whole  question  of  preserving  or 
not  preserving  into  the  context  of  what  you  said 
about  intelligent  meddling  with  evolution.  I  think  in 
this  case,  if  we're  going  to  understand  evolution,  we 
want  to  make  it  go.  After  all,  the  engineer  doesn't 
just  look  at  what  electric  motors  did  in  the  past,  he 
makes  new  ones.  Now  in  the  case  of  the  examples 
you  have  in  both  your  Purshia-Cowania  and  your  Af- 
riplex,  it  impresses  me  that  these  obviously  recent 
populations  have  not  yet  fitted  in  to  any  jDarticular 
ecological  niche.  The  way  to  save  them,  in  my  opin- 
ion, is  to  gather  large  numbers  of  seeds  and  meddle 
just  a  little  bit  by  finding  out  just  what  kind  of  eco- 
logical niches  they  prefer.  Those  that  aren't  likely  to 
be  disturbed  will  be  happy  homes  for  these  things 
and  will  then  lead  on  to  something  new  and  still  dif- 
ferent. I'm  particularly  interested  in  this  stabilized 
Purshia  colony  in  that  connection.  You  should  go  up 
there  and  ask  permission  from  that  rancher  to  get  all 
the  seeds  you  can  and  grow  them  somewhere  along 
the  margin  there  and  just  see  if  you  can't  find  a 
place  where  it  will  be  more  than  just  a  puny  little 
population.  In  the  case  of  your  Wendover  freeway, 
heavens  knows  there  are  miles  and  miles  and  miles 
of  freeway  that  have  nothing  but  Salsola  kali,  for  in- 
stance. Wouldn't  it  be  nicer  to  have  this  thing  rather 
than  Russian  thistle  or  halogeton? 

A.  The  answer  is  in  the  affirmative.  I'm  glad  vou 
brought  that  into  perspective.  Dr.  Stebbins,  because 


we  have  another  great  opportunity  before  us  today 
which  needs  to  be  exploited.  That  is  the  sudden 
availability  of  new  environments  provided  by  mining 
operations  in  which  we  can  do  this  very  thing.  Dr. 
Frischknecht  of  the  Forest  Service  Shrub  Laboratory 
is  working  on  preparing  plants  which  will  be  able  to 
tolerate  oil-shale  refuse  dumps.  Also  with  strip  min- 
ing, there  are  brand  new  islands  made  available  and 
new  areas  in  which  we  can  do  just  exactly  as  Dr. 
Stebbins  suggested.  We  can  introduce  gene  pools 
into  these  new  arenas  and  watch  them  evolve.  We 
can  monitor  the  evolutionary  changes  and  we  can 
get  a  record  of  evolutionary  dynamics  like  we've 
never  been  able  to  before.  We  need  to  cooperate 
with  industry  and  use  their  by-products  to  help  us 
learn  more  about  succession  and  evolution. 

Dr.  Stebbins:  Let  me  just  mention  this.  I  think  it's  nov- 
el, but  I  don't  know  how  many  of  you  know  about  it. 
If  you  have  read  the  books  of  the  marvelous  scien- 
tific philosopher,  Rene  Dubois,  he  has  made  the 
comment  that  we  Americans  are  too  wilderness  ori- 
ented becau.se  we,  or  our  ancestors,  were  brought  up 
in  or  near  pioneer  habitats  and  wilderness,  whereas 
Dr.  Dubois  was  brought  up  in  the  vicinity  of  Paris. 
He  knows  country  as  cultivated  land,  as  well-mani- 
cured forests,  and  sees  the  beauty  in  that.  Isn't  there 
some  justification  in  our  thinking  in  terms  of  produc- 
ing a  pleasing  landscape  of  human  manufacture  from 
many  of  the  areas  which  are  just  junk  now  and,  at 
the  same  time,  of  course,  preserving  the  wilderness? 

Dr.  Deacon:  A  couple  of  comments,  one  fairly  specific. 
It  is  possible  to  include  unnamed  entities.  I  think 
that's  one  of  the  criteria  that  need  not  be  met.  The 
listing  process  that  I've  been  involved  with  has 
something  like  over  10  percent  unnamed  taxa. 

Dr.  Stutz:  How  are  they  listed?  With  a  number? 

Dr.  Deacon:  They're  simply  referred  to  as  a  subspecies 
with  a  common  name  that's  distinctive  or  unique  to 
that  group.  In  other  words,  what  is  necessary  is  to 
realize  that  it  is  unnecessary  to  actually  go  through 
the  process  of  naming. 

Dr.  Stutz:  This  entity,  for  example  of  Purshia-Cowania. 
I  suppose  we'll  need  a  handle  before  it  can  even  get 
on  the  roster.  That  was  my  only  point. 

Dr.  Deacon:  Not  the  formal  scientific  name.  But  more 
serious  than  that,  in  my  view,  was  the  illustration  of 
the  coyote/rabbit:  if  you  .save  one,  you're  likely  to 
save  the  other.  It's  the  same  sort  of  illustration  that 
Congressman  McKay  used  with  respect  to  the  Colo- 
rado squawfish  eating  the  humpback  chub.  The 
point  is,  if  you  save  an  evolving  ecosystem  you  save 
all  parts  of  it.  Just  because  you  kill  an  individual 
doesn't  mean  you  kill  the  species  so  that  the  evolu- 
tion of  predator/prey  is  what  nuist  be  preserved.  I 
would  hope  you  might  reconsider  using  that  illustra- 
tion. 

Dr.  Stutz:  I  already  have. 

Dr.  Deacon:  The  other  point  I  would  like  to  make  in 
that  respect  is  that  certainly  the  consideration  of 
value,  which  is  the  main  point  of  your  talk,  is  really 
the  most  difficult  thing  we  have  to  deal  with  here, 
and  when  you  come  to  the  process  of  involving  eco- 
nomic value,  it  looks  like  one  of  the  most  fniitfid 
possibilities  for  consideration.  The  discussion  pre.s- 


128 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


ented  so  nicely  to  us  yesterday  by  Dr.  Spencer  is 
perhaps  one  of  the  most  optimistic  I've  heard  pres- 
ented here  from  the  standpoint  of  the  pressure  al- 
ready in  existence.  I  think  he  represented  to  us  the 
changing  social  values  that  are  in  fact  forcing  us  into 
the  changes  necessary  for  us  to  establish  "a  world- 
wide sensible  economic  system." 
Mr.  Clement:  This  is  a  fascinating  evolution  in  refining 
our  expression  of  what  we're  concerned  about,  and 
let  me  add  one  more  fact:  distinguishing  between 
economic  and  fiscal  valuation.  Most  of  what  we  call 
economic  is  fiscal,  private  concern  about  economic 
return,  and  when  you  come  to  valuing  in  a  broad 
sense,  all  values  are  economic,  because  we're  dealing 
with  scarce  resources,  whether  they're  material,  aes- 
thetic, or  spiritual. 


Literature  Cited 

CoTTAM,  W.  P.,  J.  M.  Tucker,  and  R.  Drobnick.  1959. 
Some  clues  to  Great  Basin  postpluvial  climates 
provided  by  oak  distributions.  Ecology 
50:361-377. 


Drobnick,  R.,  and  A.  P.  Plummer.  1966.  Progress  in 
browse  hybridization  in  Utah.  Proc.  Conf.  West. 
State  Game  and  Fish  Comm.  46:203-211. 

Hansen,  C.  A.  1962.  Perennial  Atriplex  of  Utah  and 
northern  deserts.  Unpublished  thesis.  Brigham 
Young  University,  Provo,  Utah. 

Plummer,  A.  P.,  R.  L.  Jensen,  and  H.  D.  Stapely.  1957. 
Job  completion  report  for  game  forage  project. 
Inform.  Bull.  31.  Utah  State  Dept.  of  Fish  and 
Game. 

Pyrah,  G.  L.  1964.  Cytogenetic  studies  of  Cercocarpus 
in  Utah.  Unpublished  thesis.  Brigham  Young  Uni- 
versity, Provo,  Utah. 

Stutz,  H.  C.  1978.  Explosive  evolution  of  perennial  Afn- 
plex  in  western  America.  Great  Basin  Nat.  Mem. 
2:161-168. 

Stutz,  H.  C,  J.  M.  Melby,  and  G.  K.  Livingston.  1975. 
Evolutionary  studies  of  Atriplex:  a  relic  gigas 
diploid  population  oi  Atriplex  canescens.  Amer.  J. 
Bot.  62:2.36-245. 

Stutz,  H.  C,  and  L.  K.  Thomas.  1964.  Hybridization 
and  introgression  in  Cowania  and  Purshia.  Evolu- 
tion 18:18.3-195. 


SOME  REPRODUCTIVE  AND  LIFE  HISTORY  CHARACTERISTICS 
OF  RARE  PLANTS  AND  IMPLICATIONS  OF  MANAGEMENT 

K.  T.  Harper' 

.\bstract.—  .\nalvsis  of  the  vascular  floras  of  Utah,  Colorado,  and  California  suggest  that  a  syndrome  of  life  form 
and  reproductive  characteristics  separates  rare  and  common  species.  Woody  plants  are  heavily  underrepresented, 
and  herbs  are  overrepresented  on  the  official  lists  of  endangered  and/or  threatened  plants  of  the  floras  considered. 
Few  of  the  rare  species  are  descended  from  wind-pollinated  ancestors,  but  instead  are  derived  from  insect-pollinated 
stock.  Theorv  suggests  that  many  of  the  rare  taxa  will  ultimately  be  .shown  to  be  self-pollinated.  The  date  show  a 
tendency  for  rare  species  to  be  better  represented  among  taxa  having  bilaterrally  symmetrical  as  opposed  to  radially 
symmetrical  flowers.  In  aggregate,  the  results  suggest  that  most  rare  taxa  are  equipped  for  rapid  exploitation  of 
small,  unusual  habitats.  Because  many  rare  taxa  appear  to  be  dependent  on  insects  for  reproduction,  their  survival 
depends  not  only  on  appropriate  physical  habitat  but  also  on  healthy  pollinator  populations.  Reproduction  of  out- 
crossed  taxa  will  be  handicapped  by  road  dust  and  other  sources  of  atmospheric  particulate  which  might  foul  stig- 
matic  surfaces.  Self-pollinated  taxa  may  have  little  generic  variability  and  thus  be  especially  sensitive  to  environmen- 
tal modifications.  Because  most  rare  taxa  are  dicotyledonous  herbs,  herbicides  such  as  2,  4-D  which  have  been 
widelv  used  in  vegetation  management  for  control  of  broadleafed  plants  can  be  expected  to  have  highly  deleterious 
effects  on  populations  of  rare  species  in  the  target  area. 


The  goal  of  management  in  any  discipline 
is  control  of  the  components  of  the  system 
mider  consideration.  The  components  of  any 
system  can  be  controlled  only  if  their  charac- 
teristics are  imderstood.  Once  the  critical 
characteristics  and  their  dynamics  through 
time  are  known,  control  strategies  can  be  for- 
mulated and  tested. 

Currently  we  know  a  great  deal  about 
which  plant  species  are  so  uncommon  that 
their  existence  could  be  endangered  by  even 
moderate  natural  or  manmade  changes  in  the 
environment.  We  know  less  about  the  size 
and  distribution  of  the  populations  of  most 
rare  species.  Even  less  is  known  about  the 
habitat  requirements  of  the  individual  rare 
species.  But  perhaps  our  greatest  ignorance 
concerning  rare  taxa  relates  to  the  specifics 
of  their  life  history  and  reproductive  biology. 
Before  such  taxa  can  be  successfully  man- 
aged, managers  must  understand  the  life 
cycle,  longevity,  and  reproductive  habits  of 
each. 

In  this  paper,  I  will  examine  various  life 
form,  longevity,  and  reproductive  characters 
of  endangered  and /or  threatened  plant  spe- 
cies of  three  states  of  the  western  United 
States:  California,  Utah,  and  Colorado.  The 


incidence  of  a  given  characteristic  among 
species  listed  as  endangered  or  threatened  in 
a  particular  state  (U.S.  Department  of  Interi- 
or 1975)  will  be  compared  to  the  incidence 
of  that  character  in  the  entire  seed  plant 
flora  of  that  state.  By  the  use  of  appropriate 
statistical  tests,  characteristics  that  are  over- 
or  underrepresented  among  rare  taxa  can  be 
identified,  provided  the  incidence  of  each 
character  is  known  among  both  rare  taxa  and 
the  full  flora  of  the  state. 


Methods 

The  basic  data  for  this  paper  have  been 
drawn  from  Munz  and  Keek's  (1973)  flora  of 
California,  a  Soil  Conversation  Service 
Checklist  of  Utah  plants  (no  date  given),  Har- 
rington's (1964)  flora  of  Colorado,  and  the 
U.S.  Department  of  Interior's  (1975)  initial 
listing  of  endangered  and  threatened  plant 
species.  Characteristics  of  the  individual  taxa 
have  been  drawn  from  species  descriptions  in 
the  floras,  examination  of  herbarium  mate- 
rial, and  personal  experience.  Some  taxa  in 
all  states  could  not  be  characterized  ade- 
quately and  were  thus  omitted  from  consid- 


'Department  of  Botany  and  Range  Science.  Brigham  Young  University,  Provo,  Utah 


129 


130 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


eration  (this  deficiency  was  particularly 
serious  for  the  California  flora). 

Suffrutescent  (woody  rooted  herbs)  taxa 
are  treated  as  perennial  herbs.  Annual  and 
biennial  taxa  were  combined  for  the  purposes 
of  this  paper.  Mode  of  pollination  (wind,  wa- 
ter, or  animal)  was  inferred  for  each  taxon 
from  floral  structure,  degree  of  exertion  of 
stamens  and  stigmas,  and  published  reports. 
The  accessibility  of  the  pollen  and/or  nectar 
to  the  average  animal  visiting  the  flower  was 
deduced  from  floral  structure.  Flowers  were 
considered  to  have  restricted  access  to  ani- 
mals if  they  possessed  any  of  the  following 
characteristics:  (1)  petals,  sepals,  or  calyx 
tube  fused  into  a  long  (over  3  mm)  tube  of 
small  diameter  (as  in  some  Gilias,  Oeno- 
theras, or  Cirsiums),  (2)  nectaries  positioned 
in  tubes  that  extend  away  from  the  reproduc- 
tion organs  (as  in  Delphinium  or  Aguilegia), 
and  (3)  separate  sepals  and  petals  that  are  so 
positioned  as  to  stand  rigidly  erect  forming  a 
narrow,  false  tube  around  the  reproductive 
organs  (as  in  Erysimum,  Streptanthus,  or 
Vicia).  Not  all  sympetalous  taxa  were  consid- 
ered to  have  restricted  access  flowers.  For  in- 
stance, some  Campanula,  Valeriana,  and 
Kabnia  species  were  classified  as  being  open 
and  freely  accessible  to  pollinators.  Although 
composite  flowers  that  include  both  ray  and 
disk  flowers  could  be  considered  to  include 
both  radially  and  bilaterally  symmetrical 
components,  I  have  classified  such  flowers  as 
radially  symmetrical.  Composite  flowers  con- 
sisting of  ray  flowers  alone  have  also  been 
categorized  as  radially  symmetrical  in  this 
study. 

For  the  purposes  of  this  paper,  I  have  as- 
sumed that  characteristics  that  are  over- 
represented  among  rare  taxa  (in  comparison 
to  the  flora  from  which  they  have  emerged) 
impart  some  survival  advantage  to  the  rare 
entity.  Conversely,  I  assume  that  character- 
istics that  are  underrepresented  put  rare  taxa 
at  a  survival  disadvantage.  It  will  be  recog- 
nized that  the  foregoing  assumptions  are 
based  upon  yet  another  assumption,  namely 
that  most  taxa  that  are  designated  as  endan- 
gered or  threatened  are  relatively  recent  in 
origin.  This  latter  assumption  imphes  that  the 
rare  taxon  is  commonly  possessed  of  a  suite  of 
characteristics  that  permit  it  to  be  successful 
in  spite  of  small  populations  and  restricted 


habitat.  I  also  recognize  that  the  foregoing 
assumptions  reveal  still  another  assumption 
inherent  in  the  analyses  presented  here:  if 
characters  that  are  overrepresented  among 
rare  taxa  are  viewed  as  enhancing  their 
chances  of  survival,  it  must  be  assumed  that 
ancient  taxa  that  are  not  well  suited  to  mod- 
ern conditions  and  are  thus  in  a  state  of  pop- 
ulation decline  are  uncommon  entities  on  the 
lists  of  endangered  and  threatened  species. 
This  point  will  be  considered  further  in  the 
Discussion  section. 

In  the  analyses  which  follow,  the  chi- 
square  statistic  is  used  to  determine  whether 
a  characteristic  is  over-  or  underrepresented 
among  the  taxa  listed  as  endangered  or 
threatened:  the  incidence  of  that  character  in 
the  regional  flora  is  used  as  the  basis  for  com- 
parison. In  such  analyses,  the  individual  spe- 
cies become  the  statistical  observations  or 
replications  in  the  compartments  of  the  2  X 
2  contingency  tables.  Relationships  were  de- 
clared statistically  significant  only  when  the 
probability  value  for  the  relationship  was  .05 
or  less. 


Results 

Characteristics  of  Regional  Floras 

Five  regional  floras  have  been  analyzed  in 
connection  with  this  study  (Table  1).  Each 
flora  has  been  analyzed  to  give  the  incidence 
of  some  or  all  of  the  following  character- 
istics: percentage  of  the  taxa  that  are  woody 
(shrubs  or  trees),  percentage  that  are  wind 
pollinated,  percentage  that  are  short-lived 
(annual  or  biennial),  percentage  that  have 
flowers  that  do  not  restrict  animal  access  to 
pollen  and/ or  nectar,  and  percentage  that 
are  radially  symmetrical.  The  five  floras  are 
surprisingly  similar  in  respect  to  the  fore- 
going characteristics.  The  most  different  flora 
in  respect  to  the  characteristics  considered  is 
that  designated  as  Wasatch  Prevalent  Spe- 
cies. As  the  name  implies,  that  list  ignores 
species  that  were  sampled  infrequently  (Os- 
tler and  Harper  1978).  An  emphasis  on  the 
more  common  species  of  a  region  seems  to 
unduly  emphasize  woody  and  wind-polli- 
nated species:  annuals  appear  to  be  under- 
represented  on  the  Wasatch  Prevalent  Spe- 
cies list.  Whether  the  underrepresentation  of 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


131 


annuals  is  attributable  to  the  fact  that  the 
Wasatch  Prevalent  list  ignores  desert  habitats 
or  to  some  other  cause  is  unknown. 

The  date  (Table  1)  demonstrate  that 
woody  species  constitute  between  10  and  15 
percent  of  the  state  floras  considered.  In 
areas  that  are  primarily  desert  (such  as  the 
Kaiparowits  region  of  Utah),  woody  taxa  may 
contribute  almost  25  percent  of  the  species  in 
the  flora.  Wind-pollinated  species  contribute 
from  19  to  26  percent  of  the  species  in  the 
regional  floras  studied.  Short-lived  species 
(annuals  or  biennials)  furnish  from  22  to  31 
percent  of  all  species  in  the  regional  floras 
imder  consideration.  Animal-polluted  flowers 
dominate  all  of  the  floras  considered.  In  the 
Colorado  flora  and  the  two  subsamples  of  the 
Utah  flora,  only  from  32  to  41  percent  of  the 
zoophilous  taxa  have  flowers  that  are  fully 
opened  (nectar  and /or  pollen  readily  reached 
by  most  animal  visitors).  Most  of  the  zoo- 
philous taxa  in  the  Colorado  and  Utah  floras 
are  radially  symmetrical  (79  to  85  percent  of 
the  species). 

The  characteristics  of  the  regional  floras 
will  serve  as  the  basis  against  which  charac- 
teristics of  the  endangered  and  threatened 
species  of  those  floras  will  be  compared.  In 
the  case  of  the  Wasatch  Prevalent  Species 
list,  no  endangered  or  threatened  species  are 
included.  Consequently,  characteristics  of 
species  from   the  bottom  third  of  the  com- 


monness gradient  formed  by  arranging  the 
prevalent  species  in  order  of  decreasing  aver- 
age frequency  will  be  compared  with  charac- 
teristics of  those  species  which  appear  on  the 
top  third  of  the  commonness  gradient.  Hope- 
fully, such  an  analysis  will  reveal  something 
about  characteristics  that  enhance  the  survi- 
val of  less  common  species. 

Size  and  Longevity  of  Rare  Taxa 

In  four  of  the  five  floras  examined,  woody 
plants  are  underrepresented  among  the  en- 
dangered and  threatened  taxa  (Table  2).  The 
nonconforming  flora  is  that  of  California: 
there  woody  plants  are  more  common  among 
endangered  taxa  than  one  would  expect  con- 
sidering the  number  of  woody  taxa  in  the 
state  flora,  but  the  departure  from  random 
expectations  is  not  statistically  significant.  Al- 
though most  of  the  endangered  woody  spe- 
cies in  California  belong  to  three  rapidly 
evolving  genera  {Arctostaphylos,  Ceanothus 
and  Eriogomim),  a  number  of  the  taxa  appear 
to  be  old  entities  that  are  survivors  of  ancient 
groups  that  are  well  adapted  to  only  a  few  of 
the  modern  environments  of  the  state.  Spe- 
cies representative  of  apparently  old,  declin- 
ing lineages  include  the  following:  Cupressus 
goveniana  var.  abramsiana,  Juglans  hindsii, 
Lavatera  assiirgentiflora,  Lyonothamnus 
floribundus,     Fremontodendron     decumbens 


Table  1.  Number  of  species  studied  and  characteristics  of  the  floras  considered.  Floristic  data  sources  appear  at 
the  bottom  of  the  table.  Blanks  occur  in  the  table  where  specific  analyses  have  not  been  made. 


Flora 

Wasatch 

Kaiparowits' 

Prevalent' 

Characteristic 

California' 

Utah^ 

Colorado' 

(Utah) 

Species  (Utah) 

Size  of  flora 

Percent  woodv  species 

5,489 
14.0 

3,507 
10.1 

2,7.35 
11.0 

848 
22.1 

244 
21.3 

Percent  wind  pollinated 
species 

18.9 

18.5 

25.9 

24.0 

.33.2 

Percent  annual  or  biennial 

species 
Percent  unrestricted  access 

flowers  (Zoophilous  only) 
Percent  radially 

30.7 

21.9 

22.7 
40.4 

25.1 
.32.0 

12.3 
39.9 

symmetrical  flowers 
(Zoophilous  only) 

- 

- 

80.2 

79.0 

84.7 

'Munz  and  Keck  (1973) 

•Soil  Conservation  Service  (no  date  given) 

'Harrington  (1964) 

'Welsh  et  al.  (1978) 

•Ostler  and  Harper  (1978) 


132 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


and  F.  mexicanum.  The  floras  of  Utah  and 
Colorado  appear  not  to  have  a  significant 
representation  of  such  ancient,  woody  taxa. 

