From: Kieran Suckling [ksuckling@sw-center.org]
Sent:
Monday, October 25, 1999 6:19 PM
To: Recipient list
suppressed
Subject: BIODIVERSITY ALERT
#208
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CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY
www.sw-center.org
10-25-99
#208
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§
LAWSUIT PUTS THREE SOUTHWESTERN SPECIES ON
ENDANGERED SPECIES
LIST
§ SUIT CHALLENGES DEVELOPMENT ON SAN BRUNO MOUNTAIN
§ 1999
NEW MEXICO CONFERENCE FOR ANIMALS
§ MEXICAN WOLF RECOVERY TEAM LEADER
OUSTED-
WOLF'S RETURN TO NEW MEXICO ENDANGERED
===> EMAILS NEEDED TODAY
LAWSUIT PUTS THREE
SOUTHWESTERN SPECIES ON
ENDANGERED SPECIES LIST
In response to a lawsuit
filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, the
U.S. Fish & Wildlife
Service has listed three southwestern species under
the Endangered Species
Act. On 10-20-99, the agency listed the
Devil's River minnow as threatened in
Texas and Mexico, the Pecos
Sunflower as threatened in Texas and New Mexico,
and the Deseret
milkvetch as threatened in Utah.
The Pecos
sunflower is dependent on desert wetlands. It is known from
22 sites in
Cibola, Valencia, Guadalupe, and Chaves counties, New
Mexico, and from 3
sites in Pecos and Reeves counties, Texas. It is
threatened by wetland
filling and draining, overgrazing, and exotic
species. The Deseret milkvetch
(Astragalus desereticus) was considered
extinct until its rediscovery in
1981. It exists in one small population in
Utah County, Utah. It is
threatened by urban sprawl, overgrazing, and
highway
construction.
The Devils River minnow is a small fish known from only
three locations
in Val Verde and Kinney counties, Texas, and one drainage in
Coahuila,
Mexico. It's range has been significantly reduced and fragmented
due to
dam construction and spring dewatering. Once one of the most
abundant fish in the Devils River, the minnow is now of the rarest.
The Center was represented by Geoff Hickcox of Kenna &
Hickcox.
_______________________
SUIT
CHALLENGES DEVELOPMENT ON SAN BRUNO MOUNTAIN
On 10-18-99, San Bruno Mt. Watch
and the Center for Biological Diversity
filed suit in a San Francisco Federal
Court to stop construction of the
Terra Bay development on south San
Francisco's San Bruno Mountain.
The Army Corps of Engineers issued permits
approving the 300 acre
development without conducting an Environmental
Impact Statement or
consulting with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
over the impacts to the
endangered Mission blue and Callipe silverspot
butterflies. They also
failed to consider the impacts to water
quality.
San Bruno Mountain was the nation's first "habitat conservation
plan"
or permit allowing developers to kill or harm endangered species
on
private lands. Despite promises of mitigation, the plan has failed
to
recover the Callipe silverspot or the Mission Blue. The Army
Corps of
Engineers, however, continues to authorize additional
developments and
habitat loss.
The case is being argued by Deborah Sivas (Earthlaw, Palo
Alto),
Brian Gaffney (Oakland) and Celeste Langille (Oakland).
____________________
1999 NEW MEXICO
CONFERENCE FOR ANIMALS
Animal Protection of New Mexico will hold a conference
between
November 5- 7 at the Radisson Hotel on Carlisle Blvd in Albuquerque.
The conference aims to strengthen effective activism for animals.
Speakers and panelists include Roger Fouts, noted for breakthroughs
in
communicating with chimpanzees through sign-language, Steven
Wise who
teaches a controversial course on animal rights law at
Harvard University
Law School, Alan Green, investigative journalist
and author of Animal
Underworld: Inside America's Black Market for
Rare and Exotic Species, and
Michael Robinson of the Center for
Biological Diversity, speaking about the
history of the federal wolf
extermination campaign and the current influence
of the ranching
industry in subverting wolf recovery programs.
Contact APNM at 505-265-2322 for a complete agenda and
registration
form or visit www.apnm.org.
____________________
MEXICAN WOLF RECOVERY
TEAM LEADER OUSTED-
WOLF'S RETURN TO NEW MEXICO ENDANGERED
In a move
that bodes ominous for the Mexican wolf recovery program,
the U.S. Fish
& Wildlife Service has maneuvered the head of the
recovery team out of
his job. Following standard agency cost cutting
procedures, Dave Parsons
joined the federal early retirement program,
then re-applied for a
short-term position continuing to direct the
recovery program with the
understanding that he would be hired back
immediately. Though he was the
only person to apply for the job,
however, the Fish & Wildlife Service
refused to re-hire him.
In a Fish and Wildlife Service region notorious
for allowing the cattle,
logging, real estate and power industries to run
rampant over
endangered species, Parsons consistently sought to insulate the
wolf
recovery program from political pressures. It may have cost him his
job. The timing was particularly poor for this coup: USFWS officials
are
in the process of deciding whether to put wolves directly into the
Gila
Wilderness, where they will be better protected from poachers
and the
livestock industry. The Center has developed a "Wolf Safe
Haven Plan" which
calls for the reintroduction of wolves directly into
the Gila/Aldo Leopold
wilderness complex:
http://www.sw-center.org/swcbd/activist/wolfhaven.html
Please
email the director of the Fish & Wildlife Service. Tell her to
rehire
Dave Parsons and reintroduce wolves to the Gila Wilderness:
jamie_clark@fws.gov
_____________________________________________________________
Kierán
Suckling
ksuckling@sw-center.org
Executive
Director
520.623.5252 phone
Center for Biological
Diversity 520.623.9797 fax
http://www.sw-center.org
pob 710, tucson, az 85702-0710