WildEarth Guardians

Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Feds Issue Habitat Protection Proposal for Devils River Minnow

Groups Concerned Final Designation for Rare Fish Will be Slashed
Contact: WildEarth Guardians

Additional Contact: Jeff Miller, Center for Biological Diversity: (510) 499-9185, Bill Bunch, Save Our Springs Alliance: (512) 477-2320, Robert Corbin, private landowner: (512) 632-0314

Yesterday, the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) issued a proposal to designate 45.7 miles as critical habitat for the Devils River minnow (Dionda diaboli) under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The proposal was required by a July 2006 lawsuit settlement with WildEarth Guardians, the Center for Biological Diversity, and Save Our Springs Alliance.

The groups expressed concern that the Service’s final critical habitat designation for this rare fish, expected in July 2008, might be substantially reduced. The agency stated in the proposal that key areas may be removed from the final designation due to conservation plans that the Service believes could adequately protect the minnow’s river habitat. The groups counter that all suitable river habitat should be included, given the minnow’s extreme imperilment and research findings that species with critical habitat protection are twice as likely to recover as those without.

The proposal contains areas currently occupied by the species and some areas that are unoccupied but suitable for the Devils River minnow. However, the Service left out two key streams: Las Moras and Sycamore creeks out of the designation. The groups point out the importance of protecting unoccupied habitat to bring the fish back and ultimately recover it.

The proposal comes on the heels of a Service announcement that it will review eight endangered species decisions, including critical habitat designations, in which there is evidence of political meddling. In one of those cases (Canada lynx), the Bush administration apparently reduced the final critical habitat designation to accommodate a private timber company. Congressman Nick Rahall (D-WV) and conservationists have criticized the Service for not reviewing more decisions, as some 200 endangered species cases came across the desk of Julie MacDonald, an Interior official who resigned amidst scandal in May.

“The Devils River minnow urgently needs full habitat protection. This rare fish is at the very edge of extinction,” said Dr. Nicole Rosmarino of WildEarth Guardians. “We are very concerned that the proposal does not go far enough and that the Service will slash the final designation, as it has for many other species,” Rosmarino continued.

According to a May 2007 report by the Center for Biological Diversity, under the current Bush administration, 90% of critical habitat designations have been reduced between Service proposals and final rules. Only 30% of the total area proposed for critical habitat designations has survived in final designations.

“The Bush administration has consistently shortchanged endangered species on critical habitat protection,” said Jeff Miller with the Center for Biological Diversity. Miller continued, “It’s important for the Service to ensure that all the habitat needed for the recovery of the minnow is protected.”

“For centuries, San Felipe Springs and Las Moras Springs and other waters in this region have sustained human settlement as well as fish and other wildlife,” said Bill Bunch, Executive Director for the Save Our Springs Alliance. “We’re hoping that critical habitat for the minnow will help address excessive groundwater pumping that threatens spring flows.”

Robert Corbin, owner of more than 1,300 acres of river front land on the Devils River and a member of the Save Our Springs Alliance said, “As a river front landowner committed to protecting our spring and river flows, I support full habitat protection for the minnow to recover the minnow and help assure that sufficient flows and water quality are maintained.”

WildEarth Guardians (www.fguardians.org) works to preserve and restore native wildlands and wildlife in the American Southwest. The Center for Biological Diversity (www.biologicaldiversity.org) is a science-based environmental advocacy organization with more than 25,000 members that works to protect endangered species and wild places throughout the world through science, policy, education, citizen activism and environmental law. Save Our Springs Alliance (www.sosalliance.org) is a non-profit organization that seeks to protect the Edwards Aquifer, its springs and contributing streams, and its unique endemic fauna. SOSA is a member of the Greater Edwards Aquifer Alliance (www.aquiferalliance.org), a coalition of local conservation organizations spanning the entire Edwards Aquifer region.

The Service's proposal for Devils River minnow critical habitat is at:http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/01jan20071800/edocket.access.gpo.gov/2007/07-3678.htm

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Background Information:

The Devils River minnow, a small freshwater fish with a wedge-shaped spot on its tail and a distinct lateral stripe, inhabits small spring-fed streams with fast flowing water. It was once one of the most abundant of native fishes in southern Texas, but the minnow is now one of the region’s least abundant fish species.

The minnow is a highly imperiled freshwater fish that was listed in 1999 as threatened under the ESA, surviving only in the middle Devils River, Pinto Creek, and San Felipe Creek (tributaries to the Rio Grande) in Texas and possibly the Río Salado in northern Mexico. WildEarth Guardians, the Center for Biological Diversity, and Save Our Springs Alliance filed a federal lawsuit in October 2005 to challenge FWS’s refusal to designate critical habitat to protect the minnow.

The Devils River minnow has been completely eliminated from several areas in southern Texas - including the lower portions of the Devil’s River due to the construction of Amistad Reservoir, the Upper Devils River due to lack of stream flows and Las Moras Creek due to damming in the area - and may have also been extirpated from the Río San Carlos in Mexico.

Surveys show a massive reduction in the population and range of the Devils Riverminnow due to habitat loss from dam construction, spring dewatering and other stream modifications. Introductions of non-native fish such as smallmouth bass and armored catfish have contributed to the collapse of the minnow population in Devils River, through direct predation, competition for food and destruction of its suitable habitat. Imminent threats to the minnow include reduced stream flows and other impacts to water quality caused by irrigation, bank stabilization and flood control projects.

The Service’s critical habitat proposal identifies primary habitat components that require protection as high-quality water provided by permanent, natural flows from groundwater spring and seeps characterized, abundant food sources such as algae and other microorganisms, and healthy vegetation in and over streams to provide shelter from predators, and feeding and spawning habitat. Dangers to the minnow’s habitat identified in the Service’s proposal include groundwater pumping, pollution, non-native species, dams, and harms to streamside vegetation.

Critical habitat designations provide protection of areas not currently occupied by the species and protects critical habitat from adverse modification. A peer-reviewed study in the April 2005 issue of BioScience, “The Effectiveness of the Endangered Species Act: A Quantitative Analysis,” concludes that species with critical habitat designated for two or more years are more than twice as likely to have improving population trends than species without it.

The Devils River minnow is part of a unique fish fauna in the area where the Chihuahuan Desert, Edwards Plateau and South Texas Brush eco-regions join. Fishes in this area have been heavily impacted by human water use and introduced species, and half of the native fishes of the Chihuahuan Desert in Texas and Mexico are considered imperiled, with four species already having gone extinct. In 2003, the Rio Grande was rated by American Rivers as one of the most endangered rivers in the U.S.