Camas, WA — Approximately two weeks ago, a small yellow-flowered plant was tilled into the soil at Camas Meadows Golf Course. This site contained around 90% of the world’s population of Bradshaw’s lomatium, a species listed under the federal Endangered Species Act from 1988 until 2021. It was removed from the list due to successful recovery efforts.
“It’s such a rare plant globally. Just a handful of populations exist. But here, at this one site, it’s incredibly abundant, covering the landscape as far as you can see,” said Jesse Miller, lead state botanist for the Washington Natural Heritage Program at the Department of Natural Resources.
Miller conducted a survey of Bradshaw’s lomatium at the golf course in April, estimating the population at over 3.7 million plants.
Bradshaw’s lomatium features small tufts of bright yellow flowers resembling Queen Anne’s lace, which attract various pollinators. As a member of the carrot family, it has a large taproot that historically served as food for Indigenous peoples and wildlife. Today, it is found in only a few locations in Oregon’s Willamette Valley and Southwest Washington, with Camas hosting a large field of these yellow flowers.
“From what I could see from the road, pretty much the entire population has been disced or tilled. This spring, it seemed to cover the whole area where the plant occurred,” Miller said, though he noted that some plants might resprout.
Andrew LaValle, a spokesperson for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), acknowledged awareness of the situation at Camas Meadows but declined an interview. He stated that the species has improved significantly since being protected and that populations remain robust elsewhere in its range. The Post-Delisting Monitoring Plan includes oversight at 18 priority sites, 17 in Oregon and one in Washington. Since delisting, four new protected sites have been established in Oregon.
Matti Olson, co-owner of the golf course, allowed researchers to collect Bradshaw’s lomatium seeds for nearly two decades. He believes not all the habitat was tilled and is hopeful the plant will return, although they are also planting clover in the area.
“If this is such a hot topic, they should invest time and effort to acquire it for permanent protection,” Olson said.
Walter Fertig, who served as Washington state botanist from 2017 to 2022, surveyed Bradshaw’s lomatium populations at the golf course. Now managing the Washington State University herbarium in Pullman, he expressed shock at the extent of the damage to the once-abundant meadow ecosystem.
“It’s pretty shocking to see. They plowed up the entire area,” Fertig said.
A Warning Sign for Other Species
The recent rototilling incident highlights concerns that vulnerable plant species are losing federal protections too soon, according to both Fertig and Peter Dunwiddie, a retired ecologist with The Nature Conservancy and the University of Washington.
While the USFWS acknowledged the need to protect habitats during the delisting decision, most of the documented Bradshaw’s lomatium population was destroyed in a single event. The species now requires human intervention, such as prescribed fire or mowing, to survive long-term, raising worries about the remaining populations.
Fertig noted that other species, including golden paintbrush and Ute ladies’-tresses orchid, may have also lost protections prematurely.
“There have been cases where species have been delisted, and the experts working closely with them, like myself, deemed the delisting ill-advised,” Dunwiddie said.
In August 2021, Tom Kaye, chief scientist at the Institute for Applied Ecology in Corvallis, along with Dunwiddie and Fertig, signed a letter opposing the delisting of golden paintbrush. They argued that the USFWS was relying on insufficient data and maintaining an “unrealistically optimistic view” of the species’ populations. The letter noted a decline in wild populations, aside from artificially reintroduced plants.
“We believe the species does not meet the criteria for delisting, and that doing so will jeopardize it,” the letter stated. Since the delisting, wild populations of golden paintbrush have continued to decline.
The loss of most of the Bradshaw’s lomatium population is viewed as another example of rare plants being delisted without adequate protections.
“It’s a warning sign of a larger problem,” Dunwiddie said.
Kaye, who has also worked closely with Bradshaw’s lomatium, emphasized the vulnerability of these species.
“What we’re learning from this event is that these species may still be at risk, and some of the threats we thought were mitigated are not,” Kaye said.
A Fragile Future
Fertig expressed concerns that the USFWS is under pressure to demonstrate the effectiveness of the Endangered Species Act to maintain funding. Meanwhile, land managers face a backlog of species needing attention.
“When they say a species is recovered and no longer listed, they have many other species to manage. Often, these plants fall through the cracks,” Fertig said. “I don’t doubt anyone’s sincerity, but if I don’t have to manage for this species, I’m not going to.”
The extensive rototilling of rare plants illustrates a significant disparity in how the federal Endangered Species Act protects plants versus animals. While animals are viewed as a public good, plants are treated more like property. Plants receive protection from harm on public land but not on private property.
“Private landowners can do whatever they want, including plowing under rare species,” Dunwiddie said.
Protections exist on private land if federal funds were used for conservation, a conservation easement is in place, or if the species is on land restricted by other federal laws, such as wetland protections.
When the USFWS delisted Bradshaw’s lomatium in 2021, it asserted that the species had recovered and expressed few concerns about future changes to the privately owned golf course habitat.
“Although no formal protections are in place to prevent future development, we have no information to suggest that the site is likely to be developed,” the delisting document stated.
With the recent damage, the future of Bradshaw’s lomatium is now more precarious than it was three years ago.
“So much of the population was concentrated in just a couple of sites,” Dunwiddie said. “And the largest one was not protected at all. That raises serious concerns.”
Fertig pointed out that the tilled site in Camas indicates that USFWS delisting decisions overly rely on population numbers without considering habitat protection.
“That habitat can be destroyed in an instant—whether by fire, flood, or plowing. Whether there were 50 plants or 20 million, it’s still a small, vulnerable habitat that can face major disturbances,” he said.
Related topics: