Plight of tiny fairy shrimp is a symbol of crisis

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Plight of tiny fairy shrimp is a symbol of crisis

Federal effort to save threatened species is hobbled by lawsuits

By Mike Lee
STAFF WRITER

May 21, 2005

Coaster commuters scurry across footbridges at Carlsbad's Poinsettia rail station with little thought about what lives below: a tiny crustacean that symbolizes a national species protection program in crisis.

The endangered Riverside fairy shrimp, like scores of other species nationwide, is the subject of dueling lawsuits lodged by environmentalists and developers. Both sides say the agency's habitat program is in shambles, and top agency officials have told Congress the same thing.

After more than a decade of such suits, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is spinning in a seemingly endless whirl of court mandates, paperwork and research. An estimated 400 species have been the subject of habitat litigation, and the agency is responding to about 40 related court orders.

The service says the legal expenses leave virtually no money for finding new species in need of protection, and the logjam has fueled legislation by a congressman from California's Central Valley who says altering the Endangered Species Act will allow the service to run its recovery programs based on science rather than the outcome of litigation.

Nowhere in the nation is the effect of the legal wrangling more severe than at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service office in Carlsbad, which is responsible for preserving more than 100 federally protected species across six Southern California counties. Nearly half of those species live in San Diego County, putting the region at the heart of the controversy.

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Find this article at:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050521/news_1n21habitat.html

Mike Lee: [phone]; [email protected]