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CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL
DIVERSITY
<www.biologicaldiversity.org>
9-9-00
#250
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§
5.4 MILLION ACRES TO BE PROTECTED FOR RED-LEGGED FROG
§ ENVIROS CALL FOR MORE
WOLVES IN NEW MEXICO
§ WATER-POWER HOGS TRY TO DERAIL COLORADO
RIVER
PROTECTION
§ CENTER OPPOSES PERMIT TO KILL
ENDANGERED SPECIES IN
SAN DIEGO AREA
5.4
MILLION ACRES TO BE PROTECTED FOR RED-LEGGED FROG
Obeying a federal court
order, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service issued a
proposed rule to
designate 5.4 million acres of "critical habitat" for the
federally
threatened California red-legged frog on 9-8-00. The Jumping
Frog Research
Institute, Center for Biological, Pacific Rivers Council, the
Center for
Sierra Nevada Conservation, and Responsible Consumers of
the Monterey
Peninsula filed suit to obtain the designation on 3-24-99,
winning a court
order on 12-20-99. The suit was argued by Kristen Boyles
and Jan Hasselman of
Earth Justice.
The proposal includes portions of 31 counties stretching
from the
Mexican border into northern California. About 2.2. million acres
are on
public lands including 1.2 million acres of National Forest (Cleveland
NF
40,768 acres, Los Padres NF 524,388, Los Angeles NF 93,132, El
Dorado
NF 36,786, Plumas NF 115,474, Lassen NF 87,054, Stanislaus
214,792, and
Mendocino NF 60,996) and several hundred thousand
acres of Yosemite and
other National Parks. In accordance with the court
order, the final
designation must be completed by 12-29-00.
The California red-legged frog
was listed under the Endangered Species
Act in 1996. Historically common from
Point Reyes National Seashore,
inland to Redding and southward to
northwestern Baja California,
Mexico, it has been extirpated from 70% of its
range. Its population has
declined by at least 90%. It currently occupies
coastal drainages in
central California and scattered streams in the Sierra
Nevada. A single
population remains in Southern California. Range-wide, only
four
populations contain more than 350 adults.
The California
red-legged frog was once major food source in the San
Francisco Bay area and
the Central Valley. About 80,000 frogs were
consumed annually in the late
1800s and early 1900s.
As the population declined, bull frogs were exported
from the East Coast
to keep the "froggery" going. Bull frogs, however, are
voracious
predators. They helped drive the red-legged frog (and many
other
species) lower yet. Habitat loss to logging, wetland draining,
water
diversions, dams, cattle grazing, pesticides, urban sprawl,
and
agricultural expansion also decimated the species. California has
lost
90% of it historic riparian areas and wetlands.
The largest
native frog in the western United States, the California
red-legged frog
ranges from 1.5 to 5 inches in length. Mark Twain knew
the species well,
securing his literary reputation with a short story
entitled "The Celebrated
Jumping Frogs of Calaveras County".
To read Twain's story, see maps of
the proposed critical habitat areas
and lawsuit documents, and to learn more
about the California red-legged
frog, check out the Center's red-legged frog
page
<http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/species/rlfrog/rlfrog.html>
_________________
ENVIROS CALL FOR MORE WOLVES IN NEW
MEXICO
Environmental groups have asked the Secretary of Interior to
develop
plans to introduce wolves directly into New Mexico's Gila National
Forest.
Under current policy, wolves can only be placed in New Mexico if
they
are first introduced to Arizona, then re-captured, then moved to
New
Mexico. This relocation process is difficult, slow, expensive, and
causes
tremendous stress to the wolves. It has contributed to the dissolution
of
two packs, the death of several pups, and a terrible re-capture
accident
in which an alpha female lost her foot. Re-locating wolves directly
to the
Gila Wilderness make more sense for everybody.
The request was
sent to Secretary Babbitt on 9-6-00 by the Center for
Biological Diversity,
former director of the wolf recovery program David
Parsons, Animal Protection
of New Mexico, National Audubon Society,
National Parks Conservation
Association, New Mexico Wilderness
Alliance, Sierra Club, Sinapu, Southwest
Environmental Center,
Southwest Forest Alliance, Turner Endangered Species
Fund, The
Wildlands Project, and Wildlife Damage Review.
The letter
also requested that the Department of Interior rescind a policy
requiring
that wolves which leave the designated "recovery area" be re-
captured. No
other wolf recover program in North America contains such
provisions limiting
the travel pattern and territory establishment of wolves.
The recovery of the
Mexican gray wolf will only succeed if they are
allowed to naturally
establish territories and packs. It is biologically and
politically
disastrous to demand that wolves stay within arbitrary
human
boundaries.
_________________
WATER-POWER HOGS TRY TO DERAIL COLORADO
RIVER
PROTECTION
Sunbelt water and power agencies have filed a motion to
intervene in a
lawsuit brought by Defenders of Wildlife and the Center for
Biological
Diversity to protect endangered species and reform water policy on
the
Colorado River and its delta on the Gulf of California. The suit is
intended
to secure guaranteed water flows to restore the dwindling Colorado
River
Delta and the wildlife-rich Cienega de Santa Clara.
The
California-based Metropolitan Water District, Imperial
Irrigation
District, Coachella Valley Water District, and San Diego County
Water
Authority, the Arizona-based Central Arizona Water Conservancy
District
and Salt River Project, and Nevada-based Colorado River Board
and
Southern Nevada Water Authority have previously rejected
all
conservation compromise proposals. They are now attempting once
and
for all to crush any possible delta conservation.
The suit to
protect the delta was filed in June 2000 by a binational
coalition of eight
environmental groups led by the Center and Defenders.
So much water is dammed
and diverted from the Colorado River for
urban and agricultural use in the
U.S., that it often runs dry before
reaching the Delta and Gulf of California
in Mexico. Lack of fresh water
inflow has severely degraded what used to be
one the world's great
estuaries. Its wetlands have decline from some 1.9
million acres to just
150,000. Native peoples as well as fish, birds, mammals
and mollusks
have all been impacted, as have fisheries in the northern gulf.
The
Cienega de Santa Clara is also threatened by government plans
to
divert its water source for use in the U.S.
The suit is being
argued by Katherine Meyer of Meyer & Glitzenstein
(Washington, D.C.) and
Bill Snape of Defenders of Wildlife.
_____________________
CENTER OPPOSES PERMIT TO KILL ENDANGERED SPECIES
IN
SAN DIEGO AREA
The Center is opposing a potential city-wide permit to
kill federally listed
endangered species and destroy habitat in the northern
San Diego
County City of Carlsbad. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service,
which has
jurisdiction over threatened and endangered species, is
currently
deciding on whether to grant the permit.
The Carlsbad
permit, otherwise known as the "Carlsbad Habitat
Management Plan," would
authorize significant additional losses
of California gnatcatcher coastal
sage scrub habitat, southern maritime
chaparral and critically endangered
vernal pools, 97% of which have
already been destroyed by southern California
development. Some
important vernal pool habitat documented in past resource
surveys is
not even mentioned in the plan, thereby ensuring its future
destruction.
The plan also capitulates to developers by giving take permits
up front
while merely promising to prepare a management plan for
set-aside
habitat fragments at some later
date.
_____________________________________________________________
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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