The  weight  of  the  evidences  seems  in  favor 
of  the  hypothesis  that  larger  (woody)  species 
are  underrepresented  among  rare  species. 
Three  reasons  may  be  suggested  for  the  un- 
derrepresentation  of  woody  plants  among 
rare  taxa:  (1)  large  size  limits  the  number  of 
individuals  that  can  occupy  any  given  area, 
(2)  slower  maturation  rates  are  accompanied 
by  lower  rates  of  population  growth,  all  oth- 
er things  being  equal,  and  (3)  long  life  and 
low  reproduction  rates  impede  the  rate  at 
which  genotypes  can  be  attuned  to  peculiar 
environments.  The  affect  of  organismal  size 
on  individuals  per  unit  area  is  self-evident. 
The  profound  influence  of  age  at  first  repro- 
dviction  on  intrinsic  rate  of  increase  of  a  pop- 
ulation was  demonstrated  over  a  quarter  of  a 
century  ago  by  Lamont  C.  Cole  (1954  and 
Fig.  1).  Unquestionably,  the  average  age  at 
onset  of  reproduction  is  older  for  woody 


plants  than  for  herbs.  Thus  organismal  size 
and  age  at  first  reproduction  can  be  expected 
to  combine  to  depress  the  population  size  of 
woody  taxa  in  the  early  history  of  their  exist- 
ence. Theory  strongly  supports  the  concept 
that  extinction  rate  is  inversely  correlated 
with  population  size  and  intrinsic  rate  of  re- 
production (Pielou  1969:17).  Theorists  con- 
clude that  most  extinctions  occur  during  the 
initial  phase  of  population  growth  (Ricklefs 
1979:649).  Unfortulately,  that  is  the  period 
when  slow-maturing  organisms  such  as 
woody  plants  are  at  a  particular  disadvantage 
in  terms  of  reproduction  rate  and  population 
size.  The  chances  of  extinction  for  woody 
species  is  further  enhanced  by  a  slow  rate  of 
genetic  fine-tuning  to  unique  environments. 
Small,  faster-reproducing  (because  of  earlier 
maturation),  and  short-lived  herbaceous  taxa 
are  almost  certain  to  genetically  adapt  to 
new  environments  faster  than  woody  taxa. 

Given   the   advantages   of  small   size   and 
early  reproduction,  one  might  have  expected 


Table  2.  The  observed  and  expected  occurrences  of  woody  taxa  among  rare  species  of  five  floras.  Expected  values 
are  based  on  the  occurrence  of  woody  taxa  in  the  regional  floras.  A  sample  2x2  contingency  table  appears  at  the 
bottom  of  this  table.  Expected  values  in  the  contingency  table  appear  in  parentheses. 


Flora 


Characteristic 


California 


Utah 


Colorado 


Wasatch 
Kaiparowits  Prevalent 

(Utah)  Species  (Utah) 


No.  of  endangered  and 

threatened  species 

considered  234' 

No.  of  woody  species 

observed  40 

No.  of  woody  species 

expected  33.0 

Chi-square  summation  for 

the  relationship  1.8 

Significance  of  relationship  NS 


157 

5 

15.1 

7.8 


49 

1 

5.3 

4.0 


44 

5 

9.5 

2.9 

NS 


85^ 
14 

22.9 
9.7 


Life  form 

Species  group 

Herbs 

Woody 

Total  Taxa 

California  endangered 
California  flora 

194 
(201) 

4,721 

(4,714) 

40 

(33) 

768 

(775) 

234 
5,489 

4,915 

808 

5,723 

'Endangered  species  only  considered 

'No.  endangered  or  threatened  species  included:  species  from  the  bottom  third  of  the  commonness  gradient  used  instead 

NS— not  statistically  significant 

■-statistically  significant  at  the  .05  but  not  the  .01  level 
"—statistically  significant  at  the  .01  level 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposiui 


133 


annual  and  biennial  plants  to  be  significantly 
overrepresented  among  the  rare  taxa.  In  only 
the  California  flora,  however,  were  the  short- 
lived taxa  overrepresented,  and  even  there 
the  relationship  fell  far  short  of  statistical  sig- 
nificance (Table  3).  In  both  Utah  and  Colo- 
rado, annuals  and  biennials  were  significantly 
underrepresented.  Two  possible  reasons  are 
offered  for  the  results  observed:  (1)  short  life 
requires  that  a  genotype  by  highly  pre- 
adapted  to  the  environment  to  be  occupied, 
and  (2)  the  relationship  may  be  a  taxonomic 
artifact  because  annual  and  biennial  groups 
appear  not  to  have  received  the  close  tax- 
onomic scrutiny  that  numerous  perennial 
herbaceous  and  wood  plant  groups  have  been 


exposed  to.  In  respect  to  reason  1,  many 
unique  perennial  herbs  undoubtedly  persist  in 
potentially  exploitable  environments  for 
many  years  before  genetic  recombinations 
are  generated  that  permit  the  taxon  to  suc- 
cessfully colonize  the  site.  Such  extended  pe- 
riods of  genetic  "experimentation"  would  not 
be  possible  for  annual  or  biennial  taxa:  in 
their  case,  the  novel  genotype  must  reach  an 
open  niche  and  be  sufficiently  well  adapted 
to  that  environment  to  reproduce  success- 
fully in  the  first  reproductive  event.  The 
probability  that  the  novel  genotype  will  be 
sufficiently  preadapted  to  reproduce  success- 
fully in  the  potential  niche  during  the  first 
reproductive  event  is  apparently  small. 


2.4-. 

2.2 

2.0- 

1.8- 
c/) 

O 
.E      1.4- 

H— 

O     1.2  - 
TO     10-1 

.9    0.8. 

</) 

C 

'^    0.6-1 
_C 

0.4- 

0.2- 


b  =    litter     size 

n  =   no.    reproductive   events  /O 


15 


Age    of   first    reproduction 


Fig.  1.  The  influence  of  age  at  first  reproduction  on  rate  of  natural  increa.se  in  population  size.  Note  that  delaying 
reproduction  for  even  one  reproductive  period  (from  period  1  to  period  2)  for  taxa  that  produce  many  offspring  per 
reproductive  event  has  a  major  effect  on  the  intrinsic  rate  of  poulation  increase  (about  a  45  percent  decline  when  b 
=  10  and  the  females  reproduce  repeatedly).  Many  perennial  herbs  reproduce  in  the  first  year  of  life,  but  many 
woody  taxa  delay  reproduction  for  more  than  a  decade.  (Figure  modified  from  Cole  [1954]). 


134 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


Table  3.  Observed  and  expected  occurrences  of  short-lived  (annual  and  biennial)  taxa  among  rare  species  of  five 
floras.  Expected  values  are  based  on  the  occurrence  of  short-lived  taxa  in  the  regional  floras.  Number  of  endangered 
and  threatened  species  remains  as  in  Table  2. 


Flora 

Wasatch 

Characteristic 

California 

Utah 

Colorado 

Kaiparowits 
(Utah) 

Prevalent 
Species  (Utah) 

No.  of  short-lived  taxa 

observed 

80 

15 

4 

9 

9 

No.  of  short-lived  taxa 

expected 

72.2 

33.,5 

11.0 

11.0 

10.2 

Chi-square  simimation  for 

the  relationship 

1.3 

13.6 

5.8 

0.5 

0.3 

Significance  of  relationship 

NS 

oo 

" 

NS 

NS 

.NS-Not  statistically  significant 

•-Statistically  significant  at  the  . 
"-Statistically  significant  at  the  . 

05  but  not  the  .01  level 
01  level 

Pollination  of  Rare  Species 

In  all  floras  considered  here,  wind-polli- 
nated taxa  are  underrepresented  among  the 
rare  species.  The  relationship  is  significant  at 
the  .01  level  in  four  of  the  five  floras  consid- 
ered (Table  4).  As  Ostler  and  Harper  (1978) 
have  argued,  wind  pollination  would  be  ex- 
pected to  be  ineffective  where  species  are 
represented  by  few,  widely  scattered  individ- 
uals and  where  the  species  are  small  and 
overtopped  by  larger  plants.  Because  small 
populations  are  a  characteristic  of  all  taxa 
listed  as  threatened  or  endangered,  wind  pol- 
lination would  be  expected  to  be  a  poor  re- 
productive strategy  for  them.  In  addition,  the 
threatened  and  endangered  lists  considered 
consist    primarily    of   herbaceous    (and    thus 


small)  organisms.  Both  Ostler  and  Harper 
(1978)  and  Freeman  et  al.  (1979)  show  that 
wind  pollination  is  heavily  underrepresented 
among  herbs,  apparently  because  they  are 
usually  overtopped  by  woody  vegetation  that 
restricts  wind  flow  and  hinders  movement  of 
pollen  to  receptive  stigmas. 

Flower  Symmetry 

The  data  show  a  universal  over- 
representation  of  bilaterally  symmetrical 
flowers  among  the  rare  taxa  of  all  floras 
(Table  5).  It  must  be  noted,  however,  that  the 
values  reported  for  California  and  Utah  are 
conservative  estimates  only;  the  actual  in- 
cidence of  radially  symmetrical  flowers  in 
those  areas  has  not  been  tabulated  directly 


Table  4.  Observed  and  expected  occurrences  of  wind-pollinated  taxa  among  rare  species  of  five  floras.  Expected 
values  are  based  on  the  occurrence  of  anemophilous  taxa  in  the  regional  floras.  Niunber  of  endangered  and  threat- 
ened species  remains  as  in  Table  2. 


Flora 

Wasatch 

Kaiparowits 

Prevalent 

Characteristic 

California 

Utah 

Colorado 

(Utah) 

Species  (Utah) 

\o.  of  vvind-polliriated 

taxa  observed 

21 

1 

4 

6 

19 

No.  of  wind-pollinated  taxa 

expected 

43.3 

27.9 

15.5 

10.4 

30.0 

Chi-square  summation  for 

the  relationship 

14.7 

33.0 

12.7 

2.6 

12.7 

Significance  of  relationship 

°° 

oo 

oo 

NS 

o. 

NS— Not  statistically  significant 

•-Statistically  significant  at  the  .05  but  not  the  .01  level 
••—Statistically  significant  at  the  .01  level 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


135 


(see  Table  5  legend  for  assumptions  for  Cali- 
fornia and  Utah).  If  the  assumptions  are  valid 
for  Utah,  bilaterally  symmetrical  flowers  are 
significantly  overrepresented  among  rare 
plants  there. 

The  overrepresentation  of  zygomorphic 
flowered  species  in  the  Kaiparowits  flora  nar- 
rowly misses  significance  at  the  .05  level.  In 
aggregate,  the  data  suggest  that  floral  zygo- 
morphy  conveys  a  reproductive  advantage  to 
rare  plants.  That  advantage  perhaps  lies  in 
the  fact  that  zygomorphy  forces  pollinators 
to  approach  flowers  in  a  stereotyped  way. 
Under  such  conditions  (i.e.,  predictable  posi- 
tioning of  the  pollinator  in  the  flower),  selec- 
tin  can  operate  to  position  stamens  and 
stigmas  within  the  flower  so  as  to  enhance 
the  efficiency  with  which  pollen  is  trans- 
ferred from  stamen  to  pollinator  and  from 
pollinator  to  stigma.  Zygomorphy  may  also 
enhance  the  distinctiveness  of  flowers  of  dif- 
ferent species  and  provide  another  cue  to 
compliment  color,  size,  and  odor  as  charac- 
ters that  permit  pollinators  to  distinguish 
flowers  of  one  taxon  from  those  of  another. 
One  would  expect  the  degree  of  flower 
uniqueness  to  enhance  fidelity  between  the 
flower  and  animal  pollinators  and  thus  im- 
prove reproductive  success. 


Restricted  Access  to  Flowers 
Taxa  with  flowers  in  which  access  to  nec- 
tar and/ or  pollen  rewards  is  restricted  are 
overrepresented  among  the  rare  species  in 
the  three  floras  for  which  floral  structure  is 
known,  but  the  relationship  is  statistically  sig- 
nificant for  the  Wasatch  Prevalent  flora  only 
(Table  6).  Using  a  conservative  estimate  of 
the  incidence  of  restricted  access  flowers  in 
the  California  and  Utah  flora  (i.e.,  the  rate 
for  Colorado  from  Table  1),  contradictory  re- 
sults are  obtained  for  California  and  Utah,  al- 
though the  results  are  not  statistically  signifi- 
cant for  either  flora.  It  seems  reasonable  to 
assume  that  mechanical  barriers  that  restrict 
access  of  many  insect  taxa  to  nectar  and  pol- 
len of  a  given  plant  species  would  encourage 
fidelity  between  that  plant  and  adapted  pol- 
linators, because  adapted  pollinators  would 
have  greater  assurance  of  a  food  reward  at 
each  visit  (i.e.,  many  potential  competitors 
would  be  unable  to  harvest  the  floral  re- 
wards). The  data  lend  only  slight  support  to 
the  foregoing  assumption,  however,  and  it  is 
clear  that  mechanical  hedges  about  floral  re- 
wards are  much  less  useful  adaptations  to 
rare  plants  than  small  size,  early  onset  of  re- 
production, animal  pollination,  or  bilateral 
symmetry  of  the  flower. 


Table  5.  Observed  and  expected  occurrences  of  bilaterally  symmetrical  flowers  among  the  animal-pollinated  rare 
species  of  five  floras.  Expected  values  are  based  on  the  occurrence  of  bilaterally  symmetrical  zoophilous  flowers  in 
the  regional  floras  except  for  California  and  Utah.  Because  the  actual  incidence  of  bilaterally  symmetrical  flowers  is 
unknown  in  the  latter  two  floras,  expected  values  are  based  on  the  conservative  assumption  that  bilateral  flowers 
occur  with  a  frequency  in  those  floras  equal  to  the  frequency  in  the  Kaiparowits  flora  (see  Table  1). 


Flora 

Wasatch 

Characteristic 

California 

Utah 

Colorado 

Kaiparowits 
(Utah) 

Prevalent 
Species  (Utah) 

No.  of  threatened  and 

endangered  species 
considered 

214' 

156 

45 

38 

66^ 

No.  of  liilaterally 

symmetrical  flowered 
species  observed 

52 

48 

12 

13 

12 

No.  of  bilaterally 

symmetrical  flowered 

species  expected 
Chi-square  summation  for 

the  relationship 
Significance  of  relationship 

45.3 

1.3 

NS 

33.5 
8.4 

9 

1.3 

NS 

8.2 

3.8 
.10' 

9.8 

1.5 

NS 

'Endangered  species  only  considered 

'No.  endangered  or  threatened  species  included:  species  from  the  bottom  third  of  the  commoness  gradient  used  instead 

'Statistically  significant  at  the  .10  but  not  at  the  .05  level 

NS— Not  statistically  significant 

•-Statistically  significant  at  the  .05  but  not  the  .01  level 
■"—Statistically  significant  at  the  .01  level 


136 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


Discussion 

Results  show  that  the  CaHfomia  flora  be- 
haves differently  from  that  of  Utah  and  Colo- 
rado in  respect  to  the  frequency  of  both 
woody    and    short-lived    taxa.    The    over- 
representation  of  rare  woody  taxa  in  Califor- 
nia may  be  explained  by  the  relatively  high 
incidence  of  apparently  ancient  woody  taxa 
there.   Some  of  the  ancient  woody  taxa  of 
California  have  been  enumerated  in  the  Re- 
sults section  of  this  paper.  If  there  is  a  signifi- 
cantly larger  component  of  evolutionary  old 
taxa  in  California  than  in  Utah  or  Colorado, 
the  divergent  results  reported  in  Table  2  for 
California  and  the  two  interior  states  would 
be  expected.  That  is,  in  California  ancient 
woody  species  that  are  rare  may  be  viewed 
as  taxa  that  were  once  more  common  but 
have  steadily  lost  habitat  to  more  modern 
species  that  are  better  adapted  to  current  en- 
vironments. If  such  is  the  case,  the  basic  as- 
sumption underlying  this  paper  (i.e.,  charac- 
teristics that  are  overrepresented  among  rare 
taxa  must  enhance  their  chances  of  survival) 
would  not  hold.  Instead,  characteristics  con- 
sidered to  be  selected  against  among  recently 
evolved  taxa  that  have  successfully  eluded  ex- 
tinction   may   be    overrepresented    in    older 
floras  that  are  now  marginally  adapted  to 
and  declining  in  modern  landscapes. 

The  slight  overrepresentation  of  short- 


lived taxa  among  endangered  plants  of  Cali- 
fornia (Table  3)  is  unique  for  the  floras  exam- 
ined. It  should  also  be  noted  that  the  Califor- 
nia flora  supports  significantly  more  annual 
plant  species  than  any  of  the  other  floras  con- 
sidered (Table  1,  Harper  et  al.  1978).  It  seems 
likely  that  annual  plants  have  been  more  in- 
tensively studied  in  California  than  in  the  in- 
terior states,  but  differences  in  taxonomic 
treatment  among  the  floras  considered  seem 
inadequate  to  explain  the  differences  noted  in 
Table  1  and  in  Harper  et  al.  (1978,  Table  3). 
A  suitable  explanation  for  the  apparent 
greater  success  of  annuals  in  California  as  op- 
posed to  Utah  and  Colorado  is  needed,  but  I 
am  unable  to  supply  such  an  argument. 

The  fact  that  most  of  the  rare  taxa  in  the 
floras  considered  are  zoophilous  or,  at  least, 
derived  from  zoophilous  stock  (Table  4)  sug- 
gests the  need  for  managers  to  use  great  care 
when  insect  control  programs  are  imple- 
mented near  populations  of  rare  plants.  Un- 
less the  taxa  are  self-pollinated  or  agamos- 
permous  (producing  seed  without 
fertilization),  decimation  of  pollinator  popu- 
lation would  adversely  affect  reproductive 
success  of  the  plant  species  in  at  least  the 
year  of  treatment. 

Unfortunately,  the  incidence  of  self-polli- 
nation and  agomospermy  among  threatened 
and  endangered  species  is  almost  totally  un- 
known. Consequently,  all  rare  taxa  should  be 


Table  6  Observed  and  expected  occurrences  of  restricted  access  flowers  among  the  animal-pollinated  rare  spe- 
cies of  five  floras.  Tfie  number  of  endangered  and  threatened  taxa  remains  as  in  Table  5.  Expected  values  are  based 
on  the  incidence  of  flowers  in  which  access  to  nectar  and/or  pollen  is  restricted  in  the  regional  floras  except  tor 
California  and  Utah.  Because  the  actual  incidence  of  zoophilous  species  having  restricted  access  to  floral  rewards  is 
unknown  in  the  latter  two  floras,  expected  value  is  based  on  the  conservative  estimate  that  restricted  access  flowers 
occur  with  a  frequency  in  those  floras  that  is  equal  to  the  frequency  in  the  Colorado  flora  (see  Table  1). 


Flora 

~ 

Wasatch 

i 
Characteristic 

California 

Utah 

Colorado 

Kaiparowits 
(Utah) 

Prevalent 
Species  (Utah) 

No.  of  threatened  or 
endangered  taxa 
observed  with  restricted 
flowers 

119 

99 

29 

26 

45 

No.  of  taxa  expected  to 
have  restricted  flowers 

127.1 

9.3..3 

26.9 

25.5 

39.1 

Chi-square  summation  for 

the  relationship 
Significance  of  relationship 

1..3 

NS 

.9 

NS 

.4 

NS 

.04 

NS 

,5.6 

NS— Not  statistically  significant 

•-Statistically  significant  at  the  .05  but  not  the  .01  level 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


137 


treated  as  obligate  outcrossers  until  proven 
otherwise.  This  point  suggests  that  any  man- 
agement act  that  has  the  potential  of  dimin- 
ishing pollen  flow  between  separate  individ- 
uals of  any  rare  taxon  should  be  carefully 
evaluated  in  terms  of  possible  reproductive 
impairment  of  that  plant.  Thus,  construction 
work  or  traffic  over  unpaved  roads  near  pop- 
ulations of  either  wind-  or  animal-pollinated 
species  should  be  carefully  controlled  or  cur- 
tailed completely,  because  dust  can  foul  stig- 
matic  surfaces  and  essentially  eliminate  polli- 
nation of  obligate  outcrossers. 

A  knowledge  of  the  breeding  system  of  all 
rare  taxa  would  markedly  improve  our  ability 
to  make  wise  management  decisions  con- 
cerning them.  As  noted  above,  outcrossing 
taxa  will  necessitate  more  management  re- 
strictions than  self-pollinated  or  agomos- 
permous  taxa.  On  the  other  hand,  self-polli- 
nated and  agamospermous  taxa  may  be  far 
less  genetically  diverse  and  hence  more  easily 
disturbed  by  environmental  alterations  than 
outbreeders.  Furthermore,  a  knowledge  of 
the  breeding  systems  of  rare  plants  would 
help  phylogeneticists  to  better  define  the 
probable  origins  of  the  taxa  and  geneticists  to 
estimate  the  likely  amount  of  unique  germ 
plasm  in  given  taxa  (Baker  1961). 

Circumstantial  evidence  suggest  that  many 
of  the  threatened  and  endangered  plant  spe- 
cies will  be  shown  to  be  self-pollinated  or 
agamospermous.  Such  reproductive  habits 
would  be  expected  to  be  selected  for  in  rare 
taxa  for  two  reasons:  (1)  both  habits  would 
tend  to  preserve  unique  gene  combinations 
that  adapt  rare  plants  to  their  habitat,  and  (2) 
both  reproductive  habitats  would  permit  soli- 
tary individuals  to  successfully  reproduce 
(Grant  1971). 

Finally,  it  is  worthy  of  note  for  managers 
that  most  of  the  rare  taxa  in  all  of  the  floras 
considered  here  are  dicotyledons.  Thus,  the 
broad  spectrum  herbicides  belonging  to  the 
2,  4-D  group  (dichlorophenoxyacetic  acid 
and  near  relatives)  that  have  proven  so  effec- 


tive against  broadleaved  plants  can  be  ex- 
pected to  be  dangerous  to  most  rare  plants. 
Herbicides  of  this  group  have  been  widely 
used  in  land  management  programs  in  the 
past  for  control  of  undesirable  species.  In  the 
future,  threat  to  endangered  species  must  be 
added  to  the  list  of  constraints  that  must  be 
considered  when  use  of  such  herbicides  is 
considered. 

Literature  Cited 

Baker,  H.  G.  1961.  Rapid  speciation  in  relation  to 
changes  in  the  breeding  systems  of  plants,  pp. 
881-885.  In:  Recent  Advances  in  Botany,  Univer- 
sity of  Toronto  Press. 

Cole,  L.  C.  1954.  The  population  consequences  of  life 
history  phenomena.  Quart.  Rev.  Biol.  29:10.3-1.37. 

Freema.n,  D.  C,  K.  T.  Harper,  and  W.  K.  Ostler. 
1979.  Ecology  and  plant  dioecy  in  California  and 
Intermountain  Western  America.  Oecologia  23. 
In  press. 

Gr.\nt,  V.  1971.  Plant  speciation.  Columbia  University 
Press,  New  York. 

Harper,  K.  T.,  D.  C.  Freeman,  W.  K.  Ostler,  and  L. 
G.  Klikoff.  1978.  The  flora  of  Great  Basin  moun- 
tain ranges:  diversity,  sources,  and  dispersal  ecol- 
ogy. Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs  2:81-103. 

R\rrington,  H.  D.  1964.  Manual  of  the  plants  of  Colo- 
rado. Sage  Books,  Denver,  Colorado. 

MuNz,  P.  A.,  and  D.  D.  Keck.  1973.  A  California  flora 
(including  the  1968  supplement).  University  of 
California  Press,  Berkeley. 

Ostler,  VV.  K.,  and  K.  T.  Harper.  1978.  Floral  ecology 
in  relation  to  plant  species  diversity  in  the 
Wasatch  Mountains  of  Utah  and  Idaho.  Ecology 
59:848-861. 

PiELOu,  E.  C.  1969.  An  introduction  to  mathematical 
ecology.  Wiley-Interscience,  a  division  of  John 
Wiley  &  Sons,  New  York. 

RicKLEFs,  R.  E.  1979.  Ecology,  2d  Ed.  Chiron  Press, 
New  York. 

U.S.  Department  of  Agriculture  Soil  Conservation 
Service.  No  date  given.  List  of  scientific  and 
common  plant  names  for  Utah.  113  pp.  (mim- 
eographed). 

U.S.  Department  of  Interior,  Fish  and  Wildlife 
Service.  1975.  Threatened  or  endangered  fauna 
and  flora:  review  of  status  of  vascular  plants  and 
determination  of  critical  habitat.  Federal  regis- 
ter, vol.  40,  no.  127,  part  V:  27,824-27,924. 

