Environmental groups sue for whitebark pine ESA listing

A pair of Montana environmental groups suing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in federal court claim the agency erred when it didn’t place the whitebark pine on the Endangered Species List in 2011. At the time, FWS found listing the tree “warranted, but precluded.”

The whitebark pine is a high elevation tree valued more for its wildlife and aesthetic values than for timber. Whitebark pine cones produce seeds that are a valuable food source for grizzly bears, squirrels and birds, most notably, the Clark’s nutcracker, which disperse the seeds by caching them across the landscape.

Whitebark pine was once common in places like Glacier National Park, but blister rust — a fungal infection that eventually kills the trees — has decimated whitebark pine populations in the Park. The Clark’s nutcracker, which once was common in the Park, is also on the decline.

The whitebark pine is also susceptible to mountain pine beetle infestations as well as the impacts of climate change. Warmer winters, research has found, result in less beetle mortality, leaving more beetles the following spring to attack trees.

Today crews in Glacier Park have planted whitebark pine seedlings that are resistant to blister rust, but the tree is grows slowly, taking two or three decades to reach maturity. A whitebark pine can live to be 1,000 years old.

The lawsuit, brought by the Alliance for the Wild Rockies and the Wild West Institute, is not the first time a group has sought protection for the tree. The Great Bear Foundation petitioned FWS in 1991 to have the tree listed. In 2008, the Natural Resources Defense Council also petitioned FWS, which said it was warranted but precluded by higher priority species.

The environmental groups take issue with that claim. They say FWS has already agreed to list 155 species with a lower priority than the whitebark pine. The lawsuit asks the court to order FWS to list the tree and seeks attorneys’ fees.

“People who spend time in the high-country realize that whitebark pine are dying at alarming rates due to impacts associated with climate change,” Matthew Koehler, with the Wild West Institute, claimed. “We cannot sit back, do nothing and watch a critically important component of our high-country ecosystem just disappear and go extinct before our eyes.”