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.
_____________________________________________________________________________
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