TUCSON, Ariz.— Grazing by the livestock industry has damaged at least 57% of the critical habitat of western yellow-billed cuckoos in public grazing allotments in Arizona and New Mexico, according to a report released today by the Center for Biological Diversity.

The imperiled birds, who largely depend on verdant gallery forests along southwestern streams and rivers, have been protected as threatened under the Endangered Species Act since 2014, but overgrazing is undermining their recovery.

“By allowing these desert oases to be trampled and grazed into the muck like they’re feedlots, federal agencies are pushing western yellow-billed cuckoos toward extinction,” said Chris Bugbee, Southwest conservation advocate at the Center. “If yellow-billed cuckoos are going to survive, agencies have to start taking their duty to protect the wild places these birds rely on seriously. That starts with keeping cattle out of designated critical habitat.”

After years of litigation, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated critical habitat for cuckoos in 2021 — 55,550 acres of which overlap with public grazing allotments in Arizona and New Mexico. Between 2021 and 2023, field biologists from the Center surveyed 70% of those lands before or during cuckoo breeding season. They found moderate to significant damage on 80% of the acres surveyed, which is 57% of the rare bird’s critical habitat in public lands grazing allotments in Arizona and New Mexico.

Field biologists routinely documented herds concentrated around streams and riparian zones within protected habitats, often leaving bare, denuded ground, destroyed vegetation and streambanks, and polluted, feces-laden water. In many instances cattle were observed damaging important and protected areas illegally and/or in violation of permits.

Degraded critical habitat was documented annually on Agua Fria National Monument, the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area, the Gila Box Riparian National Conservation Area, the Gila and Tonto national forests, and in several other major river systems managed by the Bureau of Land Management.

Most recently, on the Coronado National Forest, critical habitat surveys led to renewed litigation over innumerable instances of Endangered Species Act violations. The findings in today’s report were included in a formal notice of the Center’s intent to sue, sent to the Forest Service in June.

“Rampant apathy and mismanagement, and the complete unwillingness of agencies to stand up to the livestock industry, are ensuring that more of the Southwest’s imperiled plants and animals will face extinction,” said Bugbee. “We’re increasingly hard-pressed to find any cattle-grazed habitats that can also help threatened and endangered species to recover. At some point people have to choose whether we want our public lands to look like feedlots or be preserved as important desert habitats for future generations. We can’t have both.”

Across the desert Southwest, livestock grazing harms threatened and endangered wildlife and is the primary driver of riparian ecosystem degradation and species imperilment. Removing livestock from riparian areas is critical to curbing the extinction crisis in the Southwest.