Subject: SW BIODIVERSITY ALERT #29
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Southwest Biodiversity Alert #29
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southwest center for biological
diversity
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ksuckling@sw-center.org
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http://www.envirolink.org/orgs/sw-center
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1.
SUIT FILED TO LIST FIVE RIPARIAN SPECIES AS
ENDANGERED
2. INTENT TO SUE OVER RIPARIAN PLANT
FILED
3. COAL MINE APPEALED
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SUIT FILED TO LIST FIVE RIPARIAN SPECIES AS
ENDANGERED
The
Southwest Center has filed suit against the Fish and Wildlife
Service for
failing to list the jaguar, cactus ferruginous pygmy owl,
Sonoran tiger
salamander, Canelo Hills ladies' tresses (an orchid)
and the Huachuca water
umbel as Endangered Species. All are
threatened by overgrazing,
development and dams.
Only two pygmy owl pairs remain in Arizona today
though it was
once common in desert riparian areas. The jaguar, the largest
cat in
the Americas, formerly ranged from southern California to
Louisiana
to Colorado. It is now seen only sporadically in southern
Arizona. The
salamander and both plants occur only in mid- elevation
wetlands in southeast
Arizona.
INTENT TO SUE OVER RIPARIAN PLANT FILED
The
Southwest Center has formally notified the Fish & Wildlife
Service that
it intends to sue the agency for its failure to list the
Huachuca dock as an
Endangered Species The imperiled plant lives
in high elevation wetlands
in Arizona and New Mexico. It is
threatened by overgrazing and recreational
development.
Although the plant is nearly extinct, the Fish &
Wildlife Service has
refused to process a petition to list it as endangered.
Shortly before
the Congressional moratorium on ESA listings expired, the
Clinton
Administration imposed its own regulatory moratorium.
The
politically dominated Fish & Wildlife Service has invoked the
illegal
Clinton moratorium as reason for not processing the Huachuca
dock
petition.
COAL MINE APPEALED
The Southwest Center and a
coalition of environmental groups has
appealed a proposal to permit a coal
mine between the Gila National
Forest and the El Malpais National Monument.
The Salt River Project's
Fence Lake mine would draw water from the aquifer
which feeds the
sacred Zuni Salt Lake. At least seven tribes, including
the Ramah
Navajo, Zuni, Hopi, and Mescalero Apache make religious
pilgrimages
to the Salt
Lake.