Welsh,  S.  L.,  N.  D.  Atwood,  and  J.  R.  Murdock.  1978. 
Kaiparowits  flora.  Great  Basin  Nat.  .38:125-79. 


THE  IMPORTANCE  OF  BEES  AND  OTHER  INSECT  POLLINATORS 
IN  MAINTAINING  FLORAL  SPECIES  COMPOSITION 

V.  J.  Tepedino' 

.\bstr.\ct.—  Bees  and  other  insect  pollinators  which  are  necessary  for  the  successful  reproduction  of  most  species 
of  flowering  plants,  including  agricultural  crops,  have  been  ignored  by  our  preservation  efforts.  This  is  unfortunate 
because  bees,  as  low-fecundity  organisms,  are  very  susceptible  to  insecticides  and  populations  are  slow  to  recover 
from  perturbations.  Many  species  of  bees,  particularly  specialized  species  in  the  western  United  States  and  the  trop- 
ics, are  vulnerable  to  extinction.  With  extinctions  of  specialized  forms,  generalized  species,  especially  fugitives,  are 
expected  to  increase  because  of  their  ability  to  utilize  a  variety  of  resources  and  survive  beyond  the  confines  of 
preserves.  The  possible  effects  of  increased  dominance  by  generalist  pollinators  on  floral  species  composition  is  dis- 
cussed. 


Aside  from  being  included  in  our  objective 
to  preserve  existent  natural  diversity  (Ter- 
borgh  1974),  insect  pollinators  merit  our 
preservation  efforts  because  some  67  percent 
of  extant  flowering  plants  depend,  to  varying 
extents,  upon  them  for  reproduction  (Axelrod 
1960).  Indeed,  "pollinators  are  an  environ- 
mental resource  as  critical  to  the  long-term 
survival  of  a  (plant)  population  as  are  light, 
moisture,  etc."  (Levin  1971).  The  adaptations 
for  the  attraction  and  utilization  of  insects  by 
flowering  plants  for  reproduction  are  impres- 
sive. They  include  size,  color,  fragrance,  nec- 
tar, excess  pollen,  and  nutrient  contents,  as 
well  as  morphology,  positioning,  and  devel- 
opment of  the  floral  parts  (Percival  1965, 
Baker  and  Hurd  1968,  Faegri  and  van  der  Pijl 
1971,  Leppik  1972,  Proctor  and  Yeo  1973). 
In  the  absence  of  insects,  most  flowers  as 
they  are  produced  today  would  be  malad- 
aptive and  our  flora  would  assume  a  different 
aspect. 

An  example  of  a  flora  with  few  available 
pollinators  is  that  of  the  Galapagos  Islands, 
where  only  one  species  of  bee  and  19  species 
of  lepidoptera  have  been  recorded  (Linsley 
1966).  Where  pollinators  are  in  extremely 
short  supply  it  is  disadvantageous  to  produce 
large,  attractive  flowers.  Instead,  we  expect 
selection  for  wind  pollination  or  autogamy 
with  a  concomitant  reduction  in  conspicuous 


flowers  (Rick  1966).  In  fact,  there  are  few 
brightly  colored  flowers  in  the  Galapagos; 
most  are  drab,  and  "endemics  tend  to  have 
reduced  corollas"  (Rick  1966).  In  pollination 
tests  with  18  species  from  seven  families, 
Rick  found  a  high  incidence  of  autogamy:  13 
species  self-pollinated  automatically  and  one 
was  self-compatible.  Results  from  four  other 
species  were  inconclusive.  Linsley  et  al. 
(1966)  have  speculated  that  successful  in- 
vasion of  the  islands  may  have  been  restrict- 
ed to  those  plant  species  which  are  either 
wind  or  self-pollinated  or  compatible  with 
available  pollinators.  Thus,  the  Galapagos 
flora  is  probably  less  diverse  than  it  might 
have  been  had  the  pollinator  diversity  been 
higher. 

Bees  are  the  most  important  of  insect  pol- 
linators. Except  for  masarid  wasps  and  a  few 
beetles,  only  bees  depend  exclusively  upon 
pollen  and  nectar  for  food  throughout  their 
life  cycle.  Their  coevolution  with  flowering 
plants  is  manifest  in  the  many  morphological, 
behavioral,  and  physiological  adaptations 
which  make  them  more  efficient  at  flower 
utilization  (Linsley  1958,  Percival  1965,  Bak- 
er and  Hurd  1968,  Stephen  et  al.  1969, 
Faegri  and  van  der  Pijl  1971,  Proctor  and 
Yeo  1973). 

In  many  cases  the  reciprocal  adaptations 
between  particular  bee  and  plant  taxa  have 


'Department  of  Zoology  and  Physiology,  University  of  Wyoming,  Laramie,  Wyoming.  Current  address:  Bee  Biology  and  .Systematics  Laboratory.  USDA- 
SEA,  AR,  Utah  State  University,  UMC  53,  Logan.  Utah  84322. 


139 


140 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


become  rather  specialized.  Within  the  genus 
Penstemon,  for  example,  species  of  the  Series 
Graciles  are  adapted  for  pollination  by  bees 
of  the  genus  Osmia  (Crosswhite  and  Cross- 
white  1966).  Tropical  orchids  attract  males  of 
particular  species  of  bees  of  the  genus  Eu- 
glossa  by  specific  fragrances  (Williams  and 
Dodson  1972).  Pedicularis  species  are  polli- 
nated only  by  bumble  bees  (e.g.,  Macior 
1977).  Tlie  pollen  and  nectar  of  the  poisonous 
range  plant  death  camas  (Zigadenus  spp.), 
though  deadly  to  honeybees  (Hitchcock 
1959),  are  utilized  by  the  oligolectic  bee  An- 
drena  astragali  Viereck  &  Cockerell,  which 
also  pollinates  the  plant  (pers.  obs.). 

In  addition  to  our  native  flora,  many  im- 
portant agricultural  crops,  including  cole 
crops,  orchard  fruits  and  nuts,  bushberries, 
strawberries,  some  citrus  fruits,  sunflowers, 
cucurbits,  alfalfa,  and  red  clover  either  re- 
quire insect  pollinators  for  seed  set  or  set 
more  seed  in  their  presence  (Free  1970, 
McGregor  1976).  Although  most  crop  polli- 
nation is  presently  accomplished  by  honey- 
bees, reports  of  native  bees  visiting  flowers  of 
agricultural  crops  are  common  (Free  1970, 
McGregor  1976),  and  endemics  are  undoubt- 
edly responsible  for  some,  as  yet  undeter- 
mined, percentage  of  crop  pollinations.  Two 
solitary  species  have  replaced  the  honeybee 
as  the  preferred  pollinator  of  alfalfa  in  the 
northwestern  United  States  (Bohart  1972b), 
and  another  species,  Osmia  lignaria  Say, 
shows  considerable  promise  as  a  pollinator  of 
pome  crops  (P.  F.  Torchio,  pers.  comm.).  Na- 
tive bees  will  probably  play  an  especially  im- 
portant role  in  the  pollination  of  sunflowers, 
a  rapidly  increasing  native  crop  (F.  D.  Park- 
er, pers.  comm.).  The  preservation  of  exotic 
bees  will  be  important  as  we  increase  our  ag- 
ricultural acreages  of  introduced  crops  and 
.seek  to  import  pollinators  that  have  coe- 
volved  with  those  crops.  For  example,  the 
primary  pollinators  of  alfalfa  in  the  north- 
west, Megachile  rotundata  (Linnaeus),  is  an 
exotic  species  native  to  Europe. 

Of  Grasshoppers  and  Bees 

During  the  summer  of  1978  a  news  release 
in  the  Laramie  Daily  Boomerang  announced 
that  a  joint  federal,  state,  and  locally  funded 
insecticide  spray  program  would  be  con- 


ducted in  northeastern  Wyoming  to  control 
grasshopper  populations  that  had  exceeded 
economically  safe  levels.  I  paraphrase  the  last 
segment  of  the  news  release:  "Those  who  are 
concerned  about  bee  populations  in  the  area 
please  note  that  all  bees  will  be  removed  be- 
fore spraying  is  conducted."  This  is  quite  an 
impressive  feat  considering  that  Wyoming 
has  a  minimum  of  660  species  (Lavigne  and 
Tepedino  1976),  all  but  one  of  which  evolved 
with  the  native  flora.  The  single  exotic.  Apis 
mellifera,  the  honeybee,  was,  of  course,  the 
species  that  was  moved. 

At  the  time  insecticide  was  applied  there 
were  probably  between  25  and  50  species  of 
bees  in  the  area.  Unfortunately,  no  studies  as- 
sessing the  affect  of  spraying  were  under- 
taken, but  other  work  has  shown  severe  pol- 
linator depletion  following  insecticide 
application  (Kevan  1975,  Plowright  et  al. 
1978,  Robinson  and  Johansen  1978).  Because 
of  their  susceptibility  to  pesticides  (Johansen 
1977),  wild  bee  populations  were  probably 
decimated. 

The  rate  of  recovery  of  an  animal  popu- 
lation whose  numbers  have  been  drastically 
trimmed  is  positively  correlated  with  the  in- 
trinsic rate  of  increase  of  that  population 
(May  et  al.  1974).  Though  females  of  many 
insect  species  produce  hundreds  or  thousands 
of  offspring,  each  of  which  receives  little  or 
no  parental  care,  bees  have  developed  a  con- 
trasting strategy.  Bees  produce  few  offspring 
and  expend  considerable  effort  to  insure  the 
survival  of  each.  Greenhouse  studies  at  the 
USDA  Bee  Biology  and  Systematics  Labora- 
tory with  several  solitary  species,  under  con- 
ditions of  excess  bloom  and  without  natural 
enemies,  show  that  maximum  fecundity  aver- 
ages 15-20  offspring  per  adult  female.  In  the 
natural  environment,  where  bloom  is  only  oc- 
casionally superabundant  and  competitors, 
predators,  and  parasites  abound,  fecundity 
must  be  much  lower.  Because  of  their  low  fe- 
cundity, bees  recover  slowly  from  bouts  of  in- 
secticide spraving  or  other  perturbations. 
Plowright  et  al.  (1978)  estimated  that  three 
to  four  years  would  be  necessary  for  bumble 
bee  populations  to  return  to  prespray  levels. 
Such  estimates  assume  cessation  of  spraying 
and  a  continuously  favorable  environment. 
Periodic  spraying  or  long  periods  of  weather 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


141 


unfavorable  for  flight  would  further  slow  re- 
covery rates. 

The  low  fecundity  of  bees  has  other  ef- 
fects. Smaller  populations  are  more  vulner- 
able to  local  extinction  by  random  events 
(McArthur  and  Wilson  1967).  If  bee  popu- 
lations are  periodically  or  consistently  dis- 
turbed, numbers  will  remain  below  carrying 
capacity  for  extended  periods,  and  popu- 
lations will  become  more  prone  to  random 
extinction.  The  resistance  to  insecticides  de- 
veloped rapidly  by  many  pest  species  is  par- 
tially due  to  the  great  genetic  variability  con- 
tained in  the  prodigious  numbers  of  offspring 
produced  by  single  females  (Georhgiou 
1972).  Because  of  reduced  fecundity,  bees 
may  be  less  likely  to  develop  resistance  than 
other  insect  species.  Indeed,  resistance  to  in- 
secticides is  unknown  in  bees. 

The  example  of  the  bees  that  were  not 
moved  (or  even  considered)  illustrates  our 
philosophy  of  preservation.  We  have  empha- 
sized the  preservation  of  species  that  are 
"useful,"  closely  related,  or  obvious  to  man. 
We  overlook  the  fimctionally  important  or- 
ganisms that  are  frequently  small  and  more 
subtle  in  their  actions.  For  example,  insects, 
the  most  influential  of  terrestrial  animals 
(man  aside),  whether  judged  by  numbers  of 
species,  individuals,  or  biomass,  are  repre- 
sented by  only  eight  threatened  and  endan- 
gered species,  all  butterflies.  Yet  there  are 
over  one  million  described  insect  species  and 
at  least  as  many  awaiting  description.  The 
base  of  the  trophic  pyramid,  plants,  are  rep- 
resented by  a  mere  22  species.  In  com- 
parison, 588  species  of  vertebrates  appear  on 
the  latest  Threatened  and  Endangered  Spe- 
cies List  (U.S.  Department  of  the  Interior 
1977).  A  trend  is  evident  even  within  the 
class  Vertebrata:  7.0  percent  of  all  mammals 
are  threatened  or  endangered,  2.5  percent  of 
all  birds,  and  1.2  percent  of  all  reptiles  and 
amphibians— but  only  0.3  percent  of  all  fish. 
It  is  time  that  we  attend  to  the  preservation 
of  functionally  important  organisms  without 
backbones,  many  of  which  make  vertebrate 
existence  possible. 

The  Rarity  of  Bees 

As  pointed  out  by  Bohart  (1972a),  the  ef- 
fect of  man  on  wild  bees  has  been  both  posi- 


tive and  negative.  Overall,  however,  bee 
populations  are  probably  in  decline  due  to 
habitat  destruction  and  to  our  increasing  de- 
pendence on  insecticides  and  herbicides.  But 
even  this  assessment  is  tenuous  because  of  the 
paucity  of  hard  information.  There  are  over 
20,000  extant  species  of  bees,  and  we  know 
almost  nothing  of  all  but  a  handful  of  them. 
Our  knowledge  of  tropical  species  is  espe- 
cially poor,  but  we  can  guess  that  with  man's 
rapid  destruction  of  tropical  habitats  many 
species  will  be  lost.  Even  in  the  western 
United  States  where  bee  diversity  is  very 
high  (Linsley  1958)  we  do  not  know  how 
many  species,  if  any,  have  become  extinct  re- 
cently or  how  many  may  be  threatened.  In- 
deed, it  is  likely  that  the  bee  fauna  of  western 
North  America  harbors  many  undescribed 
species.  For  example,  in  two  years  of  collec- 
ting on  shortgrass  prairie  in  southeastern 
Wyoming,  I  recorded  over  200  species,  5-10 
percent  of  which  are  new  to  science. 

We  do  know  from  museum  records  that 
many  species  are  rarely  collected.  Lists  of 
such  species  could  be  compiled,  but  are  these 
species  truly  rare  (Drury  1974),  or  simply  un- 
derrepresented  in  collections?  Two  of  the 
many  possible  examples  illustrate  this  prob- 
lem of  identifying  endangered  bees.  Until 
1975,  Osmia  tanneri  Sandhouse,  a  mason  bee, 
was  represented  by  a  single  male  specimen 
collected  in  1928  in  the  Raft  River  Moun- 
tains of  Utah  by  Vasco  M.  Tanner.  F.  D. 
Parker  (1975)  rediscovered  the  species  nest- 
ing near  Wellsville,  Utah,  and  in  1978  Tepe- 
dino  and  Boyce  (submitted)  found  a  large 
nest  in  a  lawn  in  Laramie,  Wyoming.  Fifty 
years  after  the  species  was  discovered  we 
know  little  more  than  that  it  still  exists  and  it 
builds  mud  nests  under  rocks. 

The  genus  Dufourea,  a  ground-nesting 
group,  provides  numerous  examples  of  spe- 
cies with  restricted  distributions.  G.  E.  Bo- 
hart of  the  Logan  Bee  Laboratory  is  cur- 
rently studying  the  systematics  of  this  group 
and  has  kindly  furnished  the  following  infor- 
mation. Over  half  of  the  70  known  species 
are  restricted  to  California,  and  many  of 
these  have  been  recorded  from  only  a  single 
county.  An  undescribed  species  is  restricted 
to  the  hills  west  of  San  Bruno,  an  area  which 
is  likely  to  undergo  considerable  devel- 
opment in  the  near  future.  Another  undes- 


142 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


cribed  species  is  represented  by  two  speci- 
mens collected  in  Joshua  Tree  National 
Monument.  Diifourea  macswaini  Bohart  has 
been  collected  only  from  the  flowers  of 
Clarkia  purpurea  in  Madera  County.  Ten  to 
fifteen  other  species  have  restricted,  allopat- 
ric  distributions  on  the  west  slope  of  the 
Sierras.  With  the  continuing  increase  in  pop- 
ulation and  habitat  destruction  in  California, 
it  is  likely  that  many  of  these  rare  species 
will  disappear. 

For  a  single  region,  Wyoming  shortgrass 
prairie,  we  know  that  species  abundance 
curves  for  bees  show  the  typical  insect  pat- 
tern (Williams  1964):  there  are  a  few  abun- 
dant species  and  many  rare  ones  (Fig.  1). 
Some  of  this  rarity  is  undoubtedly  due  to  in- 
adequate sampling  or  to  the  capture  of  errant 
individuals  which  are  abundant  at  higher  ele- 
vations 5-10  km  away.  However,  many  of 
these  species  may  be  fugitives  (see  below), 
whose  local  abundance  shows  much  spatio- 
temporal  variability. 

The  Island  Effect 

With  increasing  loss  of  habitat,  many  plant 
and  pollinator  species  will  be  confined  to  is- 
land preserves  of  restricted  size  surrounded 
by  unsuitable  areas.  The  number  of  species 
supportable  will  be  determined  by  size  of  the 
preserve  and  the  distance  to  other  preserves, 
expressed  through  immigration  and  extinc- 
tion rates  (MacArthur  and  Wilson  1967). 
Such  "mainland  island  preserves"  and  their 
appropriate  design  have  been  the  subject  of 
much  discussion  (Diamond  1975,  1976,  Wil- 
son and  Willis  1975,  Simberloff  and  Abele 
1976,  Whitcomb  et  al.  1976,  Pickett  and 
Thompson  1978),  but,  in  general,  preserves 
should  be  as  large  as  possible  so  as  to  reduce 
the  probability  of  extinction  of  resident  spe- 
cies. Large  size  preserves  become  more  im- 
portant as  suitable  surrounding  habitat  di- 
minishes, because  immigration  rate  decreases 
with  increasing  distance  from  potential 
source  areas. 

The  islandlike  nature  of  preserves  will  also 
influence  the  kinds  of  plants  and  pollinators 
which  can  survive.  Preliminary  studies  of  the 
Galapagos  and  other  islands  (Carlquist  1974) 
suggest  that  a  depauperate  pollinator  fauna 
restricts  successful   colonization   to   auto- 


gamous and  anemophilous  plant  species  and 
to  those  compatible  with  the  pollinator 
fauna.  On  our  size-restricted  mainland  islands 
the  flora  and  fauna  is,  for  the  most  part,  al- 
ready present.  The  questions  are:  Which  por- 
tion of  the  pollinator  fauna  is  most  vulner- 
able to  extinction,  which  species  or  species 
types  are  most  likely  to  recolonize,  and  how 
will  this  affect  plant  community  composi- 
tion? 

Plant  community  composition  can  be  al- 
tered by  differential  changes  in  any  of  the 
numerous  selective  pressures  that  operate  at 
each  stage  in  the  life  cycle  of  component 
plant  species  (Harper  1977).  Reduction  in 
seed  set,  because  of  changes  in  the  pollinator 
fauna,  is  but  one  way  to  alter  the  abundance 
of  a  given  plant  species.  Nevertheless,  polli- 
nation is  a  critical  step  in  the  production  of 
the  sporophyte  generation.  Other  factors  that 
affect  the  relative  success  of  a  plant  species, 
and  ultimately  commvmity  composition  itself; 
operate  subsequent  to  pollination.  If  the 
gametophytes  are  not  brought  together,  no 
other  factor  is  important. 

The  effect  of  a  change  in  the  pollinator 
fauna  on  particular  plant  species  will  depend 
upon  how  specialized  in  pollinator  require- 
ments a  plant  is  and  which  species  of  pollina- 
tor(s)  has  been  lost.  Specialized  species  have 
long  been  thought  to  be  less  adaptable  to 
changing  conditions  and  therefore  more  vul- 
nerable to  extinction  (Rensch  1959).  Recent 
evidence  supports  this  idea  (Drury  1974, 
Case  1975,  Diamond  1975,  Wilson  and  Willis 
1975).  A  plant  which  has  evolved  with  a  spe- 
cific pollinator  is  doubly  disadvantaged  be- 
cause it  may  become  endangered  through  di- 
rect means,  e.g.,  habitat  loss,  or  by  dis- 
appearance of  its  pollinator.  Specialized  pol- 
linators are  exposed  to  similar  risks. 

Certain  specialized  pollinator  species  will 
require  large  tracts  of  land  for  their  survival. 
Traplining  species  (Janzen  1971),  which  may 
be  abundant  in  the  tropics,  require  large 
areas  for  successful  foraging  and  probably 
would  not  survive  on  smaller  preserves.  Plant 
species  dependent  upon  traplining  pollinators 
for  outcrossing  are  also  vulnerable. 

If  floral  production  by  the  food  plant  of  a 
specialized  pollinator  is  spatiotemporally 
variable,  then  reserves  of  a  size  sufficient  to 
incorporate  such  variability  will  be  necessary 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 

BOULDER  RIDGE 


143 


50- 

1975 

40- 

30- 

20- 

SPECIES 
O 

1 

Ll 
O 

L^   ^ 

1976 


u 

CD 
Z)40- 


30- 


DIRT  FARM 


20 


10 


1     2     3    4     5    6 


7    8    9  1 

OCTAVE 


2     3     4     5     6 


Fig.  1.  Species  abundance  distributions  for  the  bee  fauna  on  two  rangeland  sites  in  southeastern  Wyoming.  Each 
site-year  is  treated  separately.  An  octave  is  equivalent  to  log2  number  of  individuals.  All  curves,  except  Boulder 
Ridge  1975,  fit  a  lognormal  distribution. 


144 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


if  pollinator  and  plant  are  to  be  preserved. 
Little  is  known  about  variability  in  flower 
production  between  years  in  the  same  area  or 
between  areas  within  years.  On  shortgrass 
prairie,  spatiotemporal  variability  in  flower 
production  is  substantial  (Tepedino  and  Stan- 
ton, in  prep.).  Other  evidence  from  the  liter- 
ature tentatively  suggests  that  many  other  re- 
gions exhibit  similar  variability  between 
years  in  floral  phenology  (Tepedino  and 
Stanton,  in  prep.)  and  that  specialized  plant 
species  are  no  less  variable  than  others  (Tepe- 
dino and  Sauer,  unpubl.  ms.).  If  we  are  to  de- 
sign natural  reserves  with  necessary  min- 
imum dynamic  area  (Pickett  and  Thompson 
1978)  to  accommodate  pollinators,  much  ad- 
ditional data  on  variability  of  flower  produc- 
tion by  specialized  plant  species  will  be  re- 
quired. In  general,  however,  smaller  reserves 
are  probably  more  stressful  to  specialist 
plants  and  pollinators  than  to  generalized 
species. 

Regions  which  harbor  high  proportions  of 
specialized  pollinators  are  especially  prone  to 
species  loss.  The  Sonoran  Desert,  where  Neff 
et  al.  (1977)  estimated  that  33-50  percent  of 
bee  species  are  specialized,  is  one  such  re- 
gion. Indeed,  much  of  the  bee  fauna  of  a  sub- 
stantial portion  of  the  western  United  States, 
as  well  as  other  arid  regions,  may  be  special- 
ized (Linsley  1958,  Moldenke  1976).  If  spe- 
cializations of  euglossine  bees  are  indicative 
of  bee-plant  relationships  in  the  American 
tropics  (Janzen  1971,  Williams  and  Dodson 
1972)  then  a  substantial  portion  of  the  tropi- 
cal flora  and  fauna  may  be  jeopardized.  Al- 
ternatively, the  numerous  species  of  stingless, 
social  bees  in  the  American  Tropics,  most  of 
which  are  probably  generalized  in  flower  uti- 
lization, may  indicate  lower  diversity  of  flor- 
al reproductive  adaptations  than  we  cur- 
rently think.  Many  species  of  canopy  trees, 
for  example,  produce  large  numbers  of  small, 
nonspecialized  flowers  (Frankie  1975)  that 
superficially  appear  capable  of  utilizing  a  va- 
riety of  insect  species.  We  will  need  more 
data  on  tropical  pollination  systems  before  an 
adequate  assessment  can  be  made. 

