Reason #717 to elect a progressive President in 2008: Do it for the giant spitting worms of the Palouse.

It sounds like a joke, but it’s not. If a giant spitting white earthworm that smells like a flower that is near extinction does not merit endangered species protection, what does?

The Palouse is a unique area of high-altitude prairie atop rolling hills of ancient volcanic debris in northern Idaho and eastern Washington. The soils of the Palouse are rich, which makes for good agriculture, and also for big worms.

The Palouse has its own species of earthworm, the giant palouse earthworm, Driloleirus americanus. It’s colored creamy white, emits a sweet odor like a lily when it is handled, spits at people when they try to catch it, digs burrows fifteen feet under the ground, grows to at least three feet long and is believed to be extremely long-lived. Steve Paulson, one of the people working to protect the worm, describes the creature as “the stuff that legends and fairytales are made of.”

The trouble for giant palouse earthworm is that, because the soils of the Palouse are so good for agriculture, the original prairie ecosystem of the region has been reduced to less than one percent of its original size. The last time a giant palouse earthworm was seen was in 2005, when a juvenile of the species was found. Before that, it had been 17 years since a single one of these worms was seen. The worms are believed to be on the brink of extinction.

It isn’t just the worm that suffers from this reduction of habitat. Many other species native to the area have either been greatly reduced in number or eliminated completely. Protecting the giant palouse earthworm will serve these other species as well.

In spite of this clear need, the Republican-run U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has decided to deny protection to the giant spitting worm of the Palouse. It isn’t because of lack of documentation of the need, though that’s the excuse the USFWS has given for the denial. The USFWS told members of the Friends of the Clearwater, one of the organizations petitioning in favor of protecting the worm, that the petition “contained more data on this earthworm than any other source”.

The USFWS gave their decision nine months late, and only after being threatened with a lawsuit for failing to reply to the petition, as the law requires. The string of failures and violations of the law that has taken place throughout the petitioning for protection for the giant palouse earthworm is a striking example of the consequences of placing an anti-environmental politician in the White House.

(Sources: Environmental News Network, October 31, 2007; Palouse Prairie Foundation)