January 16, 2015
CapitalPress.com
3
Monarch butterfly protections could restrict GMOs
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
Federal regulators think
monarch butterflies may be a
threatened species, which could
eventually provide biotechnol-
ogy critics with a new justifica-
tion for restricting genetically
engineered crops.
The U.S. Fish and Wild-
life Service recently said the
butterfly may warrant listing
under the Endangered Species
Act, finding that environmental
groups have furnished “substan-
tial” data that indicates federal
protection for the insect may be
necessary.
Environmentalists claim that
widespread adoption of “Round-
up Ready” biotech crops resis-
tant to glyphosate herbicides has
increased usage of these chem-
icals, depleting the monarch’s
milkweed habitat and drastically
reducing its populations.
The Endangered Species
Act is a “very powerful” tool
that environmentalists hope to
use against glyphosate and, by
The
Issue
Mateusz
Perkowski
proxy, herbicide-tolerant biotech
crops, said Jay Vroom, executive
director of Croplife America, an
agribusiness group.
“It’s a real concern, without
a doubt,” he said. “To single out
the GE resistance and glypho-
sate technology is suspect and
does not comport with scientific
trends.”
The petition to list monarch
butterflies as threatened is a new
tactic in a broader campaign to
discourage the cultivation of ge-
netically modified organisms,
said Damien Schiff, an attorney
specializing in property rights
and environmental law.
In the past, pesticide oppo-
nents have successfully used the
Endangered Species Act to re-
quire the federal government to
increase its scrutiny of various
chemicals and limit their uses,
he said.
“This is an element of the
same general strategy,” Schiff
said.
If environmentalists succeed
in obtaining a listing for the mon-
Idaho’s “ag gag” law
faces constitutional test
By MATEUSZ PERKOWSKI
Capital Press
Opponents of an Idaho law
that prohibits secret recordings
of farm operations will argue the
statute should be thrown out as
unconstitutional next month.
A federal judge has sched-
uled a hearing about Idaho’s
so-called “ag gag” law for Feb.
17 in Boise, with oral arguments
centering on whether the statute
violates free speech and equal
protection rights.
Under the law, which Idaho
enacted in 2014, it’s a crime to
make undercover recordings or
gain employment under false
pretenses at a farm.
Lawmakers passed the stat-
ute in response to public back-
lash against a dairy company
whose employees were filmed
abusing cattle.
The Animal Legal Defense
Fund and other opponents of
the law claim that it violates the
First Amendment of the U.S.
Constitution by attempting to
stop public discourse about an-
imal abuse in agriculture.
“Quelling public debate can
never qualify as a legitimate
government interest, much less
a compelling one,” the group
said in a court brief.
For a limit on free speech to
survive “strict scrutiny” in feder-
al court, it must be the least ob-
structive way to achieve a legit-
imate government interest, such
as a ban on child pornography or
defamation, the plaintiffs claim.
“Journalistic and whis-
tleblower speech hardly fall in
any of these categories,” the
brief said.
The law lacks a compelling
government interest or “press-
ing public necessity” because
it’s solely geared toward protect-
ing the reputation of the animal
agriculture industry, the plain-
tiffs claim.
Idaho officials cannot suc-
cessfully argue the statute serves
the same purpose as laws against
defamation because it bans au-
diovisual recordings even if the
events they portray are not false,
according to ALDF.
“The sponsors and support-
ers of the ag gag law made no
effort to hide the fact that a sub-
stantial motivation for the law
was to prevent the agricultural
industry from being tried ‘in the
court of public opinion,’” the
brief states, citing the state’s leg-
islative record.
ALDF also alleges the Idaho
statute violates the 14th Amend-
ment, which provides people
with equal protection under the
law.
The Idaho law targets a “po-
litically unpopular group” —
animal rights activists — and is
motivated by animosity, as evi-
denced by legislator statements
that compared activists to “terror-
ists” and “marauding invaders,”
the brief said.
