Disease in Individuals Affects Families

July 17, 2015 by Dana Kobilinsky

Wild shag seabirds

A new study suggests that in wildlife populations, when one animal is infected, other individuals are more negatively impacted than the infected animal, itself.

“When we think about wildlife disease, we immediately think about the effect on the infected animal,” said Hanna Granroth-Wilding, the lead author of the study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, who completed the study as part of her PhD research at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, and is now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Turku, Finland. “Our results show that by focusing too narrowly, we can underestimate the effect that parasites and disease have on the whole population.”

Granroth-Wildling and her colleagues at The University of Edinburgh collaborated with the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology to study families of European shags (Phalacrocorax aristotelis) — wild seabirds that resemble cormorants in the U.S. — that were all infected with worms. For their study, the researchers conducted experimental manipulations on the birds on the Isle of May National Nature Reserve off Scotland’s east coast during the breeding season, by giving the birds a common anti-worming drug injection that’s usually given to livestock. They treated the parent, offspring or both, and also had a control group that didn’t receive any anti-worming medication.

The researchers then monitored the survival and breeding behavior of birds in the different treatment scenarios and found that the impact of the infection was greater on other members in the group than on the infected individual. “All of the effects of treatment we saw were on individuals other than the one we had given the drugs to,” Granroth-Wilding said.

The team found that worm infections influenced several aspects of success across the family. For example, they found that when parents were treated, chicks that were born earlier in the season had a better chance of survival. They also found that when chicks born early in the season were given anti-worming medication, their parents gained more weight. Further, parents of the treated chicks bred earlier in the next season, which is important because breeding early increases the chance that the offspring will survive to become parents themselves.

However, reducing worm infections didn’t always benefit other members of the population. When chicks were born later in the season to parents that had been wormed, they had a worse chance of survival, and parents of treated chicks born late in the season went on to lose weight. Importantly, effects from infected relatives can also be long-lasting, rather than just the period where they are directly interacting with one another. “While shag relatives only interact closely until August when chicks leave the nest, we were still seeing the effects when breeding restarted in April the following year,” Granroth-Wilding said.

Much of the changes that researchers found are likely due to trade-offs — when individuals trade their own needs for their reproductive success. The researchers suggest that because infection in its chicks changes how a parent uses its resources, this leaves fewer resources for the parent itself to use.

While there aren’t any immediate ways to implement conservation methods from these findings, Granroth-Wildling said there is potential for the findings to help control the effects of disease. For example, she said if we know that parents are going to suffer for a long time from infection in their offspring, it might be more effective to treat the offspring for the disease that they’re carrying rather than the parent. “This will help keep the parents in better condition over a long time,” she said. “At least in seabirds, it’s much easier to handle the chicks than the adults because they’re in the nest and can’t fly off.”

And while Granroth-Wilding experimented with seabird families, her study’s results could apply to groups of non-related wild animals — and not just among seabirds, either. “There are things that happen in a family that are quite a special case of living in a group because they’re all related,” she said. “But, this doesn’t mean our results are restricted to that special case.”

Granroth-Wilding continued, “This study is important in building an understanding of the basic biology of the birds,” she said, attributing much of the study’s power to the collaboration with the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, who have been studying causes of change in seabird populations on the Isle of May since the 1970s. “The overall conclusion that uninfected individuals could be affected by infections in others — the core message — could apply to other species and other situations.”

Bee Soup: A Delicious New Method to Study Populations

July 17, 2015 by Dana Kobilinsky

A common eastern bumblebee

Determining bee population numbers is as challenging as determining stock market trends, according to Douglas Yu, an associate professor at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom and the senior author of a new study published in the journal Methods of Ecology and Evolution that might change the way bee populations are monitored in the future.

“When you watch the stock market, it might be on a long term downward or upward trend,” Yu said. “But on any given week, it could go all over the place.” As a result, according to Yu, it takes a long time to actually see a trend, especially since stock market forecasts can be overly focused on the ups and downs of individual companies rather than on the market as a whole. Similarly, counting and studying individual bee species provides only fragmentary evidence for the overall decline of the bees. “But it’s enough to be worried,” Yu said.

Rather than examining individual bees under a microscope — the method now used to identify bee species — Yu and his team of researchers from China and the U.K. trapped bees in pan-traps, — colorful plastic bowls filled with soapy water — melted the DNA out of the bees, ran the resulting “bee soup” that looks a bit like a gray gazpacho, according to Yu, through a DNA sequencer, and used a computer to sift through the DNA sequences and look for mitochondrial DNA.

