Although the eastern cougar has been on the endangered species list since 1973, its existence has long been questioned. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service conducted a formal review of the available information and, in a report issued Wednesday, concludes that the eastern cougar is extinct and recommends the subspecies be removed from the endangered species list.

“We recognize that many people have seen cougars in the wild within the historical range of the eastern cougar,” said the Service’s Northeast Region Chief of Endangered Species Martin Miller. “However, we believe those cougars are not the eastern cougar subspecies. We found no information to support the existence of the eastern cougar.”

Reports of cougars observed in the wild examined during the review process described cougars of other subspecies, often South American subspecies, that had been held in captivity and had escaped or been released to the wild, as well as wild cougars of the western United States subspecies that had migrated eastward to the Midwest.

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The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Georgia Department of Natural Resources are investigating the suspicious deaths of three whooping cranes in south Georgia.

The cranes were found and reported by hunters in Calhoun County, just west of Albany, Ga., on Dec 30. The landowner reported the cranes had been in the area for a few weeks before they found them dead just before New Year’s Eve.

Necropsies are expected to be completed in about two weeks.

The cranes are part of the Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership effort to reintroduce whooping cranes into the eastern United States.

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Glynn Wilson

A yellow-crowned night heron feeding on the section of Village Creek that intersects the Roebuck Golf Course, just down stream from the destroyed dam.

by Glynn Wilson

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service issued a Notice of Violations to the City of Birmingham Thursday for killing 11,760 watercress darters, an endangered species protected by the Endangered Species Act, and also for injuries to some 8,900 additional darters killed when a city park manager ordered a beaver dam removed on Village Creek in Roebuck Springs.

The Service is seeking a civil penalty totaling $2,975,000.

The Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources also has a claim against the City for $1,062,786.21 for the death of watercress darters, plus the deaths of more than two million individuals of a protected species of snail.

The ADCNR is contemplating a lawsuit against the City to collect that claim, according to a press release.

The Service’s action stems from an incident that happened September 19, 2008, when a City maintenance crew removed a beaver dam from the Roebuck Springs pool in Hawkins Park. The crew also breached an underlying earthen dam that formed the spring pool where more than 20,000 of the small endangered fish lived.

Breaching the dam quickly drained the spring pool and stranded and killed thousands of watercress darters among a mass of drying aquatic plants.

“The massive fish kill resulted in the loss of more than half of the largest known population of this species,” said Cynthia K. Dohner, the Fish and Wildlife Service’s Southeast regional director.

Watercress darters are listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act and are a trust resource protected by Alabama law. The only populations in the world are found in five spring pools and spring brooks in Jefferson County, Alabama, within the metropolitan area of Birmingham.

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Climate change threatens to further imperil hundreds of species of migratory birds, already under stress from habitat loss, invasive species and other environmental threats, a new report released Friday by Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar concludes.

Glynn Wilson

A yellow-crowned night heron on the section of Village Creek that intersects the Roebuck Golf Course

The State of the Birds: 2010 Report on Climate Change, follows a comprehensive report released a year ago showing that nearly a third of the nation’s 800 bird species are endangered, threatened or in significant decline.

“For well over a century, migratory birds have faced stresses such as commercial hunting, loss of forests, the use of DDT and other pesticides, a loss of wetlands and other key habitat, the introduction of invasive species and other impacts of human development,” Salazar said. “Now they are facing a new threat – climate change – that could dramatically alter their habitat and food supply and push many species towards extinction.”

The report, a collaboration of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and experts from the nation’s leading conservation organizations, shows that climate changes will have an increasingly disruptive effect on bird species in all habitats, with oceanic and Hawaiian birds in greatest peril.

“Birds are excellent indicators of the health of our environment, and right now they are telling us an important story about climate change,” said Dr. Kenneth Rosenberg, director of Conservation Science at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. “Many species of conservation concern will face heightened threats, giving us an increased sense of urgency to protect and conserve vital bird habitat.”

In releasing the report, Salazar cited the unprecedented efforts by the Obama Administration and the Department of the Interior to address climate change.

Last week in Anchorage, Alaska, for example…

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