The Bear Essentials: How Landscape-Level Conservation May Help Save Florida's Biodiversity and Realize the Vision of the National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement Act

Date01 January 2017
Author
1-2017 NEWS & ANALYSIS 47 ELR 10041
The Bear
Essentials: How
Landscape-Level
Conservation May
Help Save Florida’s
Biodiversity and
Realize the Vision
of the National
Wildlife Refuge
System
Improvement Act
by Jason Totoiu
Jason Totoiu is Executive Director of the Everglades
Law Center, a nonprot, public interest environmental
law rm based in Winter Haven, Florida.

e express mission of the National Wildlife Refuge
System “is to administer a national network of lands
and waters for conservation, management, and where
appropriate, restoration of the sh, wildlife and plant
resources and their habitats within the United States.”
But the establishment of individual refuges has not
always focused on achieving a genuine network of
conservation lands. Taking the Everglades Headwa-
ters National Wildlife Refuge as a model, this Article
explores how the landscape-level approach can help
the Refuge System more fully realize its conservation
mission and restoration potential.
Florida. If you are like many people, thoughts of
amusement parks, retirement communities, and
weird news stories might be your rst associations
with the state. With nea rly 20 million residents and inter-
states crisscrossing the peninsula, the thought of pa nthers
and bears traveling hundreds of miles through a rich
mosaic of protected natural areas may seem inconceivable.
But in 2010, researchers discovered that a radio-collared
Florida black bear known as M34 embarked on an eight-
week journey, traveling a straight-line distance of more
than 500 miles from the southern Everglades to just south
of Orlando in central Florida. During his journey, M34
traversed ve counties through conservation areas and
ranch lands, across busy roads, and even swam across the
Kissimmee River.1
Two years later, inspired by the travels of M34, a con-
servationist, a photojournalist, a lmmaker, and a bea r
biologist set out on an expedition from the Florida Ever-
glades to the Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge to see
the state through the eyes of a Florida panther or Florida
black bear.2 Travelling by foot, kayak, and horseback, the
team chronicled their voyage through photography, social
media, and ultimately a documentary lm. Along the way,
they met with landowners, conservationists, and political
leaders to bring greater awareness to the natural beauty of
Florida and to make the case that, despite extensive habi-
tat fragmentation, a statewide network of connected natu-
ral areas is still possible. Building upon decades of work
by scientists and conservation organizations, the Florida
Wildlife Corridor may be the most ambitious landscape
conservation plan in the country.
At the heart of this wildlife corridor, through which the
team traveled during both of its expeditions, is t he Ever-
glades headwaters. e headwaters contain millions of
1. Florida Wildlife Corridor, , http://oridawildlifecorridor.
org/about-expeditions/bear-treks (last visited Nov. 18, 2016).
2. Anthony DeFeo,       
Corridor in Florida, F. T-U, Apr. 20, 2012, available at http://
m.wap.jacksonville.com/news/orida/2012-04-20/story/expedition-points-
out-need-protected-wildlife-corridor-orida#gsc.tab=0. e team recently
completed a second expedition traveling from the Everglades headwaters
to the Gulf Island National Seashore in the Florida Panhandle.  Steve
Newborn,       ,
WJCT, Mar. 25, 2015, http://news.wjct.org/post/-wildlife-corridor-
expedition-ends-1000-mile-journey.


    

all the time we spend together observing caracara and countless other

   


