Climate Change Threatens Lassics Lupine With Extinction

Lassics lupine. Credit: David Imper.

Lassics lupine. [Credit: David Imper.]

Press release from the  Center for Biological Diversity:

 In response to a petition from the Center for Biological Diversity and allies, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed [Wednesday] to protect the Lassics lupine under the Endangered Species Act with 512 acres of critical habitat in California’s Humboldt and Trinity counties.

There are only two populations of the lupine. Both grow above 5,000 feet elevation on the talus slopes of Mt. Lassic and Red Lassic Mountain in the Six Rivers National Forest, 80 miles southeast of Eureka.

“Climate change effects in Northern California are already so severe that the Lassics lupine would be lost to extinction within 20 years without intervention,” said Tierra Curry, a senior scientist at the Center. “Now we breathe a sigh of relief that this beautiful flower finally has the Endangered Species Act’s effective protections to keep it from being lost forever.”

In 2016 the Center, the California Native Plant Society and two scientists petitioned the Service to protect the rare flower, primarily because of threats from climate change. Over the past two decades the lupine’s range has been shrinking because of drought, decreased snowpack and increasing temperatures. As conditions have become harsher, predation on the flower’s seeds from small mammals has increased, pushing it towards extinction.

The plant’s population has become so small that it would be lost to extinction from seed predation without active management efforts using cages to keep out small mammals, whose other food sources have declined. The total population of the plant has ranged from less than 200 to nearly 1,000 individuals over the past five years.

The Lassics lupine has striking, pink-rose-tinged flowers above white-silver foliage, in sharp contrast to the surrounding black and reddish barren rocky slopes where it grows. It is dependent on sufficient snowpack and adequate shade to survive on the steep mountainsides. It benefits from periodic fires that remove encroaching vegetation, but the flower can be threatened by severe fire and the invasive cheatgrass that follows.

“That this alpine flower in a protected area is on the very edge of extinction because of climate change should serve as yet another wake-up call to world governments that we have to take bold action now to save life on Earth. Otherwise the fabric of life is going to unravel, and so are we,” said Curry.

The scientists who joined the petition to list the plant are David Imper, former plant ecologist for the Arcata office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Sydney Carothers, a botanist who has been studying the lupine for more than 20 years.

The lupine was discovered in 1983. The Lassics Mountains were named after the Athapascan Lassik tribe, which was forcibly removed from the region in 1862. The species’ Latin name is Lupinus constancei, named for the famous California botanist Lincoln Constance.

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Canyon oak
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Canyon oak
1 year ago

My inner spirit self discovered that flower hundreds of years ago when I lived here amongst the acorns and woodpeckers

Martin
Guest
1 year ago
Reply to  Canyon oak

You left out our Native Americans.

Lost Croat OutburstD
Member
Lost Croat Outburst
1 year ago
Reply to  Martin

You’re surprised? The Lassics are fascinating as the Yolla Bolly Wilderness Area is, also. According to a local historian whose name I can’t recall, the Lassiks were a small tribe that had established their home in these mountains for millennia until removed forcibly by Euro-American newcomers. The small surviving band insisted on leaving the reservation and traveled overland to the graves of their ancestors. Returned to the Rez, they again left for their ancient home. Finally they were lined up and shot dead, every one.
On a lighter note, the Lassics offer mile-high elevations, so you can win that bet that Humboldt County goes from sea level to over one mile in elevation.

R-DOG
Guest
R-DOG
1 year ago
Reply to  Canyon oak

Just keep cutting the redwood trees there has been so many cut already that it will take over 10,000 years for them to rejuvenate and while your at it just keep bringing in millions of pound’s of sea fish and don’t forget the rivers so many fisherman on the banks of the river a fish could not even swim by with out getting snagged and while you at it just build some more roads for the forest animals to get run over won’t be long now

SheHateMe
Guest
SheHateMe
1 year ago

Flower found in 1863… above 5000’… only on two peaks in Humboldt county… it’s numbers have ranged from 200-1000… which means it has increased… lives only on loose shale (talus) formations…

This flower was headed for extinction ANYWAY with its highly specialized environment! “Climate Change” must be the buzzword to get more federal grants so this flower can be someone’s “life work”.

What needs to dry up is frivolous spending and government agencies and overtaxation for boondoggles such as this. Can we make bureaucracies extinct?

Jean Lopez
Guest
Jean Lopez
1 year ago
Reply to  SheHateMe

Bingo! I know a couple of botanists working in the bureaucracy. They’ve hit pay dirt with “climate change”. Like “covid” two years ago. Ka-ching!! Your comment is spot on.

rollin
Guest
rollin
1 year ago
Reply to  SheHateMe

It’s refreshing to see someone who gets it. Spot on!

Lost Croat OutburstD
Member
Lost Croat Outburst
1 year ago
Reply to  SheHateMe

Just be sure you dry up ag subsidies to California Agriculture. One measure of a culture is the level of individual freedom, free and fair elections, and concern for all citizens AND the environment.

Lone Ranger
Guest
Lone Ranger
1 year ago

Stop oil drilling now! We can hit 20 bucks a gallon, stop climate change in its tracks. The roads will belong to the wealthy, peasants stranded at home, crack me up. Thanks Burden for your green policies. Less oil equals higher fuel prices .

SheHateMe
Guest
SheHateMe
1 year ago

Yes! That’s what I’m talking about! Get rid of all these bullshit bureaucracies, lower taxes or stop taxing us all together and let true free market capitalism work unfettered as intended. Stop paying subsidies to any special interest, stop sending money to other countries, kick NATO and the UN to the curb and put a bunch of governmental parasites out of work.

I like it!

I’m concerned about the environment. So concerned that I know it’s doomed now that the government is so concerned about it.

Want an example of government concern and competence? Why does the homeless population keep growing? Want a local example? How many measures have passed in humboldt county that were intended to fix roads? How are these well funded, cared for roads working for you?

Want a free and fair election? No problem. One must show their government-issued ID to vote. If you have to have an ID to drive, drink, or write a check it stands to reason that one must show one to vote.

Individual freedom? Easy. Tell your local politician or health bureaucrat to piss up a rope when you’re told to wear a mask, or you can’t carry a gun on your hip in town, or when you beat the living shit out of the tweaker that just stole your Amazon package off your porch. And curb stomp the politicians that try to divide us by race, religion, or any other woke nonsense. When we are divided the government rules. When we are United the government fears us.

Concern for all citizens? How about one stop concerning oneself about others? Mind your own. Governmental concern isn’t concern at all, it’s control.

If you’re homeless, sorry about your luck, but you don’t get to shit in my backyard or steal my shit to survive.

If you can’t feed your kids, stop breeding and get your ass to work. You don’t need welfare or SNAP or WIC or any other alphabet soup, you need a J-O-B… maybe two of them.

Individual freedom and concern for all citizens aren’t compatible. If I had individual freedom my tax dollars wouldn’t be going to another citizen.

What!?D
Member
What!?
1 year ago

According to those measures, does culture still exist on this planet?

Lawrence Jetboat
Guest
Lawrence Jetboat
1 year ago
Reply to  SheHateMe

“When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars, which you have set in place,
what is man that you are mindful of him, the son of man that you care for him?
You made him a little lower than the heavenly beings and crowned him with glory and honor.
You made him ruler over the works of your hands; you put everything under his feet:
all flocks and herds, and the beasts of the field,
the birds of the air, and the fish if the sea, all that swim in the paths of the seas.”
The Hebrew words translated “work” and “take care of” in Genesis 2:15 may also be translated “serve” and “preserve.”
Psalm 24:1-2
“The earth is the Lord′s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it upon the seas and established it upon the waters.”
Leviticus 25:23-24

What!?D
Member
What!?
1 year ago
Reply to  SheHateMe

Then how would your friends at Exxon survive? Texas would be annexed by Mexico. And neither Trump nor Biden would ever get airtime again.

Wait, I think I’m starting to like that idea!

SheHateMe
Guest
SheHateMe
1 year ago

Correction to my earlier post… flower found in 1983, not 1863. 1863 is the year after the Athapaskan Lassik tribe was “forcibly removed from the region”.

🤔

Were the Athapaskan Lassik devoted to protecting this delicate flower throughout eons? Or at some time in the past were they forced to a harsh and barren locale by stronger tribes, thus scrambling around talus slopes on two mountains just like this flower and dwindled away due to their own dwindling habitat because they couldn’t fight back against stronger tribes?

Unanswered questions, but as a taxpayer, know that some “botanist or scientist” found a flower in 1983 and now it’s “endangered”and protected and some “scientists” will get hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars to further “protect” it.

I wonder if that poor flower understands the words, “we’re from the government and we’re here to help.”

c u 2morrowD
Member
1 year ago
Reply to  SheHateMe

resistance is futile

well . . .
Guest
well . . .
1 year ago

Clearly almost no one gives a shit. We couldn’t even get plastic bags and straws banned.

Alethia
Member
1 year ago
Reply to  well . . .