Mitochondrial DNA is unique to each species, Yu said. “These are the little energy factories inside cells that amazingly have their own DNA,” he said. After comparing the DNA sequences with a reference database of mitochondrial genomes, one for each species of bee, he and his team were able to determine which bee species were present in each bee soup.

According to Yu, this process can take just a few months rather than the years that would normally be used to identify bees by their morphology. “Computers and sequencers are fast and can take every bee from the United States, read the mitochondria genomes, and make this reference list of mitochondria genomes,” he said. Further, reading a soup process can provide an estimate of the biomass of each sample, which Yu said, is a bit like counting the bees. For example, if the researchers find only a few DNA sequences of a particular species of bumblebee, that sample should have only one or two individuals of that species. “When there are fewer and fewer reads and fewer and fewer captures in your traps, you know they’re declining in numbers even if they haven’t disappeared yet,” he said.

What’s Killing Our Bees?

As bee populations continue to decline, the United States and the U.K. governments are considering establishing a monitoring program. In the U.S., such a program would require sampling 200 sites every other week in the first and fifth year, which would make up a total of 1.3 million insect specimens and is estimated to cost at least $2 million. Yu’s method could cut down on costs and time, and increase the reliability of the information, he said.

The monitoring program plans to track three measures of bee health: How many species are present in a given site, whether each species’ geographical range is expanding or contracting, and an idea of whether or not local populations are going up or down. According to Yu, the first two issues are particularly easy and require just detecting the presence and absence of species. The third can be estimated by tracking the number of trapping events per site, and combining that information with the biomass estimates in each trap. A further advantage of bee soup is what Yu calls “past-proofing.” For example, researchers can go into the DNA datasets to search for when a virus that might have been responsible for a decline in bee numbers was first introduced.

Bees are vital to the environment and important to other wildlife as well, since most plants that wildlife and humans consume are pollinated by something. And while bees are being studied, in the U.K. alone there are an estimated 1,500 total species of pollinating insects, such as moths and flies that, according to Yu, are still untracked and unknown. Yu hopes that this study provides a step in the right direction in order to monitor pollinator populations and later assist with conservation efforts.

“We have two needs going forward,” Yu said. “The first is to track things better. The second is to see if our remedies work and for which species.”

Video: Crews Control 10,000-Acre Fire in Wildlife Refuge

July 17, 2015 by Joshua Rapp Learn

Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge

A fire that burned more than 10,000 acres of the Loxahatchee National Wildlife Refuge in Florida has been 85 percent controlled, with no more active fires being reported as of Tuesday morning, according to a newscast from WPTV News in West Palm Beach, Florida. The news source reported that crews were using helicopters to drop water on the fire that started last week due to lightning. The wildlife refuge plays host to more than 250 bird species as well as American alligators (Alligator mississippiensis) and other animals in the expansive Everglades marsh area and the huge cypress strand.

Current Status of Federal Appropriation Bills

July 16, 2015 by Zachary Sheldon

National Mall

Congress continues its work on creating the fiscal year (FY) 2016 budget. The House and Senate are working on finalizing the Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies appropriation bill and the Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies bill. TWS provided testimony regarding these bills in March to encourage appropriations that support wildlife professionals and science-based management and conservation.

The Senate Agriculture appropriations bill was approved by the Appropriations Committee on July 16th and is awaiting a vote by the full Senate. The House Agriculture appropriations bill was approved by the House Appropriations Committee on July 8 and will be marked up by the full House at a later date. Listed below are the current appropriation levels in each bill for departments, agencies, and programs of particular interest to wildlife professionals.

Status of Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies Proposed Appropriations as of July 17, 2015 (in millions of dollars).

  

Department, Agency, or Program

   

Senate

   

House

  President’s Request FY 2015 Enacted Levels TWS’s Request
Farm Service Agency 1,490 1,577 1,579 1,603 .
Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service 876 874 859 874 .
Wildlife Services . 109 100 109 109
Wildlife Damage Management . 90 80 90 90
Wildlife Methods Development . 19 . . 19
National Institute of Food and Agriculture 1,289 1,284 1,503 1,289 .
Natural Resource Conservation Service 855 839 1,031 858 .
Conservation Technical Assistance . 735 733 . 733

The Senate Interior appropriations bill has passed through the Senate appropriations committee and awaits a vote by the whole Senate. The House Interior appropriations bill passed through the subcommittee and full appropriations committee. Heated debate by the full House caused the bill to be pulled from the floor on July 9, leaving an uncertain future for the bill. Listed below are the current appropriation levels designated in these bills for departments, agencies, and programs of particular interest to wildlife professionals.