Courtesy of Elizabeth A. Sellers, USGS
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recently said the monarch but-
terfly may warrant listing under the Endangered Species Act.
arch butterfly, it would impact
the spraying of glyphosate and
other herbicides on biotech crops
across the large geographic area
occupied by the species, Schiff
said.
Monarch butterflies in the
Midwest — where they’re
most populous — overwinter in
mountainous areas of Mexico,
while those in the West overwin-
ter on the California coast.
“That raises the possibility of
a huge critical habitat designa-
tion,” Schiff said.
Biotech critics were dealt
a major legal setback in 2013,
when the 9th U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals decided that the
USDA lacked authority to regu-
late genetically engineered crops
that are not plant pests.
That opinion undermined the
effectiveness of lawsuits chal-
lenging USDA’s environmental
analysis of transgenic crops.
Such cases had previously hin-
dered the commercialization of
“Roundup Ready” alfalfa and
sugar beets.
Biotech critics have since
shifted their approach. Recent ef-
forts, for example, have focused
on encouraging states and local
governments to label or restrict
genetically engineered crops.
By TAM MOORE
For the Capital Press
CENTRAL POINT, Ore.
— On the heels of last week’s
official designation of an
eighth wolf pack in Oregon,
biologists believe yet another
wandering wolf is prowling
timberland just north of the
California border.
Biologist Mark Vargas of
the Oregon Department of
Fish and Wildlife reported the
probable wolf sighting near
the community of Keno in
Klamath County during a wolf
update at the Jan. 10 annual
meeting of the Jackson Coun-
ty Stockmen’s Association.
Vargas said the sighting came
while the known pack was in
another location.
Evidence of at least one
wolf was collected twice
during December in the de-
partment’s Keno management
area. The agency says it will
formally designate the new
area of wolf activity next week.
“Little is known of this new
wolf … and efforts to gather
additional data will be made by
both ODFW and the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service,” said Mi-
chelle Dennehy, a spokesper-
son for the state agency.
ODFW and the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service earlier
designated as the “Rogue Pack”
a group of wolves running with
OR-7 and his mate.
The pack’s home turf, most
of it national forest timberland,
is southeastern Douglas Coun-
Courtesy of Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife
OR-7, the wolf that wandered to the Rogue River drainage from northeastern Oregon, is seen in this
file photo. Another wolf has been reported in Southern Oregon, a state Department of Fish and Wildlife
representative says. It is separate from OR-7’s Rogue Pack.
ty, eastern Jackson County,
western Klamath County and
perhaps portions of far north-
ern Siskiyou County in Cali-
fornia.
“There could be more
wolves, we don’t know yet,”
Vargas said. The Oregon wolf
census is currently in progress.
Several members of the
stockmen’s association run
cattle on public lands in the
Cascade Mountains where the
Rogue Pack apparently spends
much of its time. Vargas told
the cattlemen they need to deal
with the reality.
“We have wolves, folks.
They are not going away. I re-
alize this is a lifestyle change,”
Vargas said.
He urged cattlemen to look
into forming the county advi-
WENATCHEE, Wash. —
While this continues to be a dis-
mal season for wholesale apple
prices in general, the price of the
popular Honeycrisp variety is
improving.
Mid-size Honeycrisp were
$37.50 per 40-pound box a cou-
ple of months ago but reached
$50 on Jan. 9, according to the
USDA Market News.
Honeycrisp prices stabi-
lized in December and now are
climbing to last year’s levels.
Washington controls the sup-
ply since the Midwest and East
Coast have sold out, said Tim
Evans, general sales manager
of Chelan Fresh Marketing in
Chelan.
It’s good news, but Honey-
crisp is just 6.5 million boxes of
the record 150 million-box 2014
crop.
There’s 46.4 million boxes
of Red Delicious, 32 million
boxes of Gala, 20 million boxes
of Fuji, 17.5 million of Granny
Smith, 12.6 million of Golden
Delicious and more of other
varieties, according to the indus-
try’s Dec. 1 storage report.
Of the total 150 million box-
es, 47.9 million had sold by Jan.
1.
Honeycrisp has been a top
money-maker for the indus-
try, sometimes garnering in the
range of $57 or more per box.
