Judge Allows Lynx Project in Colorado
12/31/98
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Title: Judge Allows Lynx Project in Colorado
Source: Reuters
Status: Copyrighted, contact source to reprint
Date: 12/31/98
DENVER(Reuters) - A federal judge Thursday refused to halt a
controversial plan to import and release 15 rare Canadian
lynx into southwestern Colorado despite opposition from
ranchers who want more environmental studies.
"We're free to go ahead with the program," Gene Byrne, a
biologist with the Colorado Division of Wildlife, said after
the hearing.
The first lynx will be introduced in early January in
Weminuche Wilderness Area in southwestern Colorado.
A group including the Colorado Farm Bureau Federation and
the Colorado Cattlemen's Association had asked the judge to
issue a temporary restraining order to stop the plan to
bring the animals from Canada to Colorado.
The two groups argued that the program was flawed because
authorities had failed to provide an environmental impact
statement (EIS).
The absence of an EIS meant that it was not known how much
impact the lynx would have on the environment, the groups
said. Ranchers have said the presence of the lynx could
result in restrictions on grazing on public lands.
So far, authorities have only caught two lynx in Canada
because of heavy snowfall. "The lynx are hunkering down in
the snow," Byrne said.
The fight over the lynx, a large-pawed forest-dweller with a
taste for snowshoe hares, dates from the early 1990s, when
environmentalists joined in a petition to the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service to list the cat as an endangered species.
The service, which was sued along with the Colorado Wildlife
Commission, the U.S. Forest Service and the National Park
Service, has proposed listing the rare cat as a "threatened"
species-- a less severe category.
In November, the Colorado Wildlife Commission approved a
plan to import 40 to 50 lynx from Canada and Alaska this
winter. A second set of lynx are to be released into the
Gunnison National Forest in Colorado next winter.
In October, a radical animal rights group admitted setting
fire to Vail Mountain to protest expansion of the popular
ski resort, which environmentalists say encroaches on
potential lynx habitats.
The two national forests where the lynx are to be sent are
not near Vail.
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