JACKSON, Miss.— The Center for Biological Diversity notified the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today that it intends to sue over the agency’s failure to finalize critical habitat for the threatened Pearl River map turtle. The rare turtles’ habitat is threatened by a dam proposed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to be built on Pearl River in Louisiana and Mississippi — the only place in the world where they live.

“The Fish and Wildlife Service needs to do its job and protect the last remaining places on Earth where Pearl River map turtles live,” said Lindsay Reeves, a senior attorney at the Center. “The Corps’ proposal to dam the Pearl River would destroy this struggling turtle’s habitat and alter the Pearl River forever. If the Service delays any longer, it may be too late.”

Pearl River map turtles are named for the beautiful and intricate patterns on their shell, which resemble topographic maps. These turtles depend on the Pearl River’s flowing freshwater to find food and shelter and they need its sandy beaches to build their nests.

The project proposed by the Corps would dredge out the banks of the Pearl River and build a dam to create an enormous lake. This would be especially harmful because Pearl River map turtles can’t survive in lakes and construction of the dam would flood their nesting sites.

Despite protecting the Pearl River map turtles as threatened in 2024, the Service failed to protect any of the turtles’ critical habitat within one year, in violation of the Endangered Species Act.

The Service now has 60 days to designate critical habitat. The designation of critical habitat is an important step in the turtle’s recovery. A Center study found that plants and animals with federally protected critical habitat are more than twice as likely to be moving toward recovery than species without it.