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CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL
DIVERSITY
<www.biologicaldiversity.org>
12-14-00
#261
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§
55,000 ACRES PROPOSED TO SAVE KANGAROO RAT
§ PETITION FILED TO LIST
PACIFIC FISHER AS ENDANGERED
§ SUIT FILED TO EXPAND RANGE OF ENDANGERED
STEELHEAD,
TAKE ON SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA DAMS
§ SUIT
FILED TO PROTECT TEXAS SPIDERS AND BEETLES
§ EMAILS NEEDED TODAY TO
ENSURE DESIGNATION OF
"SONORAN DESERT NATIONAL
MONUMENT"
55,000 ACRES PROPOSED TO SAVE KANGAROO RAT
In keeping with a
legal settlement negotiated with the Center for
Biological Diversity and
Christians Caring for Creation, the U.S. Fish &
Wildlife Service
published a proposal to designate 55,408 acres of
"critical habitat" for the
San Bernardino kangaroo rat on 12-8-00. The
proposal includes six areas in
Riverside and San Bernardino counties. It
will be finalized on 12-1-01
following a public comment period and
economic impact analysis.
The
kangaroo rat is beautiful, unique part of California's natural heritage.
In
addition to it's amazing jumping ability and desert survival skills, it
is
one of a number of species that lives in the sand and young
vegetation
left behind by seasonal flooding. Channelization, water
diversions,
floodplain mining, dams, sprawl, and flood control projects
have
eliminated natural flooding regimes throughout most of
southern
California. Without floods, the k-rat has nowhere to go when its
habitat
eventually becomes overgrown. It historic habitat has decline by
95%.
About 13,700 acres remain, with the kangaroo rat occupying only
3,250
acres in seven locations, isolated from each other by urban
development.
To find out more about the San Bernardino kangaroo rat and
see maps
of the proposed critical habitat areas
<http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/species/krat/index.html>
________________
PETITION FILED TO LIST PACIFIC FISHER AS AN
ENDANGERED
SPECIES IN CA, OR, AND WA
On 11-28-00, the Center for
Biological Diversity, the Sierra Nevada Forest
Protection Campaign,
NRDC and other groups filed a formal petition with
the U.S. Fish &
Wildlife Service to list the fisher as a federally endangered
species
in its West Coast range, including the Sierra Nevada, the Klamath-
Siskiyou,
and the westside forests of Oregon and Washington.
A relative of the mink
and otter, the fisher is absent or severely reduced in
most of the west
coast. Only three small, isolated populations of the fisher
remain, including
native populations in northern California and the southern
Sierra
Nevada and a reintroduced population in the southern
Oregon Cascades. The
fisher is closely associated with old-growth forests
and has become rarer as
old growth has declined by 60-85% across
California, Oregon and
Washington.
In a related development, the U.S. Forest Service has
temporarily halted
all logging in the Sierra Nevada in response to a lawsuit
by the John Muir
Project, Forest Conservation Council, and the Tule River
Conservancy.
The groups argued that continued logging under an expired
interim plan
would harm the fisher and the California spotted owl.
To
read the petition and find out more about the pacific fisher:
<http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/species/fisher/fisher.html>
The
Center has also petitioned to list the California spotted owl as
an
endangered species:
<http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/swcbd/species/cso/casowl.html>
_________________
SUIT FILED TO EXPAND RANGE OF ENDANGERED
STEELHEAD,
TAKE ON SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA DAMS
On 12-11-00, seven
conservation and fishing organizations filed suit
against the U.S. National
Marine Fisheries Services and U.S. Fish &
Wildlife Service over the
agencies' failure to fully protect endangered
steelhead trout in southern
California. Rather than giving Endangered
Species Act protection to all
Southern California steelhead habitat, the
agencies arbitrarily excluded
steelhead streams above dams and south of
Malibu Creek.
