Congresswoman Herrera Beutler Says Marbled Murrelet Protections Cause Economic Hardships

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In a letter to U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, U.S. Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler, R-Battle Ground, pleaded for greater sensitivity to the economic implications of protecting endangered species such as the marbled murrelet. 

A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service regulation requires rural counties, such as Pacific and Wahkiakum, to keep extra state trust land in holdings protected from harvest in order to preserve habitat for imperilled wildlife such as the marbled murrelet. In her letter, Herrera Beutler argues that those types of limitations on backwoods industry put rural counties at a disadvantage both economically and academically. 

In the letter, Herrera Beutler wrote: “The decision by the agency to jeopardize the economic foundation of Pacific and Wahkiakum counties while essentially ignoring the Puget Sound — with all of its wealth and influence — and that region’s impact on the species begs the question: are the agency’s decisions regarding the Murrelet based on science, or politics?”

Herrera Beutler noted in the letter to Zinke that 583,000 acres of state trust land had previously been set aside to protect the threatened avian species, but the new Habitat Conservation Plan takes another 37,000 acres of timberlands off the chopping block. She says that those cuts will cause hardships with local schools, and other essential services.

The congresswoman went on to criticize the math being used by the USFWS, pointing out that 91 percent of the known Murrlets are located in Alaska and less than two percent of the species population ranges south of Canada. 



Herrera Beutler asserted that of those birds in the southern extreme of the range ninety nine percent reside in the heavily populated Puget Sound area. 

In her letter she stated that, “comparing the small fraction of the Murrelet population in Southwest Washington to the large swaths of land that would be locked away, reveals the tragic absurdity of this plan.”

A complete copy of Herrea Buetler’s letter to Secretary Zinke can be viwed online at https://herrerabeutler.house.gov/UploadedFiles/JHB_Letter_to_Zinke.pdf.