Monday, January 27, 2014

Lawsuit seeks to keep cattle out of Fossil Creek watershed

The Center for Biological Diversity filed a complaint claiming that the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service both violated the law when they decided to allow 294 cattle and six horses to graze on largely degraded expanses of juniper grasslands on a century-old cattle allotment bounded by Highway 260 on the north and Fossil Creek on the south and east. The lawsuit focuses on a 40-foot-wide, fenced gap that gives cattle direct access to Fossil Creek and on the alleged failure by the federal government to consider whether the cattle will harm the endangered Chiricahua leopard frog by preventing the spotted amphibian from moving between the handful of stock ponds it now occupies on the allotment. Ironically enough, ranchers created the stock tanks with earthen berms and sometimes water pumps attached to windmills that the frogs now occupy. The battle about letting cattle continue to graze on the allotment has sloshed back and forth since 2000, when the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed listing the Chiricahua leopard frog as endangered, since the frog lived in 13 sites on the allotment. The drought prompted the Forest Service to remove all the cattle for portions of 2002 and 2003 and then again from 2004 through 2006. The condition of the grass improved, so cattle were returned in reduced numbers from 2006 to 2009. The Center in court successfully challenged the 2009 environmental assessment, prompt­ing the Forest Service to prepare a new analysis that came to the same conclusion in 2013. The Center is now challenging that study, along with the May 13 decision to continue grazing. Red Rock Ranger District Ranger Heather Provencio in that determination concluded that allowing the cattle to continue grazing won’t have any significant impact on the leopard frog or the other endangered species found in and along Fossil Creek. She concluded that rotating about 300 cattle through 28 pastures and giving them access to water in Fossil Creek along one, fenced stretch will not harm any endangered species, including the leopard frogs living in the stock tanks. She noted that the Forest Service will monitor the condition of the grassland and will require the removal of cattle if necessary. The 300 cattle represent a 38 percent decline from the previous cap of about 462 cattle. She noted the grazing plan includes an effort to cut down and burn off encroaching juniper on about 1,200 acres, which will improve the condition of the grasslands...more

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