Most  plant  and  pollinator  taxa  are  not  so 
specialized.  For  example,  on  Wyoming's 
shortgrass  prairie  most  plant  species  are  vis- 
ited by  many  potential  bee  pollinators  and 
most  bee  species  utilize  several  flower  spe- 


cies (Fig.  2).  Moldenke  (1975,  1976)  reported 
similar  results  for  several  plant  communities 
in  the  western  United  States.  On  shortgrass 
prairie,  flower  and  pollinator  usage  also  var- 
ied widely  between  years.  Using  Sorenson's 
presence-absence  similarity  index  (Mueller- 
Dombois  and  Ellenberg  1974),  we  compared 
the  plants  foraged  upon  for  each  species  of 
bee  between  years  and,  also,  the  pollinators 
which  visited  each  species  of  plant  in  each 
year  (Fig.  3).  Most  species  of  bees  and  plants 
were  variable  in  their  resource  usage  (low 
similarity  values),  especially  at  the  Boulder 
Ridge  site  where  floral  variation  was  also 
greatest  (Tepedino  and  Stanton,  in  prep.).  Fi- 
nally, most  bee  species  also  utilized  a  variety 
of  flowers  during  particular  foraging  trips. 
Identification  of  pollen  species  from  loads 
carried  by  bees  showed  that  over  65  percent 
of  all  individuals  had  visited  two  or  more 
plant  species  on  a  given  trip  and  that  46  per- 
cent had  visited  more  than  three  plant  spe- 
cies. 

Generalized  bees  are  less  vulnerable  to  ex- 
tinction than  specialists  for  reasons  related  to 
their  ability  to  utilize  a  variety  of  flower  spe- 
cies. First,  unlike  specialists,  generalists  will 
not  become  endangered  because  of  the  dis- 
appearance of  a  specific  host  plant.  Second, 
the  probability  of  a  species  becoming  extinct 
due  to  random  events  increases  with  decreas- 
ing population  size  (MacArthur  and  Wilson 
1967).  Populations  of  resident  generalists 
should  be  better  buffered  against  wide  fluc- 
tuations in  numbers  because  of  the  wider  po- 
tential resource  base.  In  particular,  popu- 
lation size  of  generalist  species  during 
unfavorable  periods  of  bloom  should  be  high- 
er than  that  of  specialists  and  therefore  less 
prone  to  extinction.  Finally,  generalists  are 
less  dependent  upon  the  size  of  preserves 
than  specialists,  because  it  is  more  likely  that 
surrounding  areas  will  contain  plants  which 
are  suitable  to  them.  In  effect,  the  area  suit- 
able to  generalists  will  almost  always  be 
greater  than  that  for  specialists  and  will  ex- 
tend beyond  the  confines  of  a  preserve.  Pre- 
serves should  be  designed  with  the  minimum 
dynamic  area  (Pickett  and  Thompson  1978) 
necessary  for  specialist  survival  in  mind. 

One  particular  group  of  generalized  bees 
that  is  least  likely  to  be  affected  by  habitat 
loss  and  disturbance  is  the  fugitive  species 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


145 


contingent.  Hutchinson  (1951)  proposed  the 
term  fugitive  to  describe  species  that  avoid 
vying  for  limited  resources  with  superior 
competitors  by  dispersing  to  locaHzed  patch- 
es of  resource  abundance  where  competition 
is  temporarily  relaxed.  Fugitive  bee  species 


should  be  especially  evident  in  habitats 
where  floral  resources  are  spatiotemporally 
unpredictable  such  as  shortgrass  prairie 
(Tepedino  and  Stanton,  in  prep.).  Indeed,  in 
these  studies  on  shortgrass  prairie,  we  found 
that  less  than  30  percent  of  the  approx- 


00 
LJ 

LiJ15 

CL 

OO 

cr 

UJ 


5- 


DIRT  FARM 
a 


BOULDER  RIDGE 
b 


5   6-10  11-15  16-20  1-5    6-10  11-15  16-20  >20 

NUMBER  OF  BEE  SPECIES  VISITING 


UJ 

0  15- 

LJ 
Q_ 
Ul 

LJ 
LJ 
CQlO- 


1-2     3-4    5-6    7-8  9-10    =>10  1-2     3-4    5-6    7-8  9-10  11-15 

NUMBER  OF  FLOWER  SPECIES  VISITED 

Fig.  2.  a,b— Distribution  of  shortgrass  prairie  flower  species  according  to  the  number  of  bee  species  visiting  them 
over  two  years  on  two  sites  in  southeastern  Wyoming;  c,d— distribuion  of  bee  species  by  the  number  of  flower  spe- 
cies utilized. 


146 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


100 


80 


y  60 
u 

UJ 
Q- 

^    40- 

UJ 
UJ 
CD 

5^    20- 


DF  BEE  SPECIES 
a 

x=O502  (±.229) 


BR   BEE   SPECIES 
b 

x  =  0.407  (±.219) 


BETWEEN  YEAR  SIMILARITY  IN  FLOWERS  VISITED 


DF  FLOWER  SPECIES 


lOOi 


80-      rr 


60 


40- 


20- 


x=0375(±.316) 


BR  FLOWER  SPECIES 
d 

x"=Q200(±.187) 


■75 


0-    >25-  >50-  >.75  0-    >25-  >.50- 

.25      .50      .75  .25       .50      75 

BETWEEN  YEAR  SIMILARITY  IN   BEE  VISITATION 

Fig.  .3.  a,b— Distribution  of  resident  bee  species  by  their  similarity  in  flower  utilization  between  consecutive  years 
on  two  shortgrass  prairie  sites;  c,d— distribution  of  flower  species  by  their  between-year  similarity  in  bee  species 
visiting  them. 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


147 


imately  150  bee  species  recorded  on  each  of 
two  sites  could  meet  such  relaxed  require- 
ments for  residency  as  >3  individuals  on  a 
given  site  in  each  year.  Most  species  were  ei- 
tlier  present  in  very  low  numbers  in  each 
vear  or  were  abundant  in  one  year  and  ab- 
sent in  the  other.  The  percentages  of  total  in- 
dividuals collected  that  were  nonresidents 
varied  from  8.6-40.4  percent  at  the  Boulder 
Ridge  site  and  from  16.9-26.8  percent  at  the 
Dirt  Farm.  Although  some  nonresidents  were 
undoubtedly  incidentals  from  other  habitats, 
the  large  number  of  species  and  individuals 
in  this  category  suggest  the  presence  of  a  sub- 
stantial fugitive  species  contingent. 

With  diminution  of  native  habitat,  fugitive 
species  will  comprise  an  increasingly  domi- 
nant element  of  the  bee  fauna.  Unlike  spe- 
cialized bees  and  to  a  lesser  extent  resident 
generalists,  fugitives  will  be  uninfluenced  by 
size  of  reserves  because  of  their  tendency  to 
disperse  and  their  ability  to  utilize  a  variety 
of  floral  resources.  Fugitives  will  have  little 
difficulty  succeeding  outside  reserves  because 
of  the  many  patches  of  floral  resources  avail- 
able along  roadsides,  in  agricultural  fields, 
backyards,  etc.  Indeed,  these  are  the  kinds  of 
situations  to  which  fugitives  are  adapted 
(Wilson  and  Willis  1975,  Diamond  1976, 
Whitcomb  et  al.  1976).  As  resident  bee  spe- 
cies gradually  disappear  from  reserves  be- 
cause of  random  extinctions  of  their  relative- 
ly small  populations,  they  will  be  replaced 
not  by  other  immigrants  of  the  same  species 
but  by  fugitives. 

The  affect  on  the  flora  of  losing  general- 
ized pollinators  is  difficult  to  assess.  It  is 
tempting  to  claim  that  many  generalists  are 
functionally  redundant  and  therefore  expen- 
dable; if  lost,  their  pollinatory  activities  will 
be  assumed  by  others.  Such  a  justification  for 
nonpreservation  is  potentially  insidious  be- 
cause we  have  virtually  no  information  on 
the  relative  efficiencies  of  different  pollina- 
tors on  particular  plants  or  of  a  single  pol- 
linator on  several  plant  species  (Primack  and 
Silander  1975).  Conversely,  several  studies 
have  now  shown  that  plant  and  pollinator  di- 
versity are  significantly  correlated  (Heithaus 
1974,  Moldenke  1975,  del  Moral  and  Stand- 
ley  1979).  A  reduction  in  the  diversity  of  ei- 
ther plants  or  pollinators  may  lead  to  a  re- 
duction in  the  diversity  of  the  other. 


There  are  reasons  for  believing  that  func- 
tional redundancy  is  minimal,  and  that  elimi- 
nation of  generalized  bee  species  as  well  as 
specialists  can  lead  to  differential  alterations 
in  seed  set  between  plant  species.  First,  some 
bees  may  collect  nectar  and/or  pollen  from 
certain  species  of  flowers  without  pollinating 
them  (Grant  and  Grant  1965,  Faegri  and  van 
der  Fiji  1971,  Percival  1974,  Tepedino  1975). 
Small  species  and  certain  bumble  bees  are 
more  likely  to  fall  into  this  "robber"  category 
(Faegri  and  van  der  Fiji  1971).  Their  cate- 
gorization as  potential  pollinators  of  those 
plants  from  which  they  rob  is  misleading  and 
can  lull  us  into  a  false  sense  of  redundancy. 
We  must  be  careful  to  distinguish  between 
visitors  and  pollinators  to  arrive  at  intelligent 
conservation  decisions,  and  this  will  necessi- 
tate much  additional  study.  Nor  is  it  valid  to 
conclude  that  because  a  generalized  pollina- 
tor robs  the  resources  of  one  plant  species  it 
is  without  value  as  a  pollinator  of  other  spe- 
cies. Many  bumble  bees  rob  nectar  from  cer- 
tain plants  but  are  important  pollinators  of 
others  (Faegri  and  van  der  Fiji  1971). 

Secondly,  although  generalized  bee  species 
utilize  a  broader  subset  of  available  floral  re- 
sources than  do  specialists,  the  foraging  of 
any  given  species  does  not  include  all  avail- 
able flower  species.  Neither  are  the  visits  of 
any  particular  species  proportional  to  the 
abundance  of  flower  species  available  (Tepe- 
dino and  Stanton,  in  prep.),  nor  are  bee  spe- 
cies equally  efficient  at  pollinating  all  plant 
species  visited.  The  extinction  of  a  single  pol- 
linator species  will  reduce  visitation  rates  to 
certain  plant  species  in  the  community  to 
some  unknown  degree.  Without  evidence,  it 
seems  overly  optimistic  to  assume  that  such  a 
reduction  will  be  compensated  for  by  re- 
maining species.  Further,  even  if  visitation 
rates  by  other  species  do  compensate  for  the 
lost  pollinator,  there  is  no  basis  for  assuming 
that  the  efficiency  of  such  visits  is  equivalent 
to  that  of  the  species  which  have  dis- 
appeared. For  example,  in  a  study  of  four 
solitary  bee  species  visiting  alfalfa,  Batra 
(1976)  found  that,  although  all  gathered  nec- 
tar and  pollen  and  accomplished  pollination, 
they  did  so  with  varying  degrees  of  pro- 
ficiency. Two  species  spent  more  time  than 
others  foraging  on  hidden  flowers,  one  visited 
many  more  flowers  which  had  already  been 


148 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


pollinated,  etc.  The  species  varied  during 
morning  foraging  from  0.8  to  3.68  pollina- 
tions per  minute.  The  effect  of  removal  of 
one  of  these  pollinators  upon  seed  set  would 
depend  upon  which  species  was  removed.  If 
we  extend  the  results  of  this  simple  green- 
house study  to  plant  communities  in  the  field, 
we  gain  an  impression  of  the  unknown  com- 
plexities which  we  are  tampering  with. 

It  seems  clear  that  plant  species  that  de- 
pend upon  particular  bees  for  their  reproduc- 
tion will  experience  severe  selective  pressures 
to  evolve  autogamy  (Levin  1972)  or  wind 
pollination  or  to  realign  their  floral  morpho- 
logies to  take  advantage  of  remaining  pol- 
linator species.  For  many  specialized  plants 
such  adaptations  will  be  impossible  (Levin 
1971,  Baker  and  Hurd  1968)  and  their  extinc- 
tion is  likely.  While  it  is  not  uncommon  to 
develop  facultative  autogamy  from  obligate 
outcrossing  (Baker  1959),  selling  may  be  least 
advantageous  in  environments  with  low  pre- 
dictability such  as  shortgrass  prairie  (Solbrig 
1976).  In  such  regions  plant  species  that  solve 
pollination  problems  with  obligate  autogamy 
may  become  extinct  more  gradually. 

As  specialized  pollinators  are  replaced  by 
fugitives,  more  generalized  plant  species  may 
become  endangered  because  fugitives  are  rel- 
atively inconstant  foragers.  Several  theo- 
retical studies  provide  similar  results  for  situ- 
ations in  which  plant  species  compete  for 
pollinator  visits:  if  pollinator  constancy  is 
proportionate  to  floral  abundance,  minority 
species  will  receive  fewer  pollinating  visits 
than  more  abundant  species  and  will  eventu- 
ally disappear  (Levin  and  Anderson  1970, 
Straw  1972,  Waser  1978).  Even  worse,  if  pol- 
linators show  disproportionate  preference  for 
more  abundant  species,  then  less  abundant 
species  will  approach  extinction  more  rapid- 
ly- 

There  is  little  doubt  that  in  North  America 
we  will  lose  many  bee  species  and  other  pol- 
linators as  well,  particularly  from  the  western 
states.  As  a  result  of  these  extinctions,  we  will 
probably  see  some  gradual  transition  in  the 
composition  of  our  flora.  Floral  change  will 
be  most  obvious  and  far-reaching  in  desert, 
chaparral,  and  alpine  ecosystems,  where  the 
percentage  of  insect-pollinated  plants  is  high 
(Moldenke  1976).  In  forests  and  grasslands, 
where  the  dominant  plant  species  are  wind 


pollinated,  changes  will  be  more  subtle  and 
less  easy  to  predict. 

Obviously,  the  key  to  slowing  the  rate  of 
pollinator  and  plant  extinction  is  habitat 
preservation.  We  need  to  set  aside  as  much 
land  as  we  can  possibly  afford  in  the  form  of 
greenbelts,  parks,  and  reserves  of  various 
sizes.  In  addition,  we  should  encourage  the 
use  of  local  plant  species  as  ornamentals  in 
backyards  and  gardens  instead  of  the  sterile 
creations  of  seed  companies.  Local  plant  spe- 
cies are  frequently  as  esthetically  pleasing 
and,  because  they  are  adapted  to  the  region, 
require  less  care  and  expense  in  the  form  of 
fertilizers,  water,  etc.  It  is  also  quite  simple 
to  provide  nesting  material  for  some  solitary 
bees  in  the  form  of  pine  wood  blocks  or 
scraps  with  holes  drilled  in  them  (Krombein 
1967).  These  can  be  set  out  on  posts  in  back- 
yards as  are  bird  houses  and  feeders.  The  spe- 
cies which  will  utilize  these  trap-nests  are  not 
at  all  agressive  and  will  sting  only  when  han- 
dled. In  short,  every  little  bit  will  help  and, 
unfortunately,  we  need  all  the  help  we  can 
get. 

Acknowledgments 

F.  D.  Parker  and  P.  F.  Torchio  provided 
helpful  suggestions  on  the  manuscript.  I 
thank  G.  E.  Bohart  for  unpublished  informa- 
tion on  the  genus  Dufourea  and  B.  B.  Becker 
for  the  figures. 

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ENDANGERED  SPECIES:  COSTS  AND  BENEFITS' 

Edwin  P.  Pister- 


.\bstract.—  Biologists  are  often  placed  in  the  difficult  position  of  defending  a  threatened  habitat  or  animal  with 
vagiie  reasoning  and  faulty  logic,  simply  because  they  have  no  better  rationale  at  their  immediate  disposal.  This 
places  them  at  a  distinct  disadvantage  and  literally  at  the  mercy  of  resource  exploiters  and  their  easily  assignable 
dollar  values.  Although  the  initial  dollar  cost  of  delaying  or  precluding  "developing"  may  be  significant,  the  long- 
term  benefits  of  saving  the  biological  entities  which  might  otherwise  be  destroyed  are  likewise  great  and  are  measur- 
able in  concrete  terms  which  society  is  only  now  beginning  to  appreciate.  Case  histories  are  presented,  a  more  pro- 
found rationale  is  explained,  and  the  environmentalist  is  challenged  to  make  his  case  sufficiently  effective  to  reverse 
the  current  exploitive  trends  which  threaten  so  many  of  earth's  life  forms. 


The  land  and  water  developers,  mineral 
extractors,  and  other  resource  users  which 
burgeoned  nationwide  (especially  in  the 
West)  following  World  War  II  placed  agency 
resource  managers  in  a  new  and  uncomfort- 
able position.  Whereas  there  once  had  been 
sufficient  land  and  water  for  everyone,  in- 
cluding our  plant  and  animal  species,  we  sud- 
denly found  ourselves  entering  into  what 
seemed  (on  the  surface,  anyway)  an  "us  or 
them"  situation.  Backed  into  a  corner,  biolo- 
gists and  administrators  found  themselves 
searching  frantically  for  values  with  which  to 
defend  their  trust  against  the  hard  dollar  fig- 
ures of  the  exploiter. 

Nowhere  has  this  concept  been  more  ap- 
parent than  in  our  efforts  to  preserve  threat- 
ened and  endangered  species.  When  pitted 
against  a  potential  development  project  in- 
volving the  expenditure  of  millions  of  dollars, 
the  environmentalist  has  been  forced  to  bol- 
.ster  his  innate  sense  of  doing  what  he  knows 
is  right  with  whatever  biological  rationale 
might  enter  his  mind.  Often  his  reasoning 
proves  biologically  unsound,  reducing  his 
changes  of  success  and  injuring  his  profes- 
sional credibility. 

A  ray  of  hope  has  been  noted  recently 
through  the  presentation  of  a  new  rationale, 
one  which  bolsters  valid  existing  arguments 
with  profound  .spiritual  values.  This  paper 
presents  a  brief  history  of  recent  preservation 


efforts,  summarizes  the  new  rationale,  and  of- 
fers the  hope  that  newly  defined  goals,  al- 
though lofty,  are  by  no  means  unattainable. 

Acknowledgments 

It  would  be  ungrateful  of  me  to  prepare  a 
paper  on  endangered  species,  especially  one 
involving  fishes,  without  acknowledging  the 
enormous  efforts  of  Professor  Carl  Hubbs  of 
Scripps  Institution  of  Oceanography  and  Dr. 
Robert  Rush  Miller  of  the  University  of 
Michigan.  Many  others,  agency  biologist  and 
academician  alike,  have  made  great  contribu- 
tions to  the  cause,  especially  in  recent  years. 
Special  thanks  are  due  Dr.  David  W.  Ehren- 
feld  of  Rutgers  University,  Dr.  Hugh  W.  Nib- 
ley  of  Brigham  Young  University,  and  Mr. 
Jimmie  Durham  of  the  International  Indian 
Treaty  Organization,  whose  works  I  have  re- 
ferred to  and  quoted  extensively  in  the  prep- 
aration of  this  paper. 

Background 

My  first  real  involvement  with  endangered 
species  began  in  July  1964  during  a  field  trip 
with  Bob  Miller  and  Carl  Hubbs  in  Califor- 
nia's Owens  Valley.  Bob  suspected  that  the 
Owens  pupfish  {Cijprinodon  radiosus)  was  ex- 
tinct when  he  described  it  (Miller  1948),  but 
he  felt  it  worthwhile  to  make  one  final  effort 


'Initially  presented  at  a  symposium.  Fishery  Benefits  to  Society  and  Industry,  as  part  of  the  joint  annual  conference  of  the  Western  Association  of  Fish 
and  Wildlife  Agencies  and  Western  Division  American  Fisheries  Society,  San  Diego.  California,  17-20  July  1978. 

■California  Department  of  Fish  and  Game  and  Executive  Secretary,  Desert  Fishes  Council,  407  West  Line  Street,  Bishop,  California  93514. 


151 


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No.  3 


to  locate  a  remnant  population.  My  interest 
in  endangered  and  nongame  fishes  was  min- 
imal at  that  time;  yet,  when  exultant  voices 
resounded  through  the  marsh,  a  strange  feel- 
ing came  over  me.  My  conversion  to  the 
cause  of  nongame  species  was  instantaneous 
and  dramatic.  Fish  Slough  on  the  floor  of 
Owens  Valley  was  my  Road  to  Damascus 
(Miller  and  Pister  1971),  and  I  have  been  an 
active  crusader  for  the  past  14  years,  almost 
to  the  day. 

Sympathy  for  the  cause  was  rare  within 
my  agency,  and  time  and  funds  were  vir- 
tually imavailable  for  anything  but  the  man- 
agement of  game  species.  What  work  we 
were  able  to  accomplish  was  generally  done 
on  our  own  time  and  expense. 

Yet  somehow  the  movement  grew.  Support 
was  excellent  from  the  academic  community; 
and  the  Fish  and  Wildlife  Service,  which 
found  itself  less  encumbered  by  politics  and 
tradition  than  those  of  us  in  state  agencies, 
also  offered  good  assistance,  often  to  cries  of 
anguisH  concerning  the  "Federal  Octopus" 
from  within  Great  Basin  state  directorships. 
Sadly,  this  point  of  contention  still  precludes 
optimum  interagency  management  program- 
ming, and  we  still  eagerly  await  the  day 
when  welfare  of  the  resource  will  overcome 
agency  jurisdiction  as  the  primary  point  of 
concern. 

The  initial  meeting  of  the  Desert  Fishes 
Council,  formed  in  desperation  in  1969  to 
stave  off  the  almost  certain  extinction  of  sev- 
eral fishes  within  the  Death  Valley  drainage 
system,  drew  44  individuals,  primarily  with 
federal  or  academic  affiliations  (Pister  1974). 
The  1978  Council  membership  approaches 
300  and  is  growing  rapidly  as  public  recogni- 
tion of  the  need  for  desert  ecosystem  pro- 
tection increases. 

My  involvement  in  endangered  species 
work  (and  colleagues  often  state  the  same 
motivation)  stems  from  a  desire  to  leave 
something  significant  as  a  mark  of  my  having 
been  here.  Somehow,  in  my  advancing  ca- 
reer, the  idea  of  providing  a  bunch  of  game- 
fish  for  people  to  catch  simply  was  not  suffi- 
ciently fulfilling.  It  became  apparent  to  me 
that  if  man  were  ever  to  exercise  his  domin- 
ion (a  term  which  until  recently  was  disturb- 
ingly vague)  in  an  acceptable  way,  he  was 


going  to  have  to  turn  a  new  leaf  and  face  a 
new  set  of  problems. 

