At the Crossroads: Habitat and Species Conservation in New
Jersey in 2003
By: Eric Stiles, Vice President for Conservation and
Stewardship
Alex Leeds, Policy Associate
Tom Gilmore, President of the New Jersey Audubon Society,
recently observed, "Almost never, in all of my years, has there
been so much public attention to, and promise for, the
protection of New Jersey's wildlife? Almost never has there
been so much at stake." This article provides an overview of
local and state activity aimed at preserving habitat and
protecting threatened and endangered species.
Habitat alteration and fragmentation takes an enormous toll
on New Jersey's wildlife, even as several species are making a
recovery. Ten percent of the state land sits under impervious
cover like housing, cement, or asphalt, and 16,000 acres of
haphazard development are added every year. In only two
decades, 40 percent of the bird habitat in the lower Cape May
peninsula has been lost. Since the passage of the New Jersey
Endangered and Nongame Species Conservation Act (ENSCA), more
than half of the state's bog turtle habitat has been eliminated.
As most of ANJEC's readership already knows, New Jersey
citizens benefit from an enormous diversity of natural
resources. Despite its small size, the state is composed of six
vastly different ecological regions. Visitors to the Highlands
Region, the Pine Barrens, and the coastal wetlands will be
astounded by variation in geology and fauna. This small state's
unique habitats maintain more recorded bird species than all but
Texas, Florida, and California.
Saving New Jersey's habitats and wildlife is not an option
that can be weighed against other alternatives. Municipalities
that fail to proactively conserve their environmental resources
create the foundations for ecological disaster and social
poverty. When forests are replaced with ill-planned housing,
the water quality degrades, and, historically, humans and
wildlife soon depart. No one wants to live in a wasteland. By
comparison, many municipalities like Chatham Township in Morris
County in the interior and Brick Township in Ocean County on the
coast have used careful growth planning and watershed
maintenance to become ecotourist attractions and coveted places
to live.
Habitat maintenance and wildlife conservation cost little in
the long term. They primarily require awareness and intelligent
planning. Fortunately, the resources for sound local planning
have never been better. The Landscape Project (www.state.nj.us/dep/fgw/ensphome.htm),
which delineates critical, threatened, and endangered species
habitat, provides a solid foundation for the integration of an
environmental resource inventory with planning and zoning
ordinances. Organizations like ANJEC and the New Jersey Audubon
Society will provide expert guidance and network with other
organizations to consult for municipal level planning. The New
Jersey Department of Environmental Protection is taking steps to
support smart growth throughout the state. (see the bottom of
this article for a list of planning resources)
Activities at the state level closely complement local
participation in habitat conservation. When the New Jersey
Endangered and Nongame Species Conservation Act (ENSCA) was
passed in 1973, it was part of a body of highly progressive
state and federal environmental legislation. ENSCA's special
contribution to the new ecological paradigm of such federal
contemporaries as the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Air
Act was to prohibit harm to state-listed "threatened" or
"endangered" species.
In concert with the stellar work of the New Jersey Department
of Environmental Protection's Endangered and Nongame Species
Program (ENSP), ENSCA has since had several well-publicized
successes. The number of Bald Eagle breeding pairs has risen
from one to 37. Peregrine Falcon breeding pairs went from zero
to 14, meeting the federal species recovery goal. The return of
ospreys and great blue herons has been a triumph.
But even the success of the Bald Eagle Management Project
offers a cautionary tale. Although the use of DDT
(dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) was banned in the United
States in 1972, its impact will linger for centuries. From 1982
to 1989, ENSP biologists had to remove and artificially incubate
DDT weakened Bald Eagle eggs from the state's only long-term
active nest. Faced with young eagle mortality rates of over
75%, biologists introduced 60 eagles to the state over the
course of an eight-year period.
Today's three dozen eagle breeding pairs was the result of
considerable expense, care, persistence, and some force. Yet,
even now, PCB's and development are a major threat to population
recovery. Dr. Larry Niles, Chief of the Endangered and Nongame
Species Program, observes that "the bald eagle population is
growing because we have a huge number of dedicated volunteers
working with staff on the project." He notes that three out of
four eagle nests have moved at least once because of development
or disturbance interfering with the nesting area. Thirty years
after DDT, chemical pollution and habitat destruction still
threaten progress.
Part of the reason ENSP devotes such attention to the
recovery of individual species is that there are not many
threatened or endangered species on the state list. As of March
2002, the there were 48 species listed as endangered ("whose
prospects for survival in New Jersey are in immediate danger,"
and who require "assistance? to prevent future extinction in New
Jersey"). These include everything from Sperm Whales to Arrogos
Skippers (a species of butterfly), and from Bobcats to Piping
Plovers and Brook Floaters (a species of mussels). Even fewer
species fall in the "threatened" category, defined as those
species with the potential to become endangered.
