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CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL
DIVERSITY
<www.biologicaldiversity.org>
9-26-00
#253
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§
12,000 ACRES TO BE PROTECTED FOR RIVERSIDE FAIRY SHRIMP
§ B.B. KING & LOS
LOBOS TO PLAY BENEFIT FOR CENTER
§ CHILDREN'S MUSEUM DISPLAYS "WOLF PUP
CONTEST" ART
§ ANOTHER TERRIBLE UTAH TIMER SALE
§ BAN ON AZ PREDATOR HUNT
CONTESTS OVERTURNED AGAIN
§ ILLEGAL CATTLE TRASHING GRAND
STAIRCASE-ESCALANTE
NATIONAL MONUMENT
12,000 ACRES
TO BE PROTECTED FOR RIVERSIDE FAIRY SHRIMP
In response to a court order
obtained by the Center for Biological
Diversity, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife
Service published a proposal on 9-21-00
to designate 12,060 acres of critical
habitat for the endangered
Riverside fairy shrimp. The land includes vernal
pools in Orange,
Riverside, Los Angeles, Ventura, and San Diego counties.
Vernal pools
are seasonal wetlands that fill with water during fall and
winter rains.
They are home to many plants and animals that in turn form a
valuable
part of the food chain for a wide array of animals, including birds
of prey,
shorebirds, migratory waterfowl, frogs, toads, salamanders
and
pollinating insects. Vernal pools have been destroyed and degraded
by
urban sprawl, agribusiness, off-road vehicles, livestock grazing,
and
wetland draining.
A large portion of the remaining pools exist on
Marine Corps bases at
Miramar and Camp Pendleton. The marines are already
lobbying to be
exempt from critical habitat protections for the Arroyo
southwestern toad,
California gnatcatcher, San Diego fairy shrimp and the
Tidewater goby.
While this battle is raging, the Fish & Wildlife Service
plans to exempt
state and private lands which are already involved in so
called "habitat
conservation plans." The plans are actually permits allowing
developers
to kill endangered species and destroy their habitat in return
for
inadequate, often already committed, mitigation lands. The
Center
opposes the exemption of both the Marine bases and developer
parcels.
The Riverside fairy shrimp (Streptocephalus woottoni) was listed
as an
endangered species 8-3-93. It has been reduced to just 25 vernal
pool
complexes in coastal southern California
____________
B.B. KING & LOS LOBOS TO PLAY BENEFIT FOR CENTER
B.B.
King, Los Lobos, Merl Saunders and the Rainforest Band, and Walt
Richardson
will perform at the Sedona EcoFest 2000 in a benefit for the
Center for
Biological Diversity, Save Long Canyon, The Nature
Conservancy, The Resource
Center for Environmental Education, and
The Humane Society of
Sedona.
The EcoFest is on Saturday, October 21, 2000, in the Georgia
Frontiere
Performing Arts Pavilion at The Sedona Cultural Park, Sedona, AZ.
In
addition to music, it will have educational booths.
General
Admission Lawn tickets are $40.00. Children five and under
admitted free. To
order tickets call (520) 203- 4TIX (4849) or (800) 780-
ARTS (2787)
nationwide. For more information
<http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/events/ecofest.html>
____________
CHILDREN'S MUSEUM DISPLAYS "WOLF PUP CONTEST" ART
Last
spring, three children were chosen as winners of the Center's Name-
A-Wolf
Pup Contest. Over 900 students from schools throughout
the Southwest sent in
entries to help welcome the Southwest's newest
wild born wolf pups into the
world. Participants were asked draw a
Mexican gray wolf in its forest
habitat, submit a wolf pup name, and
explain why they thought it was
important to have wolves in the wild.
The winning entries can be seen
at
<http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/wolf/contestend.html>
Images
by the 12 finalists are now on display at the Tucson Children's
Museum. These
images remind us why wolves are an important part of a
healthy, natural
ecosystem. View the exhibit at the Tucson Children's
Museum, 200 S. 6th Ave.
Museum hours are Tuesday-Sunday from
10-5.
________________
ANOTHER
TERRIBLE UTAH TIMER SALE
Utah's Dixie National Forest is proposing to log
4,000 acres of Engelmann
spruce and subalpine fir, and clearcut 150 acres of
aspen on
the Aquarius Plateau, approximately 14 miles northwest of
Escalante,
Utah. The Griffin Springs timber sale, as all timber sales in
recent years,
is supposed to "improve forest health". Unlike lower elevation
ponderosa
pine forests, however, the Plateau's spruce and subalpine forests
have
not suffered from long-term fire suppression.
Rising 6,000 feet
above the canyon country of Capitol Reef National Park
and Grand
Staircase-Escalante National Monument, the Aquarius
Plateau is the headwaters
of the Escalante River and is covered with rich
forests of aspen and
spruce-fir, subalpine grasslands, meadows, and
lakes. At over 11,300 feet, it
is the highest timbered plateau in North
America. This sublime and unique
area should not be subject further
logging.
_______________
BAN ON AZ PREDATOR HUNT CONTESTS OVERTURNED AGAIN
For
the second time in a row, the Arizona Game & Fish Commission has
banned
organized predator hunting contests only to be overruled by the
Governor's
Regulatory Review Council because of its supposed
economic impact to the
local communities and concern that the decision
is based on "ethical"
principles. Ignoring 14,000 comment letters, 90% of
which opposed predator
hunting contests, the Council also ruled that the
Game and Fish Commission
has no authority to regulate hunting
contests.
In these contests,
hunters are awarded points for killing as many coyotes,
fox, bobcats, and
mountain lions as possible. Extra points are given for
killing females. The
person with the most points wins a cash prize.
______________________
ILLEGAL CATTLE TRASHING GRAND
STAIRCASE-ESCALANTE
NATIONAL MONUMENT
In June, the Bureau of Land
Management informed livestock operators
within the newly created Grand
Staircase-Escalante National Monument
that livestock and dry conditions had
reduced grass cover by 90%. The
BLM is authorized to remove cattle if more
than 60% is depleted. Loss of
grass cover removes habitat for deer, small
mammals, song birds, lizards
and invertebrates. As grass is a primary soil
stabilizer, its removal by
cattle can lead to irreparable erosion
damage.
Though livestock were ordered off the Monument by September
1st,
three livestock operators refused to comply. They were then given
an
extension to September 15, but still have not removed all livestock.
The
Escalante Wilderness Project is pushing the BLM to impound the
illegal
cattle before degraded deserts and grasslands are irreversibly
damaged
_____________________________________________________________
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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