April 3, 2003
Michael Linnell, Assistant Director
USDA-APHIS Wildlife Services
720 O'Leary St. NW
Olympia, WA 98502
Re: Pre-Decisional Assessment; Piscivorous Bird Damage Management for the Protection of Juvenile Salmonids
To whom it may concern:
We are writing to comment on the pre-decisional assessment on behalf of the Seattle Audubon Society, the American Bird Conservancy, the National Audubon Society and Defenders of Wildlife. On April 12, 2002, these same organizations submitted joint comments on the Invitation for Public Involvement concerning USDA-APHIS-Wildlife Services' preparation of an Environmental Assessment for Piscivorous Bird Damage Management for Salmonids in the Mid-Columbia River Basin. We urged Wildlife Services (WS) to cease any further lethal control of migratory birds, particularly Caspian Terns (Sterna caspia), at dams and hatcheries until full NEPA compliance is attained and a comprehensive EIS is completed. We are extremely concerned and aggravated that WS has thus far refused to fully comply with NEPA.
We believe that WS has an obligation under the National Environmental Policy Act, 42 U.S.C. §§ 4321_4370d ("NEPA") to complete an EIS before it conducts further lethal controls on Caspian Terns and other fish-eating birds in the mid-Columbia. WS plans to carry out a program to kill thousands of piscivorous birds annually, which will probably have adverse effects on Caspian Tern and other bird species populations. This is a "major federal action significantly affecting quality of the human environment" and thus requires an EIS.
On August 7, 2001, the United States District Court for the Western District of Washington entered a summary judgment and injunction order and final judgment in National Audubon Society et al v. Butler, No C00-615R, in favor of the plaintiffs who are signatory to this letter. The Judge acted on our contention that the Army Corps of Engineers practice of using EA's and FONSIS did not satisfy NEPA requirements. Judge Rothstein also required an EIS before further activities could be conducted by federal defendants to alter Caspian Tern or cormorant habitat in the Columbia estuary, or before any take or harassment of Terns or Cormorants could occur. We have recently settled this case and federal defendants have agreed to complete an EIS. We encourage you to carefully review the Federal Court's ruling before proceeding to kill any more Caspian Terns or other piscivorous birds before conducting an EIS.
The experience of the Seattle Audubon Society over the past 11 months with Wildlife Services and the agency's unwillingness to cooperate with the Freedom of Information Act has been incredibly appalling, in addition to being completely unlawful. We have continuously attempted to receive scientific information about the scope of the "bird damage management" program, and Wildlife Services has continuously ignored and refused our requests. The fact that Wildlife Services has refused to provide data to our FOIA request of May, 2002 in addition to the absolute lack of data in this pre-decisional EA, lead us to believe that Wildlife Services actually has no data. This is a huge problem if Wildlife Service's lethal and non-lethal bird management programs are supposedly based on science and data. In fact, the lack of data from any type of a monitoring program is abhorrent. Additionally, it seems that WS is using the court injunction (from Honorable Walter S. Smith, Jr., U.S. District Judge, of the Western District of Texas, Waco Division, U.S. District Court [Civil Action No. W99CA335; filed 9 February 2000]) selectively to grant information to the public only when it is convenient for the agency. This type of behavior is simply unacceptable from a federal agency, and we hope that you will release the information that has been requested.
In general, this document seems like nothing more than a hollow shell without data or any type of monitoring to justify the continuation of any lethal take program. No science-based analyses have been completed on the cost-effectiveness of bird control or on the impacts of such predator control on salmon survival. Recently, the Chelan County PUD approved a research program with the University of Washington and WDFW to study the many details associated with piscivorous bird control at the two county dams. This 3-year study will analyze predation rates of various piscivorous birds at dam sites, how these affect salmonid survival, and cost-benefit analyses of these actions, in addition to seeking out a better understanding of the population dynamic of several bird species in the region. We fully believe that all lethal control must cease until Wildlife Services has such information to judge any justification for a lethal control program. WA must fully comply with NEPA, and without such scientific information, the agency is actually in violation of NEPA.
