Subject: FW: SW BIODIVERSITY ALERT

Subject: SW BIODIVERSITY ALERT

**** ****  SOUTHWEST BIODIVERSITY ALERT  **** ****

**Southwest Center for Biological Diversity
**swcbd@igc.apc.org

MEXICAN GREY WOLF REINTRODUCTION HITS ROADBLOCK
After supporting and working with the Fish and Wildlife Service to
reintroduce wolves into the SW, both the New Mexico and
Arizona Game and Fish Commissions have come out against wolf
reintroduction.  Two sites were being considered.  The superior site
by far is the Blue Primitive Area on the NM/AZ border.  It would
allow wolves to disperse into the Gila and Aldo Leopold Wilderness.  The second
site is the DoD's White Sands Missile Range in southcentral New
Mexico.  Arizona opposed the Blue, but supported reintroduction in
NM's White Sands.  New Mexico opposed introduction altogether.  This is a
major setback to a program which had tremendous momentum- a direct
result of strongarming by Governors Johnson and Symington, both of
whom are businessmen with strong wise-use ties.

While opposing reintroduction in AZ, the game commission noted
that polls have established that Arizonans are overwhelmingly
in favor of wolf introduction.  The New Mexico game commission
canceled its public opinion poll when it voted against introduction. 
The game commissioner state that he knew what the poll would say:
that the majority of New Mexican's would support reintroduction while
rural folks would not.  The polling consultant, however, revealed
that had it been allowed to be completed, the poll would show strong
rural support for reintroduction.  The League of Women Voters has
lept into the fray, funding their own New Mexico wide poll.

R.E.I. meanwhile did its part for wolf extinction by cancelling a
talk by Bobbie Holiday, director of Preserve Arizona's Wolves, just before the Arizona Game and
Fish Commission's vote.  Though a tireless wolf advocate, Bobbie is
a friendly, mainstream, retiree.  Hardly a threat to R.E.I.'s rock
shredding custumers.  R.E.I. stated it's members were not
interested in wolf reintroduction and would henceforth not permit conservation
talks.  All you R.E.I. members know where to write to...and where to
shop at.

There are no Mexican grey wolves in the wild in the U.S. and very few
in Mexico.

SUIT FILED TO LIST QUEEN CHARLOTTE GOSHAWK AS ENDANGERED
On November 17th, a coalition filed suit against the Fish and
Wildlife Service for denying a petition to list the Queen Charlotte
goshawk as endangered.  The goshawk lives in coastal old growth
between the the Olympic Penninsula and Southeast Alaska.  It is
showing classic extinction dynamics: very high mortality rates
correlated with very large homeranges, correlated with heavily logged
forests.  Led by the Southwest Center for Biological
Diversity, the coalition included Northwest Ecosystem Alliance, Biodiversity Legal Foundation, Native
Forest Network, Native Forect Council, Save America's Forests, and
several Alaskans.

In an exact replay of its denial of the petition to list the
Alexander Archipelago wolf as endangered, the Fish and Wildlife
Service argued that while the species' viability is at grave risk,
promises by the Forest Service to develop an adequate conservation
plan are suffient preclude to listing.  This is completely illegal
since the ESA requires that only "existing" management plans be
considered.  It is sickening because Forest Service protection for
the goshawk actually decreased after the petition was filed.  By the
time the FWS denied the petition, there was no protection at all for
goshawks on the Tongass National Forest.

The Alaska delegation has been trying its best to kill the Queen
Charlotted goshawk and any other imperiled species on the Tongass. 
It managed to attach a rider to the Recissions bill outlawing all
conservation plans on the Tongass, with the exception that the
goshawk could be given 300 acres.  Not much help for species which is
known to use between 8,000 and 240,000 acres depending on degree to
which its homerange has been logged.  The delegation is now trying to
manadate that the Forest Service adopt the highest volume alternative
for its Forest Plan revision, making the Forest Service's pledge to
protect goshawks in the future completely impossible.

SUIT TO LIST NORTHERN GOSHAWK AS ENDANGERED IN WEST PROGRESSES
The Southwest Center is leading a coalition suing the Fish and
Wildlife Service for denying its petition to list the Northern
goshawk as an endangered species in the western united states.  The
northern goshawk is closely associated with mature ponderosa pine and
aspen throughout the West.  The Fish and Wildlife Service admitted that the Northern
goshawk is imperiled, but argued that the western population is not
"distinct" and therefore is not listable.  At oral hearings, the
judge stated that the FWS had acted with obvious political
motivations, and had separate criteria for listing species which live
in trees.  He gave the Service 30 days to come up with a new national
population policy, before making his final ruling.

SUIT FILED TO LIST COASTAL CACTUS WREN AS ENDANGERED
The Southwest Center has filed suit against the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service for denying its petition to list the Californian
coastal cactus wren as endangered.  The wren lives along a thin strip
of coastal sage scrub in southern California and northern Baja.  Once
again, the Fish and Wildlife admitted the bird is imperiled.  This
time, it got real creative, misinterpreting, twisting, obscuring and
gerrymandering a mountain of evidence indicating the cactus wren of
coastal california are isolated by habitat loss, in order to conclude
that the population is not distinct and therefore not listable.

That fact that the wren's habitat is some of the most expensive real
estate in North America of course had nothing to do with their
decision.