These small numbers belie the great diversity of New Jersey's
wildlife and habitat. Originally, the process for placing
species on the list was unscientific. Popular species like the
Peregrine Falcon received great attention, whereas species
disliked or difficult to observe tended to be ignored. In the
1990's, New Jersey created a rigorous process for the
identification of endangered species.
Why expend the effort to save even the small number of listed
threatened or endangered species? First, it is considerably
easier and less expensive to keep species within the state than
it is to re-establish them, as the experience with Bald Eagles
makes clear. Second, each species functions as part of a
practical balance with the other forms of life around it. For
an example of one obvious case, banished predators no longer
hunt the state's deer, and consequently, deer populations have
grown out of control. Dense populations reaching over 100 deer
for every square mile devour New Jersey's young forest growth.
In many regions, the deer keep forests from reproducing
themselves as they age, with obviously devastating consequences.
Third, endangered species provide necessary measurements of
the ecological health of a region. If Bog Turtles decline, many
other species reliant on wetland bog turtle habitat are
unquestionably suffering losses as well. However, regulations
do need to devote more attention to the bulk of the state's
species. Jane Galetto, chair of the New Jersey Endangered and
Nongame Species Advisory Council, joins many conservationists in
observing: "It is a sad commentary on New Jersey as a state that
it does not devote resources [directly] for the management of
the majority of the species." Part of the solution to this
regulatory weakness is to finely tune protections for the
characteristics of individual species. Additionally, the public
play a major role through the integration of habitat protection
into growth plans.
Initially, New Jersey's protections did little to consider
habitat. Under ENSCA, the site of a nesting Cooper's Hawk is
protected only during the breeding season. When the hawk
returns to its nest next spring, it may well find that the site
was converted into a gas station in its absence. The state
Freshwater Wetlands Protection Act (FWPA) of 1988 extended
much-needed habitat consideration to the existing protections.
New Jersey wetlands with threatened or endangered species living
in them now receive 150-foot buffers restricting significant
invasions of the property.
Two other zones are protected: the Pinelands and the coastal
(CAFRA) zones. The Pinelands Commission does an effective job
promoting critical habitat protection. Not all developments in
costal zones require a CAFRA permit, resulting in inconsistent
protection of those habitats.
To better inform conservation and planning, the Landscape
Project represents a giant revolution in the process of
identifying critical wildlife habitat. Since 1994, ENSP has
compiled extensive maps of land use and land cover, classifying
all New Jersey property into 20 categories by examining units as
well-defined as 0.5 acres. The maps, accessible at
www.state.nj.us/dep/gis/imapnj/imapnj.htm, are a must see
for municipal planners. Among other abilities, a map will show
potential and occupied habitat for all rare, threatened, and
endangered species in the state. The maps should be used to
prioritize open space acquisitions and to guide regulators and
municipal planners.
This growing focus on habitat, however, has still not been
transformed into necessary regulations. ENSCA, FWPA, and
protections for Pinelands, coastal and other regions do a very
irregular job. Unless a Red-Shouldered Hawk is nesting near
freshwater wetlands, its nest stands a good chance of being
eliminated by construction companies during the winter; a Bobcat
in the Pinelands receives considerably greater protection than a
Bobcat in northern New Jersey; and a Wood Turtle that wanders
past the 150 foot wetlands buffer zone, as Wood Turtles often
do, may find itself on a highway.
Governor James McGreevey and Department of Environmental
Protection Commissioner Brad Campbell have recently taken much
needed steps toward solving these problems. As a consequence
of the high correlation between endangered species habitat and
important New Jersey waterways, the currently proposed
Stormwater Regulations show enormous promise. The proposal to
control water quality, water flow quantity, and groundwater
recharge while providing 300-foot buffers for the most important
("category one") waterways will protect thousands of acres of
critical habitat due for development within the next fifteen
years.
The McGreevey Administration is also working on smart growth
procedures based on mapping areas for growth acceleration,
maintenance, and prevention. The so-called "Big Map" will
integrate habitat protection and endangered species protection
in a long overdue measure. Nevertheless, the state as a whole
is faced with intense development pressures as it approaches
build out, the point where no remaining land is undeveloped or
unprotected. The final outcome of the proposed regulations will
depend on how well they recognize the common interests humans
and wildlife share in habitat preservation and habitat-growth
integration.
Important Internet Sites:
www.state.nj.us/dep/gis/imapnj/imapnj.htm [Landscape Project
maps]
http://crssa.rutgers.edu/projects/lc [urban development
maps]
http://www.njstormwater.org [NJDEP's stormwater site]
http://www.anjec.org
[Association of New Jersey Environmental Commissions]