“The Sacramento splittail will now have a fighting chance to avoid extinction,” said Jeff Miller, a conservation advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity. “The splittail has declined severely since it was illegally removed from the endangered species list.”

Conservation groups first petitioned for federal Endangered Species Act protection for the splittail in 1992, and the Fish and Wildlife Service proposed listing the species in 1994. The agency delayed listing until a Center lawsuit and court order forced it to take action. In 1999 the splittail was listed as a threatened species. After litigation by water agencies challenging the listing, a court ordered the Service to review the status of the splittail. In 2003 the Service improperly removed the splittail from the threatened list despite strong consensus by agency scientists and fisheries experts that it should retain its protected status. In 2009 the Center filed a lawsuit against the Service challenging this decision, part of a larger campaign to undo Bush-era decisions that weakened protections for dozens of endangered species.

“Fish and Wildlife’s obligation to use sound science in evaluating the splittail should result in protected status,” said Miller. “Federal protection is needed to prevent the extinction of the splittail and other native fish species that share its habitat in the Delta and Central Valley.”

The splittail delisting decision was a classic example of the Bush administration policy to put industry interests over conservation and let politics dictate endangered species decisions. The Service expressly ignored splittail population trend studies that showed a significant decline. Former Bush administration official Julie MacDonald, at the Department of the Interior, illegally tampered with the splittail delisting decision. MacDonald, who owned an 80-acre farm in the Yolo Bypass – a floodplain that is key habitat for the splittail – edited the splittail decision in a manner that appeared to benefit her financial interests. Two subsequent inspector general investigations concluded that MacDonald should have recused herself from the listing review process and that she edited and interfered with the scientific data used in the decision. MacDonald later resigned in disgrace following a misconduct investigation and scathing report by the Interior Department’s inspector general.

“The delisting of the splittail was one of the more blatant examples of political interference, manipulation of science, and conflict of interest that characterized the Bush administration,” said Miller. “The Obama administration has an opportunity to reverse that legacy.”

The settlement requires the Service to make a new 12-month finding on whether listing the splittail is warranted by September 30, 2010. A 30-day public comment period will allow for the submission of additional information by the public. If the Service determines listing is warranted, it must issue a proposed rule and make a final listing determination by September 29, 2011. The agency will not be allowed to make a “warranted but precluded” determination, which would place the splittail on the all but useless candidate species list.

Background

The Sacramento splittail (Pogonichthys macrolepidotus) is a minnow native to the upper San Francisco Estuary and the Central Valley. Splittail are primarily freshwater fish but can tolerate moderately salty water. They are found mostly in slow-moving marshy sections of rivers and dead-end sloughs, though floodplains are important for spawning. The splittail once occurred in lakes and rivers throughout the Central Valley as far north as Redding on the Sacramento River and as far south as the Friant Dam on the San Joaquin River, as well as in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Massive water diversions and alteration of important spawning and rearing habitat have driven the species to near extinction. Formerly common in the Sacramento, San Joaquin, Feather, and American rivers, the splittail is extirpated from all but a fraction of its former range and now is largely restricted to the Delta, Suisun Bay, Suisun Marsh, and Napa Marsh.

The splittail is estimated to be only 35 to 60 percent as abundant in the Delta as it was in 1940, and the percentage decline over the species’ historic range is much greater. Splittail numbers in the Delta have declined steadily since 1980, and in 1992 numbers declined to the lowest on record. Although population levels appear to fluctuate widely from year to year based on freshwater outflow, since the 2003 delisting of the species available data (2003-2007) shows splittail abundance had dropped to low levels for five consecutive years. The remnant populations of splittail in the Delta require adequate freshwater outflow and periodic floodplain inundation to thrive. Splittail are threatened by unsustainable water diversions, the effects of dams, wetlands habitat loss, pesticide impacts, and predation and competition by introduced species.

Unsustainable water diversions from the Delta have caused the collapse of many fish runs in the Delta and Central Valley. Since 2002, delta smelt, longfin smelt, threadfin shad, Sacramento splittail, and striped bass have declined catastrophically and the state's largest salmon run of Central Valley fall-run chinook is suffering from record decline, forcing cancellation of commercial and recreational salmon fishing in California. White and green sturgeon numbers in San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento River have also fallen to alarmingly low levels. The southern green sturgeon population was federally listed as threatened in 2006.

Click here for more information on the Sacramento splittail.

Contact:
Jeff Miller, Center for Biological Diversity, (510) 499-9185