Out on maneuvers: must military training sacrifice endangered-species protection?

Animals, Wntr-Spring, 2003 by Wendy Williams

North Carolina's Camp Lejeune--a 246-square-mile sprawl of sandy pine forest the Atlantic coast--has a reputation for being brutal on recruits. Mosquito-filled, wet and rugged, these lands have seemed hellish to decades of marines in training, who mostly just want to survive their grueling and sweaty ordeals and get back to whatever creature comforts might be found in military barracks.

But for the red-cockaded woodpecker, Camp Lejeune is like heaven on earth. These unique, endangered birds sometimes spend as long as three years pecking out one nesting cavity, and when the laborious task is completed, the new homestead becomes a residence for many generations, passed down from parent to offspring for many decades. Dependent as it is on a stable ecology, the red-cockaded woodpecker is moving dangerously closer to oblivion across the Southeast, where logging of old-growth forests has been extensive.

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Not at Camp Lejeune, though. On these lands, the species is thriving. During the 1990s, the camp's managers began to pay special attention to the birds' needs. Working as a team with federal biologists, they made marine training and the woodpeckers' lifestyle mesh. Base brass cooperatively "worked around" the birds' habits and habitats. Population figures improved vastly.

"It's one of my favorite stories," says the National Wildlife Federation's (NWF's) John Kostyack, a lawyer with considerable expertise in the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) and one of its most stalwart defenders. Indeed, all parties appeared delighted. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) officials crowed over their success. Military officials bragged about their achievements. Probably even the birds sang a happier tune. The Clinton administration's Interior secretary, Bruce Babbitt, trumpeted the teamwork in a speech, noting that Lejeune's top brass had personally told him they were very satisfied.

"Major General Patrick Howard explained to me that his AAVs [amphibious assault vehicles] coexist just fine with woodpeckers. Troops and training vehicles learn to maneuver around the nesting trees just like any other obstacle, and the rare birds don't mind the noise, as long as they have old-growth nesting trees and enough space to forage," Babbitt told the American Defense Preparedness Association in 1996.

Similar stories of profitable teamwork have unfolded elsewhere across the nation. At southern California's Camp Pendleton, for example, training schedules were altered to respect the nesting of western snowy plovers, tiny and delicate birds that lay eggs in mere scrapes along the beaches that could easily be overrun by marines training for amphibious landings.

The military seemed proud of these accomplishments. A poster series--"We're Saving a Few Good Species"--touted the service's ability to make room for animals: "The Marines, with the assistance of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, are proving that an elite military force can train in environmentally sensitive areas and protect a threatened species at the same time. One result: the plover is holding its ground. That's what happens when your best friends are the Marines."

So when Washington, D.C.-based military brass asked this year for blanket exemptions from the ESA and other wildlife protection laws, the environmental community felt sucker-punched. Everything had seemed so copacetic. Nevertheless, in July, high-level officials from the Marines, the Army, and the Navy told a U.S. Senate committee that complying with the ESA and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (an international treaty nearly a century old that protects all Western Hemisphere migrating birds) was endangering the safety of training troops and costing too much money.

The Army's General John F. Keane complained particularly about the red-cockaded woodpecker. "The training restrictions associated with the 200-foot buffers around each cavity tree include: no bivouacking or occupation for more than two hours; no use of camouflage; no weapons firing other than 7.62 and .50 caliber blanks ... no use of generators, no use of riot agents; no use of incendiary devices; no use of smoke grenades; and no digging of tank ditches or fighting positions. During maneuvers, vehicles cannot come closer than 50 feet to cavity trees."

Marine General Michael J. Williams told a Senate hearing that at Camp Pendleton "endangered species were the largest contributing factor of encroachment" on training exercises, particularly along the beaches, where marines practice amphibious landings. "Cumbersome permitting processes negatively impact our ability to train," added the Navy's Admiral William J. Fallon.

Congressional wildlife supporters didn't take the ambush lying down. Many senators and representatives questioned the military's sudden reversal, claiming the dissatisfaction came not so much from the military itself as from the Department of Defense's Donald Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld reportedly made a number of personal phone calls to elected officials asking them to support him in this push.

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Out on maneuvers: must military training sacrifice endangered-species protection?

Animals, Wntr-Spring, 2003 by Wendy Williams

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