Discussion 

At  a  recent  symposium  on  endangered  spe- 
cies held  at  Yale  University,  Dr.  Lee  Talbot, 
vice-president  of  the  International  Union  for 
the  Conservation  of  Nature,  said  that  even 
obscure  endangered  species  can  serve  as  in- 
dicators of  large  environmental  problems 
that  may  have  major  adverse  effects  on 
people  who  could  not  care  less  about  the  ani- 
mal in  question.  In  this  context,  let  us  consid- 
er the  following  examples: 

Devils  Hole 

East  of  Death  Valley,  Nevada,  is  a  lime- 
stone cavern  with  a  tiny  pool  containing  the 
entire  world  population  of  the  Devils  Hole 
pupfish  (Cyprinodon  diaholis).  Extensive  and 
indiscriminate  agricultural  development  and 
irrigation  in  the  late  1960s  was  rapidly 
lowering  the  aquifer  system  supplying  the 
pool,  and  it  was  apparent  that,  unless  some- 
one did  something  to  stop  it,  a  full  species 
(the  most  highly  evolved  of  the  Death  Valley 
cyprinodonts)  would  soon  become  extinct. 
This  actually  was  the  cause  celehre  which 
motivated  us  to  form  the  Desert  Fishes  Coun- 
cil. We  fought  long  and  hard  in  behalf  of  De- 
vils Hole  and  its  inhabitants  and  found,  in  the 
process,  that  the  State  of  Nevada,  with  the 
exception  of  its  Department  of  Fish  and 
Game,  was  often  uncooperative  and  even  an- 
tagonistic when  asked  for  assistance  in  stop- 
ping the  deadly  water  table  drawdown.  This 
seemed  particularly  true  of  the  state  engi- 
neer's office.  Nevada  is  very  development 
oriented  and,  despite  a  rather  paradoxical 
state  endangered  species  law,  generally 
viewed  as  highly  undesirable  a  tiny  fish  of  no 
economic  value  which  seriously  threatened  a 
multimillion  dollar  ranching  operation. 

Federal  law  seemed  to  offer  our  only  salva- 
tion in  this  matter,  so  in  July  1972  the  People 
of  the  United  States,  through  the  Department 
of  Justice,  went  to  court  against  the  land  de- 
veloper and  the  State  of  Nevada  as  codefen- 
dants.  Interestingly,  the  case  was  not  argued 
on  the  basis  of  the  Endangered  Species  Act, 
but  on  a  point  of  water  law. 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposiui 


153 


Initial  judgment  was  favorable,  and  after  a 
siege  in  the  appellate  court  the  case  was 
heard  (amidst  the  strong  desire  of  western 
congressmen  to  reverse  the  earlier  decisions) 
by  the  U.S.  Supreme  Court.  In  June  1976  the 
court  ruled  unanimously  in  favor  of  the 
People  of  the  United  States  (and  the  fish), 
and  we  began  to  regain  some  confidence  in 
"the  system."  It  was  encouraging  to  know 
that  the  Equal  Justice  under  Law  inscription 
over  the  entrance  to  the  Supreme  Court 
building  in  Washington,  D.C.,  applies  to  fish, 
too. 

Probing  deeper  into  the  matter,  we  found 
that  the  Ash  Meadows  ranching  operation 
was  only  a  symptom  of  a  much  greater  envi- 
ronmental threat.  A  report  by  a  consultant  to 
the  Nevada  State  Engineer  (Nevada  State 
Engineer's  Office  1971)  to  locate  and  eval- 
uate future  water  sources  for  Las  Vegas  ear- 
marked underground  supplies  around  Devils 
Hole  to  provide  3  million  acre  feet  over  a  30- 
year  period.  At  this  time,  the  report  in- 
dicated, it  would  no  longer  be  feasible  to  nm 
the  pumps,  and  the  deteriorating  quality  of 
what  remained  would  make  it  unsuitable 
anyway.  However,  that  3  million  acre  feet 
would  allow  a  sufficient  increase  in  popu- 
lation to  facilitate  acquisition  of  water  from 
more  permanent  sources  farther  away  (such 
as  the  Columbia  or  Snake  rivers). 

In  this  case  the  Devils  Hole  pupfish  proved 
to  be  an  indicator  organism  which  led,  even- 
tually, to  a  discovery  of  the  underlying  poli- 
tics of  the  entire  matter.  Would  it  be  to 
man's  long-term  benefit  to  destroy  a  spring 
ecosystem  unique  in  the  United  States  and 
equaled  only  in  one  location  in  Mexico  sim- 
ply to  provide  short-term  water  to  a  city 
which  must  very  obviously  someday  curtail 
its  growth?  At  least  we  now  have  the  chance 
to  take  a  harder  look. 

Tellico  Dam  and  the  Snail  Darter 

In  a  related  situation,  news  media  through- 
out the  United  States  have  recently  been  dis- 
cussing a  situation  on  the  Little  Tennessee 
River  wherein  the  tiny  snail  darter  {Percino 
tanasi)  has  essentially  stopped  completion  of 
the  $116  million  Tellico  Dam  following  a  6-3 
Supreme  Court  decision  affirming  the  provi- 
sions of  the  Endangered  Species  Act  of  1973. 


Reaction  by  the  media  has  been  mixed,  with 
some  lauding  the  decision  and  others  con- 
demning an  action  that,  in  their  estimation, 
would  waste  $116  million  simply  to  save  a 
fish  of  no  known  economic  value.  In  the 
wake  of  this.  Congress  (with  many  members 
in  an  election  year  asking  themselves  "What 
if  Tellico  were  in  my  district  or  state?")  is 
now  debating  whether  or  not  the  Endangered 
Species  Act  should  even  be  renewed  and,  if 
so,  what  amendments  should  be  made  to  "al- 
low greater  flexibility." 

Again,  a  look  behind  the  scenes  is  reveal- 
ing. First  off,  TVA  (the  sponsoring  agency) 
failed  to  discuss  the  snail  darter  problem  with 
the  Fish  and  Wildlife  Service  until  the  proj- 
ect was  nearly  finished,  and  greatly  accelera- 
ted the  construction  schedule  to  create  a 
stronger  case  for  completing  the  dam.  Sec- 
ondly, a  General  Accounting  Office  study 
(U.S.  General  Accounting  Office  1977)  imple- 
mented by  Congress  revealed  a  cost-benefit 
analysis  so  faulty  that  even  after  the  expendi- 
ture of  over  $100  million  taxpayers  would  be 
money  ahead  if  the  dam  were  torn  down.  In 
fact,  this  alternative  was  offered  by  TVA 
Chairman  S.  David  Freeman  before  a  House 
subcommittee  following  the  Supreme  Court 
decision  and  release  of  the  General  Account- 
ing Office  report.  Lastly,  considering  the 
widespread  pressure  to  terminate  or  weaken 
the  Endangered  Species  Act,  it  is  significant 
to  note  that  in  all  except  one  (Tellico)  of 
more  than  4,500  consultations  between  de- 
velopers and  the  Fish  and  Wildlife  Service, 
both  the  project  and  the  species  in  question 
were  deemed  able  to  coexist. 


Additional  Benefits 

In  addition  to  the  above-listed  benefits  of 
revealing  the  political  issues  underlying  vari- 
ous development  proposals,  concern  over  en- 
dangered species  has  resulted  in  beneficial 
philosophical  shifts  within  many  state  fish 
and  wildlife  management  agencies.  Although 
the  primary  orientation  of  such  agencies  re- 
mains one  of  providing  a  harvestable  product 
for  hunters  and  anglers,  changes  are  being 
noted  through  the  implementation  of  non- 
game,  endangered  species,  environmental, 
and  land  acquisition  programs  as  the  future 


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No.  3 


demands  of  society  become  increasingly  ap- 
parent (Pister  1976). 

Costs 

What  are  the  direct  agency  costs  of  rare 
and  endangered  species  programs?  Small,  by 
most  standards.  In  1978,  according  to  Fish 
and  Wildlife  Service  figures,  the  cost  of  ad- 
ministering the  Endangered  Species  Act,  in- 
cluding aid  to  the  states,  was  $16.2  million.  A 
figure  of  $19.4  million  is  estimated  for  1979. 
It  is  virtually  impossible  to  accurately  assess 
the  dollar  costs  of  delaying  a  development 
project  during  the  discussion  period  with  the 
Fish  and  Wildlife  Service. 

A  New  Rationale 

Why  do  the  people  of  the  United  States 
find  themselves  in  the  current  dilemma?  Per- 
haps Nibley  (1978:85-86)  says  it  best:  "We 
have  taught  our  children  by  precept  and  ex- 
ample that  every  living  thing  exists  to  be 
converted  into  cash,  and  that  whatever 
would  not  yield  a  return  should  be  quickly 
exterminated  to  make  way  for  creatures  that 
do."  I  cannot  think  of  a  better  way  to  put  it, 
and  I  am  reminded  of  Paul's  admonition  to 
Timothy  nearly  2,000  years  ago:  "For  the 
love  of  money  is  the  root  of  all  evil.  .  .  ."  (I 
Tim.  6:10). 

In  view  of  the  increasing  concern  of  vir- 
tually all  segments  of  society  over  environ- 
mental matters  generally,  and  noting  this 
same  concern  within  academic  circles,  it  ap- 
pears to  me  highly  appropriate  that  two  of 
the  most  outstanding  essays  involving  endan- 
gered species  to  emerge  during  the  past  dec- 
ade should  be  written  by  eminent  scholars 
representing  two  very  different  disciplines. 
David  W.  Ehrenfeld,  a  Harvard  M.D.  with  a 
Ph.D.  in  zoology  and  biochemistry  from  the 
University  of  Florida,  is  currently  professor 
of  biology  at  Cook  College,  Rutgers  Univer- 
sity. Hugh  Nibley  graduated  in  history  from 
UCLA  and  received  his  Ph.D.  from  the  Uni- 
versity of  California  at  Berkeley.  Adept  in  14 
languages,  he  taught  history  and  languages  at 
the  Claremont  Colleges  in  California  before 
moving  to  Utah.  He  is  now  professor  of  his- 
tory and  religion  at  Brigham  Young  Univer- 
sity. 


Yet,  although  their  academic  disciplines 
may  differ,  their  philosophies  blend  marve- 
lously  well,  complement  one  another,  and 
lead  to  a  logical  and  acceptable  rationale  for 
the  preservation  of  all  life  forms. 

Ehrenfeld  (1976),  in  a  masterful  essay  en- 
titled "The  Conservation  of  Non-Resources," 
does  the  biologist  a  great  favor  by  critically 
analyzing  the  most  popular  (and  frequently 
contrived)  reasons  advanced  in  defense  of  a 
favorite  species  or  program.  He  defines  a  re- 
source as  a  commodity  that  has  an  appre- 
ciable money  value  to  man  and  then  lists  sev- 
eral that  do  not.  These  he  considers  to  be 
non-resources,  without  conjectural  or  demon- 
strated resource  value  to  man.  He  utilizes  the 
Houston  toad  (Bufo  houstonensis)  to  exem- 
plify this  concept  and  throws  fear  into  the 
hearts  of  many  zealots  when  he  states  quite 
accurately  that  certain  species  may  even  ex- 
hibit a  negative  value.  Ehrenfeld  warns 
against  the  dangers  of  prioritizing,  or  rank- 
ing, species  or  natural  areas  in  a  preservation 
program  because  of  our  categorical  lack  of 
knowledge  about  them,  be  it  now  or  100 
years  from  now.  He  feels,  further,  that  formal 
ranking  sets  natural  area  against  natural  area 
(and  species  against  species)  in  an  unaccept- 
able and  totally  unnecessary  way,  and  em- 
phasizes that  the  need  to  conserve  a  particu- 
lar community  or  species  must  be  judged 
independently  of  the  need  to  conserve  any- 
thing else  (Ehrenfeld  1976:653). 

He  then  goes  on  (p.654)  to  state  that  only 
one  account  exists  in  Western  culture  of  a 
conservation  effort  greater  than  that  now 
taking  place,  where  not  a  single  species  was 
excluded  on  the  basis  of  low  priority,  and  by 
all  accounts  not  a  single  species  was  lost 
(Genesis  7:8-9): 

Of  clean  beasts,  and  of  beasts  that  are  not  clean,  and 
of  fowls,  and  of  everything  that  creepeth  upon  the  earth, 

There  went  in  two  and  two  unto  Noah  into  the  ark, 
the  male  and  the  female,  as  God  has  commanded  Noah. 

It  is  encouraging  to  note  that  even  (or  per- 
haps especially)  the  more  sophisticated 
writers  seem  to  be  rejecting  the  classical, 
anthropocentric  economic  arguments  for  spe- 
cies preservation  in  favor  of  a  religious  con- 
cept presented  by  Elton  (1958)  20  years  ago 
and  hirther  developed  by  Ehrenfeld 
(1976:654-655),  who  states: 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


155 


The  non-economic  value  of  coniniunities  and  species 
is  the  simplest  of  all  to  state:  they  should  be  conserved 
because  they  exist  and  have  existed  for  a  long  time. 
Long-standing  existence  in  nature  is  deemed  to  carry 
with  it  the  unimpeachable  right  to  continued  existence. 
Existence  is  the  onlv  criterion  of  value,  and  diminution 
of  the  number  of  existing  things  is  the  best  measure  of 
decrease  of  value.  This  is,  as  mentioned,  an  ancient  way 
of  evaluating  "conservability"  and  by  rights  ought  to  be 
named  the  "Noah  Principle"  after  the  person  who  was 
one  of  the  first  to  put  it  into  practice. 

In  recent  hearings  on  the  Endangered  Spe- 
cies Act  held  by  the  House  Merchant  Marine 
and  Fisheries  Committee,  Jinimie  Durham, 
director  of  the  International  Indian  Treaty 
Organization,  posed  a  very  logical  and  per- 
tinent question:  Who  has  the  right  to  destroy 
a  species?  Because  of  Durham's  eloquence, 
any  attempt  to  paraphrase  his  statements 
would  markedly  reduce  the  feeling  which  his 
words  convey.  The  following  material  has 
been  extracted  from  his  published  address 
(Durham  1978): 

In  Ani  Yunwiijah,  the  language  of  my  people,  there  is 
a  word  for  land:  Eloheh.  This  same  word  also  means  his- 
tory, culture,  and  religion.-  This  is  because  we  Cherokees 
cannot  separate  our  place  on  the  earth  from  our  lives  on 
it,  nor  from  our  vision  and  our  meaning  as  a  people. 
From  childhood  we  are  taught  that  the  animals  and 
even  the  trees  and  plants  that  we  share  a  place  with  are 
our  brothers  and  sisters. 

So  when  we  speak  of  land,  we  are  not  speaking  of 
property,  territory  or  even  a  piece  of  ground  upon 
which  our  houses  sit  and  our  crops  are  grown.  We  are 
speaking  of  something  truly  sacred. 

There  is  no  Cherokee  alive  who  does  not  remember 
that  Trail  of  Tears,  as  we  call  our  march  into  exile  in 
Oklahoma.  There  is  none  among  us  who  does  not  re- 
member and  revere  that  sacred  land,  Echota. 

Today,  the  Tennessee  Valley  Authority  would  like  to 
flood  the  sacred  valley  that  held  our  two  principal  cities, 
Echota  and  Tenasi,  after  which  the  state  is  named.  The 
Tellico  project  would  have  destroyed  an  area  of  great  re- 
ligious importance,  many  settlement  sites,  cemeteries, 
rich  farmlands,  forests  and  the  river  itself.  This  is  an  un- 
needed  dam  which  can,  at  the  whimsy  of  TVA,  wipe  out 
thousands  of  years  of  history  of  a  great  and  currently  op- 
pressed people.  To  do  so  would  be  an  insult  not  only  to 
the  Cherokee,  but  also  to  all  the  people  in  the  United 
States  and  to  humanity.  Yes,  I  am  proud  enough  to  state 
that  the  history  and  vision  of  my  people  are  important 
to  humanity. 

The  flooding  of  our  valley  has  been  stopped  temporar- 
ily because  of  a  little  fish  that  lives  there  and  nowhere 
else.  I  have  seen  Atty.  Gen.  Griffin  Bell,  the  New  York 
Times  and  a  national  television  network  make  fim  of  this 
little  fish  and  I  would  like  to  ask  why  it  is  considered  so 
humorously  insignificant.  Because  it  is  little,  or  because 
it  is  a  fish? 

It  is  this  incredible  arrogance  towards  other  life  that 
has  caused  such  destruction  in  this  countrv.  Who  is  Grif- 


fin Bell  or  the  U.S.  government  to  play  God  and  judge 
the  life  or  death  of  an  entire  species  of  fellow  beings 
which  was  put  here  by  the  same  power  that  put  us  here? 
Who  has  the  right  to  destroy  a  species  of  life,  and  what 
can  assuming  that  right  mean? 

Let  me  be  emotional:  To  me,  that  fish  is  not  just  an 
abstract  "endangered  species"  although  it  is  that.  It  is  a 
Cherokee  fish  and  I  am  its  brother.  Somehow,  it  has 
acted  to  save  my  holy  land,  so  I  have  a  strong  gratitude 
for  that  fish. 

The  Cherokee  people  in  Tennessee,  Oklahoma,  the 
Carolinas,  Georgia  and  wherever  we  might  be  are  of  one 
voice  and  of  one  mind  that  this  dam,  this  degradation, 
must  be  stopped.  We  want  our  universe,  our  Echota 
with  all  of  its  fish  and  all  of  its  life  to  continue.  We  are 
sine  that  this  cannot  be  against  the  interests  and  wishes 
of  the  American  people. 


Definitions 

Although  subdue  and  dominion  as  used  in 
Genesis  carry  a  religious  connotation,  vir- 
tually all  environmentally  oriented  dis- 
cussions in  which  these  words  arise  seem  to 
end  with  everyone  defining  them  to  suit  his 
own  selfish  purposes. 

We  have  long  been  in  need  of  a  clear  and 
learned  treatise  on  this  subject,  and  the  entire 
cause  of  species  preservation  is  fortunate  in- 
deed to  have  someone  of  Hugh  Nibley's  stat- 
ure and  capability  to  provide  one  for  us  (Nib- 
ley  1978:85-99).  His  analysis  of  man's 
dominion  borders  on  pure  genius,  and  he  log- 
ically asks  in  his  preface  (p.86):  "If  God  were 
to  despise  all  things  beneath  him,  as  we  do, 
where  would  that  leave  us?"  He  then  pro- 
ceeds typically  to  use  a  wealth  of  scripture, 
classical  literature,  and  other  references  to 
develop  his  theme  that  "Man's  dominion  is  a 
call  to  service,  not  a  license  to  exterminate" 
(p.96),  and  provides  an  example  from  a  pio- 
neer leader:  "while  'subduing  the  earth'  we 
must  be  about  'multiplying  those  organisms 
of  plants  and  animals  God  has  designed  shall 
dwell  upon  it,'  namely  'all  forms  of  life,'  each 
to  multiply  in  its  sphere  and  element  and 
have  joy  therein."  (p.87).  This  was  indeed  an 
inspired  statement  from  the  leader  of  a  group 
of  pioneers  seeking  to  tame  a  desert  wilder- 
ness. Nibley  suggests  an  in-depth  analysis  of 
the  derivation  of  "dominion,"  which  clearly 
turns  out  to  be  the  responsibility  of  the  mas- 
ter for  the  comfort  and  well-being  of  his  de- 
pendents and  guests,  "not  a  predator,  a  ma- 
nipulator or  an  exploiter  of  other  creatures, 


156 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


but  one  who  cooperates  with  nature  as  a  dih- 
gent  husbandman"  (p.88). 

Nibley  continues:  "The  teaching  of  Israel 
laid  the  heaviest  emphasis  on  responsibility. 
Since  man  is  quite  capable  of  exercising  the 
awesome  powers  that  have  been  entrusted  to 
him  as  the  very  image  of  God,  he  must  needs 
be  an  example  to  all,  and  if  he  fails  in  his 
trust,  he  can  only  bring  upon  himself  the  con- 
demnation of  God  and  the  contempt  of  all 
creatures."  (pp.89-90). 

Nibley 's  explanation  of  man's  hostility  is  as 
logical  and  obvious  as  it  is  painful:  "The  ani- 
mal, vegetable,  and  mineral  kingdoms  abide 
the  law  of  their  Creator;  the  whole  earth  and 
things  pertaining  to  it,  except  man,  abide  the 
law  of  their  creation,  while  'man,  who  is  the 
offspring  of  the  Gods,  will  not  become  sub- 
ject to  the  most  sensible  and  self-exalting 
principles.'  (Journal  of  Discourses,  9:246). 
With  all  things  going  in  one  direction,  men, 
stubbornly  going  in  the  opposite  direction, 
naturally  find  themselves  in  the  position  of 
one  going  the  wrong  way  on  the  freeway 
during  rush  hour;  the  struggle  to  live  be- 
comes a  fight  against  nature.  Having  made 
himself  allergic  to  almost  everything  by  the 
Fall,  man  is  given  the  choice  of  changing  his 
nature  so  that  the  animal  and  vegetable  crea- 
tion will  cease  to  afflict  and  torment  him,  or 
else  of  waging  a  truceless  war  of  extermina- 
tion against  all  that  annoys  him  until  he  ren- 
ders the  earth  completely  uninhabitable." 
(pp.94-95). 


Summary 

The  obvious  benefits  of  endangered  species 
programs  may  therefore  be  summarized  as 
follows: 

1.  Endangered  species  generally  serve  as 
indicators  of  larger  environmental  prob- 
lems and,  when  detected,  allow  analysis 
and  correction  of  more  involved  issues 
during  the  pursuit  of  a  preservation 
program. 

2.  The  "Era  of  Endangered  Species"  has 
initiated  a  process  of  maturation  within 
state  fish  and  wildlife  agencies  as  they 
begin  to  consider  all  species  in  their 
program  planning,  not  simply  those 
with  an  obvious  economic  value. 


3.  By  preventing  the  extinction  of  fish  and 
wildlife  species  (and  all  life  forms),  we 
automatically  preserve  any  anthropo- 
centric  values  which  they  may  possess, 
but  which  research  may  not  yet  have 
discovered. 

4.  Perhaps  the  most  important  reason  for 
preserving  endangered  species  is  the  re- 
alization of  the  opportunity  granted  to 
man— the  only  species  endowed  with 
the  capability  of  truly  caring  for  his  fel- 
low creatures— to  exercise  righteously 
the  dominion  granted  him  by  his  Crea- 
tor. Doing  so  will  do  much  to  preserve 
man's  self-respect.  The  manifestations 
of  this  concept  can  be  enormous,  in- 
cluding peaceful  coexistence  with  na- 
ture, other  nations,  and  himself. 

Conclusion 

Considering  our  rather  dismal  record  to 
date,  including  threatened  changes  in  the  En- 
dangered Species  Act  resulting  from  the  Tell- 
ico  Dam-snail  darter  conflict,  the  cynic 
would  consider  it  quite  improbable  that  man 
would  ever  categorically  accept  a  religious 
(or  morally  based)  reason  for  preserving  other 
life  forms.  At  this  point  I  must  assume  the 
role  of  the  optimist  and  state  that  a  widely 
accepted  nonresource  rationale  is  not  only 
desirable,  it  is  absolutely  mandatory  if  we  are 
ever  to  gain  the  necessary  political  strength 
to  assure  adequate  recognition  of  the  biota  in 
a  proposed  development  project.  It  seems  un- 
likely in  the  foreseeable  future  that,  in  terms 
of  dollars,  we  will  ever  be  able  to  place  a 
higher  value  on  the  Devils  Hole  pupfish  than 
on  a  section  of  resort  condominiums  in  Las 
Vegas,  or  prove  that  the  snail  darter  swim- 
ming above  Tellico  Dam  has  an  economic 
worth  in  excess  of  the  electricity  produced  by 
the  water  in  which  it  lives. 

Ehrenfeld  (1976)  states  quite  correctly  that 
if  nonresource  arguments  are  ever  to  carry 
their  deserved  weight,  cultural  attitudes  will 
have  to  be  changed.  Tliis  is  a  big  order,  but 
we  have  no  alternative  but  to  try.  Henry 
Ford  used  to  remind  his  plant  managers: 
"You  can  say  it  can  be  done,  or  you  can  say  it 
can't  be  done  and  be  correct  either  way." 

