Vanishing Breeds Environmental Groups Sue, Claiming Federal Inaction Perilous To Endangered Species

Species across America are vanishing while the federal government stalls on implementation of the Endangered Species Act, some top environmental groups said last week as another lawsuit was filed to try to force action.

Jaguars in the Southwest, black bears in Florida, a Texas salamander, a fish in Nevada - the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has stalled on protecting all of them, sometimes to the point of extinction, advocates say.

“What’s really going on is Fish and Wildlife is terrified about making a stink over endangered species,” said David Hogan of the Southwest Center for Biological Diversity. “They don’t want money from Congress, they don’t want to rock the boat, they don’t want to list any more species as endangered.”

The Southwest Center filed a federal lawsuit in San Diego to force the service to act on 44 varieties of plants and animals in danger of disappearing in California.

And that suit is only one of scores filed across the country aimed at forcing the federal government to do its duty.

“We are falling further and further behind the 8 ball,” said Melinda Pierce, who represents the Sierra Club in Washington. “The bottom line with this lawsuit and others is that we know our nation’s wildlife and plants are imperiled, and the only way we can secure protection for them is if Fish and Wildlife acts.”

Instead of acting, Pierce said, the agency has abolished much of its waiting list. In one case, Fish and Wildlife dropped 4,000 candidate species without any further study, she said.

Jay Watson, the Wilderness Society’s top official in the California-Nevada region, said the federal government acted under pressure on some high-profile species, but neglected thousands of others.

“The law was intended to save species on the brink of extinction, and unfortunately, that’s just not happening,” he said.

Federal officials bristle at the charges. The real culprit, they say, is lack of funds, not lack of will.

The 1994 new Republican congressional majority refused any funding for the Endangered Species Act for a year, and the agency is still trying to recover from that moratorium, said Megan Durham, a Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman in Washington.

“There is a whole lot of listing going on,” she said. “We developed a backlog of species that needed attention. And the Clinton administration has listed more species than any other despite this moratorium.”

Perhaps, environmentalists say, but Fish and Wildlife is simply sitting on many others in violation of the law, which requires action within a year from the date a species is proposed for listing as endangered.

The Southwest Center points to its three-year and ultimately successful effort to protect the jaguar. The animal, which once roamed from the San Francisco Bay area to the tip of South America, is now spotted rarely in the Southwest. Despite the jaguar’s eligibility, the Southwest Center had to file lawsuits in 1994 and 1996 before the agency agreed to list it as endangered.

But many other efforts fail. Last year, Fish and Wildlife removed five species from the candidate list - because they had become extinct. They included a minnow-like Nevada fish and a butterfly that vanished from the U.S. territory of Guam.

The suit filed in San Diego is aimed at protecting 43 California plant species and the black-legged salamander, which lives in Monterey County. Fish and Wildlife biologists proposed some of the species for protection as long ago as August 1995.

The issue in California, as in many other regions, is development, Hogan said. Listing species as endangered makes it difficult to build, and that generates political pressure.

Environmentalists see California as the ultimate battleground. In October, the Sierra Club and other groups released a list of the 21 most endangered ecosystems. At least seven are all or partially in California, far more than any other state.