Without this information and without an adequate understanding of piscivorous bird populations in the region, WS may be putting Caspian Terns and other species at risk through its actions. On April 12, 2002, Linda R. Wires and Dr. Francesca J. Cuthbert, Department of Fisheries, Wildlife and Conservation Biology at the University of Minnesota, commented on the WS preparation of an EA for Piscivorous Bird Damage Management for Salmonids in the Mid-Columbia River Basin. They study various colonial waterbird issues in the Great Lakes and across North America, and have published several major publications on fish-eating birds, including the Birds of North America species account, The Caspian Tern (Cuthbert and Wires 1999), and The Status of the Double-crested Cormorant in North America (Wires et al. 2001a). They urged WS to cease further lethal control of migratory birds at dams and hatcheries until full NEPA compliance is attained and a comprehensive EIS is completed. We fully support this statement and believe that WS must complete an EIS before any lethal program is continued.
We also urge an EIS to evaluate WS proposed actions on bird populations. As Linda Wires and Dr. Cuthbert noted in their written comments to WS: "More data on abundance and population trends for species like Great Blue Heron and Black-crowned Night-Heron are needed to determine potential impacts of lethal control; the limited data available for these species suggest that impacts from intensified lethal control could be substantial. This is also the case for Caspian Terns and Double-crested Cormorants on the Pacific Coast."
Section 1.0, Purpose and Need for Action, speaks primarily to the fact that WS has been asked to control the populations of piscivorous birds at several mid-Columbia dams and hatcheries by the operators of those facilities under a Final Environmental Impact Statement for Anadromous Fish Agreements and Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP), (NMFS 2002). The dams were not meeting a goal of 95% passage of juvenile salmonids and thus could use other means to achieve the goal or mitigate that failure.
Within the larger context of the role of the dams in contributing to salmonid mortality or the role of bird predation in contributing to salmonid mortality overall, Wildlife Services excuses itself on p. 9, from an analysis by stating, "The analysis of the effectiveness of mitigation measures in increasing juvenile salmond survival throughout the Columbia River System is outside the scope of this EA (See Section 3.0.3). That Section, on p. 60, in turn, states that " . . . WS' goals are very site-specific and focused on only one aspect of smolt survival; therefore the issue of additive versus compensatory mortality is beyond the scope of this EA. If smolt survival is affected by other factors down river, it would be the responsibility of other agencies to address these problems." In other words, WS is stating that the agency is not required to conduct an analysis of its actions as contributing to salmonid recovery.
However, WS is required to determine both the effectiveness of the control measures they've instituted or advocate and the costs and benefits (cost effectiveness) of all of the control measures they use. The costs are aesthetic, societal, monetary and environmental. The benefits presumably include increased survival of salmonid smolts, due to your actions alone. However on page 1 the EA states, "Currently, Project survival cannot be measured, therefore juvenile dam passage survival in the forebay and the tailrace of the Project is calculated." Again, on pp. 10 (and 61), "The value of ESA-listed juvenile salmonids lost to predation is not presented in this EA because a monetary value cannot be placed on the smolts listed under the ESA or the information generally is not available."
It would appear incumbent on WS to obtain the appropriate data in order to determine whether or not the costs of bird control exceeded the benefits to be gained. Indeed, an analysis of the costs and benefit of each of the control measures should be in this EA. How else can it be determined which one to employ?
The justification for any control measures depends on determining that immediate bird predation on salmonids is a significant cause of loss and mortality as opposed to the longer term mortality caused principally by the dams. Thus, the smolts that escape immediate mortality in passage through the dams and are not consumed by birds may die downstream or be consumed by scavengers such as Northern Pikeminnows. These other causes of mortality have not been assessed. This analysis is essential if bird predation is judged to be significant compared to the overall loss caused by passage through the dams.
Bird predation rates, as measured by radiotagged juvenile chinook, are used as a justification for control measures. However, the effect of the radiotagging itself in increasing the vulnerability of smolts to predation has not been determined. Most of the predation rates thus measured are equal to or lower than the rates estimated for dam passage alone.