Status of Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Appropriations, as of July17, 2015 (in millions of dollars).

  

Department, Agency, or Program

   

Senate

   

House

  President’s Request FY 2015 Enacted Levels  TWS’s Request
Interior 11,055 11,459 12,116 10,747 .
Bureau of Land Management 1,188 1,117 1,196 1,086 .
Wildlife Management 89.4 89.4 89.4 52.3 89.4
Wild Horse and Burro Management 80.2 77.2 80.6 77.2 80.6
Threatened and Endangered Species 21.6 21.5 21.6 21.5 48
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 1,441 1,432 1,576 1,439 .
National Wildlife Refuge System 475.2 483.1 508.2 474.2 508.2
The North American Wetlands                        Conservation Act 35.1 35 34.1 34.1 34.1
The Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act Grants Program 3.7 3.7 4.2 3.7 4.2
Partners for Fish and Wildlife Program 52.1 51.8 52.4 51.8 60
International Affairs 14.6 14.6 14.7 14.5 14.7
State and Tribal wildlife grants 60.6 59.2 70 58.7 70
Ecological Services Program 284.7 231.9 258.2 284.4 273.2
National Park Service 2,729 2,667 3,048 2,615 .
U.S. Geological Survey 1,059 1,045 1,194 1,045 1,200
Ecosystems Program 158 154 176 157 176
Wildlife Program 45.8 44.3 46.7 45.3 46.7
Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Units 17.4 17.4 20 17.4 20
National Climate Change and Wildlife Science Center 25.7 26.4 37.4 26.7 37.4
U.S. Forest Service 5,123 5,060 4,943 5,073 .
Integrated Resource Restoration program . . 822.1 . 822.1
Forest and Rangelands 291.9 277.5 292 296 292

These bills also contain riders and amendments that stipulate or forbid certain actions that impact natural resource professionals. The House Interior bill contains amendments that prevent the EPA from implementing new greenhouse gas regulations for new and existing power plants, implementing the “Waters of the United States” rule, and regulating the lead content of ammunition and fishing tackle. The bill also continues a restriction preventing the FWS from making any additional ESA rulemaking on greater sage-grouse, and prevents new closures of public lands to hunting and recreational shooting except in the case of public safety. The Senate Interior bill also contains many of these policy riders.

The outlook for the Interior appropriation bills is hazy at best, as the House bill is no longer actively being considered and the Senate bill is not currently scheduled for a vote. The Agriculture appropriation bills have a more positive outlook, as both bills have passed through the Appropriation Committees and are waiting to be voted on by the full House and Senate.

To keep up to date on the status of these bills and other appropriation bills visit the House Appropriations website and the Senate Appropriations website.

Sources:

Senate Appropriations Committee

House of Representatives Appropriations Committee

Canadian Government Funds 14 Conservation Projects

July 16, 2015 by The Wildlife Society

Terra Nova National Park

On July 8th the Government of Canada announced its provision of $1.968 million to fund 14 projects under the Atlantic Ecosystems Initiatives, whose goals are to conserve and restore important ecosystems across Canada while connecting Canadians with nature in and around their communities.

Projects receiving funding include the “Atlantic Bat Monitoring Network”, “Habitat Conservation Strategies for the Atlantic Provinces”, and “Risk hotspot identification for colonial seabirds in Atlantic Canada”.

To learn more about the Atlantic Ecosystems Initiative visit their website. To read more about the 14 projects receiving funding view the full announcement here.

Politics Inform Attitudes on Environmental Issues

July 16, 2015 by Joshua Rapp Learn

Polar bears

People’s identities with political parties have a large influence on their attitudes on environmental issues, according to a new Pew Research Center report — more so than on issues related to biomedical science, food safety or space.

But issues like religious affiliation, knowledge about science and demographic background have strong influences on the public’s views as well.