Ya could just stop using plastic bags and straws without the g’ment telling you what to do.

c u 2morrowD
Member
1 year ago
Reply to  well . . .

we went to plastic to save trees, now plastic is bad and we’re back to bags

Giant Squirrel
Guest
Giant Squirrel
1 year ago

So we’re going pay someone to Cage flowers on the mountainside?

Festus Haggins
Member
Festus Haggins
1 year ago
Reply to  Giant Squirrel

You’ve been paying someone for 20 years to study it so far!

Lone Ranger
Guest
Lone Ranger
1 year ago

Bye

grey fox
Member
1 year ago

Lots of purple Lupine around here. Beautiful plant when flowering..

images.jpeg
Angela Robinson
Member
Angela Robinson
1 year ago
Reply to  grey fox

I have a memory of going out wildcat road to the beach south of the Cape. It was one of my mother’s favorite places, we went there alot. Anyway, as I remember it, on one trip there was a vast amount of purple lupine going up the grassy hills, like a wave breaking against the hills.

Now, that’s nearing 60 years ago and perhaps I’ve remembered it through the lens of a 7 year old, but it has stuck with me all my life.

Steve Koch
Guest
Steve Koch
1 year ago

We have some purple lupine plants in our garden, very pretty.

Guess
Guest
Guess
1 year ago

The Fire burned that whole area I’m surprised it’s there at all

Jeffersonian
Guest
Jeffersonian
1 year ago

Absolute nonsense

Gary Whittaker
Guest
Gary Whittaker
1 year ago

It’s o.k. with me if a bunch of management BLM desk Jockey’s want to set up a wilderness camp 24/7 365 and watch over these plants on the side of the mountain for the rest of their careers . At least they’d be doing something .

Ernie Branscomb
Guest
1 year ago

Wait, wait…. I thought lupine was an invasive species? What are the chances that these plants came from some bird droppings that just happen to adapt to the talus/shale soil. Plants are very adaptive to new soils. Could these plants be a recent development?

Tim
Guest
Tim
1 year ago

There are about 200 species of lupines. One of them, the yellow-flowered bush lupine, is considered locally invasive on our beach dunes

Ernie Branscomb
Guest
1 year ago
Reply to  Kym Kemp

The worse and most invasive species is human. I don’t see many people trying to cut back on babies.
Mother nature will devise a way to get rid of us. We will eventually be wiped out from disease, or stupidity.
It would be interesting to see what the world becomes after we are all gone.

Jean Lopez
Guest
Jean Lopez
1 year ago

My guess? Once again the cockroach will prove to be the major star in a show in which humankind made only a brief guest appearance.

Last edited 1 year ago
c u 2morrowD
Member
1 year ago
Reply to  Jean Lopez

humankind may have been created on this planet but, they weren’t meant to stay here

The Real Brian
Member
1 year ago
Reply to  Jean Lopez

Wow.

That’s an incredibly accurate metaphor for Trump.

Lost Croat OutburstD
Member
Lost Croat Outburst
1 year ago

Right again, Ernie. Learn with Ern’ I always say. Even the NEC had a whole issue talking about how another several billion people could be easily supported with lifestyle changes. Yeah, with “lifestyle changes” we could close the mental hospitals, jails, and reduce chronic medical care. Yeah, sure. I could not believe it. I suspect religious fanatics have infiltrated the environmental movement but are hiding their true motivations while waiting for Jesus or aliens or something to save us. How else could people be so obtuse?

Farce
Guest
Farce
1 year ago

Yeah it sure will be interesting! Oh wait- I won’t be here to see it, will I? Gosh darn! 😁

Country Bumpkin
Guest
Country Bumpkin
1 year ago

There are lots of people into cutting out babies. Many of the articles and comments on this site are from pro- cutting out babies people versus anti- cutting out babies people.

What!?D
Member
What!?
1 year ago

Pro-war, pro-life (how’s that work?) vs. anti-fascist, pro-mandate (how’s that work?)

The Real Brian
Member
1 year ago

So much negativity, it’s horrible.

Ben Schill
Guest
Ben Schill
1 year ago

I have visited the Lassics every year for many years, it is a botanical preserve already and has been a great plant adventure.. Went up this year to find it literally cooked by the fire that went through there.. Nothing living at all.. The tempertures must have been extreme.. It will take years if not decades to recover.. I repeat.. Nothing living. Tragic.. No one has addressed this sad fact..

Weir screwed
Guest
Weir screwed
1 year ago
Reply to  Ben Schill

Many sad facts never discussed, for one being the Chem residue from Chem trails detected over fed levels.

Is it a fire retardant or not. Swiss Alps is believe same, in a report.

Can’t sight, thought common knowledge ,hush da word.