An  analysis  of  Section  2  (Findings,  Pur- 
poses, and  Policy)  of  the  Endangered  Species 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


157 


Act  of  1973  indicates  that  Congress  appar- 
ently felt  it  was  worth  a  try  to  implement 
such  a  cultural  change,  inasmuch  as  the  states 
(often  the  hardest  to  sell  in  such  matters)  and 
other  interested  parties  are  encouraged  to  de- 
velop and  maintain  conservation  programs 
which  meet  national  and  international  stan- 
dards as  a  key  to  better  safeguarding,  for  the 
benefit  of  all  citizens,  the  nation's  heritage  in 
fish  and  wildlife.  Further,  the  purposes  of  the 
act  include  providing  a  means  whereby  the 
ecosystems  upon  which  endangered  and 
threatened  species  depend  may  be  conserved. 
Lastly,  the  policy  of  Congress  is  stated  that 
all  federal  departments  and  agencies  shall 
utilize  their  authorities  in  furtherance  of  the 
act.  Although  the  act  lists  the  physical  means 
of  achieving  its  purposes,  it  fails  to  address 
the  matter  of  enlisting  and  sustaining  philo- 
sophical support.  Inasmuch  as  the  long-term 
effectiveness  of  any  legislation  is  dependent 
upon  its  acceptance  by  the  people,  it  is  im- 
plicit that  the  major  responsibility  for  assur- 
ing this  falls  upon  those  of  us  who  feel 
strongly  about  such  things. 

Reflection 

Not  long  ago  I  arose  early  and  went  for  a 
walk  near  my  Bishop  home.  I  glanced  west- 
ward and  watched  the  moon  set  just  as  the 
first  rays  of  the  rising  sun  began  to  tint  the 
great  peaks  of  the  Sierra  Nevada  crest.  The 
effect  was  spectacularly  beautifid  and,  to  me, 
illustrated  the  concept  of  "the  beginning  and 
the  end.  "  The  beginning  was  represented  by 
an  unprecedented  degree  of  enlightenment 
within  the  American  public  and  in  our  own 
philosophies,  and  a  renewed  ability  as 
agencies  and  individuals  to  work  together  to- 
ward the  management  and  preservation  of  all 
of  the  nation's  (and  world's)  life  forms;  the 
end  by  a  lessening  and  ultimate  cessation  of 
the  anthropocentric  attitudes  within  the  pub- 
lic and  ourselves  which  have  in  so  many  in- 
stances "come  home  to  roost"  and  caused  our 
current  dilemma. 

The  sun  continued  to  rise  and  the  red  turn 
to  gold  as  my  thoughts  went  back  to  the 
early  days  of  our  desert  fish  programs.  How 
utterly  hopeless  everything  seemed  then!  I 
uttered  a  silent  prayer  that  the  insight,  hard 
work,  and  example  of  the  earliest  workers  in 


this  field  might  inspire  us  to  better  serve  the 
multitudes  who  will  come  after,  and  that  we 
might  provide  them  with  a  legacy  reflecting 
not  only  our  scientific  competence,  but  also 
our  practicality  and  philosophical  maturity; 
and  that  this  in  turn  would  constitute  a  cross- 
roads in  American  thought  concerning  man's 
dominion  over  the  earth,  and  recognizing  the 
absolute  truth  that  the  glory  of  God  is  in- 
telligence, I  ended  my  prayer  with  a  plea 
that  we  might  utilize  our  collective  in- 
telligence to  glorify  Him  by  exercising  a 
truly  righteous  dominion  equally  over  His  en- 
tire creation. 

It  seems  fitting  to  express  here  the 
thoughts  of  the  late  anthropologist  and  hu- 
manist Loren  Eiseley  (1962,  preface):  "I  be- 
lieve in  Christ  in  every  man  who  dies  to  con- 
tribute to  a  life  beyond  his  life."  He 
continues:  "I  have  been  accused  of  woolly- 
mindedness  for  entertaining  even  hope  for 
man.  I  can  only  respond  that  in  the  dim 
morning  shadows  of  humanity,  the  in- 
articulate creature  who  first  hesitantly 
formed  the  words  for  pity  and  love  must 
have  received  similar  guffaws  around  a  fire. 
Yet  some  men  listened,  for  the  words  sur- 
vive." 

And  the  Devils  Hole  pupfish  and  snail 
darter  survive,  too.  Twenty  years  ago  they 
wouldn't  have  had  a  chance. 


Literature  Cited 

Durham,  J.  1978.  Who  has  the  right  to  destroy  a  spe- 
cies? Los  Angeles  Times,  2  July  1978.  Adapted 
from  a  statement  delivered  before  House  Mer- 
chant Marine  and  Fisheries  Committee. 

Ehrenfeld,  D.  W.  1976.  The  conservation  of  non-re- 
sources. American  Scientist  64(4):648-656. 

Eiseley,  L.  C.  1962.  The  immense  journey.  Time,  Inc. 
Book  Division,  reprinted  by  Random  House.  152 
pp.  Time,  Inc.,  New  York. 

Elton,  C.  S.  1958.  The  ecology  of  invasions  by  animals 
and  plants:  14.3-45.  London:  Methuen. 

Journal  of  Discourses.  Deseret  Book  Company,  Salt 
Lake  City,  Utah.  27  volumes,  8th  reprint,  1974. 

Miller,  R.  R.  1948.  The  cyprinodont  fishes  of  the  Death 
Valley  systems  of  eastern  California  and  south- 
western Nevada.  Misc.  Publ.  Mus.  Zool.  Univ. 
Mich.  68:  1-15,5. 

Miller,  R.  R.,  and  E.  P.  Pister.  1971.  Management  of 
the  Owens  pupfish,  Cyprinodon  radiostis,  in 
Mono  County,  California.  Trans.  Amer.  Fish. 
Soc.  100  (,3):  502-509. 


158 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


Nevada  State  Engineer's  Office.  1971.  Water  supply 
for  the  future  in  southern  Nevada.  Special  plan- 
ning report.  Prep,  by  Montgomery  Engineers  of 
Nevada.  89  pp.  plus  references,  bibliography, 
map  and  photographs.  Nevada  State  Engineer's 
Office,  Carson  City. 

NiBLEY,  H.  W.  1978.  On  subduing  the  earth,  pp.  85-99. 
In:  Nibley  on  the  timely  and  the  timeless.  Vol.  1, 
Religious  Studies  Monograph  Series,  Religious 
Studies  Center,  Brigham  Young  University.  Pub- 
lishers Press,  Salt  Lake  City,  Utah.  32.3  pp. 

PisTER,  E.  P.  1974.  Desert  fishes  and  their  habitats. 
Trans.  Amer.  Fish.  Soc.  103(3):531-540. 


1976.  A  rationale  for  the  management  of  non- 
game  fish  and  wildlife.  Fisheries  (Bull.  Amer. 
Fish.  Soc.)  1(1);11-14. 

United  States  General  Accounting  Office.  1977. 
The  Tennessee  Valley  Authority's  Tellico  Dam 
project— costs,  alternatives,  and  benefits.  Report 
to  the  Congress  by  the  Comptroller  General  of 
the  United  States,  October  14,  1977. 

Warren,  C.  1978.  Our  economics  is  too  small.  Unpub- 
lished keynote  address  delivered  at  joint  confer- 
ence of  Western  Association  of  Fish  and  Wildlife 
.Agencies  and  Western  Division  ,\merican  Fish- 
eries Society,  San  Diego,  California.  18  July  1978. 


ENDANGERED  SPECIES  ON  FEDERAL  LANDS 

PANEL:  PART  I, 
INTRODUCTION 

John  L.  Spinks' 


Since  I've  already  spoken  once  during  the 
symposium,  I  only  have  two  brief  points  to 
make  for  my  part  of  the  panel  presentation. 

One  is  in  terms  of  public  land.  The  Fish 
and  Wildlife  Service  has  about  35  million 
acres  in  the  National  Wildlife  Refuge  System. 
The  management  of  those  resources  are  sub- 
ject to  the  same  Section  7  scrutiny  as  any 
other  federal  agency  action.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  by  policy  from  the  director  of  the  Fish 
and  Wildlife  Service,  it  is  our  responsibility 
to  make  certain  that  we  live  up  to  the  high- 
est expectations  in  compliance  with  Section 
7.  If  there  is  a  finding  of  either  adverse  modi- 
fication of  critical  habitat  or  a  jeopardy  find- 
ing, that  activity  will  not  be  done  by  the  Fish 
and  Wildlife  Service— and  that  is  in  writing 
from  the  director. 

The  second  point  I  would  make  is  that, 
though  the  Fish  and  Wildlife  Service  has  a 


lead  agency  role,  as  does  the  National  Marine 
Fisheries  Service,  in  administering  the  En- 
dangered Species  Act  of  1973  as  amended,  I 
hope  all  of  you  here  can  immediately  grasp 
that  the  job  of  protecting  endangered  and 
threatened  species  and  recovering  these  spe- 
cies is  completely  beyond  the  scope  of  any 
one  agency.  Were  it  not  for  the  real  dedica- 
tion and  assistance  that  the  service  gets  from 
folks  like  these  up  here  and  their  agencies, 
not  to  mention  all  the  50  state  agencies  and 
the  very  concerned  and  dedicated  private  in- 
dividuals, we  would  never  get  to  first  base. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  on  behalf  of  the  service,  I 
think  all  we  can  say  is  we  appreciate  the  as- 
sistance we've  gotten  over  the  years— it  has 
been  continuous  and  is  still  forthcoming— and 
the  interest  that  generates  a  symposium  like 
this.  We  certainly  appreciate  the  attendance 
of  all  those  here. 


PANEL:  PART  II, 
FOREST  SERVICE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  ENDANGERED  SPECIES  MANAGEMENT 

Jerry  P.  Mcllwain' 


We  have  heard  some  excellent  talks  on  en- 
dangered species  philosophy  here  at  this  ses- 
sion, treating  strategies,  genetics,  ecology, 
and  some  new  techniques  and  concepts  that 
are  very  interesting  to  me.  Within  the  limita- 
tions that  are  placed  on  a  federal  agency,  the 
Forest  Service  has  been  dealing  with  many  of 
these  philosophies  and  strategies  for  a  long 
time.  We  have  been  trying  to  get  them  down 
to  the  ground  level  and  convert  these  things 
that  we  have  all  been  talking  about  for  the 
last  day  and  a  half  into  on-the-ground  man- 


agement, and  that  is  basically  what  I  am  go- 
ing to  talk  to  you  about  today. 

I  will  talk  about  the  Forest  Service  philos- 
ophy of  endangered  species  management  and 
how  this  policy  is  being  translated  into  poli- 
cies and  procedures  to  get  the  job  done, 
about  the  overall  program  to  accomplish  our 
endangered  species  job,  land  management  on 
the  national  forest  system,  and  how  the  re- 
search and  state  and  private  forestry  arms  of 
the  Forest  Service  are  affected  by  the  Endan- 
gered Species  Act. 


'Chief,  Office  of  Endangered  Species,  U.S.  Fish  and  Wildhfe  Service,  Washington,  DC.  20240. 
'Endangered  Species  Speciahst,  USDA,  P.O.  Box  2417,  Washington,  DC.  20013. 


159 


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Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


The  Forest  Service  has  been  in  the  endan- 
gered species  game  for  a  long  time.  We  set 
up  the  Sespe  Condor  Sanctuary  on  the  Los 
Padras  National  Forest  in  1946  and  had  been 
studying  this  bird  for  a  considerable  number 
of  years  before  that. 

Programs  to  protect  and  manage  bald 
eagles,  ospreys,  Kirtland's  warblers,  and  sev- 
eral others  were  implemented  on  national 
forest  system  lands  long  before  the  Endan- 
gered Species  Act  was  passed.  Passage  of  the 
act  in  1973  did  give  our  program  consid- 
erable impetus  and  made  endangered  species 
management  an  organic  part  of  our  agency 
responsibilities. 

The  evaluation  of  policy  and  procedures 
for  the  management  of  endangered  species  is 
very  dynamic  at  the  moment  because  things 
are  changing  so  rapidly.  Knowledge  of  the  bi- 
ology of  listed  species  is  being  acquired  rap- 
idly, Congress  has  recently  amended  the  law, 
and  Fish  and  Wildlife  Service  regulations  are 
continually  evolving.  We  have  been  trying  to 
get  a  new  Forest  Service  Manual  chapter  out 
now  for  almost  three  years.  It  was  just  about 
ready  to  go  before  the  endangered  species 
amendments  of  this  year  were  passed  which 
did  away  with  some  of  our  policies  and  pro- 
cedures, so  we  are  back  to  the  drawing 
board. 

The  basic  Forest  Service  philosophy  of  en- 
dangered species  management  is  to  meet 
both  the  letter  and  the  spirit  of  the  law  by 
achieving  the  recovery  of  listed  species  on 
national  forest  lands,  not  jeopardizing  listed 
species  in  our  other  programs,  and  assuring 
that  Forest  Service  management  does  not 
contribute  to  a  sensitive  species  qualifying 
for  listing. 

The  Forest  Service  moved  out  rather  rap- 
idly in  establishing  a  positive  program  after 
the  1973  act  was  passed.  We  feel  that  our 
programs  are  going  a  step  further  than  the 
requirements  of  the  law  in  many  cases  and 
are  establishing  a  comprehensive  endangered 
species  program. 

Our  program  considers  not  only  the  feder- 
ally listed  species,  but  also  state-listed  spe- 
cies, plus  a  third  category  we  are  calling  sen- 
sitive species.  Sensitive  species  are  those 
which  are  proposed  to  be  federally  listed  or 
species  that  are  recognized  by  the  Regional 
Forester  to  need  special  management  in  order 


to  prevent  the  need  for  their  placement  on 
federal  or  state  lists.  All  plants  that  have  been 
officially  proposed  to  be  listed  are  considered 
sensitive  and  managed  as  if  they  were  already 
listed. 

Some  interpretations  of  the  law  are  that 
the  legal  requirements  exist  only  as  long  as  a 
species  is  listed.  If  recovery  were  achieved 
for  that  species  and  it  were  removed  from 
the  list,  there  would  be  no  more  legal  pro- 
tection for  that  species.  The  species  could 
then  decline  to  the  point  that  it  was  relisted 
and  the  cycle  would  begin  again.  Our  pro- 
grams are  aimed  at  achieving  recovery  of  a 
listed  species  and  continuing  that  status  in 
perpetuity. 

Endangered  species  program  changes  have 
outstripped  the  flexibility  of  our  budgeting 
system.  The  Forest  Service  budget  is  gener- 
ated at  the  ground  level  and  aggragated  up- 
ward. It  is  also  formulated  two  years  ahead  of 
time.  The  Endangered  Species  Act  Section  7 
regulations  were  just  finalized  this  past  Janu- 
ary and  they  impose  a  considerable  number 
of  requirements  on  the  Forest  Service  and 
other  federal  agencies.  Of  course,  our  budget 
was  already  formulated  and  was  not  respon- 
sive to  the  increased  work  load  brought 
about  by  the  new  regulations.  Considerable 
budget  adjustments  made  in  the  Washington 
office  were  necessary.  To  avoid  this  hap- 
pening in  the  future,  it  was  necessary  to  pre- 
pare two  national  programs,  one  for  plants 
and  one  for  animals. 

The  general  thrust  of  these  programs  is  in 
three  phases:  inventory,  interim  manage- 
ment, and  recovery  management.  These 
three  phases  relate  to  each  individual  species 
of  concern.  We  are  in  phase  1  for  a  certain 
group  of  species,  phase  2  for  another  group, 
and  phase  3  for  others. 

Basically  the  first  phase  is  analysis  of  the 
situation:  identification  of  research  needed, 
really  finding  out  where  we  are  on  a  species, 
and  what  we  need  to  do.  Then  we  move  into 
the  second  phase,  an  interim  management 
phase.  This  is  the  actual  conducting  of 
needed  research  relative  to  habitat  require- 
ments, establishing  management  programs, 
and  protecting  the  species  while  we  are 
doing  this.  The  third  and  final  phase  is  recov- 
ery management.  This  final  phase  is  initiated 
after  recovery  plans  or  other  specific  Forest 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


161 


Service  plans  have  been  prepared  to  protect 
the  species.  The  species  and  their  habitats  are 
managed  to  achieve  recovery  and  prevent  re- 
currence of  endangernient. 

Because  this  is  a  panel  on  public  land  man- 
agement, we  will  now  turn  to  some  of  the 
specific  programs  on  the  national  forest  sys- 
tem lands. 

Of  the  236  domestic  species  currently  on 
the  federal  list,  there  are  about  70  species 
that  occur  on  national  forest  system  land.  Of 
these  70,  there  are  quite  a  few  that  occur 
only  on  Forest  Service  lands  or  Forest  Ser- 
vice lands  play  an  essential  part  of  the  total 
conservation  effort  for  that  species.  The  1973 
act  considerably  changed  the  way  we  do 
things  in  the  national  forests.  The  act  re- 
quired us  to  evaluate  all  the  Forest  Service 
projects,  decide  whether  or  not  they  may  af- 
fect a  species,  and,  if  so,  enter  into  the  formal 
consultation  process  with  the  Fish  and  Wild- 
life Service.  This  has  been  a  considerable 
work  load  and  will  certainly  grow  larger  in 
the  future.  We  have  had  well  over  a  hundred 
formal  consultations  since  the  regulations  be- 
came effective  in  January  of  this  year.  Some 
of  them  have  been  very  complex.  Our  field 
people  are  involved  in  several  endangered 
species  program  activities  as  a  result  of  na- 
tional direction  from  the  chief's  office. 

We  have  agreed  with  the  Fish  and  Wild- 
life Service  (as  have  all  federal  land  manag- 
ing agencies)  to  a  time  frame  for  making  rec- 
ommendations for  the  designation  of  critical 
habitat  for  those  species  already  listed  and 
for  which  no  critical  habitat  was  established. 
This  job  is  in  response  to  the  president's 
request  in  his  environmental  message  of  1977 
that  federal  agencies  speed  up  identification 
of  critical  habitats  on  public  lands. 

Our  regions  have  been  directed  to  assure 
that  threatened,  endangered,  and  sensitive 
species  are  adequately  covered  in  regional 
and  forest  land  management  plans  required 
by  the  National  Forest  Management  Act. 
Guidelines  are  being  developed  to  determine 
which  management  direction  should  be  ex- 
pressed in  regional  plans  for  wide  ranging 
species  and  which  direction  should  be  left  up 
to  each  individual  national  forest. 

The  Forest  Service  will  prepare  action 
plans  to  accomplish  activities  identified  in  re- 
covery plans  for  our  agency.  Of  course,  a  re- 


covery plan  cannot  commit  another  federal 
agency  to  the  expenditure  of  funds.  Also, 
many  recovery  plans  do  not  provide  suf- 
ficient details  for  on-the-ground  management 
activities,  so  we  must  go  a  step  further  and 
prepare  action  plans  to  further  refine  those 
jobs  most  logical  for  the  Forest  Service  to  ac- 
complish, and  to  serve  as  our  agreement  with 
the  Fish  and  Wildlife  Service  to  perform  cer- 
tain tasks  in  the  accomplishment  of  the  re- 
covery plan. 

We  are  monitoring,  in  cooperation  with 
the  states,  all  populations  of  threatened  and 
endangered  species  on  the  national  forest. 

Another  program  thrust,  which  is  a  legal 
obligation  I  have  already  mentioned,  is  to  re- 
view all  of  our  programs  and  activities  and 
decide  whether  or  not  they  may  affect  a  list- 
ed species.  If  the  project  or  activities  may  af- 
fect the  species,  we  formally  consult  with  the 
Fish  and  Wildlife  Service. 

The  final  item  related  to  national  direction 
is  to  survey  listed  or  sensitive  species  to  lo- 
cate populations  and  define  habitat  charac- 
teristics and  biological  needs. 

Before  I  talk  about  some  specific  projects 
for  endangered  species,  I  would  like  to  men- 
tion our  budget  and  personnel.  As  you  are 
aware,  the  Department  of  Agriculture  gets 
no  appropriations  through  the  Endangered 
Species  Act  as  does  the  Department  of  the 
Interior  and  the  Department  of  Commerce. 
We  do  have  a  specific  budget  item  for  en- 
dangered species  that  we  make  up  out  of  our 
normal  wildlife  appropriations,  and  then  we 
have  an  agreement  with  Congress  about  how 
much  money  will  be  spent  on  the  endangered 
species  program.  This  current  fiscal  year  we 
are  budgeting  on  the  national  forest  system 
$5,223  million  for  endangered  species  pro- 
grams. I  think  that  this  budget  is  probably 
second  in  size  to  that  of  the  Fish  and  Wildlife 
Service.  I  am  not  sure  how  large  the  BLM 
budget  is.  This  sounds  like  a  lot  of  money, 
but  when  you  take  that  much  money,  allo- 
cate it  to  nine  regions,  154  national  forest, 
and  umpteen  ranger  districts,  it  is  not  nearly 
as  much  as  it  .sounds.  In  fact,  it  is  not  nearly 
enough  to  accomplish  a  proper  job. 

The  Endangered  Species  Act,  along  with 
some  other  legislation,  has  really  changed  our 
personnel  picture  also.  The  Forest  Service 
during  the  last  four  or  five  years  has  hired  an 


162 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


average  of  15  to  20  wildlife  biologists  a  year. 
This  past  fiscal  year,  we  hired  123  biologists 
and  much  of  this  increased  hiring  was  a  di- 
rect result  of  the  Endangered  Species  Act.  I 
think  that  upped  our  total  number  of  wildlife 
biologists  to  somewhere  in  the  vicinity  of  370 
biologists  in  the  national  forest  system. 

The  Forest  Service  is  involved  in  hundreds 
of  projects  around  the  country,  but  these  ex- 
amples will  give  you  some  idea  of  the  type  of 
things  that  we  are  getting  into,  and  some  of 
the  complexities  of  the  situations  that  we  are 
dealing  with  now. 

When  the  California  Region  began  a  proj- 
ect to  identify  and  recommend  critical  habi- 
tat for  bald  eagles,  they  found  that  not 
enough  information  was  available  to  accom- 
plish the  job.  We  knew  the  habitat  conditions 
where  eagles  presently  occurred,  but  infor- 
mation was  lacking  on  the  criteria  for  suit- 
able imoccupied  habitat. 

We  wanted  to  designate  not  only  the  pres- 
ently occupied  habitat,  but  also  unoccupied 
habitat  which  was  suitable  or  may  be  suitable 
in  the  foreseeable  future.  A  program  was 
started  in  northern  California  to  gather  the 
necessary  information.  A  team  consisting  of  a 
forester  and  a  wildlife  biologist  evaluated 
every  bald  eagle  nesting  territory  in  the  state, 
collecting  information  on  such  paramaters  as 
size  of  tree,  aspect,  distance  from  water,  dis- 
turbance factors,  productivity  of  the  nest, 
form  of  the  nest  tree,  timber  types  immedi- 
ately under  the  nest  tree,  and  timber  types 
out  a  certain  distance  from  the  nest  tree.  A 
computer  program  then  analyzed  the  impor- 
tant factors  that  went  into  making  up  the 
eagle  habitat.  This  program  is  just  being 
completed  and  we  are  now  using  the  results 
of  the  survey  to  write  criteria  for  the  identi- 
fication of  bald  eagle  habitat.  Another  proj- 
ect we  are  doing  with  eagles  is  experimental- 
ly improving  eagle  nest  trees.  Some  trees 
have  been  pruned  to  improve  them  for  nest- 
ing eagles.  We  have  actually  tried  to  encour- 
age some  eagles  to  move  by  judicious  prun- 
ing of  trees  and,  in  some  cases,  by 
constructing  artificial  nest  platforms  in  the 
trees.  This  is  only  being  done  in  those  areas 
where  the  nest  tree  is  dying  or  is  in  an  area 
that  is  subject  to  a  large  degree  of  disturb- 
ance. 

Another  project  recently  completed  in 


California  was  the  restoration  of  a  peregrine 
falcon  eyrie.  An  active  nest  site  on  the  Men- 
dicino  National  Forest  sluffed  off  of  the  cliff 
face.  Climbers  went  up  to  the  original  nest 
ledge  and  made  a  pattern.  The  pattern  was 
then  used  to  preconstruct  an  artificial  nest 
platform.  Crews  then  drove  metal  rods  into 
the  cliff  face,  installed  the  artificial  nest  plat- 
form, and  covered  it  with  cement  and  natural 
materials  to  make  it  look  essentially  like  the 
natural  nest  ledge.  As  far  as  we  know  this  has 
not  been  done  before,  and  we  are  anxiously 
waiting  to  see  if  the  new  ledge  will  be  ac- 
cepted by  the  peregrines. 

