ARIZONA DAILY STAR (Tucson, Arizona) 26 November 07 Suit seeks to protect Mexican garter snake (Josh Brodesky)
An environmental group has filed a lawsuit to have the Mexican garter snake listed as an endangered species.
The Center for Biological Diversity's federal suit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, as well as Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne, marks its latest push to achieve endangered status for the snake. It also asks that the Fish and Wildlife Service reconsider its recent finding that the endangered species label is not warranted for the snake.
That decision has been called into question because of a scandal involving former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior Julie MacDonald, who was found in March to have given documents to industry lobbyists and overturned endangered species recommendations despite scientific evidence.
The Fish and Wildlife Service has agreed to review the decision not to designate the Mexican garter snake as an endangered species, but the center hopes to hasten that review. Listing the snake as an endangered species would help spur greater conservation in and around Southern Arizona's streams and riverbeds.
"The agency stated that it would redo the snake's listing decision — but not until fiscal year 2009. Until then, the Mexican gartersnake (sic) languishes in bureaucratic limbo without the substantive protection afforded by the ESA (Endangered Species Act)," the suit says.
An aquatic, non-venomous snake that stretches about 3 1/2 feet, the Mexican garter was once a fixture along the Santa Cruz and San Pedro rivers. But the snake's fortunes have dwindled along with the region's water supply.
Its habitat once stretched across Southern Arizona, New Mexico and Mexico; but that has now been reduced to about 10 percent of that area.
In addition to the threat of development, the Mexican garter snake is also threatened by non-native bullfrogs, livestock grazing and illegal collection.
The Mexican government has recognized the snake as threatened.
"It just simply doesn't have anything to eat," said Noah Greenwald, a conservation biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity. "In a sense, what we are seeing is the collapse of an entire ecosystem. Almost every native-stream-dwelling species in the Southwest at this point is endangered or heading to extinction."
Efforts to reach U.S. Fish and Wildlife officials late Wednesday and Friday were unsuccessful.
In September of last year, the Fish and Wildlife Service determined the Mexican garter snake was not endangered because the portion of the snake's U.S. population is not significant to the whole, its habitat range does not create a "major geographical area," and it will not be endangered in Mexico for the foreseeable future.
Suit seeks to protect Mexican garter snake

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