In 2017 the Arizona Game and Fish Department estimated that there were only 252 Mount Graham red squirrels left. They only inhabited a few hundred acres in the 10,000-foot Pinaleño Mountains, not equipped to survive the heat of the surrounding deserts. Then, a lightning strike started a 48,000-acre fire in that section of the Coronado National Forest, incinerating all but 35 of the Mount Graham squirrels in existence. Federal and state wildlife officials thought the species faced likely extinction.
It is a more common story than you might think. The Journal Science published a study in 2020 called “Fire and biodiversity in the Anthropocene,” analyzing the danger of wildfires to threatened and endangered species. Across nine taxonomic groups, the study found that “at least 1,071 species are categorized as threatened by an increase in fire frequency or intensity…” That included 16 percent of all endangered mammals, nearly 20 percent of listed birds, and almost a third of non-flowering plants such as evergreen trees.
Recent wildfires in California reportedly pushed dozens of species to the brink of extinction, utterly devastating miles of habitat that will take decades to recover. Less widely reported was how many endangered birds and animals were burned in those fires (nobody really wants to see that on TV), but as the study euphemistically concluded, “wildlife often cannot adapt quickly enough to escape rapid changes in fire patterns.”
In Colorado we know the extreme fire seasons of 2002 and 2020 destroyed much of the habitat for the Mexican spotted owl, and the Hayman Fire alone destroyed over half the known habitat of a rare yellow butterfly called the Pawnee montane skipper. In California the same is now said of the mountain yellow-legged frog and the Amargosa vole, both of which are now nearing extinction. Burning most of them alive certainly didn’t help.
If we consider protecting all God’s creatures part of our duty as stewards of nature, then we cannot ignore the role mankind has played in the destruction of the great western forests. Wildlife is a part of nature, but what the study’s authors call “rapid changes in fire patterns” are not. The catastrophic fires that have destroyed over 150 million acres of national forests in the last 20 years are not natural – they are a consequence of negligent forest management.
Not all of that is the fault of federal forest managers, whose hands are often tied by lawsuits and court orders. In fact, the anti-forest environmental industry, and the activist judges who follow their lead, are every bit as responsible. Nor does the intense press coverage of fires like those in California discourage these groups from their constant legal onslaught.
A Forest Service emergency plan to remove burned trees in danger of falling on California highways across nine national forests has been held up for four years by an environmental lawsuit. A federal court upheld the Forest Service plan, but the enviro-groups immediately appealed to the 9th Circuit, where it is still pending. An average of three such environmental lawsuits are filed every day, while the devastating forest fires continue, their deforestation far worse than any ever caused by active forest management, including logging.
This trend against forest management worsened significantly in 2015 because of a 9th Circuit ruling, siding with the Cottonwood Environmental Law Center in a suit requiring the Forest Service to pause all forest management plans every time any new information arises about any endangered species. Thus, any person or group can delay any forest management project by simply coming up with new information on any listed species. That has been done hundreds of times since the ruling, and it has been disastrous – both for the forests and for many endangered species. It has required a rewrite of at least 87 national forest management plans, most of which will take over a decade, as the agency testified before Congress.
Senator Steve Daines and Representative Matt Rosendale have introduced legislation to overturn the Cottonwood ruling, but it seems unlikely that Congress can get its act together to pass much of anything these days. Meanwhile, California says over 50 endangered species were “impacted” by its recent fires, and the environmental industry is still getting paid to stop managers from doing anything about it.
One bit of good news: contrary to the dire predictions, there are more than 200 Mount Graham red squirrels again, apparently more adaptable than the “experts” expected. One wishes these environmental litigation groups could learn to adapt to changing circumstances, too.
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