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The tiny, fierce pygmy owl has become synonymous with wild Sonoran Desert — a desert people can’t seem to leave alone. When urban sprawl scrapes away desert vegetation, the cactus ferruginous pygmy owl is erased too. Its numbers have sharply declined in Sonora, and in Arizona they’re perilously low. Until recently, the owl’s protection as an endangered species was the primary impetus for conservation of Sonoran Desert habitat around Tucson.
ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT PROFILE
PROTECTION STATUS: Delisted
PETITIONED: 1992; re-petitioned 2007
YEAR PLACED ON LIST: Endangered 1997; delisted 2006
CRITICAL HABITAT: None (732,000 acres designated 1999, removed 2001)
RECOVERY PLAN: Draft 2002; withdrawn
RANGE: The desert habitat of southern Arizona and in northwestern Mexico, mostly in the ironwood forests northwest of Tucson and Marana
THREATS: Habitat destruction from urban sprawl and agriculture, logging, woodcutting, and livestock grazing
POPULATION TREND: Once very common, the pygmy owl could be found in Arizona from the New River north of Phoenix to the Mexican border. Now it can only be found between Tucson and points south. Since 1993, no more than 41 pygmy owls have been found in Arizona in any year, and in recent years fewer than 30 have been documented. In northwest Tucson, only one owl was found in 2006. Although there are more birds in Sonora, pygmy owls in northern Sonora have declined by 26 percent since 2000. Mexico has few habitat protections, and hundreds of thousands of acres of pygmy owl habitat have been, and are being, converted to monocultures of African buffelgrass to support livestock grazing. The pygmy owl risks extinction in Sonora as well as Arizona.
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SAVING THE CACTUS FERRUGINOUS PYGMY OWL
The Center originally petitioned to protect the owl in 1992. Following three successful follow-up lawsuits, the tiny owl was federally designated as endangered in Arizona in 1997, and the Center filed two additional lawsuits to garner the owl 732,000 acres of critical habitat in 1999.
Endangered Species Act protections for the pygmy owl initiated a new era of land and wildlife conservation in southern Arizona. Within areas of designated critical habitat, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service limited development to just 20 percent of most properties. Protection of the pygmy owl also formed the main inspiration for the Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan and Pima County’s Multiple Species Conservation Plan, large-scale efforts by the county and stakeholders to identify and protect areas in Pima County for the owl and other species.
But developers fought back in 2001 with a lawsuit seeking to end the pygmy owl’s endangered status. The Bush administration acquiesced easily, removing the species from the endangered list in 2006 with the argument that because the pygmy owl is widely distributed in Mexico, its extinction in the United States is insignificant. Yet the Service has listed many species widespread in other countries but endangered in the United States — the bald eagle, gray wolf, grizzly bear, Canada lynx, and others. In fact, the Service’s own biologists opposed removing the owl’s protection.
In March 2007, the Center filed a petition to list the owl in southern Arizona, throughout the Sonoran Desert, or throughout its range. Because the Service failed to respond to our petition, the Center and allies filed a notice of intent to sue in May 2008, and we were rewarded about a week later when the agency determined that protection for the owl may be warranted and began a new review of the species’ situation. Meanwhile, we fund pygmy owl research in Mexico and continue to work with Pima County to develop a strong Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan.
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Contact: Kierán Suckling
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