Court orders endangered species protection for flat-tailed horned lizard - for the third time

[Annces]

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service must review decision to deny protections





San Francisco – In response to a lawsuit brought by the Center for Biological Diversity and a number of other groups, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled today that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision to deny the flat-tailed horned lizard protection under the Endangered Species Act was illegal and again ordered the agency to consider protection for the lizard.


“The flat-tailed horned lizard is severely threatened by urban and agricultural sprawl and needs protection as an endangered species to survive,” said Noah Greenwald, biodiversity program director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “With today’s court decision, we hope the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has finally gotten the message that it can not legally deny this imperiled species protection.”

Significantly, the decision rejected a Bush administration policy developed by the solicitor of the Department of the Interior in 2007 that required the Fish and Wildlife Service to ignore loss of historic range when determining if species warrant protection under the Endangered Species Act. The decision observes that “the Secretary clings to his argument that lost historical habitat is largely irrelevant to the recovery of the species, and thus the ESA does not require him to consider it,” and then roundly rejects this position, concluding that past court decisions require “the Secretary to analyze lost historical range.”

“This decision goes beyond the flat-tailed horned lizard by seriously undermining the Bush administration’s position that loss of historic range is not a basis for protecting species under the Endangered Species Act,” said Greenwald. “The courts have determined today that the Bush administration’s emergency room approach to species protection – in which only species that are on the brink of extinction everywhere are protected – is plainly illegal.”

http://www.defenders.org/newsroom/press_releases_folder/2009/05_18_2009_court_orders_endangered_species_protection_for_flat-tailed_horned_lizard.php



(Fish and Wildlife gross negligence).

[msongs]

1. are there still zillions of those critters in TX? used ta play with em every day (didn't hurt em tho

[Mojorabbit]

3. So did I as a child

We would catch them and play dinosaurs then let them go.

[zonkers]

2. This is good to hear. Thanks for posting.