Northern Long-Eared bat listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act

This post was originally shared on our site dedicated to protecting Allegheny Mountain.

There is a rare bat hibernaculum adjacent to the Allegheny Tunnel, known to house the endangered Indiana bat. Now, the Northern Long-Eared bat will be another protected species in harm's way if the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission cuts an open highway gash through 1,400 acres of roosting, swarming and migratory habitat found above the tunnel. Bat populations are dwindling at an alarming rate due to white-nose syndrome and habitat degradation. Let's not make the problem worse.  

Valessa Souter-Kline is western Pennsylvania outreach coordinator for PennFuture and is based in Pittsburgh. She tweets @ValessaSK.

Save Allegheny Mountain

In Somerset County, the Mountain Field and Stream Club has been hiking, hunting, fishing, and hosting community gatherings since 1936. The club owns 1,400 acres of beautiful, forested land on top of Allegheny Mountain, part of the 180-mile ridgeline known as the Allegheny Front. For decades, club members have helped care for the land by cutting trails, maintaining meadows, and stocking streams where they teach the next generation of kids to fish. 

Fall on the Mountain Field and Stream Club's land

The Club's property sits on top of the Pennsylvania Turnpike's Allegheny Tunnel. This winter, the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission is expected to select a "preferred alternative" for its plan to expand Interstate 76. Three out of six possible routes involve abandoning the tunnel altogether and, instead, opening up a wide, v-shaped gash through the top of the mountain - and directly through the Mountain Field and Stream Club's forests - to allow for a multi-lane highway. 

PennFuture and the Mountain Field and Stream Club are working to ensure that the Turnpike Commission does not blow a hole through Allegheny Mountain. To learn more, visit savealleghenymountain.org

An open cut through the mountain would create an impassable barrier, fragmenting the landscape. The Allegheny Front extends across Pennsylvania and serves as a migration route not just for birds and mammals but for plant species as well. Furthermore, the Club's land is crossed by Deeter's Run, a tributary to the Raystown Branch of the Juniata River, where native brook trout are abundant. Wetlands, meadows and other essential wildlife habitat dot the property. The Turnpike Commission's proposal puts all of this at risk.  

An open cut in place of the Allegheny Tunnel would be an environmental disaster and could:

• Destroy hundreds of acres of vital forest habitat and wetlands 
• Eliminate important wildlife migration routes
• Risk harming a bat hibernaculum, home to the endangered Indiana bat 
• Damage two high-quality streams
• Threaten the source of Berlin Borough's public water supply

Want to get involved? E-mail Valessa Souter-Kline at souter-kline at pennfuture dot org.

Valessa Souter-Kline is western Pennsylvania outreach coordinator for PennFuture and is based in Pittsburgh. She tweets @ValessaSK.

The future of wildlife rests here

Yes, they’re at it again – gas and oil interests and their political allies are pushing another bad bill that sacrifices wildlife to the ever-growing industrialization of our wild places. This latest effort, House Bill 1576, represents an historic attack on Pennsylvania’s wildlife and their habitats.

PennFuture has fought against this bill, along with coalitions of sportsmen and women, anglers, hunters, and conservation and environmental groups, together representing well over 100,000 Pennsylvanians –- but it is going to be a heavy lift against the well-funded interests supporting it. If you haven’t yet, please take action and email or call your state representative today to find out where they stand, and urge a NO vote if the bill comes to a vote.

Looking out the window of PennFuture’s ninth-floor Wilkes-Barre office, we have a reminder right here of the importance of threatened and endangered species protection. In addition to views of the cityscape, flocks of pigeons, and a nearby wind farm, we have a peregrine falcon whose flights and loud caws are a regular sight to those in the know.

Downtown Wilkes-Barre peregrine falcon; photo courtesy of David Weaver

It’s been on the Pennsylvania endangered species list for good reason –- much like the bald eagle and others, it suffered catastrophic decline due to pesticides. After nearly 30 years with no nesting pairs, it’s now making a return with several dozen pairs in the state. We know that protecting species at the state level is the best way to prevent their decline and extinction. So why risk successful efforts such as these by politicizing and lengthening the process to list species, which this bill would do?

This bill is chiefly promoted by the fossil fuel industry, including the Marcellus Shale Coalition — and it undermines the ability of Pennsylvania's wildlife management agencies to protect threatened and endangered species and their habitats. It would also erode wildlife agencies' ability to designate wild trout streams -- impacting our environment and our state economy that depends on outdoors recreation.

As we noted in our message this week: Who do YOU trust to protect our natural world: scientists who make it their life's work, or extractive industries and the politicians doing their bidding? We need to tell Harrisburg and the fossil fuel industries that enough is enough.


Kate Gibbons is PennFuture's Northeastern Pennsylvania outreach coordinator and works in our Wilkes-Barre office.

Death of Red Wolf Highlights Problems With Changing Pennsylvania Law

In North Carolina, a sixth red wolf in the past month was killed by an apparent gunshot wound and recovered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Thursday.

There are less than 100 red wolves left in the wild. This death brings the total to 14 this year. Nine have been confirmed or suspected as having resulted from a gunshot wound.

The dead wolf was found on private property in western Hyde County, one of five North Carolina counties that form the only free roaming habitat for the federally protected species.

You can read more about the story in this Sun Journal report, which points out that there is no record of a red wolf ever attacking a person unprovoked, and that there is a reward being offered for information leading to the responsible person.

This incident points out one of the significant flaws with Pennsylvania HB 1576, the law that would undercut the ability of the Game and Fish and Boat Commissions to make independent, science based decisions on whether to list threatened and endangered species.

HB 1576 naively requires that the Commissions create a "centralized database" that provides, among other things, detailed information about the "specific areas" where each listed or designated species is "known to be present."  This is more than publicly designating a habitat that needs to be protected for species recovery - it means directly informing those with both a direct and indirect financial stake in the development specifically where threatened and endangered species are known to exist.

It's the rule of unintended consequences. The publication requirement will make efforts to ensure recovery of the species more difficult for conservation organizations.  It will inevitably lead to increased poaching of protected species, increased harm to protected habitat, and decreased likelihood that the species will be removed from the protected list. Where the law plainly aims to promote commercial development over species protection, it's long term effect is likely to do just the opposite.

HB 1576 is a fundamentally flawed piece of legislation that needs to be put in a No. 2 mayonnaise jar on Funk and Wagnall's porch, and forgotten.

George Jugovic, Jr. is chief counsel for PennFuture and is based in Pittsburgh.