DNA Testing Puts New Light On Bladderpod Listing

DNA Testing Puts New Light On Bladderpod Listing

I’m Lacy Gray with Washington Ag Today.

In an interesting twist this week results of a farmer funded DNA testing of the White Bluffs Bladderpod plant that grows along the Columbia River in Franklin County shows it to be genetically the same as the common Douglas's bladderpod. With permission from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agronomist Stuart Turner collected several samples along the White Bluffs to compare with other bladderpod samples collected in surrounding counties, as well as samples from Oregon and Idaho. Then the tests were conducted by the Laboratory for Evolutionary, Ecological, and Conservation Genetics at the University of Idaho. The test result announcement coincided with the last day of a public comment period for the proposed endangered species listing of the White Bluffs bladderpod. Congressman Doc Hastings, who questioned Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell over the proposed ESA listing of the White Bluffs Bladderpod plant earlier this month during a House Natural Resources Committee hearing, had this to say over the recent finding.

HASTINGS: What it shows is the deficiencies in the laws right now and where the Department of the Interior several years ago when they made this mega-settlement on a whole bunch of species without due diligence being done. It doesn’t seem to be rocket science to say “Wow, here is a rare flower - boy there’s another flower like this elsewhere. Let’s see if they are the same”. But it was clearly lost on the Department of Interior when they made the mega-settlement and it was clearly lost on Fish and Wildlife when they didn’t pursue that from a scientific standpoint. We’re going to have a hearing on the Endangered Species Act next week and I guarantee it will be part of that hearing.

The Franklin County Natural Resource Advisory Committee is waiting for comment from U.S. Fish & Wildlife on the DNA test results. Fish and Wildlife is expected to make a decision on the listing in November.

I’m Lacy Gray and that’s Washington Ag Today on the Ag Information Network.