The U.S. Fish and Wildlife
service announced the southwestern willow flycatcher would keep its protection
under the Endangered Species Act.
JIM RORABAUGH/USFWS VIA WIKIMEDIA
COMMONS
Posted Friday, January
5, 2018 6:00 am
By Cody Hooks
Ranching organizations in New
Mexico that asked the federal government to remove a small bird from its list
of endangered speeches received some disappointing news last week.
On Thursday (Dec. 28), the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife service announced the southwestern willow flycatcher would
keep its protection under the Endangered Species Act.
The New Mexico Cattle Growers
Association, New Mexico Farm and Livestock Bureau and New Mexico Wool Growers
Inc. filed a petition in 2015 to have the bird removed from the federal list of
at-risk species. The New Mexico organizations were joined by a building
industry organization in California and represented by the Pacific Legal
Foundation, a conservative law firm that has also litigated to overturn jaguar
habitat designations in Southern New Mexico.
The groups challenged that the
southwestern willow flycatcher is not a valid subspecies and argued that the
bird no longer faced a variety of threats that put it on the endangered
list.
"An exhaustive review of the
best available scientific information... led to the conclusion that the
southwestern willow flycatcher is a subspecies protectable under the
[Endangered Species Act]," according to the Thursday press release from
the wildlife agency.
While some populations of the
bird have made progress toward recovery, the bird and its habitat "are
experiencing substantial threats."
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