Like all other varieties, it took
a hit this season because of the
huge crop.
Total U.S. apple holdings
were 16 percent above last year
on Jan. 1, said Desmond O’Ro-
urke, a private agricultural econ-
omist and consultant in Pullman.
Mid-size Red Delicious ap-
ples were $14.50 per box on Jan.
9, Golden Delicious was $17,
Fuji $19, Gala $17 and Granny
Smith $18.50, O’Rourke said.
Those are close to breakev-
en prices and about the same
they’ve been for the past couple
of months, he said.
That’s $5 to $6 per box be-
low last year and the lowest
prices since 2006, he said.
The 2012 season was regard-
ed as epic for huge supply and
strong prices because of short
supply in other apple produc-
ing regions of the nation and
world.
sory committee, which allows
them to tap into state funds
should confirmed livestock
losses occur.
The Oregon Legislature in
2013 established a wolf pre-
dation loss compensation pro-
gram. Funds were distributed
to producers in eight Eastern
Oregon counties in 2014.
Neither Vargas nor Jackson
County Commissioner Doug
Breidenthal had details on the
Oregon Department of Agri-
culture compensation program
or county advisory committee
duties.
Breidenthal, who followed
Vargas on the stockmen’s pro-
gram, said the Jackson County
Board of Commissioners won’t
form a wolf predation loss ad-
visory committee without a
formal request. Stockmen in-
dicated they will study the law
and regulations with an eye to-
ward making that request next
month.
An informal show of hands
indicated most folks at the
meeting favor forming the
committee. That’s the only le-
gal way to tap the state com-
pensation fund. Several stock-
men had questions about how
the county committee process
might work.
The state law says con-
firmed losses will be paid at
“fair market value,” with 90
percent coming from the newly
established state trust fund and
10 percent from county funds.
Jackson County has no item in
the current budget for livestock
loss compensation.
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Capital Press
and prevents it from regenerat-
ing. The chemical is also much
more prevalent now that major
commodity crops can withstand
it, they say.
“We do see a very strong
correlation,” said Sarina Jepsen,
endangered species program
director for the Xerces Society,
another petitioner. “I just don’t
think farmers were (previously)
as effectively controlling milk-
weed.”
If the species is listed, a pos-
sible remedy could involve farm-
ers setting aside reserves free of
biotech crops resistant to gly-
phosate, allowing milkweed to
recover, she said.
The USFWS is unlikely to
take drastic measures, said Curry.
“I don’t think the Service is go-
ing to come out and tell people
they can’t grow Roundup Ready
crops.”
Possible restrictions would
also not be immediate — the
agency probably won’t decide
whether or not to list the mon-
arch until 2016, and then require
another year to finalize the rules,
she said.
The pesticide industry does
not believe a listing is justified
and plans to oppose the listing
petition, said Vroom. “This is an-
other marathon journey.”
Another wolf reported in S. Oregon
Honeycrisp apple prices improve
By DAN WHEAT
Environmental groups say
their ESA listing petition is moti-
vated by a desire to halt the steep
decline in monarch populations
rather than an anti-biotech agen-
da.
Over the past two decades,
the number of monarchs has
dropped from roughly 1 billion
to less than 35 million, their pe-
tition claims.
Even so, the environmental
groups believe the main hazard
facing the insect is the loss of
summer breeding habitat due to
GMO-related glyphosate appli-
cations, said Tierra Curry, senior
scientist with the Center for Bio-
logical Diversity, one of the peti-
tioners.
“We think one of the largest
threats right now is increased
pesticide use,” she said.
Defenders of pesticides and
biotechnology discount this ar-
gument, pointing out that farmers
have removed milkweed from
their fields prior to the advent of
biotechnology or glyphosate.
“We’ve been controlling
milkweed a lot longer than
Roundup has been available,”
said Vroom of Croplife Ameri-
ca.
The petitioners argue that un-
like older herbicides, glyphosate
kills the perennial plant’s roots
3-5/#5
Federal officials say
threatened status
may be warranted
3-5/#4X