“In this politically polarized culture, there is a strong temptation to think that people’s partisan connections and their ideology dominate their thinking about every civic issue,” said Cary Funk, associate director for science research and lead author of the new Pew Research analysis, in a release. “What’s striking about these findings is that politics sometimes is at the center of the story about public attitudes and sometimes politics has very little to do with the way people think about science issues in the public arena. We find there are striking differences that center on age, educational attainment, gender, and race and ethnicity.”

Beliefs on climate change are among the most politicized of environmental issues, with 71 percent of Democrats surveyed believing humans are the underlying cause of global warming compared to only 27 percent of Republicans. In terms of race, 70 percent of Hispanics believe humans cause climate change compared to 44 percent of non-Hispanic whites either believe climate change is caused by natural patterns or that there is no solid evidence that climate change is happening. Only 56 percent of Americans with a college degree believed climate change was due to human activity.

In terms of offshore oil drilling, a majority of adults — 56 percent — support expanding the practice. In fact, 72 percent Republicans and those who lean right strongly support more offshore drilling while 39 percent of Democrats and independents leaning left are in favor of it. Overall, support for increased use of fracking has dropped from 48 percent in the 2013 Pew survey to 41 percent.

Factors in which political affiliation had no detectable influence included views on animal testing in science, though this practice was more accepted among people with postgraduate degrees than with those with only a high school diploma or less. In addition, more women than men opposed the practice.

Exploring the Wetlands at Oak Hammock Marsh

July 16, 2015 by Joshua Rapp Learn

The Oak Hammock Marsh Interpretive Centre

Join The Wildlife Society’s field trip to Oak Hammock Marsh during the 2015 TWS Annual Conference. Learn more about the educational and professional networking opportunities available to you at this year’s Annual Conference at our conference website.

There may not be many obvious connections between Manitoba’s Oak Hammock Marsh and Veracruz, Mexico.

A yellow warbler.

A yellow warbler. Visitors to the center sometimes have the opportunity to release research birds like these by hand.
Image credit: Oak Hammock Marsh Interpretive Centre

Unless you’re a yellow-throated warbler (Setophaga dominica), that is.

The warbler was one of the birds captured in 2010 by Paula Grieef and other researchers in routine bird tagging projects organized in the expansive Wildlife Management Area (WMA) just north of Winnipeg.

“To find out that it came from Mexico was pretty rare,” said Grieef, “That’s a phenomenal chance.”

Grieef is a resident naturalist at the Oak Hammock Marsh Interpretive Centre — a sleek building housing the Canadian headquarters of Ducks Unlimited. But Grieef recorded the information and sent the bird off, just like she and other staff often do with the help of visitors interested in literally lending a hand to bird research.

A couple of hundred years ago, wetlands stretched roughly 300 square miles between current day Winnipeg and Lake Winnipeg to the north. But the provincial government had a policy of giving away free land to anyone who drained a dry plot, and the wetlands shrank to nothing more than a few square kilometers, according to Jacques Bourgeois, marketing and promotions coordinator for the Centre.

Some of the land was eventually set aside and today the WMA occupies around 14 square miles of space, with 7.7 square miles of open marsh accessible by wooden walkways or through canoe trips. Different areas of the marsh are alternately flooded and left to dry out in order to approximate the kinds of conditions that occurred there before much of the marshland was dried out to make way for human development. In fact, it’s the 18 kilometers of trails that act as dykes, allowing cattails to regrow in dry areas after the muskrats (Ondatra zibethicus) eat them all in the wet areas.

Alder flycatchers

Alder flycatchers are one of the roughly 300 species of birds found in Oak Hammock Marsh.
Image Credit: Oak Hammock Marsh Interpretive Centre

Even the building of the Interpretive Centre is made to approximate the area — the tinderstone design seems to blend into the mirror-like wetlands around it while many birds nest on the roof of the building. Bourgeois said that during the spring under the building near the water, “you look up and find little ducklings falling from the sky.”

In fact, the area plays host to more than 300 species of birds, as well as a large colony of Richardson ground squirrels (Urocitellus richardsonii), coyotes (Canis latrans), badgers (Taxidea taxus), and a few snakes and amphibians.

During the field trip to Oak Hammock Marsh organized at the Winnipeg conference this year, members of The Wildlife Society will be able to observe how birds are caught in mist nets, carefully removed, then weighed, banded and tagged.  Some members may even get a chance to hand release the birds. There will also be opportunities to travel by canoe through the wetlands and check out the exhibits in the Interpretive Centre. The latter is also outfitted with an observation deck that gives viewers an expansive sense of the beauty, sights and sounds that Oak Hammock Marsh has to offer.

