CLARION-LEDGER (Jackson, Mississippi) 25 November 07 Endangered frog at center of feud over conservation - Group says Bush appointees aren't acting in species' best interest (Chris Joyner)
(AP) Once plentiful across the Gulf Coast, the Mississippi gopher frog has dwindled down to just a few hundred specimens in three south Mississippi ponds.
A lawsuit filed this month in federal court says the gopher frog and four other species in danger of extinction are the victims of political corruption.
The suit, filed by the Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity, alleges Bush administration appointees to the Department of Interior overruled the opinions of scientists in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and failed to provide protection and habitat for the near-extinct animals.
"This is part of our larger effort to counter what's really been a long, ongoing pattern of corruption and pure political interference in what are, by law, scientific decisions at Interior" since President Bush has been in office, said Will Hodges, a biodiversity advocate for the center. "He's appointed people at the Interior Department that are downright hostile to wildlife and designating habitat to wildlife."
Case in point for the conservation group is former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Interior Julie MacDonald. MacDonald, a civil engineer, resigned her post earlier this year after a report by the department's inspector general found she "has been heavily involved with editing, commenting on, and reshaping" reports on endangered species written by biologists in the field.
Hodges said the problem goes beyond MacDonald. The Center for Biological Diversity has identified 55 species they believe have been victimized by scientific opinions being overruled by partisan officials appointed by the Bush administration who favor development interests over protecting the habitat of animals on the endangered species list.
"This administration just doesn't want to protect species," he said. "Critical habitat is controversial because it can hold up or block projects on public land or projects that need federal permits."
Federal officials were not available to comment on the litigation because of the Thanksgiving holiday, but in comments to The Christian Science Monitor earlier this month, Interior Department spokesman Hugh Vickery downplayed the lawsuits.
"These guys sue us all the time, and I don't doubt they would accuse this administration of political interference," Vickery said. "It's part of the whole history of the (Endangered Species Act). The provisions aren't working. They're just a litigation magnet."
Kieran Suckling, policy director for the Center for Biological Diversity, said federal law requires the Fish and Wildlife Service to map out a plan to save endangered species such as the gopher frog.
"It's been on the list for six years, and the government has taken no steps to develop a plan," he said.
The Mississippi gopher frog grows to about three inches in length with coloring ranging from black to brown or gray. According to the Fish and Wildlife Service, it once ranged from southwest Alabama to southeast Louisiana, but it has not been found in Louisiana since 1967 and it has been gone from Alabama since 1922.
Hodges said the Mississippi gopher frog may be "fairly obscure," but he said that is no reason to let the species go extinct.
"If we concede on the gopher frog, what is the next species?" he said. "These ecological relationships are so interwoven and complex, we still don't understand their relationships. We're finding that we're losing biological diversity at an alarming rate. We feel at the Center for Biological Diversity you have to draw a line somewhere."
Glen's Pond, one of the frog's remaining homes, is on federally owned land in the DeSoto National Forest near Saucier, but Suckling said a 2,000-home development going up on adjacent land is threatening to make that pond less inhabitable. He said he hopes the suit will result in the court ordering the Interior Department to set aside additional habitat and reintroduce the frog to a larger area.
The count of gopher frogs has increased in recent years. Five years ago, fewer than 100 adult gopher frogs were known to exist.
But Suckling said the species is still in danger of vanishing. Its habitat has to be expanded to about 20 to 30 ponds to make it a viable species in the wild, he said.
"It's certainly one of the most endangered species in the entire country," he said. "There's about 2,000 spotted owls, and we're talking about 200 gopher frogs."
Endangered frog at center of feud over conservation

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• MS Press: Endangered frog Lawsuit - W von Papineäu, Mon Nov 26 21:24:24 2007