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Feds: No funds to list garter snake as endangered
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by tigers9 on November 27, 2008
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Mail this to a friend!
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If feds have no money for animal issues, hopefully the legislators will stop messing with the private ownership laws as well, since all the latest already passed and proposed laws ( CPWS, python invasion all over USA stupid predictions, etc...) would be implemented by the same agency, US Fish and wildlife service, and it all costs money.
http://www.rexano.org/DA_FEDERAL.htm
Z
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/ss/local/103612.php
Feds: No funds to list garter snake as endangered
B. POOLE
Published: 11.26.2008
A snake native to southern Arizona deserves endangered species protection, but the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has no resources to make that happen, the service said this week.
The northern Mexican garter snake's listing is precluded by higher-priority species and will be reviewed in a year, the service said Monday.
"The northern Mexican garter snake faces significant threats in the United States and Mexico. However, we don't have the resources at this time to engage in the listing process for all species nationally that warrant Endangered Species Act protection," said Steve Spangle, Arizona field supervisor for Fish & Wildlife.
More than 250 species are candidates for protection under the Endangered Species Act, leaving the service to prioritize plants and animals to take through the peer review, agency and public comment period. Though the service rejected the snake as a candidate in 2006, further declines in Arizona and Mexico prompted this week's decision, the service said in a news release.
Noah Greenwald, biodiversity program director for the Center for Biological Diversity, is dismayed by the feds' delay, he said.
"This is a very common tactic for them," Greenwald said, referring to the Bush administration's record on endangered species listings.
The center sued Fish & Wildlife over 282 species, including this snake, that have been named candidate species under Bush. Just 61 have been listed, Greenwald said.
The Clinton administration listed 521 and Bush's father 231, he said.
The lawsuit calls for a schedule for listing of unlisted species deemed worthy of protection.
The sheer number of backlogged listings shows the Bush administration has not made "expeditious progress," a requirement for precluded listing, Greenwald said.
The center is hoping for better progress under the Barack Obama administration, Greenwald said.
"We would hope for a schedule for all 282 species, including the garter snake," he said.
The northern Mexican garter snake, which can grow to more than 3 feet, is native to northern Mexico, the southern half of Arizona and western New Mexico.
The snake lives in dense brush along waterways and has been threatened by non-native species that compete for food and by human development.
Because the species is threatened by non-native species, controlling those species - including crayfish, bullfrogs and some fish - could help the snake recover, Fish & Wildlife said.
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