Environmentalists, landowners help endangered falcons soar

The endangered Northern Aplomado Falcon, a regal gray bird with beige markings that was common across Texas and the Southwest until 1952, is making a comeback. A combined effort by conservationists, federal agencies and private landowners has led to 40 breeding pairs in South Texas and soon, the falcon's reintroduction in West Texas and New Mexico. The success has been so great that he thinks the Northern Aplomado Falcon will soon be delisted as an endangered species. Aplomado is the Spanish word for lead-colored. The Northern Aplomado Falcon's resurgence has relied, more than most rescue efforts, on the goodwill of private landowners. Texas lands are about 97 percent privately owned, limiting the power of the federal government to force change. The Environmental Defense Fund helped create an inducement for landowners in the mid-1990s with a "safe harbor" provision to the Endangered Species Act that protects private property from federal intrusion when landowners set acreage aside for endangered animals. "In return for access, the landowners get a permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service" that gives them legal cover, said Michael Bean, a senior attorney with the defense fund. "There are now 2 million acres in Texas in the program."...McClatchy Newspapers