You know how it is, you wake up and blearily check your inbox to see what beaver issue you’ll be writing about this morning, like a fisherman checking his line. Sometimes you get tiny little guppies and have to string together a couple to make a meal.

But sometimes you get a whale.

Report to cover wildlife damage management activities in CA

USDA, CDFA to conduct joint environmental review of agencies’ roles in wildlife damage management

WASHINGTON — The United States Department of Agriculture’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) is advising the public of the intent to prepare a Joint Environmental Impact Report and Environmental Statement (EIS) for wildlife damage management activities in California.

APHIS has entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) to develop a joint environmental review of both agencies’ roles in wildlife damage management in California. The scope of the analysis will include APHIS’s cooperative activities with Federal and State agencies, California counties, Tribes, and local municipalities managing human-wildlife conflicts caused by birds and mammals. Cooperative activities may include:

• Reducing damage to agricultural resources;
• Reducing damage to infrastructure and property;
• Reducing wildlife strike hazards at airports;
• Managing damage by invasive species;
• Reducing threats to human health and safety associated with wildlife; and
• Protecting threatened and endangered species

Did you hear that? Gosh did someone say beaver and salmon and wildfire? I’m sure I heard someone call my name. I know someone is calling yours.

.The Federal Register Docket will be available for viewing on September 9, 2020 here: http://www.regulations.gov/#!docketDetail;D=APHIS-2020-0081. Comments will be accepted September 10-November 10. Two virtual public meetings will be held during the scoping period on October 13 and October 27, 2020. Details for participation in these meetings can be found at www.CaliforniaWDM.org

–USDA APHIS

Hmmm. Hmmm. Of course I rushed to the website to see what I could find. It is very interesting to me that USDA & CDFA would enter a MOU to prepare and EIS about potential effects on wildlife. Why? Usually EIRs are things you submit after kicking and dragging your heels for a very long time. They are what people the courts make you submit when you’ve exhausted all other options or have lost the argument. 

An EIR is like a root canal. Very useful when needed. but nothing you’d volunteer for.

For context, the huge lawsuit won at the appellate level in Riverside against CDFG and LA waterand LA water was ONLY requesting that they do an EIR before trapping beaver. It turned out to be a nuclear weapon that to my knowledge has never been used again.

  The California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) and Wildlife Services (WS-California), a state office within the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Animal Plant and Health Inspection Service (APHIS), intend to prepare a joint Environmental Impact Report and Environmental Impact Statement (EIR/EIS) to provide a robust and comprehensive environmental analysis of current and proposed future wildlife damage management activities undertaken across California. The EIR/EIS will evaluate impacts associated with wildlife damage management activities performed by CDFA and California Counties under CDFA’s proposed Wildlife Damage Management Program (WDMP) as required by the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), and by WS-California as required by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). These activities would be undertaken in a collaborative effort between WS-California, CDFA, and California Counties to prevent damage to agricultural resources and infrastructure, protect natural resources and promote human health and  safety. Additional information about the proposed WDMP and WS-California’s current wildlife damage management activities is provided be low.

Doesn’t it strike as odd that they are creating a impact report in advance of any action they are going to take for the year? I mean let’s say that there is an extreme unexpected drought that suddenly threatens all the wildlife in southern california. Wouldn’t the impact of any previously approved action vary according to current environmental conditions?

Maybe it’s something akin to the police damage waivers unions require cities sign. We’ve weighed the possible consequences and whatever outcome happens we pre-approved the risk. We are no longer liable for the results.

It’s the last one on the list that I think touches us most closely. Watercourses. protected species. and natural habitats means beaver if anything in the world does.  It is practically their middle name.

They will accept 60 days of public comment on their proposal and there will be a public virtual meeting in October. I’m assuming that thy are planning to create an EIS for the impact of every species in every region of the state. That’s a bizarrely broad undertaking, but we can certainly give them an earful.

Anyway, we’ve all got a lot of reading to do. All the info can be found on the WDM page. It’s just a hunch, but I’m pretty sure that when they say “wildlife damage” they mean the damage wildlife does to YOU not the damage they do every day to wildlife.