On pp. 10-11, the costs of predation damage to the fish stocks are allocated amongst all of the mitigation measures being undertaken to improve passage of the fish through the dams. These are not economic losses attributable to avian predation. Bird predation is not responsible for the costs incurred to insure safe fish passage through the dams. The statement on pp.10-11, that ". . . the economic damage which results from the predation of juvenile salmonids may be represented by the costs associated with the implementation of mitigation measures which are designed to improve the survival of juvenile salmonids at each PUD facility. . . ." is absolutely incorrect. Those costs are in mitigation of the construction and operation of the dams themselves.
To attribute the cost of over $144 million by Grant County in 2001 in mitigation costs to bird predation is clearly ridiculous.
It is implied in the EA that the PUD's are responsible for passive control devices and that WS is responsible for lethal control when contracted by the PUDs. It is our conclusion that WS is responsible for all control measures, ranging from passive to lethal. According to the Adaptive Management methodology and the APHIS-WS Decision Model, all non-lethal methods must be used and evaluated before any lethal measures are undertaken. That has not been the practice to date, and no justification has been given. Shooting is advocated as a non-lethal control measure and a very large number of birds are considered "hazed." (Table 3.3) It is easy to count the number of birds killed, assuming they are all accounted for. The number "hazed" can be any number, such as adding up all the birds seen in the vicinity in one year. The number killed needs to be compared with the numbers of birds excluded by all passive means, other than "hazing" by shooting. The analysis given is completely inadequate in this area.
The original purpose of Animal Damage Control, now Wildlife Services, was to learn more about food habits of wildlife that depredated upon human food crops. One of the primary lacking pieces of information in this EA is the complete lack of data collected on birds that were killed in the process of applying management strategies to reduce salmonid predation. Without that information, which includes whether salmonids are indeed a prey item in the stomachs of the birds killed, no assessment of the need for lethal force can be justified. Since WS has not justified their primary mission in being called in to assist local PUD's and hatcheries, none of the alternatives being proposed provides any substantive methodology to assess the effectiveness of their proposed actions. Without such information gathering, no actual assessment of their previous efforts can be made.
Considering this situation, and WS's inability to provide any quantitative approaches to measuring the success or failure of their own proposed methods, it is a waste of taxpayer's money to use WS. We propose that Alternative 4 be chosen until either WS other agencies, or other biologists come up with peer-reviewed, science-based methods. All lethal actions should cease until studies with peer-reviewed designs are performed and presented to the public to demonstrate that all cost effective methods have been exhausted.
One issue that the EA fails to address is the fact that there are other fish species in the Columbia River system, and some of the birds occurring at the dams may not be eating salmonids. There are numerous other species in the system, and in fact the birds may be preying on species such as the Northern Pikeminnow, which actually would have positive effects for listed salmonid stocks. WS must analyze and understand the composition of piscivorous bird species' diets before any lethal measures are justifiable. Without this information, WS may actually be causing more harm to salmon stocks than gain.
Another critical factor not addressed is whether the birds are preying upon salmonids that were stunned, injured, or intoxicated from excess nitrogen by passing through the dams. All of these factors could be detected in the stomachs of collected birds, and no such information is presented in this assessment. It is absolutely imperative to distinguish between fish that would have not survived and healthy fish to understand the actual effects of bird predation on salmonid mortality. Without this information, we do not find the Wildlife Services program to be justifiable. WS must complete such and analysis in an EIS.
Throughout the entire document, there is no information about the parallel fish predation that occurs upon salmonids at dams. Again, there have been efforts at reducing squawfish (Northern Pikeminnow) predation, but there is no information presented about their stomach contents. In these days when the diets of ESA listed salmonids are being tracked to determine if habitats are adequate, WS is focusing on bird predation without putting this in the larger context of the other causes of mortality. Additionally, the birds that are taken lethally are mostly discarded without presenting age, sex, breeding status, weight, condition, and stomach contents. Without this information, it is impossible for Wildlife Services to understand not only the extent of bird predation on salmonids, but also the effects of lethal take on populations of different piscivorous bird species.
Because no information is given about the times when birds are killed, it is not possible to even determine whether birds were simply shot because they were not being effectively hazed anymore or whether they were actually depredating salmonids of concern. There is PIT tag evidence from the lower Columbia River that indicates that there are differences between wild and hatchery fish (Collis et al 2001) in terms of bird predation. WS has wasted thousands of bird specimens that could have been used to help clarify whether the bulk of the fish taken are wild or hatchery-raised.