To learn about the other field trip opportunities at our Annual Conference, visit the field trips page of our conference and our feature articles on FortWhyte Alive and the International Polar Bear Conservation Center.

DOD Requests Clarification to Ensure DOI Keeps Refuge

July 15, 2015 by Caroline Murphy

Desert National Wildlife Refuge

The Department of Defense (DOD) requested a change last Friday to current language in the House’s defense authorization bill so primary jurisdiction of refuge land would not be transferred to the Air Force. The Air Force currently has secondary jurisdiction over approximately 850,000 acres of Nevada’s Desert National Wildlife Refuge for use in military testing. Of these 850,000 acres, about 112,000 acres are used in bombing exercises.

Primary jurisdiction over the entire refuge is currently in the hands of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) within the Department of the Interior (DOI). Earlier on Friday, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell sent a letter to the House and Senate Armed Services committees requesting they clarify the language regarding jurisdiction of the refuge. She stated in the letter that the changes are “not necessary, undercut core environmental laws, and do not promote military readiness.”

Initially the DOD was in favor of the bill’s current language because it was intended to exempt the military’s use of public lands from impact reviews by the DOI. The DOD discovered the potential for broader interpretation of the bill after conferring with the DOI, and has now requested a clarification to the language to ensure management remains in the hands of the FWS.

The House and Senate versions of the defense authorization bill are currently in conference committee, where the differences between the two will be hashed out. Since this language is absent from the Senate version of the bill and there is opposition from the DOD and the DOI, chances seem high this language will be rewritten and jurisdiction of the refuge will remain with the FWS.

However, more obstacles lie ahead for the DOI in their attempts to get a favorable defense authorization bill passed.

The House version of the bill would force the DOI to remove the lesser prairie chicken (Tympanuchus pallidicinctus) and the American burying beetle (Nicrophorus americanus) from the Endangered Species List for at least the next five years. The bill also bars the greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) from being listed as an endangered species for the next decade. Although Secretary Jewell has stated her objections to these provisions and they are not included in the Senate version of the bill, the future of this language is more unclear.

Source: Environment & Energy Daily (July 13, 2015), Environment & Energy Daily (July 9, 2015), Greenwire (May 15, 2015), Environment & Energy Daily (April 30, 2015)

Black Bear Reintroduction Shows Population Growth

July 15, 2015 by Dana Kobilinsky

Four researchers hold black bear cubs.

In the first-ever comprehensive evaluation of the long-term success of a bear reintroduction technique called winter soft-release, researchers found that a reintroduced black bear (Ursus americanus) population in the Big South Fork area of Kentucky and Tennessee exhibited a high growth rate and that its genetic diversity has remained constant since the reintroduction occurred despite the population being demographically and genetically isolated.

In the study published in the Journal of Wildlife Management, researchers used hair snares to sample bears that were first introduced to the area in 1996 and 1997. “There were no supplementations that occurred since the original 18 bears were released,” said Sean Murphy, a graduate student at the University of Kentucky and a Large Carnivore Biologist at the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries as well as lead author of the recent study. “They were pretty much left to be. Since 1998, there was no management and little research conducted until 2010 when we initiated our hair snare study.”

A black bear cub stands up against a tree in Big South Fork.

A black bear cub stands up against a tree in Big South Fork. In a recent study, researchers determined that the reintroduced population in Tennessee and Kentucky is increasing and has maintained its genetic diversity over time.
Image Credit: Sean Murphy

The bears were reintroduced using a technique developed by Joe Clark, a research scientist and branch chief with U.S. Geological Survey, and Rick Eastridge, a wildlife biologist with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Typically, when bears are translocated, they are moved during any season and hard-released without an acclimation period, Murphy said. In this winter soft-release method, researchers capture and remove females and their cubs from their natal dens during winter months and move them into either an artificial den or a natural one determined suitable for its size. “The general concept is that when the bears wake up, they are still in a den and acclimation occurs, improving the chances they stay in the release area,” Murphy said. “For them, they are still in the physiological phase of denning. The idea is that they’re more likely to stay there, especially since the bears are translocated as a family group because of the strong maternal relationship between mothers and their cubs.”

