Subject: SW BIODIVERSITY ALERT
#58
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SOUTHWEST BIODIVERSITY ALERT
#58
3/23/97
SOUTHWEST CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL
DIVERSITY
silver city, tucson, phoenix, san
diego
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1.
BLM GRAZING ALLOTMENT APPEALED
2. OPED FAVORS LISTING JAGUAR AS
ENDANGERED
*** *** *** ***
BLM
GRAZING ALLOTMENT APPEALED
Defenders of Wildlife, the Southwest Center
for Biological
Diversity, the Grand Canyon Chapter of the Sierra Club, and
Steve
Johnson have appealed a BLM decision to issue a grazing permit
for
the South Vekol Grazing Allotment.
The heavily overgrazed allotment
contains a large portion of the
Table Top Mountain Wilderness Study Area, the
Vekol Valley Grassland
Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC), and
habitat for big
horn sheep and desert tortoise. Despite being established to
protect
a 300 acre remnant of tobosa grassland and a unique
amphibian
community, the ACEC is visibly overgrazed. The grazing
permit,
however, was issued without an EA or EIS. It also violates the
Lower
Gila South Resource Management Plan monitoring
requirements.
OPED FAVORS LISTING JAGUAR AS ENDANGERED
The
following OpEd by Kieran Suckling appeared in the Arizona
Republic,
3/17/97:
"Jaguar-Conservation Plan Lacks Teeth to Save Vital
Habitat
Full of power and grace, the jaguar is a symbol of mystery
and
wilderness throughout the Americas. The largest cat in the
Western
Hemisphere also on the brink of extinction. But the
Arizona
Department of Game and Fish, New Mexico Game and Fish
Department
and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service don't want to list
it as an endangered
species in the United States. Neither do cattle
ranchers, developers, or
federal predator hunters.
They are afraid protection under the Endangered
Species Act would
require restoration of streamside forests, or the slowing
of
development along the San Pedro River before it becomes as barren
as
the Salt River in Phoenix.
Ironically, while the jaguar is listed as
endangered in Mexico where
populations still roam remote mountains and
rivers, it is not listed
in the U.S., where hunting and habitat destruction
have wiped out
every viable jaguar population and most of its streamside
habitat.
Game and Fish wants us to believe that its recently created
Jaguar
Conservation Plan is so strong that federal protection not
needed.
Unfortunately, the plan is no more than a wish list of promises
and
possibilities. It doesn't protect a single acre of land or a
single
drop of water. It doesn't even increase the fine for
poaching
jaguars as high as the price of jaguar pelt on the black market.
The
plan is a weak, last ditch effort to avoid real habitat
protection.
The jaguar was first listed as endangered in 1972 under
the
Endangered Species Conservation Act, the precursor to
today's
Endangered Species Act. Because of this glitch in paperwork
in
1979, the jaguar was "inadvertently" not listed as endangered in
the
U.S. Three other Arizona species suffered from the same mistake:
the
ocelot, the margay, and the thick-billed parrot. The Fish and
Wildlife
Service promised to list them all as endangered as soon as
possible, in the
mean time requesting that "all Federal and State
agencies...provide them with
the same considerations, wherever
possible, that they would receive as
endangered species until such
time as they can be listed."
A year
later the jaguar was proposed for listing as endangered with
a warning that
the U.S. Army's Fort Huachuca on the San Pedro River
would be required to
help conserve the imperiled cat. The promised
listing never happened. In 1982
the proposal was quietly withdrawn
and hope for the jaguar faded away- until
1994, when the Southwest
Center for Biological Diversity filed suit. The Fish
and Wildlife
Service eventually reproposed to list the jaguar as
endangered,
citing "drastic distributional decline of the species and
the
continued jeopardy of any individuals in the U.S." With
remarkable
cynicism (and disregard for the law), however, the agency
announced
it would not develop a recovery plan, designate critical habitat,
or
even reintroduce jaguars to Arizona. Not surprisingly, the
agency
failed to finalize the listing, prompting another Southwest
Center
lawsuit in 1996.
Make no mistake. State conservation plans and
cooperative agreements
can protect imperiled species. State agencies can show
the feds how
to conserve wildlife. But to do so, the states must ensure
concrete
habitat protection and strong anti-poaching laws. That's where
the
Jaguar Conservation Plan falls short. It's most concrete provision
is
a plan for a slideshow and an educational brochure.
And then there
is the clause permitting the Governor of Arizona to
cancel the plan at any
time...imagine what Fife Symington, the man
who recently offered to shoot a
spotted owl and bulldoze the Gila
River, would do with that
option.
The jaguar has been betrayed by 30 years of false promises. Like
the
Mexican gray wolf and the Apache trout, it deserves the
full
protection of the Endangered Species
Act."
_______________________________________________________________________________
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