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CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL
DIVERSITY
<www.biologicaldiversity.org>
9-1-00
#248
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§
ENVIROS DEFEND OWL PROTECTIONS AGAINST DEVELOPERS
§ SUIT TO CHALLENGE GRAZING
IN SOUTHWEST FISH HABITAT
§ MASSIVE DEVELOPMENT SHUT DOWN TO SAVE
BIGHORN
§ LIVESTOCK GRAZING IMPLICATED IN FOREST FIRES
§ FEDS: LACK OF
LOGGING DID NOT CAUSE FOREST FIRES
§ PROTECTED SAGUAROS RECOVERING FROM
OVERGRAZING,
WOODCUTTING
ENVIROS DEFEND OWL
PROTECTIONS AGAINST DEVELOPERS
A federal judge has allowed Defenders of
Wildlife, the Center for
Biological Diversity and Friends of the Owls to
intervene on behalf of the
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service in a lawsuit
brought by developers to delist
the Cactus ferruginous pygmy owl as an
endangered species. The suit
also seeks to strike down the protection of
731,000 acres for its official
"critical habitat." Despite a record housing
boom in Tucson, developers
claim habitat protections for the endangered owl
are putting them out of
business. They argue that if the pygmy owl were to go
extinct in the state
it would not matter.
Environmentalists and the
Fish & Wildlife Service filed simultaneous
motions to transfer the case
from a Phoenix judge to a Tucson judge who
has previously heard many pygmy
owl cases. The case is being argued
by Mike Senator (Defenders of Wildlife)
and Matt Kenna (Kenna &
Hickcox).
___________________
SUIT TO CHALLENGE GRAZING IN SOUTHWESTERN FISH
HABITAT
The Center for Biological Diversity has filed a formal of notice of
intent to
sue the U.S. Forest Service for allowing livestock grazing
within
designated "critical habitat" for two southwestern fish: loach minnow
and
spikedace. In response to an Endangered Species Act petition and
four
lawsuits by the Center, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
has
acknowledged that both fish quality for listing as endangered species
and
in April designated 898 miles of streams and rivers in the
southern
Arizona and New Mexico as "critical habitat".
Due to a series
of lawsuits by the Center and Forest Guardians, the
Forest Service and Bureau
of Land Management agreed to remove
livestock from over 300 miles of rivers
within critical habitat for the
Southwestern willow flycatcher, and occupied
habitat for the loach
minnow and spikedace. Though the U.S. Fish &
Wildlife Service has
since identified 898 miles of streams as being
"essential to the
conservation" of both fish, the Forest Service has refused
to remove
cattle or even consult with the wildlife agency overt their
impact.
_____________
MASSIVE
DEVELOPMENT SHUT DOWN TO SAVE BIGHORN
The city of Rancho Mirage has refused
to approve a huge development
in Peninsular bighorn sheep habitat. The Mirada
residential and golf
course development would have destroyed 226 acres of
sheep habitat
and resulted in the death of at least one bighorn. A total of
406 acres
would have been lost with development of both Mirada and the
adjacent
Ritz Carlton resort (owned by a subsidiary of Maxxam).
The
city first attempted to approve the development with little
environmental
analysis. The Center forced the city to complete a full
Environmental Impact
Report, but the planning commission still tried to
push the project through.
Following the Center's appeal of the decision
and comments to the city
council, the council voted to prohibit the
development permits.
Both
the Mirada and Ritz Carlton projects are located in prime sheep
habitat in
the foothills of the Santa Rosa Mountains. Bighorn populations
in this range
have plummeted by 60% since the early eighties as
exclusive gated community
developments have chewed up important
habitat. In an effort to counter these
losses, the Center has also sued the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, seeking
designation of critical habitat. In
June, the agency proposed the designation
of 875,615 acres.
The Center was represented by attorney Wayne Brechtel
of Worden,
Williams, Richmond, Brechtel and
Gibbs.
_______________
LIVESTOCK
GRAZING IMPLICATED IN FOREST FIRES
In an 8/25/00 editorial in the Tucson
Citizen, the Center's grazing reform
coordinator Martin Taylor, calls for
grazing cut reductions in western
national forests to improved forest health
and reduce the risk of high
intensity forest fire. The editorial explains
that native grasses are
ecologically critical to ponderosa pine and open
Douglas-fir forests. The
grasses are the primary carriers of cool-burning
ground fires that thin out
small trees before they develop into thickets.
Native grasses also
compete vigorously with trees, often preventing them
establishing,
thereby keeping forests relatively open. When cattle strip off
the grass,
they prevent ground fires from thinning forests and they remove
the main
competition limiting tree regeneration. The result is millions of
acres of
western forests becoming overly dense with small trees and
susceptible
to very intense stand replacing
fires.
__________
FEDS: LACK OF LOGGING
DID NOT CAUSE FOREST FIRES
Undercutting rhetoric by the timber industry and
its political allies, the
Congressional Research Service (CRS) released a
report on 9-1-00
concluding that lower logging levels on National Forests
over the last
decade did not contribute to intense forest fires this summer.
While the
timber industry has blamed lack of logging for the fires, the
CRS,
Congress's research arm, found that there was no correlation
between
declines in logging and fire intensity or
extent.
___________
PROTECTED SAGUAROS
RECOVERING FROM OVERGRAZING,
WOODCUTTING
A U.S. National Park study
released 8/30/00 shows the recovery of
saguaro populations following
prohibition of livestock grazing and
woodcutting. For nearly a hundred years
saguaros have been dying
faster than they are being replaced, creating
widespread fear that they
would eventually disappear from areas such as the
eastern portion of
Saguaro National Park. With the prohibition of cattle
which trample cacti
seedlings, and woodcutters who remove the shade producing
palo verde
and mesquite nurse trees, the number of plants has increased by
125%
in the last decade. If park protections continue for another century,
dense
stands of giant cacti should once again people the foothills of the
Rincon
Mountains.
Overgrazing on vast swaths of the Sonoran Desert
outside the park,
however, continue to suppress saguaro reproduction on
state, private
and federal
lands.
_____________________________________________________________
ENDANGERED
TOTEMS. Eleven of the twelve western states have adopted
imperiled species as
their state fish: New Mexico (Rio Grande cutthroat
trout), Arizona (Apache
trout), Colorado (Greenback cutthroat trout), Utah
(Bonneville cutthroat
trout), Nevada (Lahontan cutthroat trout), California
(Golden trout), Oregon
(Chinook salmon), Washington (Steelhead trout),
Idaho, Montana and Wyoming
(Cutthroat trout).
Kierán
Suckling
ksuckling@biologicaldiversity.org
Science and Policy
Director 520.623.5252
phone
Center for Biological
Diversity 520.623.9797
fax
<www.biologicaldiversity.org>
POB 710, Tucson, AZ
85702-0710
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