Michael J Lannoo, Ball State University
Gary S Casper, Milwaukee Public Museum

Unless remedies are quickly enacted the Supreme Court's recent decision limiting the scope of the federal Clean Water Act is expected to greatly accelerate amphibian declines, according to United States Declining Amphibian Populations Task Force.  The federal ruling is doubly harmful in that some state wetlands regulations are dependent upon federal jurisdiction, so the ruling effectively eliminates many state protections as well.

This is one of the greatest blows to wetland protection in the last 20 years.  The United States Declining Amphibian Populations Task Force calls for immediate federal and state action to prevent a surge of unregulated wetland development by preserving the status quo until jurisdictional authority can be re-instated.

The ruling is especially harmful to amphibians, because the kinds of wetlands that are left without protection happen to be the only wetland types that most species of frogs and salamanders can use for breeding - small, seasonal, isolated, and free of fish.  These wetland types, commonly referred as "ephemeral, vernal, or seasonal," lack fishes because of periodic drying and low oxygen levels that fish cannot tolerate.  As a result, fish are not present to compete for food resources or prey upon amphibian eggs and larva.

Loss of these small wetlands can completely eliminate entire populations of frogs and salamanders for up to a mile away from the wetland itself, as these creatures are dependant upon these wetland types for breeding.

These wetlands support greatly enhanced invertebrate and plant communities, which provide food for amphibian larva, as well as for waterfowl and shorebirds.  Some types of invertebrates, such as fairy shrimp, and many species of amphibians, are only found in ephemeral wetlands, and cannot successfully breed in larger wetlands that do not periodically dry. These wetlands also provide critical food sources and breeding habitat, and are often a pivotal landscape feature, supporting frog and salamander populations up to a mile away.

Widespread global amphibian declines are currently underway, and many scientists are concerned that amphibian declines will lead to even greater ecosystem collapses.  The discovery of large numbers of malformed frogs in recent years has also raised concerns.

The Declining Amphibian Populations Task Force was formed in 1990, and oversees working groups in 40 countries and five continents, which have identified more than 500 populations of frogs and salamanders in decline.  By far the greatest cause of decline is habitat loss and degradation, such as will be accelerated by this ruling.

In 2000, Congress directed the Department of Interior to address this problem through an interagency Amphibian Research and Monitoring Initiative.

In light of the seriousness of this ruling, the United States Declining Amphibian Populations Task Force calls for congressional action to preserve the status quo of wetland protections.  This might best be addressed with an immediate temporary directive to continue federal jurisdiction over wetland types pending revision of the Clean Water Act, followed by an amendment to the Clean Water Act to permanently include these wetland types under regulatory authority.

We also call on state legislators to similarly preserve the status quo until jurisdictional authority can be re-instated to state regulators.

  If you would like more information, please direct correspondence to Gary S. Casper, Vertebrate Zoology Section, Milwaukee Public Museum, 800 W Wells St, Milwaukee, WI 53233
voice 414-278-2766   fax 414-278-6100

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