Military installations make amends to endangered species

When on-the-ground soldiers, supported by Apache helicopters overhead, creep and clamber through the live-fire area of Fort Hood, they needn't worry about the fate of the endangered golden-cheeked warblers that like to roost there. That's because the Department of Defense, working with researchers from nonprofits and Texas A&M University, has paid off nearby landowners to build up their own nesting grounds to offset the ones lost on Fort Hood. The Fort Hood pilot program, which just got positive marks in a three-year review, is one way that military installations in Central Texas are coping with endangered species on their territory. Military officials say that besides paying for the landowner program, they are reducing the number of trees they cut down to better replicate forest conditions in conflict zones. In the early 1990s, Congress directed the military to obey endangered species laws. Suddenly, large and frequently remote installations found themselves having to figure out how to offset the killing or harassment of endangered species. Camp Bullis, in Bexar County, is also home to the endangered warbler and the black-capped vireo, another songbird, as well as three endangered invertebrates. Last year, the Nature Conservancy announced that it was partnering with the Army to conserve important undeveloped areas of habitat outside of Camp Bullis for the golden-cheeked warbler. Across the country, 420 endangered or threatened species can be found on military installations, according to L. Peter Boice, the Pentagon's deputy director of natural resources. The Department of Defense spent $306 million between 2004 and 2008 on protecting the species, he said...more