Some  interesting  work  on  genetic  analysis 
with  some  of  the  threatened  trout  and  sala- 
manders is  being  done.  The  Little  Kern  gold- 
en trout  occurs  only  in  the  Little  Kern  River 
drainage  primarily  on  the  Sequoia  National 
Forest.  Over  the  years,  populations  of  this 
threatened  species  have  interbred  with  in- 
troduced rainbow  stock  so  that  there  are  now 
very  few  pure  strain  Little  Kern  golden  trout 
left. 

Through  the  use  of  the  electrophoresis 
technique,  done  under  contract  with  the  Uni- 
versity of  California  at  Davis,  it  was  deter- 
mined exactly  which  streams  within  the  wa- 
tershed contained  the  pure  strain  and  which 
streams  were  genetically  polluted,  so  to 
speak.  With  this  information,  agreement  was 
reached  between  the  California  Department 
of  Fish  and  Game,  the  National  Park  Service, 
and  the  Forest  Service  on  a  management 
plan  for  the  watershed.  This  management 
plan  calls  for  replacement  of  many  of  the 
genetically  inferior  populations  with  pure 
stock,  installation  of  artificial  barriers  to  pre- 
vent further  interbreeding,  and  other  stream 
improvement  practices. 

The  electrophoresis  technique  was  also 
used  on  the  shasta  salamander,  a  species  list- 
ed as  rare  by  the  state  of  California.  This 
work  showed  that  there  were  five  distinct 
populations  of  this  salamander,  some  of 
which  had  been  genetically  isolated  for  well 
over  4000  years;  these  were  genetically  more 
different  than  some  of  the  full  species  of  sala- 
manders were  from  each  other.  This  brings 
up  new  questions  of  taxonomy  and  how  spe- 
cies should  be  classified  as  threatened  or  en- 
dangered and  legally  protected. 

I  am  going  to  leave  off  some  of  these  other 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


163 


project  examples  so  that  we  will  have  more 
time  for  questions.  The  Forest  Service  re- 
search arm  is  completely  separate  from  the 
national  forest  system.  It  conducts  research 
on  any  forest  and  range  land,  independent  of 
ownership.  We  have  10  work  units  or  work 
locations  where  endangered  species  work  is 
going  on.  This  covers  about  38  different  fed- 
erally listed  species. 

The  state  and  private  forestry  program  is 
one  which  some  of  vou  may  not  know  about. 
This  third  arm  of  the  Forest  Service  is  in- 
volved in  providing  technical  advice  on  re- 
source management  to  state  foresters  and  pri- 
vate land  owners  and  administering  several 
federally  financed  forestry  programs.  Of 
course,  this  program  is  also  subject  to  the  En- 
dangered Species  Act.  It  is  very  difficult  to 
determine  the  impact  of  the  act  on  programs 
of  this  type.  Both  actual  and  financial  assist- 
ance and  technical  assistance  given  through 


the  state  and  private  forestry  program  are 
subject  to  the  act. 

The  National  Forest  Management  Act  is 
going  to  drastically  change  the  planning  pro- 
cesses of  the  Forest  Service.  Very  briefly, 
some  of  the  things  that  are  going  to  be  re- 
quired by  law  now  are  these:  we  will  set 
wildlife  goals  and  objectives,  inventory  all 
species  by  habitat  types,  monitor  populations 
and  habitat  quantity  and  quality,  quantify 
species  and  habitat  diversity,  prescribe  pro- 
tection and  management  of  critical  habitats, 
and  formulate  and  evaluate  alternate  man- 
agement regimes.  These  are  things  that  must 
be  done  now  by  law,  and,  of  course,  endan- 
gered species  management  as  well  as  all  wild- 
life management  is  tied  up  in  these  require- 
ments. I  will  finish  with  the  thought  that  as 
we  start  making  forest  plans  under  the  new 
National  Forest  Management  Act,  we  will 
most  certainly  be  calling  upon  you  for  help. 


PANEL:  PART  III, 
THE  BUREAU  OF  LAND  MANAGEMENT'S  ENDANGERED  SPECIES  PROGRAM 

Richard  Vernimen' 


Abstract.-  It  is  the  responsibihty  of  the  Bureau  of  Land  Management  (BLM)  to  conserve  plants  and  animals  .  .  . 
and  the  habitat  on  which  they  depend  .  .  .  which  are  officially  listed  according  to  federal  or  state  laws  in  catregories 
that  imply  significant  potential  for  extinction.  The  BLM  also  provides  for  the  conservation  of  the  habitats  of  unlisted 
extinction-prone  (i.e.,  sensitive)  plants  and  animals.  It  also  applies  to  all  BLM  programs  and  actions  related  to  the 
public  lands,  the  federal  subsurface  mineral  estate,  and  the  submerged  lands  of  the  Outer  Continental  Shelf  (OSC). 


The  BLM  administers  448  million  acres  of 
land  within  the  11  western  states  and  Alaska 
(U.S.  Department  of  the  Interior,  BLM  1977). 
In  addition,  we  are  responsible  for  BLM— au- 
thorized actions  taking  place  on  the  Outer 
Continental  Shelf  and  federally  owned  sub- 
surface minerals,  i.e.,  coal,  oil  and  gas,  etc. 
(hereinafter  all  of  the  above  lands  will  be  re- 
ferred to  as  BLM-admini,stered  lands). 

Within  these  vast  acreages  and  areas  of  re- 
sponsibility we  must  taken  into  consideration 
the  welfare  of  48  threatened  and  endangered 
(T/E)  animals  (U.S.  Department  of  the  Interi- 
or, BLM  1977)  and  3  endangered  plants  (Fed- 


eral Reg.  6/20/78).  The  T/E  plants  and  ani- 
mals occurring  on  the  subsurface  and  Outer 
Continental  Shelf  (OSC)  must  also  be  consid- 
ered if  BLM-initiated  actions  affect  a  T/E 
species  or  its  habitat  (i.e.,  oil  and  gas  impacts 
on  marine  mammals).  A  third  category  of 
species  we  must  take  into  account  are  state 
T/E  species.  Our  1977  statistical  report  listed 
138  species  of  animals. 

With  the  recent  passage  of  the  1978 
amendments  to  the  Endangered  Species  Act 
of  1973  (ESA),  proposed  species  must  also  be 
considered  for  formal  consultation.  A  number 
of  plants  and  animals  fall  into  this  category. 


'Endangered  Species  Liaison  Officer,  U.S.  Dept.  of  the  Interior,  Bureau  of  Land  Management,  Washington,  DC. 


164 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


Land  Use 

All  actions  that  we  allow  on  BLM-adminis- 
tered  lands  must  be  considered  for  impacts 
on  threatened  and  endangered  species  (T/E), 
i.e.,  oil  and  gas  leases,  land  exchanges,  graz- 
ing permits,  pipelines,  etc.). 

The  following  figures  were  used  for  our  fis- 
cal year  1979  and  1980  budget  that  shows  ac- 
tions requiring  Section  7  consultation  as  per 
ESA  of  1973: 

Energy  2500  leases  (oil /gas, 

coal,  geothermal) 
Timber  Sale  of  1.25  billion 

board  feet 
Grazing  Issuance  of  24,000 

use  authorizations 
Wilderness  Completion  of  55 

studies 
State  selections  502,900  acres 

(excluding  Alaska) 
Rights-of-way  1700  applications 

Mineral  leasing  (other)    63  million  acres 

private 
290  million  acres 

other  federal  lands 
Other  land  actions  8,000  cases 

The  above  are  cases  or  actions  readily 
identifiable.  Each  day  we  encounter  new  ac- 
tions that  require  review. 


Legislation  and  Authority 

Authority-Sources 

A.  Endangered   Species  Act   of  1973   (16 
use  1531  et  seq.)  as  amended. 

B.  Sikes  Act,  Title  II  (16  USC  670  et  seq.). 

C.  National  Environmental  Policy  Act  (42 
USC  4321  et  seq.)  as  amended. 

D.  Tlie  Federal  Land  Policy  and  Manage- 
ment Act  of  October  21,  1976  (P.L.  94- 
579). 

E.  Department  Manual  231.1. LA.,  Gener- 
al Program  Delegation  Director,  Bu- 
reau of  Land  Management. 

The  above  acts  are  our  basis  for  developing 
and  carrying  out  an  endangered  species  pro- 
gram. The  major  thrust  of  our  program  is 
Section  7  compliance  and  inventory  of  habi- 
tat. 


BLM  Program 

Coordination  and  Liaison,  Section  7  Com- 
pliance 

Section  7  of  the  ESA  of  1973  directs  all 
federal  agencies  on  how  to  comply  with  the 
act.  Procedures  for  this  cooperation  and  con- 
sultation can  be  found  in  50  CFR  402  or  in 
the  Federal  Register,  volume  43,  pages 
869-876,  4  January  1978. 

The  major  contact  on  consultation  for 
BLM  is  the  Fish  and  Wildlife  Service  (FWS), 
but  with  our  administrative  responsibilities 
on  the  Outer  Continental  Shelf  (OCS)  we  also 
consult  with  the  National  Marine  Fisheries 
Service  of  the  Department  of  Commerce. 
Since  many  of  these  OCS  cases  involve  the 
high  seas  or  foreign  countries,  we  must  also 
contact  the  State  Department.  As  you  can 
see,  the  Section  7  process  can  become  ex- 
ceedingly involved  and  time  consuming. 

Because  of  the  mandate  placed  upon  us  by 
Section  7  of  the  ESA  of  1973,  major  emphasis 
in  work  load  has  been  shifted  to  meet  it. 
Budget  increases  were  added  to  meet  the 
need.  This  is  a  start,  but  we  are  working  un- 
der pressure  to  meet  the  demand  because  of 
other  priorities  placed  upon  us,  such  as  the 
nation's  energy  needs. 


Critical  Habitat  Inventory 

Tlie  president's  environmental  message  of 
May  1978  requires  that  the  identification  and 
determination  of  "critical  habitats"  for  en- 
dangered species  be  accelerated. 

The  secretary  of  the  interior  is  directing 
agencies  to  complete  inventories  and  analyses 
for  the  determinations  of  critical  habitats  for 
species  on  their  lands  by  1  January  1980. 

We  have  32  of  the  known  species  of  ani- 
mals officially  listed  on  public  lands.  We 
have  been  given  increased  funds  to  complete 
this  job.  Inventories  for  some  species  are  fair- 
ly simple  because  their  respective  habiats  are 
small  and  centralized.  The  work  begins  when 
we  look  at  species  such  as  the  Bald  Eagle  or 
the  American  Peregrine  Falcon.  Habitats  of 
these  species  are  broad  and  expansive,  requir- 
ing many  man-hours  to  complete  inventories. 
Our  participation  on  recovery  teams  has 
helped  to  cut  this  work  load  down. 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


165 


Present  Capabilities  to  Comply  with  the  ESA 
of  1973 

As  of  11  November  1978,  the  BLM  has  249 
fisheries  and  wildlife  biologists  on  board.  The 
breakdown  by  numbers  and  areas  is  as  fol- 
lows: 


Washington,  D.C. 

Denver  Service  Center 

Alaska 

Arizona 

California 

Colorado 

Eastern  States 

Idaho 

Montana 

Nevada 

New  Mexico 

Oregon 

Utah 

Wyoming 

Outer  Continental  Shelf 

Total 


6 

5 

9 

18 

23 

22 

3 

22 

26 

22 

15 

35 

22 

18 

3 

249 


Within  the  total  249  biologists,  only  2 
could  be  listed  as  working  totally  on  endan- 
gered species,  and  that  is  stretching  it.  We  all 
have  other  duties  as  assigned.  I  myself  func- 
tion as  the  lead  in  Washington  on  nongame 
species  as  well  as  the  endangered  species  liai- 
son officer.  Mr.  Ken  Walker,  endangered 
plant  coordinator,  will  cover  the  number  of 
botanists  we  have  working  on  plants. 


Summary 

Intensified  public  concern  for  our  environ- 
ment and  the  flora  and  fauna  within  it  has 
created  a  demand  for  all  levels  of  govern- 
ment to  engage  in  active  and  positive  pro- 
grams to  stem  the  tide  of  wildlife  extinction. 
We  have  embarked  on  an  ambitious  program 
to  protect  and  benefit  endangered  plants  and 
wildlife.  Many  of  our  avenues  to  success  are 
clouded  by  complex,  competitive  demands 
on  endangered  species  habitat  by  other  re- 
source uses  and  the  nation's  need  for  energy. 
Unraveling  ecological  complexities  to  isolate 
and  solve  habitat-related  problems  is  not  a 
simple  task.  Funding  and  manpower  are  not 
available  to  meet  all  needs.  Despite  these  dif- 
ficulties and  constraints,  we  are  devoting  our 
best  efforts  trying  to  insure  that  no  additional 
plant  or  animal  become  either  endangered  or 
extinct  on  public  lands. 


Literature  Cited 


U.S. 


U.S. 


Department  of  Commerce,  National  Oceanic 
AND  Atmospheric  Administration  and  U.S. 
Department  of  the  Interior,  Fish  and 
Wildlife  Service.  1978.  Interagency  coopera- 
tion regulations,  Endangered  Species  Act  of  1973. 
Federal  Register  43(2):869-876.  January  4. 
Department  of  the  Interior,  Bureau  of  Land 
Management.  1977.  Annual  statistical  wildlife 
report.  Unpublished  report.  Washington,  D.C. 

1977.  BLM  statistics  for  1976.  Washington,  D.C. 

U.S.  Department  of  the  Interior,  Fish  and  Wildlife 
Service.  1978.  Determination  of  five  plants  as  en- 
dangered species.  Federal  Register  43: 
44810-44812. 


PANEL:  PART  IV, 

SUMMARY  OF  THE  ENDANGERED  PLANT  PROGRAM 

IN  THE  BUREAU  OF  LAND  MANAGEMENT 

Kenneth  G.  Walker' 


I'll  explain  very  briefly  our  function  in  the 
Washington  office.  You  may  wonder  why 
there  are  two  of  us  here  from  the  Bureau  of 
Land  Management.  The  primary  reason  is, 
because  of  the  organizational  structure  at  the 
Washington  office,  the  responsibility  for  en- 


dangered species  coordination  is  in  the  Divi- 
sion of  Wildlife,  with  Dick  Vernimen  as  the 
coordinator  for  the  Bureau  of  Land  Manage- 
ment. My  function  in  the  Division  of  Water- 
shed is  to  assist  or  carry  on  the  coordinating 
role  for  endangered  plant  species.  The  sym- 


'Endangered  Plant  Coordinator,  U.S.  Dept.  of  the  Interior,  Bureau  of  Land  Management.  Washington,  D.C. 


166 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


posium,  I  feel,  has  been  very  enlightening. 
The  scientific  community  in  many  instances 
seems  to  be  at  odds  as  to  what  really  needs  to 
be  done  for  endangered  species,  what  the 
needs  are,  and  what  the  protection  systems 
should  be.  We  in  the  federal  agencies  do  not 
have  many  options,  although  we  have  our 
opinions.  Our  options  are  limited  to  the 
methods  for  which  we  follow  the  dictates  of 
legislation. 

Policy  for  endangered  plant  species  is  very 
similar  to  that  described  by  the  Forest  Ser- 
vice. Our  prime  effort  is  not  only  to  protect 
and  conserve  listed  species,  but  also  to  carry 
it  a  step  further  and  to  protect  and  conserve 
the  proposed  species  with  the  idea  that  if  we 
can  manage  these  species  and  their  habitat 
the  situation  will  be  avoided  where  they  will 
require  official  listing.  We  recently  devel- 
oped a  policy  for  endangered  species  which  I 
will  summarize.  It  is  the  policy  to  protect, 
conserve,  and  manage  federally  and  state-list- 
ed or  proposed  listings  of  sensitive,  endan- 
gered, or  threatened  plants  and  to  use  its  au- 
thorities in  furtherance  of  the  purposes  of  the 
Endangered  Species  Act  and  similar  state 
laws.  The  bureau,  through  its  actions  in  all 
planning  and  management  activities,  will  in- 
sure that  the  actions  authorized,  funded,  or 
carried  out  will  not  jeopardize  the  continued 
existence  of  such  species  or  result  in  the  de- 
struction or  modification  of  the  critical  habi- 
tats. To  summarize  the  policy,  as  the  Forest 
Service  mentioned,  our  intent  is  to  not  only 
follow  the  letter  of  the  law,  but  also  the  spirit 
of  the  law.  We  have  issued  several  guidelines 
to  our  field  office  to  follow  this  policy.  In 
doing  this,  we  have  asked  our  field  office  to 
do  two  things:  first,  to  add  each  candidate  or 
listed  species  which  is  known  or  expected  to 
occur  within  their  area  of  responsibility  to  a 
list  of  these  species  that  will  be  developed 
and  maintained  by  our  state  directors  within 
the  area  of  jurisdiction.  The  area  of  responsi- 
bility in  Utah,  for  example,  would  be  the  en- 
tire state,  which  in  tvirn  requires  a  lot  of 
coordination  with  the  universities,  state 
agencies,  private  concerns,  and  others,  wher- 
ever we  can  acquire  the  interest.  A  second 
appeal  would  be  for  state  directors  to  deter- 


mine those  species  which  are  known  or  sus- 
pected to  occur  on  bureau-administered  lands 
or  can  reasonably  be  expected  to  be  in- 
fluenced by  bureau  actions.  The  Bureau  of 
Land  Management  has  the  responsibility  for 
management  of  surface  areas,  but  there  also 
are  many  areas  where  we  have  responsibility 
for  the  subsurface  minerals  management. 
Coal,  in  Utah,  is  an  example  where  we  man- 
age the  subsurface  minerals  but,  we  do  not 
own  the  surface.  This  creates  many  problems. 
I  will  now  summarize  the  program  status 
for  the  endangered  species  program  in  the 
BLM.  I  feel  almost  embarrassed  sitting  by  the 
Forest  Service  people  when  they  talk  about 
their  funding  levels.  Our  funding  for  endan- 
gered plant  species  has  not  been  a  direct 
fimding  effort.  We've  acquired  from  other 
programs  approximately  $400,000.  This  in- 
cludes partial  funding  of  about  40  personnel. 
Unfortunately,  not  very  many  of  them  are 
able  to  spend  their  full-time  in  the  endan- 
gered species  effort.  We  do  have  a  few  full- 
time  botanists.  The  endangered  plant  pro- 
gram in  this  bureau  is  viewed  as  low  priority 
because  of  its  magnitude.  On  public  lands, 
only  three  species  have  officially  been  listed. 
All  three  of  them  are  in  California.  We  have 
several  hundred  proposed  species  located  on 
public  lands.  Our  endangered  plant  species 
program  is  primarily,  at  least  at  this  time,  as 
Duane  Atwood  mentioned  this  morning,  in 
the  inventory  stage.  We're  not  yet  to  the 
point  where  we're  really  able  to  prepare  or 
do  active  planning  for  a  particular  species  or 
a  particular  group  of  species.  Our  efforts  are 
tied  rather  closely  to  our  Environmental 
Statement  (ES)  Program  in  the  bureau,  par- 
ticularly the  range  program,  which  is  a  mag- 
nanimous effort.  We  have  several  hundred 
environmental  impact  statements  to  prepare 
within  the  next  few  years.  Our  endangered 
species  inventory  efforts  have  pretty  much 
centered  around  ES  efforts.  Our  efforts  and 
methods  in  conducting  these  inventories  are 
varied.  Some  are  done  in-house  by  our  own 
people.  Many  of  them  we  are  able  to  conduct 
through  contracts  with  universities  and  oth- 
ers who  have  such  capability. 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


167 


Questions  to  the  Panel 


Q.  The  Endangered  Species  Act  is  rather  narrow  about 
defining  this  problem.  There  are  quite  a  few  other 
programs  that  can  be  appHed.  Many  of  the  federal 
land  agencies  have  natural  area  programs.  There  are 
also  a  number  of  wildlife  programs  that  can  be 
brought  to  bear  on  the  question  of  peripheral  species 
and  their  distribution.  We  have  the  same  problem 
with  plant  distribution,  so  I'm  not  sure  the  endan- 
gered species  program  is  the  right  place  for  that 
kind  of  program,  depending,  of  course,  on  what  hap- 
pens to  the  whole  range.  There  are  a  lot  of  other 
programs  that  could  help  there. 

A.  That  particular  problem  is  one  of  the  things  we  are 
trying  to  address  with  our  sensitive  species  category 
in  our  total  endangered  species  program.  We  can 
take  species  like  this  and  put  them  on  our  sensitive 
species  list  and  then  apply  land  management  prac- 
tices or  management  practices  in  a  special  way. 
There  won't  be  the  legal  requirements,  but  we 
would  treat  them  for  land  management  purposes  the 
same  way  we  would  treat  a  legally  listed  species. 
(Mcllwain) 

Q.  I  have  a  correlary  to  this  I  need  to  address.  I  don't 
think  it's  been  addres.sed  to  the  extent  that  I  need  to 
understand  it.  Having  worked  for  a  private  con- 
sulting firm,  I've  often  been  caught  between  two 
grist  mills  of  state  species  lists  and  also  federal  spe- 
cies lists.  Specifically,  I'd  like  to  know  what  your 
plans  are  for  the  future.  I  don't  think  I  understand 
how  you're  going  to  correlate  and  work  out  these  is- 
sues with  the  states.  For  example,  the  Hamper  Proj- 
ect is  not  ad  ministered  by  the  state.  It's  a  national 
environment  research  park.  What  if  we  have  a  spe- 
cies there  that  is  peripheral  and  we  want  to  protect 
it,  but  the  State  of  Washington  doesn't.  The  popu- 
lation is  found  in  Washington  and  parts  of  Oregon, 
Idaho,  and  Utah,  but  in  most  areas  it  doesn't  war- 
rant or  merit  consideration  as  a  threatened  species. 
How  are  you  going  to  handle  this  conflict  with  the 
states?  Will  you  be  able  to  support  it? 

A.  Well,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  I  don't  see  any  conflict 
with  the  states  at  all  in  a  situation  like  this.  If  a  giv- 
en state  has  its  own  endangered  species  legislation, 
and  if  a  particular  species,  be  it  a  peripheral  species 
or  whatever,  is  in  trouble  in  that  state,  I  see  nothing 
wrong  with  that  state  listing  that  species  under  its 
legislation  as  an  endangered  species  and  protecting 
it  accordingly.  (Mcllwain) 
Q.  By  a  conflict,  I  mean  to  be  able  to  fimd  them  and 
support  them  financially.  Most  of  the  states  don't 
have  an  adequate  threatened  and  endangered  spe- 
cies program,  especially  from  the  standpoint  of  fimd- 
ing  resources.  You  have  infinite  amounts  compared 
to  what  most  of  them  do.  Will  you  be  able  to  sup- 
port them  on  the  basis  of  those  peripheral  popu- 
lations? 
A.  We  have  two  separate  fimding  resources  in  the  en- 
dangered species  program.  One  is  the  Section  1.5 
monies,  which  our  general  appropriation  authorizes, 
and  the  other  is  the  Section  6  money,  which  is  dedi- 
cated specifically  to  a  grant  and  aid  program 
through  cooperative  programs  with  the  states.  We 
have  not,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  been  able  to  obligate 


that  money  as  quickly  as  we  would  like  to— simply 
because  there  has  not  been  enough  demand  in  the 
states  to  really  get  with  the  program.  I  don't  see  any 
difficulty  in  fimding  through  a  matching  66  percent 
federal  share-.3.3  percent  state  share  for  state  activi- 
ties. I  don't  think  we're  going  to  run  out  of  money 
any  time  sooner.  (Spinks) 

Q.  Wouldn't  those  matching  fimds  work  only  for  spe- 
cies that  are  listed  as  endangered  species  under  the 
federal  act? 

