The ocelot is among the endangered species mentioned in the lawsuit.

At the end of April, the Center for Biological Diversity announced it plans to sue  the Forest Service for not protecting rare species on lands throughout Arizona and New Mexico.

According to Taylor McKinnon, the center’s Public Lands Campaigns Director, the agency has continued to approve projects that destroy endangered species and their habitat without undertaking the monitoring required by the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

Five years ago, that agency—which enforces compliance with the Endangered Species Act—ordered the Forest Service to monitor rare species and their habitats on all 11 forests in the southwest.

But in a 2008 report, the Forest Service admitted it had not completed such monitoring. The following year, it also requested that the Fish and Wildlife Service change its opinion.

“The Forest Service manages expansive acreage of forests, and that public land is the cradle of life for a whole host of native species, including threatened and endangered species,” said McKinnon. “We need the Forest Service to manage its lands in a way that sustains life, rather than dragging species further toward extinction.”

The Center’s lawsuit will involve at least nine species listed for protection under the Endangered Species Act, including the Mexican spotted owl, southwestern willow flycatcher, Mexico ridge-nosed rattlesnake, Chiricahua leopard frog, Apache trout, Chihuahua chub, loach minnow, spikedace and ocelot.

McKinnon also said that the agency is rolling back existing wildlife protections as it revamps individual forest plans for New Mexico and Arizona.

“We’re seeing a really sharp turn away from providing habitat and protections for threatened and endangered species, and other species, in those plans,” said McKinnon. He pointed out that though they are  inadequate, the current plans—written in the 1980s—do include protection measures for wildlife and their habitat.

But within the draft plans for Arizona, including the Coronado National Forest in southern Arizona, the Forest Service has essentially abandoned wildlife protections, he said. Along with the agency’s refusal to monitor the impacts of projects on endangered species, this trend of aggressive rollbacks troubles McKinnon.

“Rather than increasing and enhancing wildlife protections in the Southwest forest plans, forest plans under the Obama administration seems to be heading in the opposite direction,” he said. “They seem to be weakening those protections, and we think that’s the opposite of what wildlife in the forests need.”

Forest management plans are being updated

In 1976, Congress passed the National Forest Management Act (NMFA), which required each of the nation’s forests to have plans that would then guide local management, activities and projects.

Now the agency is updating those plans to incorporate “current thinking and current ways of doing business,” Matt Turner, head of regional planning for the agency’s Southwest Region, told the Independent. In New Mexico, for example, there are five national forests, as well as the grasslands of the Cibola National Forest. Plans for the grasslands are currently being updated and managers will soon revise the other five plans once the new national rule is in place.

One issue that has become more important in recent years, Turner said, is climate change. “Other issues, based on what was in NFMA, [include] how to address the diversity of plants and animals and maintain their sustainability,” he said. “Also, how do we restore and maintain our watersheds? How do we ensure that our communities, rural and urban, maintain their relationships with the forest? And how do the forests provide for the needs of those communities?”

The agency must also manage fire, recreation—everything from hiking and cross-country skiing to off-road vehicle travel—and business. Oil and gas development, for example, is prevalent on the Carson National Forest in northern New Mexico. The planning process, he explained, provides the overall framework for the Forest Service to work on individual projects, including recreation, grazing, energy development and mining.

“Much of the beef people eat comes from cattle grazed on National Forest lands, and, not so much in the Southwest, but in other Forest Service regions, much of the wood that goes to build your homes—and keeps the price of wood construction down—comes off National Forest lands,” said Turner. “There’s quite a bit National Forest lands throughout the country provide—even if you never step foot on Forest Service land, it provides goods and services.”

Now’s the time for wilderness

In 1976, Congress also passed the Federal Land Policy and Management Act (FLPMA), which guides another federal land agency—the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

Among other things, that law required the BLM to inventory its lands for wilderness characteristics, and to re-examine those lands as time passed in order to designate new wilderness areas.  Wilderness areas are permanently protected as off-limits to development and motorized travel.

But the Forest Service has no such mandate, said Nathan Newcomer, associate director of the New Mexico Wilderness Alliance.  It has completed what are called Roadless Area Review and Evaluations: “But they have no mandate, nothing written that says they need to look at their forests and do periodic wilderness inventories,” Newcomer told the Independent. “This rule should have that—it should direct districts to go out there and study their lands for wilderness-quality designations.”

The alliance is also looking ahead to the development of New Mexico’s individual forest plans, which will be guided by the new national rule.

Of the 9.3 million acres of National Forest lands in the state, 1.6 million of those are roadless, according to Newcomer. Although activists in New Mexico have long focused on wilderness-worthy areas on BLM lands, they’re now looking more actively at the National Forests: “The [revised plan] is one example of why we need to do that: The federal agency is giving us the opportunity,” he said. “We need to make sure that the bevy of beautiful, wild places we have in this state are left intact—not just for the people, but for the land’s sake.”

Photo by Tim Carter

Illegal shooting is responsible for the stagnating numbers of endangered Mexican gray wolves in New Mexico’s Gila National Forest and land in Arizona, reveals a survey released today by the National Forest Service.

Although 11 pups survived the breeding season, 11 wolves died in 2008 — at least five of them illegally shot.

