Subject: SW BIODIVERSITY ALERT
#117
******* SOUTHWEST BIODIVERSITY ALERT
#117 ***********
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2/17/98
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* SOUTHWEST CENTER
FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY
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1. PETITION FILED TO LIST
WEST'S ONLY CUCKOO AS ENDANGERED SPECIES
2. PETITION FILED TO LIST NEW
MEXICO'S STATE FISH- THE RIO GRANDE
CUTTHROAT
TROUT- AS ENDANGERED SPECIES
3. GILA DIKE PROJECT BEAT BACK AGAIN- HOPEFULLY
FOR GOOD
4. CA MARINE BASE TO BE SUED FOR ENDANGERING FLYCATCHER, OTHER
SPECIES
5. EDITORIAL: IMPEACH BABBITT, ENFORCE
ESA
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PETITION FILED TO LIST WEST'S ONLY CUCKOO AS ENDANGERED
SPECIES
On February 2, 1998, the Southwest Center and a coalition of 23
groups
(including ONRC, the Biodiversity Legal Foundation, ONDA, SUWA, EPIC,
and
the Sierra Nevada Alliance) petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
to
list the Yellow-billed cuckoo as an endangered species in the Western
U.S.
Formerly widespread in riparian forests from British Columbia to New
Mexico,
the cuckoo has been extirpated form B.C., Washington, Oregon, Idaho,
Nevada,
Utah and northern California.
The Yellow-billed cuckoo is
highly dependent upon dense riparian forests. It
has been driven to near
extinction in the West by cattle grazing, dam
building, agribusiness, and
urban sprawl. Critical remaining areas include
the Feather, Yuba and
Sacramento rivers in CA, the San Pedro, Verde and
Colorado River in AZ, and
the Gila, San Francisco, and Rio Grande rivers
in
NM.
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PETITION FILED TO LIST NEW MEXICO'S
STATE FISH- THE RIO GRANDE CUTTHROAT
TROUT- AS AN ENDANGERED SPECIES
On
February 5, 1998, the Southwest Center, Southwest Trout, Carson Forest
Watch,
the Biodiversity Legal Foundation, and Ancient Forest Rescue,
petitioned to
list the Rio Grande Cutthroat Trout as an endangered species.
The New Mexico
state fish formerly occured throughout the higher elevations
of the Rio
Grande river basin from southern New Mexico(and possibly Texas)
to southern
Colorado. It has disappeared from 95% of its range, however,
because of
overgrazing, logging, water diversions, and competition/
hybridization with
introduced game trout.
Protection for the cuckoo and trout will increase
pressure to remove cattle
from western streams. They will join a suite of
riparian/aquatic obligates
the Southwest Center has fought to list as
endangered in the past three
years, including the Southwestern willow
flycatcher, loach minnow, spikedace,
Sonoran tiger salamander, Huachuca water
umbel, and Canelo Hills ladies'
tresses. The Center recently filed suit to
stop grazing on 92 grazing
allotments in the Gila River basin to protect
these and other species.
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GILA DIKE PROJECT BEAT BACK AGAIN-
HOPEFULLY FOR GOOD
The Gila National Forest has agreed to relocate a poorly
planned section
of roadway along the Gila River rather than continue to
pursue the
construction of two 400 foot long dikes in the Gila River near the
Gila
Cliff Dwellings National Monument.
The Southwest Center fought
back the proposal in 1996, but the Forest came
back with this year because of
the impending "threat" of El Nino.
Construction of the dikes would have
devastated an already declining
population of loach minnow and spikedace, as
well as critical habitat for
the Southwestern willow flycatcher. In response
to a Center petition in
1994, the Fish and Wildlife Service found that
uplisting of these fish to
endangered was warranted due to continuing
population declines, but
precluded by higher listing priorities. We are
currently suing to
establish critical habitat for the two
fish.
