WildEarth Guardians

Wednesday, December 6, 2006
Livestock Use is Starving Mexican Spotted Owls in the Sacramentos

WildEarth Guardians Files Suit Against Forest Service
Contact: WildEarth Guardians

Santa Fe, NM - With continued harms to Mexican Spotted Owls from livestockgrazing, WildEarth Guardians filed suit today in federal district court, contending that theForest Service is failing to comply with the Endangered Species Act. The group says thatthe Forest Service is jeopardizing the existence of the owl through poor grazingmanagement, and that the agency should terminate cattle use of the Sacramento allotmentin the Sacramento Mountains on the Lincoln National Forest in southern New Mexico.

According to the suit, the Forest Service has failed to uphold its commitment to insurethat recovery efforts for the owl will be furthered on the allotment, which contains a largeamount of critical habitat for the species. WildEarth Guardians describes in its complaint howthe Forest Service has refused to adequately monitor for or maintain healthy meadowsand riparian areas on the Sacramento allotment. The allotment covers over 100,000 acresof public land, and supports more Mexican Spotted Owls than any other allotment on theLincoln National Forest.

The owl depends on healthy riparian areas and grassy meadows in order to live in the Sacramento Mountains. Healthy meadows are especially important to the owl because good grass cover creates habitat for the Mexican vole, a small rodent, which is an important part of the owl’s diet. When cattle forage on the meadow grasses, the voles disperse and the owls can go hungry.

“Mexican spotted owls are being pushed closer to extinction because the Forest Service has failed to protect their habitat from the impacts of grazing,” said Melissa Hailey, WildEarth Guardians’ Grazing Reform Program Attorney. “The agency is charged with protecting the owls, not harming them. The Forest Service must afford these imperiled owls with the full safety net provided by the Endangered Species Act.”

WildEarth Guardians hopes the lawsuit filed today will help to protect the owl and the public land from the damage caused by cattle grazing. “Since the Forest Service has refused to maintain grassy meadows that will support a prey base for the owl, the cows must be removed,” Hailey says. “Any competition for forage must tip in the owl’s favor. The health of the forest depends on it.”

WildEarth Guardians has brought a series of lawsuits with the goal of protecting native wildlife and the ecosystems they inhabit from the detrimental impacts of livestock grazing. To date, the group has won important protections for many of the species dependent on healthy ecosystems on National Forests, such as reducing the number of cattle that can graze in key sensitive habitats and barring cattle from a number of streams and rivers throughout the southwest. The group argues that the continued presence of livestock on public lands is fundamentally incompatible with restoring the balance of nature on many ecologically sensitive public lands in the southwest.