Steelhead are
a unique form of rainbow trout. Like salmon, they spent
most of their adult
life in the ocean, but spawn in freshwater streams and
rivers. Tens of
thousands of the prized sport fish used to return to
southern California
streams every year. Dams, urban development, and
livestock grazing have
decimated steelhead runs and today only a few
hundred fish make the yearly
pilgrimage.
Studies conducted by the Fisheries Service's own biologists
and
independent scientists demonstrate the importance of spawning
habitat
upstream of dams. They also found that the species used to
inhabit
streams as far south as northern Baja California, Mexico.
Indeed,
steelhead were recently discovered in San Mateo Creek in San
Diego
County. Without removal of unnecessary and antiquated dams,
steelhead
runs will never return to their full abundance. Without recovery
south of
Malibu Creek, they will remain forever absent from a large portion
of their
historic range.
Groups filing the lawsuit include the Center
for Biological Diversity,
California Trout, Environmental Defense Center,
Friends of the Santa
Clara River, Heal the Bay, Institute for Fisheries
Resources and the
Pacific Coast Federation of Fisherman's Associations. They
are
represented by Tanya Gulessarian of the Environmental Defense
Center
and Neil Levine of EarthJustice.
___________
SUIT FILED TO PROTECT TEXAS SPIDERS AND BEETLES
On 11-1-00,
the Center filed suit against the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to
list
nine Bexar County, Texas spiders and beetles as endangered
species:
Rhadine exilis (no common name)
Rhadine infernalis (no common name),
Batrisodes venyivi (Helotes
mold beetle),
Texella cokendolpheri (Robber Baron Cave
harvestman)
Cicurina baronia (Robber Baron cave
spider),
Cicurina madla (Madla's cave spider),
Cicurina venii (no common name),
Cicurina vespera (vesper cave
spider),
Neoleptoneta microps (Government Canyon cave
spider)
All nine inhabit karst features (limestone formations containing
caves,
sinks, and fissures) near San Antonio, Texas. Threats to the species
include
destruction and/or deterioration of habitat by construction, filling
of
caves, loss of permeable cover, and contamination from septic
effluent,
sewer leaks, runoff, and pesticides.
The species were the
subject of a formal listing petition in 1992, but the
U.S. Fish &
Wildlife Service has illegally delayed making a decision about
their fate.
The agency is now 6 years overdue in listing the species.
The Center is
represented by Geoff Hickcox of Kenna &
Hickcox.
_______________
EMAILS NEEDED
TODAY TO ENSURE DESIGNATION OF "SONORAN
DESERT NATIONAL MONUMENT"
The
Sonoran Desert is one of the largest and most pristine desert
ecosystems in
North America. Yet this biologically rich area is fragile, and
increasingly
under siege from a variety of threats, including development,
off-road
vehicles, and mining.
Responding to pleas from conservationists, Interior
Secretary Bruce
Babbitt is now considering recommending that the President
protect about
500,000 acres of public land as the Sonoran Desert National
Monument.
The area includes three designated wilderness areas -- the North
and
South Maricopas and Table Top Mountains -- and the biologically
rich
Vekol Valley.
This landscape also includes the Sand Tank
Mountains, which have not
suffered the incompatible land uses of mining,
livestock grazing, or cross-
country vehicle travel for more than 50 years
while under management of
the Department of Defense. As a result, the
wildlife habitat in the Sand
Tank Mountains is rare in its diversity and in
the health of the native plant
communities found there. The Pentagon will
give up management of the
Sand Tank Mountains and also of the Sentinel Plain
(which has also been
off-limits to mining, grazing, and ORV use for a
half-century) next
November at the latest. This management change will place
these sensitive
areas at risk to development and environmental
damage.
The best way to protect these fragile areas and the incredible
biological
diversity they contain is for the President to designate a Sonoran
Desert
National Monument.
With only seven weeks left in office,
President Bill Clinton needs to hear
from you NOW in order to make this
monument a reality.
To learn more about the monument proposal - and to
send an automatic,
personalize-able email to President Clinton and other
political leaders:
<http://www.wilderness.org/ccc/fourcorners/sonoran_monument.htm>
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