The reintroduced bears started with a small founding population of 18 bears in 1998 and grew to about 38 bears in Kentucky and 190 bears in Tennessee, suggesting that this method of reintroduction was successful at establishing a resident population. The average annual growth rate of the bear population was about 18 percent from 1998 to 2012, the researchers found.

“As a result, we believe this bear reintroduction technique can be effective at reestablishing bear populations,” Murphy said. “Although a small founder group was used, if bears are released in high quality habitat with protection from harvest and other mortality, relatively rapid population growth may occur.”

To conduct their research, Murphy and his team created a grid of the area surrounding and including where the bears were reintroduced in the Big South Fork River and National Recreation Area. They then established about 230 hair snares in this grid that were baited with pastries and sardines to attract the bears. Every week, the team re-baited and collected hair samples from barbed wire.

Lead author of the study Sean Murphy holds three black bear cubs.

Lead author of the study Sean Murphy holds three black bear cubs. In a recent study, Murphy and his team used hair snares and collected data on the black bear population that was reintroduced in the late 1990s.
Image Credit: Tristan Curry

One of the researchers’ main findings was that genetic diversity remained relatively constant for the bears over time even though the population remained isolated. When comparing the genetic characteristics of bears sampled during 2010-2012 and bears sampled during 2000-2002, only two to four years after the reintroduction, Murphy and his team found that genetic diversity did not change all that much. They also found that the effective number of breeders, an alternate expression of effective population size, remained low but increased since the reintroduction. “You would normally expect diversity to decline because there’s little to no gene flow into the population,” Murphy said. When a population is under isolation, diversity can be lost at a rapid rate due to genetic drift, according to Murphy. However, there was no evidence of this occurring in this population. “We attributed that to initial high genetic diversity of the original founding 18 bears and the overlapping generations inherent to bears,” he said. “When you combine those things with rapid population growth, we think that allowed genetic diversity to be maintained despite isolation.”

Murphy recommends that continued monitoring should occur for this particular bear population since the population is still relatively small compared to other bear populations in the Appalachians and remains genetically and demographically isolated. But for now, he said, this research shows the potential success that can result when the winter soft-release method is used to establish a bear population from a small founder group.

“Few black bear reintroductions have occurred using this translocation method, but they were spearheaded by Dr. Joe Clark from USGS, who developed this technique and put it into action,” Murphy said. “Bear recovery and restoration in parts of the Southeastern United States may not have happened at the rate it has without his efforts and foresight.”

Natural Resource Agency Funding Derailed

July 15, 2015 by Zachary Sheldon

House of Representatives

The vote on the House’s Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies appropriations bill was slated for Thursday, July 9th. However, last minute disagreement on amendments regarding the Confederate flag caused the bill to be pulled from the floor indefinitely. Speaker of the House John Boehner (R-OH) stated that the bill would not be voted on “until we come to some kind of resolution on this.”

The bill appropriates funding for agencies critical to wildlife and natural resource management, including all agencies under the Department of Interior, the U.S. Forest service, and other related agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency. Pulling the bill from the floor adds complication and uncertainty regarding funding for these agencies for the 2016 fiscal year.

Controversy started Tuesday evening when Representatives Jared Huffman (D-CA) and Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) introduced three amendments which would restrict the display and sales of Confederate flags at national parks and federal cemeteries on public lands. These three amendments were all passed by voice vote on the House floor. Near the close of the debate Wednesday evening, Representative Ken Calvert (R-CA) introduced an amendment that would undo the previously approved amendments.

Debate on these amendments erupted in the House on Thursday morning. As it became apparent no resolution would materialize, Republican leaders in the House pulled the bill from the floor, where it will remain in limbo until House leaders decide to reintroduce the bill. Boehner stated the appropriations bill is “going to sit in abeyance” until Representatives work out the controversy surrounding the Confederate flag amendments.

With no time frame for talks on the House appropriations bill to resume, it is now uncertain when the Senate will begin debate on their own Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies appropriation bill. It is unlikely that talks will start on either bill before the next recess in August. This leaves the Department of Interior and other agencies funded through these bills in the dark about what to expect for upcoming year. As the October 1st deadline to approve the budget approaches it will become increasingly difficult for those agencies to give feedback on the funding levels and any new amendments before the passing of the bills.

Sources: E&E News, Breitbart News Network