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Sierra Club says Many Plants, Animals in Trouble Since Days of Lewis and Clark by Nicholas K. Geranios, The Associated Press Environmental News Network, April 5, 2002

SPOKANE, Wash. -- Many of the plants and animals first reported by the Lewis and Clark expedition nearly 200 years ago are on the decline in the West, the Sierra Club said Thursday.

Of the 122 animals discovered by Lewis and Clark, at least 40 percent are under a designation warranting concern and protection, the club said. "There is no better way to commemorate the upcoming Lewis and Clark bicentennial than to protect and restore wild America," said Mary Kiesau of the environmental group.

The report offered sweeping recommendations for preserving plants and animals, including greater use of federal designations to remove public lands from development, removal of Snake River dams, the halt of oil or gas drilling in sensitive areas, bans on construction of logging roads, and sharp restrictions on motorized vehicles.

The recommendations drew criticism from the Independence Institute of Golden, Colo., which promotes more use of public lands. "All they do is say no," said Dave Kopel of the institute. "The Sierra Club can't ever come up with any examples of any drilling, exploration, or resource extraction anywhere that it supports."

President Thomas Jefferson in 1803 sent Capts. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark and the Corps of Discovery on an 8,000-mile round-trip journey across the West. They explored the region from St. Louis to the Pacific Ocean.

Using the Lewis and Clark journals as a guide, the report tried to produce a snapshot of changes along the route covered by the corps from 1803-05. It is divided into three sections: Great North American Prairie, Northern Rockies, and Pacific Northwest.

Lewis and Clark described 178 plants and 122 animals new to science during their journey and recorded valuable information about previously known species. The journals provide the clearest record of the West's wildlands and wildlife before mass settlement, the report said, describing a time when massive bison herds shook the grasslands, salmon choked the Columbia River, and wolves roamed from North Dakota to California.

Things are different now, the report said:

• Grizzly bears have been reduced to around 1,000 from a population that once topped 100,000.
• The 70 million bison have been reduced to about 20,000 in the wild.
• Cutthroat trout and prairie dogs are down to a tiny fraction of former levels. Black-footed ferrets, woodland caribou, and whooping cranes are at the brink of extinction.
• The passenger pigeon, Audubon's bighorn sheep, the plains gray wolf, and the Carolina parakeet are already extinct.