Only 31 Known Pygmy Owls Survive in Southern Arizona
11/16/98
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Title: Only 31 Known Pygmy Owls Survive in Southern Arizona
Source: Environmental News Network
Status: Copyrighted, contact source to reprint
Date: 11/16/98
Further delays by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in protections
for cactus ferruginous pygmy owls in Arizona will be met by a lawsuit,
according to Defenders of Wildlife.
FWS may push back a deadline for receiving public comments on
guidelines and on a scientific survey protocol for private landowners
with pygmy owl habitat on their property.
The service originally scheduled a Sept. 14 deadline for those
comments, but rescheduled the deadline for Nov. 14. Now, FWS may push
this deadline to March, which Defenders of Wildlife believes would
allow a rush of development on potentially occupied pygmy owl sites.
"We are tired of these delaying tactics. For nearly a decade the Fish
and Wildlife Service has ignored its legal obligations, acquiescing to
the pygmy owl's imminent extirpation from Arizona, all because of
rampant development," said Defenders of Wildlife Litigation Counsel
John Fritschie.
"If the Fish and Wildlife Service caves to political pressure again,
we have no choice but to sue them for violating federal law. We call
on the Secretary of the Interior to stop political interference with
sound science," said Bill Snape, legal director at Defenders of
Wildlife.
The cactus ferruginous pygmy owl population is in crisis, according to
Defenders of Wildlife. Only 31 known pygmy owls survive in southern
Arizona, and the high pace of development and sprawl in Tucson
continues to destroy the bird's habitat, further jeopardizing this
highly endangered species, the group says. Habitat destruction is the
biggest threat to the pygmy owl population, according to FWS.
In a trial earlier this year, an Arizona district court ruled that
evidence presented by Defenders of Wildlife and the Southwest Center
for Biological Diversity was not sufficient to show that there would
be a "take" of an owl if a school was built in the Amphitheater School
District in Pima County, nor would the building of the school "harm"
or "harass" the owl as those terms are defined in the regulation.
The groups originally filed an Endangered Species Act suit to halt
construction of the high school which Pima County has called badly
needed in the northwest section of Tucson. The groups claimed in their
suit that construction of the high school would impair the pygmy owl,
even though there is no evidence that the owl lives on the property.
"If FWS delays implementing the new survey protocol, a rash of
development projects is imminent," says Laura Hood, Defenders of
Wildlife Science Department director. "Any science-based management of
this rare bird cannot go forward until the service puts adequate
surveys in place. Meanwhile, the pygmy owl suffers from politics and
special interests."
For more information, contact Ronnie Lieberman, Defenders of Wildlife,
(202)682-9400, ext. 220.
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