Subject: SW BIODIVERSITY ALERT
#53
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SOUTHWEST BIODIVERSITY ALERT
#53
3/3/97
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1.
ARIZONA DAILY STAR SUPPORTS LISTING JAGUAR AS ENDANGERED
Arizona
Daily Star, Editorial, March 3, 1997
Jaguar Sightings
Is the
elusive, spectacular jaguar coming back to seek, in Tucson
author Greg
McNamee's nice phrase, ``one last parley'' with the
region?
Two
confirmed sightings south of here, plus some astonishing recent
photographs,
say he is. And that makes it urgent state and federal
bureaucrats do more
than they are now planning to protect the huge
cats.
Both Arizona and
New Mexico have prepared a conservation agreement,
and they should complete
it. Maybe the plan will even help the
beautiful animals filter back again
into Arizona from Northern
Mexico, where they enjoy
protection.
However, the scheme is vague and weak. It must not take the
place of
a federal Endangered Species Act listing of North America's
largest
feline, as state and federal officials want. By contrast, listing
the
jaguar as an endangered species remains the
preferred,
legally-obligatory instrument for recovery. To avoid that
step
because the species law contains inconveniences in need of
adjustment
would let myopia dictate policy.
To start, the status of
the elusive spotted jaguar conforms to four
of the five legal criteria for a
species' listing.
The warm, wet riverine habitat to which the huge cats
gravitate is
threatened by development and grazing. Illegal hunting endangers
the
animals. Only inadequate existing regulations protect the
creatures.
By law, such conditions compel the jaguar's national
listing.
As to the state agreement, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
can
sign agreements to permit states or counties to take
responsibility
for local biodiversity. Theoretically, such pacts carry great
promise
for connecting stewardship to local responsibility.
However,
this deal in these circumstances does not make the grade.
First, its plans
for Arizona and New Mexico barely refer to federal
land strategies, and speak
not at all to jaguar endangerment in
California, Texas and Louisiana - the
rest of the animal's historic
range.
Moreover, the stopgap agreement
recommends almost no specific
actions to foster the big felines and remove
threats to them.
Instead, the agreement focuses almost entirely on
non-actions like
creating a ``Jaguar Conservation Team,''
information-gathering, and
``monitoring.'' Meanwhile, it provides only the
vaguest
recommendations and promises of actual on-the-ground action to
foster
the animals.
The document says only that ``perhaps'' state
civil and criminal
penalties for taking jaguar ``could'' be toughened. It
says only that
maybe land-management practices ``could be'' altered to
protect
jaguar habitat from fragmentation and degradation. And it
makes
everything contingent on the ``limits of available funding
and
personnel.'' In short, the state plan would base jaguar stewardship
on
the hope of future action rather than on the certainty of
real
intervention.
Meanwhile, a much better course exists: Both the
states and the
federal Fish and Wildlife Service should act to boost the
species.
Concerted action would display seriousness; also, it would
extend
stewardship to the most important habitat of all to the jaguar:
the
millions of acres of federal land in the region. That would
ensure
jaguar policy reached places like the Peloncillo Mountains and
the
Chiricahuas - areas ignored by the state plan.
And a final reason
remains for the Fish and Wildlife Service to list
the jaguar: Such action
conforms to the law. Sure, the ESA entails
awkwardness. And maybe the Forest
Service, for example, would rather
not have to ``consult'' to decide if it
should remove cattle from
certain riparian corridors critical to the cats.
But all the same,
the species law remains the nation's sound practice - the
presiding,
imperfect, instrument by which this nation fosters troubled
species.
Since the ghostly jaguar is most assuredly troubled, the way
forward
is clear: Reform the species act, but don't stop using it in
the
meantime because it falls short of perfection.
Tell the U.S. Fish
and Wildlife Service what you think on the jaguar
listing by writing
to:
Susan McMullen
Chief, Division of Endangered Species
P.O. Box
1306
Albuquerque, NM
87103
_______________________________________________________________________________
Kieran
Suckling
ksuckling@sw-center.org
Executive
Director
phone: 520-733-1391
Southwest Center for Biological
Diversity fax:
520-733-1404
POB 17839, Tucson, AZ
85731
www.envirolink.org/orgs/sw-center
_______________________________________________________________________________
Kieran
Suckling
ksuckling@sw-center.org
Executive
Director
phone: 520-733-1391
Southwest Center for Biological
Diversity fax:
520-733-1404
POB 17839, Tucson, AZ
85731
www.envirolink.org/orgs/sw-center