Subject: FW: SW BIODIVERSITY ALERT #84

Subject: SW BIODIVERSITY ALERT #84

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              SOUTHWEST BIODIVERSITY ALERT #84
                           7/18/97          

          SOUTHWEST CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY
           silver city, tucson, phoenix, san diego
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599 RIVER MILES OF CRITICAL HABITAT DESIGNATED IN CA, AZ, AND NM
FOR SOUTHWEST WILLOW FLYCATCHER

In response to a court order, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
designated 599 miles of critical habitat for the Southwest willow
flycatcher in CA, AZ, and NM on July 17, 1997. The designation
includes portions of the Santa Margarita, San Louis Rey, San Diego,
San Diegito, Tijuana, Kern, Colorado, Little Colorado, Verde, Gila,
San Pedro, Tularosa, and San Francisco Rivers. Under the ESA, "adverse
modification" of critical habitat is illegal since it is, by definition,
considered to jeopardize the flycatcher. The ruling should dramatically
reduce overgrazing of riparian areas, especially in the Gila-Sky Island
Ecosystem of southern AZ and NM, limit mine-related water pumping,
check uncontrolled growth on the San Pedro River, and (hopefully)
spur dam operation reform throughout the Southwest.

The Southwest willow flycatcher depends on healthy riparian habitat
along southwestern rivers. Once common, it has been reduced to 300-500
pairs. Overgrazing, dam building, water pumping, and cowbird predation
are responsible for its decline. Despite the precarious state of the
flycatcher, bureaucrats at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife have resisted
every step towards its protection. The species languished on the candidate
list for many years before the Southwest Center petitioned to list it as
endangered in 1991. The Center was forced to sue the Fish and Wildlife
Service to obtain an endangered listing  in 1995, and sued again in 1996
to obtain the critical habitat designation.

Since being listed as endangered, the flycatcher has declined even
farther because the Fish and Wildlife Service consistently puts
politics over preservation. Though it routinely states that the
flycatcher is going extinct, the Service has authorized the take
of 25% of the entire species in the last two years, including the
complete destruction of two of five remaining "large" populations.
Two of the agency's flycatcher biologists have quit in disgust. In
an internal memo, one agency biologist compared the agency's abuse of
the flycatcher to cowbird paratisism.


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Kieran Suckling                               ksuckling@sw-center.org
Executive Director                            520.623.5252 phone
Southwest Center for Biological Diversity     520.623.9797 fax
http://www.envirolink.org/orgs/sw-center      pob 710, tucson, az 85702-710