COURT REFUSES BUSH ADMINISTRATION ATTEMPT TO REMOVE PYGMY OWL FROM ENDANGERED SPECIES LIST

Siding with the Center for Biological Diversity and Defenders of Wildlife, a federal judge on 6-28-04 ordered the Department of Interior to maintain Endangered Species Act protection for the cactus ferruginous pygmy owl while its legal status is re-examined. In August 2003 the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that while the Arizona population of pygmy owls is clearly endangered, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service did not adequately explain why the population is important to the larger population which includes pygmy owls in western Mexico. This necessitates a new review of the species’s status. The Bush administration has refused to specify when it will conduct the new review, but in an unprecedented legal maneuver, asked the court to remove the pygmy owl from the endangered species list. No other presidential administration has asked a court to remove a species from the endangered list. This is in keeping with the Bush administration’s aggressive efforts to remove protection for imperiled species. It has removed more species from the endangered list on an annual basis than other administration. It has also added fewer than any other administration.

The administration was hoping to use the court to strike down protection with no public review or scientific study, then permanently "delay" the re-examination of the bird’s status. This backdoor campaign would have permanently removed protection for what is perhaps the most imperiled bird in North America. The court noted that only 20-40 birds are thought to exist. If protection were struck down for even a short time, it could be quickly driven extinct by developers.

Formerly abundant in the Missouri River Basin of Montana and Wyoming, the fluvial arctic grayling has been reduced to one short section of the Big Hole River in Montana. It is the last river-dwelling grayling population in the Lower 48. A separate Michigan population went extinct in the 1930s. Though acknowledging that it is imperiled, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has delayed putting the grayling on the endangered species for more than two decades. Like hundreds of other imperiled species, it has languished on the agency’s protection waiting list since 1982.

The agency has justified the decades-long delay by claiming that a "voluntary" conservation plan will provide water for the species and ensure that it is reintroduced to additional streams. Yet years have passed and neither of these has happened. Livestock water diversions and ongoing drought has resulted in the Big Hole River nearly drying in July or August every year since 1999. By June of this year the river had already dropped to 6 cfs even though the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks department considers 20 cfs to be the minimum flow required for grayling survival. The Center sent a letter to the Fish and Wildlife Service on 5-19-04 pleading that it list the grayling on an emergency basis.

EFFORT TO ENSHRINE RANCHER/DEVELOPER CONTROL OF ARIZONA STATE LANDS DERAILED

A campaign by developers, ranchers, The Nature Conservancy and the Sonoran Institute to change the Arizona constitution to get rid of competitive bidding on the lease of state lands, force the state to sell millions of acres to ranchers and developers with no public bidding process, and allow decades-long grazing leases with no meaningful environmental oversight has been derailed. The effort required a vote of the state legislature to be placed on the ballot, but a huge outpouring of opposition by environmental groups and the public divided the legislature and derailed the plan. For now, at least; a new version of the plan will likely be resurrected next year.

The Arizona constitution requires that state lands be leased to the highest bidder with the profits going to the public school system. For many decades, however, these leases were given away to ranchers at ridiculously low rates in an exclusive process that did not allow environmentalists to bid against the ranchers. Arizona’s schools lost millions of dollars due to the State’s refusal to allow competitive bidding. That process was overturned several years ago by the Arizona Supreme Court in response to a lawsuit brought by Forest Guardians. Rather than face the prospect of fair and open bidding, the livestock industry teamed up with other groups to override the Supreme Court by changing the Constitution to eliminate fair bidding, expand ranching leases to decades long, and allow landowners (i.e. ranchers and developers) with private lands on three sides of state land to buy the state land with no public bidding process. This would have put as much as 25% of all state lands on the chopping block. In return, an unacceptably small portion of state land would be set aside for conservation purposes. It was a terrible "deal" rejected by nearly all of Arizona’s environmental groups. We thank the thousands of Center members and bioactivists who made phone calls and letters opposing the plan.

TWO PACIFIC ISLAND PLANTS PROTECTED, A THIRD GIVEN THE SHAFT BY BUSH OFFICIALS

On 4-8-04, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service placed two highly imperiled plants from the island of Rota on the federal endangered species list. Osmoxylon mariannense is a tree in the Ginseng family that can grow up to 33 feet high. Only eight are known to exist. Nesogenes rotensis is an herbaceous plant in the Verbena family. Only 34 are known to exist. Both are threatened by habitat destruction due to development in forested areas, encroachment of non-native plants that compete for space and nutrients, grazing and trampling by feral pigs and deer, and road construction and maintenance.Despite their high level of endangerment, both species languished on the federal "candidate" list since 1996 until the Center for Biological Diversity filed suit to end the protection delay. Hundreds of imperiled species have been stuck on this waiting list for 10-25 years without protection.Overruling U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologists, high-ranking Bush Administration officials refused to list a third plant because it occurs on a military base on Guam. In response to questions raised about the taxonomy of Tabernaemontana rotensis by the military, agency biologists repeatedly demonstrated that it is a valid species. Officials in the Department of Interior, however, deleted the biologists’ explanations and inserted a false assertion that Tabernaemontana rotensis is not taxonomically valid and therefore should not protected under the Endangered Species Act.

Native plants are important for their ecological, economic, and aesthetic values. They play an important role in development of crops that resist disease, insects, and drought. And least 25 percent of prescription drugs contain ingredients derived from plant compounds, including medicine to treat cancer, heart disease, juvenile leukemia, and malaria, and to assist in organ transplants. Plants are also used to develop natural pesticides.

JUDGE SIDES WITH ENVIROS, REFUSES INDUSTRY REQUEST TO KILL MEXICAN GRAY WOLF RECOVERY PROGRAM

On 7-6-04, a federal judge sided with the Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in denying a cattle industry request to remove all Mexican gray wolves from the wild and ban further reintroductions. Continuing a hundred-year-old campaign to exterminate wolves from the United States, the livestock industry filed a frivolous lawsuit to kill the Southwest recovery program and send all the wild wolves back to cages. The Center and Defenders intervened on behalf of the wolves and the Fish and Wildlife Service, arguing that the industry suit had no merit and that it would be tragic mistake to cease the recovery program while the case wends it way through the court system. The judge agreed, denying the preliminary injunction request. But the wolves are still on the chopping block until the lawsuit is fully completed.

Center for Biological Diversity | PO Box 710 Tucson, AZ 85702 | 520-623-5252 | [email protected]

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