After a decade of deferral, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently gave protection as a threatened species on an inhabitant of Louisiana’s coast, the eastern black rail.
An elusive marsh dweller, the eastern black rail used to reside in much of the eastern coastal United States, but loss of wetland habitat to agriculture and urban development have reduced this bird’s population by up to 90% in some areas, according to a press release by the Center for Biological Diversity. Newer problems the rail faces include more frequent extreme storms, rising sea levels, groundwater withdrawals, pollution and invasive species.
Louisiana’s dwindling population in particular, including the Cameron and Vermilion parishes, has been hit hard by an increased number of hurricanes over recent years, as reported by Houma Today. Hurricane Laura’s impact on the birds is still being determined by scientists.
Initially, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service received a petition to protect the black rail in 2010, according the Center for Biological Diversity's press release. Under the Endangered Species Act, the U.S. government can provide various levels of protection to threatened species including designating critical habitat. Only after ten years and a suit by the Center for Biological Diversity and Healthy Gulf for their inexplicable delay, did the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service finally label the bird a threatened species, but declined to give them a protected habitat.
“We are currently in the midst of a global wildlife extinction crisis, and we need to be doing everything we can to protect our most vulnerable species,” Stephanie Kurose, policy specialist for the Center for Biological Diversity, told the Louisiana Report. “The Endangered Species Act remains our best tool for preventing extinctions, and yet—in the case of the black rail—the Service refuses to use all the options available to them.”
A report by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service found the bird will probably reach extinction by 2068, but the Center for Biological Diversity has not given up on the bird. If keeping them from extinction means further litigation, they will consider it, said Kurose.
“We are still assessing all of our options for gaining habitat protections for the black rail,” said Kurose. “For this critter especially, protecting their last remaining habitat is critical. They’ve already lost so much of their historic habitat to development and agriculture, and the coastal wetland habitat that remains is quickly disappearing due to climate change-driven sea level rise.”
These setbacks leave the bird open to further decline and mean recovery will be all the more difficult if extra protection does come, said Kurose.