\.  No,  if  they're  considering  it  for  listing  under  the 
state  act.  They  would  also  be  eligible  for  funding. 
(Spinks) 

Q.  I've  enjoyed  very  much  your  program,  but  you  have 
not  mentioned  the  aquatic  forms.  Now  you  take  the 
fisheries  on  the  North  Atlantic,  the  whaling.  They're 
vital  problems  with  which  we  must  deal.  It  seems  to 
me  that  not  only  will  we  have  to  be  financed,  but  it 
may  even  be  we'll  have  to  use  a  little  military 
strength  to  restrain  some  of  these  people  who  say 
they  have  a  right  to  hunt  a  particular  species,  the 
whale  and  so  on.  That  is  a  major  problem  as  I  see  it 
in  connection  with  the  immediate  approach  in  deal- 
ing with  these  species. 

.\.  Your  point  is  well  taken.  I'm  glad  the  National  Ma- 
rine Fisheries  Service  is  in  this  act  with  us.  There  is 
basically  a  division  of  responsibility  in  the  act  be- 
tween the  Departments  of  Commerce  and  the  Inte- 
rior, and  the  oceanic  species  are  under  the  pro- 
tection and  administrative  authority  of  the  National 
Marine  Fisheries  Service.  Certainly  we  do  not  in  any 
way  want  to  diminish  the  value  of  those  species,  as 
vou  point  out,  but  that  is  again  the  prerogative  of 
the  National  Marine  Fisheries  Service;  and,  as  Mr. 
Vernimen  mentioned,  the  Bureau  of  Land  Manage- 
ment under  the  OCS  leasing  program  does  become 
involved  with  the  National  Marine  Fisheries  Service 
in  the  consultation  process,  like  considering  such 
species  as  the  bow-head  whale  in  Alaska,  for  in- 
stance. (Spinks) 

Q.  I  have  a  comment  on  a  previous  question.  The  State 
of  Washington  is  being  fimded  now  by  endangered 
species  dollars  to  come  up  with  a  list  of  the  state's 
threatened  and  endangered  species,  so  it  is  possible 
to  do  that.  The  state  game  department  is  involved  in 
that. 

Q.  My  question  to  you  managers  is  from  the  point  of 
view  of  private  industry.  I'm  a  representative  of 
Utah  Power  and  Light  Company,  and  I'm  not  a  biol- 
ogist. I've  learned  a  lot  here  in  the  last  couple  of 
days  about  biolog\'.  Obviously,  the  vital  question  to 
us  is  this.  We  realize  that  recent  amendments  to  the 
act  have  created  a  lot  of  work  for  you  guys  to  do. 
.\re  we  going  to  have  to  wait  for  you  to  get  all  this 
work  done  before  we  can  build  any  new  plants,  or 
will  we  have  to  provide  some  of  the  fimding  to  get 
some  work  done  on  a  specific  basis  by  ourselves? 

.\.  No,  you  do  not,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  have  to  wait  un- 
til there  are  new  Section  7  regulations  promulgated, 
which  could  take  some  time.  We  are  proceeding 
with  the  consultation  process  under  the  existing  Sec- 
tion 7  regulations  which  Jerry  Mcllwain  alluded  to 
as  having  been   published  in  January   1978.   The 


168 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


world  is  not  going  to  stop  until  we  have  the  new 
regulations.  (Spinks) 
Q.  I  want  to  ask  a  question  concerning  the  program  of 
the  Forest  Service  people  and  the  BLM  in  terms  of 
the  protective  habitat,  just  to  clarify  what  I'm  con- 
cerned with.  For  a  number  of  years  I  cooperated 
with  some  of  the  folks  from  California  who  were 
trying  to  preserve  some  sand  dunes  in  southeastern 
California,  southern  Nevada,  and  perhaps  other 
areas  from  dune  buggies  and  off-road  vehicles  that 
just  traversed  the  area  without  any  concern  for  the 
animals  or  the  plants  that  were  there.  Now  I  haven't 
heard  from  Bob  Stebbins  or  Dave  Wake  or  some  of 
those  folks  for  a  few  years  as  to  whether  or  not  they 
have  succeeded  in  convincing  the  Bureau  of  Land 
Management  that  some  steps  should  be  taken  to  pro- 
tect those  sand  dunes  habitats  before  the  sand  adapt- 
ed and  a  number  of  other  forms  are  exclusively  re- 
stricted to  those  areas.  What  has  been  done  and 
what  is  the  program  of  the  Bureau  now  to  protect 
habitat  from  these  kinds  of  degradations? 

A.  We  do  now  have  the  three  species  in  California  that 
are  officially  listed.  I  believe  two  of  them  are  in  the 
sand  dunes  area.  For  one  of  them,  specifically,  the 
Eureka  Sand  Dune  Grass,  the  Bureau  of  Land  Man- 
agement has  tried  to  close  this  area.  We've  received 
some  criticism  as  to  how  effective  the  closure  of 
these  lands  has  been.  Others  say  it's  been  very  effec- 
tive. But,  to  go  back  to  the  other  part  of  my  answer, 
our  planning  process  is  to  go  through  our  inventories 
and  identify  critical  habitats,  sensitive  species,  pro- 
posed species  with  their  habitats,  and,  through  the 
planning  process,  tie  these  areas  in  with  other  pro- 
posed actions,  one  of  which  could  be  off-road  vehicle 
use.  Then,  in  the  final  recommendations  through  our 
planning  process,  the  decision  is  made  then  as  to 
what  action  will  be  taken  in  regards  to  that  area— 
whether  it  be  closure,  restrictions  from  other  uses, 
grazing,  off-road  vehicles,  or  other  means  to  protect 
certain  species.  This  is  the  process.  Now  the  actual 
implications  of  success  to  this  process  we've  yet  to 
see  in  many  cases,  but  we  are  making  a  sincere  at- 
tempt. (Walker) 

1  think  the  other  area  we  can  talk  about,  speaking 
of  California,  is  the  Desert  Tortoise  area,  on  which 
Dr.  Kristine  Berry  and  a  team  of  other  people  have 
been  working.  We  have  fenced  out  most  of  that 
area.  We  have  also  posted  signs,  although  I  have 
heard  recently  that  400  signs  have  disappeared.  We 
also  have  off-road  vehicle  regulations  we  are  looking 
at,  where  we  would  close  it  to  such  vehicles.  In- 
cidentally, one  of  the  beetles  proposed  does  occur 
right  in  the  middle  of  an  off-road  vehicle  area  in  Ne- 
vada. 

We  also  have  authority  for  emergency  closures  if 
we  want  to  use  it.  (Vemimen) 
Q.  What  I'm  trying  to  suggest  is  that  if  the  Bureau  of 
Land  Management  or  private  industries,  do  not  pro- 
tect the  desert  habitat,  we  stand  to  lose  a  lot  of  this 
very  valuable  material. 
Q.  I'd  like  to  bring  up  the  controversy  of  reintroduction 
in  an  area  of  historic  range,  but  not  now  pre.sent. 
We  ran  into  it  with  the  Colorado  squawfish.  I  was 
wondering  if  the  land  management  people  would 


comment  about  taking  an  endangered  species  into  a 
recovery  plan,  trying  to  get  it  off  the  list  more  or  less 
by  reintroduction  into  the  historic  range.  Do  you  nm 
into  the  resistance  of  a  local  forester  or  a  local  dis- 
trict manager  saying,  "If  I  have  to  worry  about  that 
I  won't  be  able  to  go  into  the  campground"? 
A.  That's  a  very  difficult  and  subjective  question,  one 
which  is  extremely  hard  to  formulate  a  policy  on  be- 
cause you  have  to  adjust  to  the  situation  on  some- 
thing like  that.  Certainly  we're  not  going  to  reintro- 
duce grizzlies  to  the  plains  where  they  once 
occurred  around  the  Denver  area.  That's  completely 
unreasonable.  On  the  other  hand,  in  the  process  of 
identifying  the  essential  habitats  or  the  legally  desig- 
nated critical  habitats  on  the  public  lands,  we  found 
a  lot  of  these  that  are  historical  into  which  we  can 
logically  expand  species.  Somewhere  in  the  middle 
between  the  unreasonable  and  the  feasible  is  the 
line,  and  how  you  define  that  line  is  very  difficult. 
It's  going  to  be  a  subjective  decision.  (Mcllwain) 

I'd  like  to  cite  an  example.  In  Arizona  they  want 
to  reintroduce  the  woundfin  into  historical  habitat. 
At  the  same  time,  this  habitat  is  the  number  one 
geothermal  exploration  area  in  Arizona.  This  is  the 
type  of  administrative  problem  we  get  into,  and  I 
am  to  the  point  now  where  I  tend  to  agree  with  a 
state  director  who  says,  "No,  not  until  further  stud- 
ies are  completed."  The  problem  is  "Can  we  under 
the  act  say  no?  "  So,  right  now  that  opinion  is  in  the 
solicitor's  office.  These  are  the  kinds  of  things  you 
nm  into.  You've  got  to  use  some  judgement.  We 
have  an  area  that's  being  managed  for  some  specific 
resource  and  then  all  of  a  sudden  we  throw  some- 
thing else  in  there  that  is  going  to  change  it.  We're 
going  to  have  to  weigh  that  very  heavily  before  we 
reintroduce  it.  (Vernimen) 

I'd  like  to  make  one  more  comment  before  we 
beat  this  question  to  death.  Is  this  a  situation  where 
it  is  really  necessary  for  the  survival  of  the  species, 
or  is  it  something  we  would  like  to  see  for  the  pro- 
mulgation of  the  species?  To  me  this  is  the  big  ques- 
tion, and  it  gets  down  to  whether  we  really  need  to 
or  just  want  to.  I  think  reintroduction  of  a  species 
should  be  considered  as  a  last  resort  in  the  perpetu- 
ation of  the  species.  We  have  to  consider  the  prob- 
lems we  nm  into  with  reintroduction.  Are  we  creat- 
ing more  problems  than  we  are  solving? 

Q.  In  Utah  we  have  watched  the  systematic  destruction 
of  the  Lynndyl  Sand  Dune  area,  the  Coral  Pink  Sand 
Dime  area,  and  the  Hurricane  Sand  Dime  area,  all  of 
these  under  major  control  of  the  Bureau  of  Land 
Management.  I  am  about  to  describe  a  new  species 
of  sunflower  from  the  Lynndyl  Sand  Dunes,  known 
in  Utah  by  the  misnomer.  Little  Sahara.  It  is  not.  It 
cannot  be.  It  is  systematically  being  destroyed. 
We're  not  talking  about  reintroducing  something, 
but  we're  talking  about  protecting  something  the 
Lynndyl  Sand  Dunes  have,  among  other  unique  spe- 
cies which  Professor  Stutz  mentioned  earlier  today. 
The  Coral  Pink  Dimes  have  still  others.  The  ones  at 
Hurricane  are  unexplored.  We  don't  know  what's  on 
them.  We  may  never  be  able  to  find  out  because  of 
off-road  vehicle  use.  What  is  the  potential  then,  for 
a  turnabout  for  at  least  a  part  of  these  areas? 


1979 


The  Endangered  Species:  A  Symposium 


169 


A.  It  just  so  happens  that  when  I  was  in  the  Richfield 
district,  as  well  as  being  a  wildlife  biologist  I  was  a 
recreation  specialist  and  I  did  have  something  to  do 
with  Little  Sahara  as  you  call  it.  I  am  not  too  famil- 
iar with  the  Hurricane  area  you  talk  about.  Now  the 
southern  part  of  the  Coral  Pink  Sand  Dunes— correct 
me  if  I'm  wrong— are  managed  by  the  state  as  a  state 
park.  My  question  is  "Have  you  contacted  the  state 
office  here  and  informed  the  Bureau  of  Land  Man- 
agement that  you  have  found  those  plants?"  (Verni- 
men) 

Q.  How  does  the  BLM  treat  endangered  or  threatened 
species  on  subsurface  land?  By  that  we  mean  private 
ownership  of  the  surface  and  someone  else  owns  the 
minerals,  oil,  gas,  coal,  etc. 

A.  First  of  all,  the  identification  of  the  critical  habitat 
and  the  inventories  (unless  we  have  an  action  taking 
place  right  at  that  time)  is  the  responsibility  of  the 
Fish  and  Wildlife  Service  on  the  private  lands.  If 
you  take  the  case  of  the  Red  Cockaded  Woodpecker 
in  Alabama,  where  the  BLM  has  some  subsurface 
coal,  the  BLM  is  doing  the  inventories.  The  BLM  is 
also  doing  the  inventories  on  the  Eastern  Cougar. 
We  are  in  the  process  of  contracting  an  individual  to 
do  the  inventories  on  that.  If  we  would  let  a  lease 
go,  we  are  initiating  an  action.  We  are  responsible 
to  see  that  that  species  is  protected. 

Q.  Is  that  also  the  case  for  critical  habitat  on  state  land 
for  endangered  plants  and  endangered  plants  on  pri- 
vate lands? 

A.  Are  you  saying  designation  of  a  critical  habitat  or 
protection  of  a  critical  habitat?  (Vernimen) 

Q.  Identifying  of  an  endangered  plant  on  private  sur- 
face land  but  federal  subsurface.  Wouldn't  the  pri- 
vate landowner  have  the  discretion  of  saving  that 
plant? 

A.  Well,  no.  If  we  didn't  sell  the  coal  in  there,  it 
wouldn't  be  mined.  (Vernimen) 

Q.    So  you  could  deny  the  lease  of  such  materials? 

A.    That's  correct.  (Vernimen) 

A.  May  I  address  a  couple  of  things  that  you  said.  Num- 
ber one,  plants  are  not  protected  from  being  taken 
under  the  act.  If  the  private  landowner  has  a  bunch 
of  furbish  louseworts  or  whatever  and  the  man 
wants  to  go  out  there  and  chop  them  all  down  with 
a  hoe,  that's  legal.  The  second  point  is  that,  in  terms 
of  having  something  protected  by  virtue  of  having 
critical  habitat  determined  for  it,  it  is  protected 
from  a  federal  action  under  Section  7,  whether  or 
not  there  is  any  critical  habitat  there.  There  is  a  bas- 
ic question  of  jeopardy,  .\mong  other  things  in  Sec- 
tion 7,  besides  almost  an  affirmative  action  clause 
for  federal  agencies  to  do  some  good  things  for  listed 
species,  there  is  the  no  section  that  says  they  shall 
insure  their  actions  do  not  jeopardize  the  continued 
existence  of  a  species.  So,  with  or  without  critical 
habitat  designation,  there  would  still  be  this  respon- 
sibility to  not  jeopardize  the  species.  (Spinks) 

Q.  You  said  yesterday,  when  you  were  ennumerating 
the  amendments  to  the  act,  that  the  application  for 
critical  habitat  would  be  withdrawn. 

A.  Our  understanding  at  this  point  in  time  is  that  the 
outstanding  proposals  for  critical  habitat  designation 
will  be  withdrawn  and  reproposed  to  bring  them  in 
compliance  with  the  1978  amendments.  (Spinks) 


Q.  In  response  to  that,  I'd  like  to  ask  Mr.  Mcllwain 
what  kind  of  protection  will  be  given  to  the  critical 
habitats  of  the  grizzly  bear,  mainly  because  there  is 
such  a  controversy  over  how  much  should  be  given 
them? 

A.  As  far  as  I'm  concerned,  critical  habitat  on  forest 
service  lands  doesn't  really  mean  very  much  because 
we're  protecting  that  critter  or  the  habitat  of  that 
listed  species  as  a  requirement  of  the  law  regardless 
of  whether  it  is  legally  designated  as  critical  habitat 
or  not.  We  have  management  programs  established 
now  to  protect  grizzly  bear  habitat  and  we're  estab- 
lishing others  as  time  goes  on.  It  really  makes  little 
difference  whether  critical  habitat  is  legally  desig- 
nated or  not  for  the  time  being.  (Mcllwain) 

Q.  I'd  like  a  little  clarification  with  regard  to  the  con- 
flict between  the  Endangered  Species  Act  and  min- 
ing development.  Tliere  seems  to  be  a  rather  ne- 
bulous area. 

A.  I  know  just  what  you're  talking  about.  I  have  several 
memos  in  my  office  about  people  asking  just  where 
does  the  1872  Mining  Law  and  the  Endangered  Spe- 
cies Act  fit  in.  As  you  know,  they  are  both  non- 
discretionary,  and  it's  kind  of  like  two  penalties  on  a 
football  field.  They  more  or  less  nullify  one  another. 
I'm  not  at  liberty  to  comment  right  now.  The  solic- 
itor is  coming  out  with  an  opinion  on  the  1872  Min- 
ing Law  and  the  Endangered  Species  Act,  and  I 
don't  know  yet  what  he  is  going  to  say.  Right  now 
they  can  go  ahead  with  exploration  and  mining  de- 
velopment for  hardrock  minerals,  gold,  silver,  and  so 
forth.  There  is  nothing  that  the  Endangered  Species 
Act  can  do  to  .stop  them.  Nothing.  (Vernimem) 

My  only  comment  is  that  we  may  be  finding  out 
what  happens  in  this  regard  before  too  long  because 
we  have  two  situations  now  on  Forest  Service  land, 
two  similar  conflicts,  one  in  Arizona  and  one  in  Cali- 
fornia, conflicts  between  the  Mining  Act  of  1872  and 
the  Endangered  Species  .^ct  in  relation  to  an  appli- 
cation for  mining  within  a  bald  eagle  nesting  terri- 
tory. Either  or  both  of  those  may  get  to  court  before 
too  long.  (Mcllwain) 

Q.  Would  the  Forest  Service  get  a  different  opinion  if 
you  went  through  a  different  group  as  it  were? 

A.  Well,  we  go  through  a  different  solicitor.  We  go 
through  the  USDA  Office  of  the  General  Council, 
which  is  the  same  as  a  solicitor.  (Mcllwain) 

Q.   Are  you  seeking  an  opinion  also? 

A.    No,  we're  not.  (Mcllwain) 

The  bottom  line  here  on  the  opinion  of  a  solicitor 
or  the  Office  of  General  Council  from  the  Depart- 
ment of  Agriculture,  as  in  the  case  of  the  U.S.  Forest 
Service,  is  an  internal  guidance  mechanism  for  that 
department  or  agency.  The  real  bottom  line  is  writ- 
ten through  the  development  of  case  law,  and,  until 
there  is  sufficient  litigation  involving  such  conflicts 
as  mining  and  the  Endangered  Species  .Act,  there 
will  not  be  a  hard  and  fast  answer  to  that  very  good 
question.  (Spinks) 

Q.  Your  statement  puzzles  me  a  little  bit  regarding  con- 
flict between  the  Endangered  Species  Act  and  the 
mining  law  with  respect  to  bald  eagles,  especially 
the  protection  of  bald  eagles  is  .so  stringent  with  re- 
gards to  nesting  areas,  etc.  Isn't  the  Forest  Service 
required  to  adhere  to  that? 


170 


Great  Basin  Naturalist  Memoirs 


No.  3 


A.  Yes,  we're  required  to  adhere  to  that,  but  there  is  a 
question  as  to  when  you  are  really  harrassing  a  bird. 
In  the  particular  conflicts  that  I'm  talking  about,  we 
have  established  a  territory  for  a  bald  eagle  nesting 
pair,  and  the  mining  people  want  to  build  a  road 
through  that  territory  and  mine  outside  of  it.  We've 
told  them  no.  We're  set  up  to  be  sued  any  way  we 
go.  If  we  give  a  permit  to  the  mining  operation, 
we're  going  to  be  sued  by  the  environmentalists  un- 
der the  bald  eagle  act  or  the  Endangered  Species 
Act  or  others.  On  the  other  hand,  if  we  say  no,  we'll 
be  sued  by  the  mining  interests.  In  this  particular 


case  we  decided  to  remain  on  the  side  of  the  envi- 
ronmentalists. (Mcllwain) 

Q.  The  Fish  and  Wildlife  Service  just  recently  issued  a 
proposal  for  critical  habitat  for  the  squawfish.  Will 
you  finalize  that  rule  making,  or  are  you  still  work- 
ing that  thing  over?  What  is  that  status. 

A.  Like  other  proposed  rule  makings  for  critical  habitat 
determination,  that  will  have  to  be  reproposed  to 
comply  with  the  1978  act  amendments. 

Q.   It  will  be  reproposed  then  at  some  future  date? 

A.    Yes  it  will.  (Spinks) 


AUTHOR  AND  TITLE  INDEX  FOR  THE  ENDANGERED  SPECIES:  A  SYMPOSIUM 


Atwood,  Duane,  article  by,  p.  81. 

Baumann,  Richard  W.,  article  by,  p.  65. 

Clement,  Roland  C,  article  by,  p.  II. 

Culture  and  species  endangerment,  p.  II. 

Day,  Douglas,  article  by,  p.  35. 

Deacon,  James  E.,  article  by,  p.  41. 

Endangered  and  threatened  fishes  of  the 
West,  p.  41. 

Endangered  and  threatened  plants  of  Utah:  A 
case  study,  p.  69. 

Endangered  animals  in  Utah  and  adjacent 
areas,  p.  35. 

Endangered  species:  Costs  and  benefits,  p. 
151. 

Endangered  species  on  federal  lands.  Part  I: 
Introduction,  p.  159. 

Endangered  species  on  federal  lands.  Part  II: 
Forest  Service  philosophy  of  endangered 
species  management,  p.  159. 

Endangered  species  on  federal  lands.  Part  III: 
The  Bureau  of  Land  Management's  endan- 
gered species  program,  p.  163. 

Endangered  species  on  federal  lands.  Part  IV: 
Summary  of  the  endangered  plant  pro- 
gram in  the  Bureau  of  Land  Management, 
p.  165. 

Harper,  K.  T.,  article  by,  p.  129. 

Holmgren,  Arthur  H.,  article  by,  p.  95. 

Introductory  remarks,  p.  1. 

Lovejoy,  Thomas  E.,  article  by,  p.  5. 

Management  programs  for  plants  on  federal 
lands,  p.  81. 

Mcllwain,  Jerry  P.,  article  by,  p.  159. 


Murphy,  Joseph  R.,  article  by,  p.  1. 

Perspective,  p.  17. 

Pister,  Edwin  P.,  article  by,  p.  151. 

Rare  aquatic  insects,  or  how  valuable  are 
bugs?  p.  65. 

Rare  species  as  examples  of  plant  evolution, 
p.  113. 

Some  reproductive  and  life  history  character- 
istics of  rare  plants  and  implications  of 
management,  p.  129. 

Spencer,  Donald  A.,  article  by,  p.  25. 

Spinks,  John  L.,  articles  by,  pp.  17,  159. 

Stebbins,  G.  Ledyard,  articles  by,  pp.  87,  113. 

Strategies  for  the  preservation  of  rare  ani- 
mals, p.  101. 

Strategies  for  preservation  of  rare  plants,  p. 
95. 

Strategies  for  preservation  of  rare  plants  and 
animals,  p.  87. 

Stutz,  Howard  C,  article  by,  p.  119. 

Tepedino,  V.  J.,  article  by,  p.  139. 

The  epoch  of  biotic  impoverishment,  p.  5. 

The  importance  of  bees  and  other  insect  pol- 
linators in  maintaining  floral  species  com- 
position, p.  139. 

The  law  and  its  economic  impact,  p.  25. 

The  meaning  of  "rare"  and  "endangered"  in 
the  evolution  of  western  shrubs,  p.  119. 

Vernimen,  Richard,  article  by,  p.  163. 

Walker,  Kenneth  G.,  article  by,  p.  165. 

Welsh,  Stanley  L.,  article  by,  p.  69. 

White,  Clayton  M.,  article  by,  p.  lOI. 


171 


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