Bozo
Guest
Bozo
1 year ago
Reply to  Weir screwed

Oh-Boy.

2h2zc1ekk9x51.jpg
Ernie Branscomb
Guest
1 year ago
Reply to  Ben Schill

Ben,
Also, nobody seems to be concerned about the January 2020 undersea volcano that blew enormous amounts of salt water clear through the stratosphere and into the mesosphere. It was guaranteed to change the weather. Why are we surprised that we had terrible hot weather this summer?
Link: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/149474/tonga-volcano-plume-reached-the-mesosphere

Angela Robinson
Member
Angela Robinson
1 year ago

That’s interesting. But it doesn’t explain the massive heat dome over the Pacific Northwest (including a part of NorCal) that happened in 2021. That one killed upwards of a 1000 people (mostly in British Columbia). I was surprised to see it has it’s own Wikipedia page. 🙂

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_Western_North_America_heat_wave

As an aside, last Saturday (October 1st) we on the central Oregon coast had a freakish 95 degree day. Just the one day, then back to our dour cloudy coastal weather in the 50s and 60s. Though that isn’t that unusual. A couple of times a decade we get that one day super hot day, usually end of April/first part of May or end of Sept./early October.

Giant Squirrel
Guest
Giant Squirrel
1 year ago
Reply to  Ben Schill

No wonder lupine Shortage

Lawrence Jetboat
Guest
Lawrence Jetboat
1 year ago
Reply to  Ben Schill

The fire was about four or five years ago. I’ve been up every year since, and it’s amazing what’s growing back. It’s like a garden of gooseberries and elderberries. There are quite a few groves of big trees, some stand replacing runs, but overall a healthy mosaic. I read the general area was the site of the last intertribal warfare in the lower 48. I could understand why it might have been a coveted area. I wonder if, though the lassic lupine only grows there naturally, would it be cultivate-able elsewhere? Even if it ONLY grew above 5,000ft, there’s still plenty of that east of there on Forest Service property.

North westCertain license plate out of thousands c
Guest
North westCertain license plate out of thousands c
1 year ago

I am surprised at most peoples opinion on this flower.
But then I remembered that it’s the trumpeters that bitch the loudest.

Total extinction of anything should be alarming.
Fuck they won’t even kill the vary last of the smallpox virus because extinction is an unknown quantity.

Martin
Guest
1 year ago

The Lupin flower lives below 5,000 feet. You can find lots of the flowers on the road from Bridgeville to Blocksburg. They are pretty and brighten up the drive.

Lost Croat OutburstD
Member
Lost Croat Outburst
1 year ago
Reply to  Martin

There are many species of lupin(e). The one in question is as described. Observe the flowers a bit more. There are roadside lupins of other species than this endangered one. That’s what you’re seeing. Look at the pictures.

Martin
Guest
1 year ago

I realize there are many species of Lupin. I just said one species I know about lives below 5,000 feet. They make the Drive from Bridgeville to Blocksburg nice and are beautiful. I looked at the pictures.

Lawrence Jetboat
Guest
Lawrence Jetboat
1 year ago

Problem is: the Lassic’s terrain over 5,000 ft is pretty minimal. There’s only 900 feet vert of 35 degree cone where these lupines live. Don’t fuck it up is all. Try.
On the other hand, the redwoods are full of those white fluffy turd blossoms this time of year. There’s no better place to take a poop, or ditch a diaper than isolated patches of wilderness.

thetallone
Guest
thetallone
1 year ago

The same people who are butt-hurt that tax dollars are going to preserve a rare plant are perfectly fine with millions going to try to wipe out an incredibly common one.

SheHateMe
Guest
SheHateMe
1 year ago
Reply to  thetallone

The plant you are referring to isn’t the problem, it’s the crime associated with it. The government set you all up beautifully. Those that didn’t get permits are being raided same as the old days and those that got permits are merely paying the government for their right to exist. (Well, let’s be honest, here, we ALL pay the government for the right to exist) Then the government gives money to people that need the government merely TO exist.

It’s high time the government realizes that we are the only reason IT exists and it no longer gets to be this big, bloated leviathan.

thetallone
Guest
thetallone
1 year ago
Reply to  SheHateMe

The government is never going to realize that. We, the people need to embrace our power and realize we have more in common than what divides us. The corporate structure and ruling class want you to think the divide is left/right and to be in denial that it’s really up/down. They are doing a great job of convincing people of this.

SheHateMe
Guest
SheHateMe
1 year ago
Reply to  thetallone

You speak truth. Somehow, we the people, need to find a way for honest and open discourse, make a plan and execute it.