Copyright © 2017 Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, DC. Reprinted with permission from ELR®, http://www.eli.org, 1-800-433-5120.
47 ELR 10042 ENVIRONMENTAL LAW REPORTER 1-2017
acres of grasslands, wetlands, scrub, longleaf pine savannas,
and catt le ranches that extend from the outskirts of met-
ropolitan Orlando, through the Kissimmee R iver Valley,
down to Lake Okeechobee.3
Recognizing the need for preserving these lands, the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) in 2012 established
the Everglades Headwaters National Wildlife Refuge,
which would protect 150,000 acres of habitat in central
Florida. rough the use of both fee simple acquisition to
create biological reser ves and conser vation easements that
would limit development on working lands, FWS aims to
“protect and restore one of the great grassland and savanna
landscapes of eastern North America,” which is “one of the
nation’s prime areas of biological diversity.”4
is Article explores how this landscape-level approach
to conservation may not only support the connected net-
work of conservation lands necessary for the long-term
viability of species such as Florida’s black bear, but a lso
help the National Wildlife Refuge System (Refuge System)
realize its conservation mission and restoration potential
under the National Wildlife Refuge System Improvement
Act. e Article begins with an overview of the Refuge Sys-
tem, including its origins, history, and legislative reform.
Part II examines the evolution of refuges’ conservation role
throughout the years, from a vision of them as “anchor
points” to one t hat acknowledges the need for landscape-
level approaches. Part III then proles t he Everglades
Headwaters National Wildlife Ref uge, a nd explains how
it serves as a long-awaited model for rea lizing the Refuge
System’s mission of administering a national network of
lands and waters for conservation and advancing ecologi-
cal restoration. Part IV identies some of the challenges
to successful implementation of this landscape-level initia-
tive, and ma kes a few recommendations for maximizing
conservation and restoration benets.
I. The National Wildlife Refuge System
e mission of the Refuge System “is to administer a
national network of lands and waters for conservation,
management, and where appropriate, restoration of the
sh, wildlife a nd plant resources and their habitats within
the United States for the benet of present and future gen-
erations of Americans.”5 e Refuge System is the only
federal land that is managed chiey for wildlife conserva-
tion.6 Today, it includes more than 560 national wildlife
3. U.S. F  W S (FWS), E H
N W R, P P P, P 1
 4 P  G E S H C
I, P, O, I R, O,  H
C, F 4 (2010).
4. Establishment of Everglades Headwaters National Wildlife Refuge and
Conservation Area, 77 Fed. Reg. 2754-55 (Jan. 19, 2012).
5. 16 U.S.C. §668dd(a)(2).
6. M J. B  M J. R, T E  N
W L 283 (1997); R L. F, T N W
R: C  C S T L 32
(2003).
refuges spanning across 150 million acres.7 ese refuges
provide habitat for more than 700 species of birds, 220 spe-
cies of mammals, 250 species of reptiles and amphibians,
and more than 1,000 species of sh.8 Nearly 40 0 threat-
ened and endangered plants and animals occur on refuge
lands and millions of birds use refuges during their annual
migrations.9 e Refuge System receives more than 45 mil-
lion visitors each year. Each state has at least one refuge,10
and there is one within an hour’s drive of every major met-
ropolitan area in the country.11
e evolution of the Refuge System has not followed
a clear trajectory in the service of wild life protection.12
In part icular, the establish ment of individual refuges has
not alway s focused on achie ving a connected network of
conservation lands.13 e history of the Refuge System
has been marked by periods of great opportunit y, mana-
gerial str uggles, legi slative reform, and, most recent ly,
ambitious planning and polic y eorts ai med at land-
scape-level conservat ion.
A. Origins and Early Years
e history of t he Refuge System is complicated,14 but
its roots can be traced back to presidential procla mations
beginning in the 1860s.15 W hile the ea rliest eorts were
likely aimed at protecting the government’s revenue inter-
ests in such species as fur-bearing seals, the latter part of the
20th century witnessed dwindling wildlife populations,
leading hunting and scientic groups (including the Boone
and Crockett Club) to lobby the U.S. Congress to take
action.16 e rst national wildlife refuge was established
in 1903, when President eodore Roosevelt (a Boone and
Crockett Club member) took executive action to protect
plummeting wading bird populations on Florida’s east
coast from plume hunters who were supplying the fa sh-
ion and costume industry.17 Following successful eorts by
the American Ornithologists Union and (what is now) the
National Audubon Society to persuade Florida to pass a
7. FWS,      ,
http://www.fws.gov/refuges/about/ (last visited Nov. 18, 2016) [hereinafter
A Hundred Years in the Making]; Press Release, FWS, Happy Birthday,
National Wildlife Refuge System! (Feb. 29, 2016), available at http://www.
fws.gov/news/ShowNews.cfm?ref=happy-birthday-national-wildlife-refuge-
system!-&_ID=35482.
8. A Hundred Years in the Making, supra note 7.
9. Id.
10. Press Release, supra note 7.
11. A Hundred Years in the Making, supra note 7.
12. Prof. Robert Fischman has aptly characterized the system’s growth as being
of “ts and starts.” F, supra note 6, at 32.
13.  Robert L. Fischman, 
  , 26 S.
E. L.J. 77, 92 (2007); Jamison E. Colburn,  
, 57 A. L. R. 417, 461-65 (2005).
14. E T. F  D D. G, W L: A P 209
(2009).   F, supra note 6 (providing a comprehensive
discussion of the history of the Refuge System).
15. FWS, , http://
www.fws.gov/refuges/history/over/over_hist-a_fs.html (last visited Nov. 18,
2016) [hereinafter ]; F, supra note 6, at
34.
16. , supra note 15.
17. F, supra note 6, at 35.
Copyright © 2017 Environmental Law Institute®, Washington, DC. Reprinted with permission from ELR®, http://www.eli.org, 1-800-433-5120.

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