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CA
MARINE BASE TO BE SUED FOR ENDANGERING FLYCATCHER, OTHER SPECIES
The Center
has officially informed Camp Pendleton, a Marine Corps base on
the Santa
Margarita River in southern California, that it will sue if the
Marines do
not formally consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
over impacts to
the Southwestern willow flycatcher, arroyo toad,
California gnatcatcher, San
Diego fairy shrimp, Pacific pocket mouse, and
Steven's kangaroo
rat.
The base plans to build a massive levee and airport runway in the
Santa
Margarita River floodplain but have not recieved an incidental take
permit
from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
_____________________________________
EDITORIAL: IMPEACH BABBITT, ENFORCE
ESA
The following editorial by author Susan Zakin appeared in the Arizona
Daily
Star on 2/6/98 and in newpapers throughout the West. It raises the
specter
of running Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt out of office for
systematically
undermining the Endangered Species Act. The full version of
the editorial
is available by email:
Refusing to Enforce Endangered
Species Act is Scandalous
By Susan Zakin
"People calling for
impeachment are on the right track, but they should hire
a special prosecutor
to investigate Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt, not
Bill Clinton, says
Jasper Carlton of the Colorado-based Biodiversity
Legal
Foundation..."
"Across the country, the administration is trying
to resolve endangered
species conflicts by making compromises that are not
only of questionable
legality, but also don't work. Relying on compromises,
including deals with
developers and timber corporations known as habitat
conservation plans,
often results in the significant loss of habitat with
little assurance that
species will be saved..."
"The latest
battleground is the city of Tucson, where two of the last 12
known cactus
ferruginous pygmy owls in Arizona have been sighted. On one
side is the
Southwest Center for Biological Diversity, a low-budget but
nationally
prominent group with an impressive 80 percent record of courtroom
victories
on endangered species. On the other are massed the combined forces
of the
Clinton administration."
"Alarmed by the Southwest Center's success,
which shut down all large-scale
commercial logging in national forests in
Arizona and New Mexico for 26 out
of the last 34 months, Interior Secretary
Babbitt in October called a
meeting of representatives from every federal
agency operating in the
southwest to launch the Southwest Initiative, the
latest in a line of
collaborative efforts..."
"Collaboration was
certainly the answer for Chandis-Sherman, a real estate
developer in Southern
California who is connected to the Chandler family who
owns The Los Angeles
Times. Chandis-Sherman owns beach-front land on Dana
Point that is estimated
to be worth as much as $1 million an acre. The
developer is being allowed to
move endangered Pacific pocket mice found on
its property to a temporary
22-acre refuge until federal biologists can find
someplace else to put them.
If the plan fails, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service can buy the land from
the developer at the amount the land would be
worth with no endangered
species living on it."
"This approach was also used to eliminate conflict
over the red-cockaded
woodpecker, an endangered species in the southeast. One
male woodpecker was
moved three times, but it kept coming back to the same
tree. Finally,
federal officials just gave the OK to cut down the tree, one
of a number of
decisions that led Jerome Jackson, the leader of the
Red-Cockaded Woodpecker
Recovery Team, to fire off a memo excoriating habitat
conservation plans for
their ``serious scientific weaknesses.''
"In
the Southwest, Babbitt didn't seem to care that he had an alternative,
since
most endangered species conflicts take place on federal land. It's
an
old-fashioned idea that has been all but abandoned by the
Clinton
administration. It's called enforcing the law. Without enforcement
of
endangered species protection on federally managed lands, how can
anyone
hope for a reasonable outcome on private land in the valleys of the
Sonoran
Desert, where pygmy owls live?"
"The Southwest Center of
Biological Diversity's victories have given Babbitt
a chance to act like a
real politician. He can throw up his hands and say,
``The environmentalists
made me do it."...
"Of course, Babbitt may be waiting for the populations
of California pocket
mice or red-cockaded woodpeckers to drop so low that he
can reintroduce
them. With appropriate television
fanfare."
_____________________________________________________________________________
Kieran
Suckling
ksuckling@sw-center.org
Executive
Director
520.623.5252 phone
Southwest Center for Biological
Diversity 520.623.9797 fax
http://www.sw-center.org
pob 710, tucson, az 85702-710