According to survey results, five wolves were illegally shot, and two others died under suspicious circumstances; they are awaiting necropsy now. In 2008 two wolves were hit by cars, and two died of natural causes. Although 18 pups were born, only 11 survived until Dec. 31.

There were 52 wolves in the area in 2007 and in 2008, according to the service. The reintroduction project’s goal is to have at 100 wolves in order for the species to recover enough to be removed from the endangered species list.

“Except for the illegal shooting or suspicious demise of seven wolves, 2008 would have seen Mexican wolf populations on the upswing again. These mortalities are an intolerable impediment to wolf recovery. We will continue to aggressively investigate each illegal wolf killing to help ensure that anyone responsible is prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law,” Benjamin N. Tuggle, regional director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Southwest Region, said today in a release.

Since 1998, 30 wild wolves have been illegally shot. Some who live in the rural areas near the reintroduction area have been vocal in their opposition of the wolves, which they say have come dangerously close to their homes, killing their cattle and pets and frightening their families.

Wolves that repeatedly prey on cattle can be removed from the area, but no wolves were removed for that reason in 2008.

The Canada Lynx is cute! And can kill a deer. Photo by Josh More

The U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced Thursday that it has begun the process of offering endangered species protection to the Canada lynx, a big furry cat that is protected in other states. As NMI has noted, the animal was reintroduced to Colorado 1999, and since then, approximately 60 of the cats have wandered into northern New Mexico. At least 14 have been killed.

The service was required to make a determination on the lynx as a result of a lawsuit brought by the Western Environmental Law Center on behalf of several environmental groups, including WildEarth Guardians.

“This is stage one, when they say ‘This has sufficient merits for us to consider it and we’ll take 12 months to mull it over further.’ If they issue a positive finding in 12 months then they will change the listing status for the lynx in New Mexico,” says Rob Edward, carnivore recovery director for WildEarth Guardians.

Why did WildEarth Guardians have to sue the federal agency to protect the lynx? “Well, the short answer is that we’ve been working for the last eight years under the Bush administration, which had no interest in doing much of anything for endangered species.”

The longer answer, Edward says, is that “The Fish and Wildlife Service is functioning under political pressure or simple budget pressure and they have to push back on things that they don’t have the budget or political cover for.” Like protecting the big furry lynx.

While Edward is hopeful that conditions for endangered species will improve in an Obama administration, he is less than pleased about Colorado Sen. Ken Salazar, Obama’s nominee for Department of the Interior.

“We’re going to have to take a wait-and-see approach at this point. … [Obama] could have done much better than [Salazar],” Edward says. WildEarth Guardians and other groups had pushed for the nomination of Arizona Rep. Raul Grijalva, a progressive member of the House Natural Resources Committee and the chair of the Subcommittee on National Parks, Forest and Public Lands.

“We certainly hope that Secretary Salazar will be much more of a friend to endangered species… than his voting record and actions would indicate,” Edward says.

While you wait to see what kind of Secretary Salazar will make, if confirmed by the Senate, you can amuse yourselves with this neat-o chart of lynx distribution in the West. Lotsa dots in New Mexico!

Lynx have been moving into northern New Mexico since 1999.

A Canada Lynx. And this one is a kitten! Photo by Josh More.

If you came across a Canada lynx while taking out the trash one night, you would not mistake it for a stray cat. The Canada lynx is a ferocious-looking, wildly furry creature bigger than a bobcat, standing about two feet tall at the shoulder. It has been known to kill deer, but mostly it preys on the (adorable and unfortunate) snowshoe hare.

Since 1999, when the animal was reintroduced to Colorado, approximately 60 of the cats have wandered into northern New Mexico and at least 14 have been killed. In two weeks, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) will decide whether or not to extend federal protections for the cat to New Mexico. The USFWS must make the decision by Dec. 15 as part of the settlement of a lawsuit brought against the agency by the Western Environmental Law Center, representing several environmental groups, including Wild Earth Guardians. The center had asked the agency to protect the lynx in New Mexico and decided to sue when the USFWS did not act within the required time period.

Prairie dogs kiss when they meet. Seriously. Not kidding. Photo by Mila Zinkova.

Speaking of lawsuits, it was Wild Earth Guardians who forced Fish and Wildlife to make a move on the black-tailed prairie dog.

The black-tailed prairie dog may warrant federal protection as a threatened or endangered species, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced yesterday.

In March 2008, Wild Earth Guardians had filed suit against the USFWS for failing to act on a previous petition for protection. Yesterday’s announcement is a result of a settlement reached earlier this summer.

The USFWS will initiate a review that may — or may not — lead to the rodents being listed as threatened or endangered.

Ranchers say prairie dog burrows ruin grazing land, while biologists say they are a keystone species of the prairie grassland ecosystem, aerating and fertilizing the soil, creating habitat for other small critters and providing tasty snacks for eagles, foxes, owls and ferrets.

“Big agriculture has put tremendous pressure on the Fish and Wildlife Service to not list the black-tailed prairie dog. Now, the agency must put science over politics and follow through with listing,” Lauren McCain, Desert and Grassland Projects director for Wild Earth Guardians, said in a press release. “Endangered Species Act protection is likely the only way to prevent the animal’s extinction.”