In its description of alternatives, especially the preferred (status quo) alternative, there is no clarification of the documentation to define when sequential steps are to be taken to justify lethal force. For example, documentation of the major migration period through dams is presented, but no information is presented about an increase in hazing steps taken just prior to the arrival of birds that would increase prevention of bird predation at the site when the majority of salmonids are passing through. Considering that action by WS occurs well outside of the window of critical salmonid species outmigration, it can only be assumed that lethal force is occurring outside of this window, and therefore not following the agreements signed with USFWS under the MBTA.
One of the major premises for the justification of killing of birds has been the presence of PIT tags and CWTs at colonial bird colonies and in stomach contents. What has not been addressed is the effect of the PIT tags upon the behavior of the salmonids with this device implanted in it. One of the primary sources of error in the design of any study is the effect of the treatment on the organism. There are no references presented in the literature about the effects of PIT tag placement in fish upon their behavior and buoyancy. Any small changes in escape behavior, even variability in the effectiveness of the placement of the tags in the fish, could result in increased susceptibility to avian (or fish) predation. While there is no doubt that cormorants and terns are effective pursuit piscivores, their preference for the slowest or most visible prey may considerably bias the estimations being used to calculate the total number of salmonids being consumed. There are also other major factors related to the survival of PIT tagged fish through dams that may increase the potential for predation by less effective predators such as gulls. WS has lost the opportunity to determine such effects by not using the stomach contents of the thousands of gulls and other species collected over the years.
There is no presentation about the assessment of the order in which WS has used differing aversion and non-lethal mechanisms at dams and hatcheries to haze birds away from ponds, release raceways, and tailrace channels. Information is presented about possible methods, but information is also presented that no quantitative methods have been developed to assess their effectiveness. This seems in clear violation of the permit issued by the USFWS and WS's own agency-wide decision model. Additionally, there is no information given about efforts to control birds non-lethally, the changes in methods used, and at what point, for each specific site, a threshold is reached when fish predation is considered high enough to require lethal force. In other words, there is no methodology given as to when lethal force is being used.
There is no baseline information on bird use of areas around the facilities and nearby foraging areas, the % of birds hazed, and issues like return rates of local resident versus migrant visitors. We believe that Wildlife Services must collect, monitor, analyze and distribute this information so the agency fully understands the habits of birds for effective control, but more importantly to fully understand the effects of WS actions on bird species populations.
The movement of the Caspian Tern colony from Rice to East Sand Island has reduced avian predation of juvenile salmonids in the estuary by 50% from 1998 to 2001 (See the October 12, 2001 Real Time Research Report). This reduction makes the escalated shooting of Terns at mid-Columbia dams even less defensible and also shows that non-lethal controls are much more effective at reducing salmonid predation.
All in all, we find this pre-decisional assessment to be wholly inadequate and Wildlife Services lethal control program of piscivorous birds to be completely unjustified. There is no documentation of the actual effects on piscivorous birds, bird predation in the context of other sources of salmonid mortality, the cost-effectiveness of this program, how WS uses differing methods of control, when lethal measures are taken, or the diet of piscivorous birds. It appears that Wildlife Services simply does not have this information as they have not used it in the EA and have unlawfully refused to share it with the public. Additionally, it seems that the agency is somewhat out of control in its actions, since it does not lay out any of this information and does not really provide any concrete justification for the continuation of lethal take. This document appears to be nothing more than a shell of superficial reasons for bird damage management without providing any solid information, data, or justifications. We are wholly opposed to the continuation of any lethal control methods without full NEPA compliance, the completion of an EIS, and comprehensive scientific analysis of the effects, measures and reasons for continuation of such a program.
Sincerely,
[signatures of representatives of the following groups]
Seattle Audubon Society [http://www.seattleaudubon.org]
American Bird Conservancy [http://www.abcbirds.org/policy/piscivors.htm]
National Audubon Society [http://www.audubon.org]
Defenders of Wildlife [http://www.defenders.org/wildlife/birds/terns.html]
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