WildEarth Guardians

Wednesday, April 6, 2016
Protection Sought for Ultra-rare Pocket Gopher in Wyoming's Red Desert

Wyoming Pocket Gopher Threatened by Industrial-Scale Habitat Destruction
Contact: Erik Molvar (307) 399-7910 emolvar@wildearthguardians.org

Additional Contact:

Taylor Jones, 303-353-1490 or tjones@wildearthguardians.org

LARAMIE, Wyo. – Today WildEarth Guardians petitioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to protect the rare and increasingly imperiled Wyoming pocket gopher under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). One of America’s most rare land animals, the pocket gopher lives in the remote corners of Wyoming’s Red Desert on lands covered almost entirely by industrial-scale energy projects. In the past 100 years, scientists have identified just 79 Wyoming pocket gophers.

“This species is so rare that scientists have only documented only 79 of them throughout recorded history, and yet almost the entire known range of the species falls within the boundaries of planned oil and gas fields, wind farms, and uranium mines,” said Erik Molvar, a wildlife biologist with WildEarth Guardians. “It’s long past time this unique species received protections.”

Oil, gas, and coalbed methane drilling and uranium mining have already degraded much of the known habitat for the Wyoming pocket gopher. Because known populations of Wyoming pocket gophers are isolated and fragmented, and the species has already disappeared from many of the historical locations it once inhabited, this rare animal is at grave risk of extinction.

The Wyoming pocket gopher appears to be restricted to isolated and fragmented patches of Gardner’s saltbush habitat amid the sagebrush steppes of the Red Desert of south-central Wyoming. Living a solitary life underground in individual burrow systems, it emerges only at night on or cloudy days to forage for plants or to travel to find a new home. Populations of Wyoming pocket gophers occur in small and isolated colonies of one to a few acres in size. Thus even a small industrial project could wipe out an entire population.

“Oil and gas drilling is destroying habitat and decimating wildlife populations across the American West, driving some rare species like the Wyoming pocket gopher to the brink of extinction,” said Taylor Jones, endangered species advocate for WildEarth Guardians. “To protect vulnerable species like the pocket gopher we must rein in oil and gas drilling.”

A recent scientific study classified the Wyoming pocket gopher as being at the greatest risk of any Species of Greatest Conservation Need in Wyoming, based on sensitivity and exposure to habitat destruction. For comparison, this risk rating based on new studies is substantially greater than the risk rating given to the black-footed ferret, which is already protected as an endangered species under the ESA. The Wyoming pocket gopher warrants the same protections.

A small amount of Wyoming pocket gopher habitat may be protected by recently completed federal plans that increase protections for greater sage grouse habitat. However, Wyoming pocket gopher habitat falls almost entirely outside the sage grouse Priority Habitat Management Areas targeted for greater conservation emphasis by the plans. Instead, this tiny mammal inhabits lands prioritized for industrial use.

“The protections of the Endangered Species Act are the Wyoming pocket gopher’s best hope for survival,” said Molvar.

Protection under the ESA is an effective safety net for imperiled species: more than 99 percent of plants and animals protected by the law exist today. The law is especially important as a defense against the current extinction crisis; species are disappearing at a rate much higher than the natural rate of extinction due to human activities. Scientists estimate that 227 species would have gone extinct by 2006 if not for ESA protections.