Report Sees Crisis for Wildlife in California

About 220 animal species and 600 types of plants, many of them native to California, are threatened with extinction unless action is taken, a leading conservation group reported.

A report commissioned by the California Nature Conservancy said a “silent crisis” is under way in the Golden State, which has a greater concentration of unique species and habitats than any other part of the nation.

The California condor, whose well-publicized slide towards extinction has generated concern about its survival, is only a symbol of what is happening across the state, the group said.

In an interview Tuesday, conservancy director Steve McCormick compared the elimination of individual species to the removal of rivets from an airplane wing.

While the demise of other species such as the San Joaquin kit fox or the blunt-nosed leopard lizard might not stir the same emotional reaction as the majestic condor, each “rivet” is of equal importance, he said.

Fear of Catastrophe

“You could say any given rivet might not cause that wing to fail, but I don’t want to be on an airplane where they’re kind of randomly pulling off rivets,” he said. “There is a point where the removal of a seemingly insignificant rivet will lead to the catastrophic crash of the entire plane.”

State or federal officials list 10% of the state’s native mammals, 17% of native reptiles and amphibians and 27% of freshwater fish as threatened or endangered species. The new report includes not only those species, but species likely to become threatened if trends continue.

Under these trends, a third of California’s mammals, a quarter of its birds, a third of its reptiles and amphibian species, 40% of the freshwater fish species and 12% of its native plants are imperiled, according to the study.

McCormick noted that millions of dollars have been spent in the effort to save the condor, a campaign that has resulted in the removal of all remaining condors from the wild.

Condor Seen as Signal

“What we realized,” he said, “is that the condor is kind of a signal, a symbol of what is happening in a much more widespread way. The miners used to use canaries as an indication of when the oxygen was depleted. When the canary would go you’d know it was time to get out of the mine.”

The report, conducted at the request of a state Senate committee, recommends increased habitat acquisition, tax incentives for private protection of habitats, increased control of non-native plants and acceleration of the process of listing endangered species.

The federal Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that it costs about $62,000 to add a species to the list of endangered species because of extensive requirements and procedures. There are an estimated 3,800 species on the waiting list, but funding is now $3.2 million annually--enough for about 50 species a year.