Lawsuit Launched Over Critical Habitat Delay for Threatened Louisiana Pinesnake

 

The Center for Biological Diversity notified the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today that it intends to sue over the agency’s failure to finalize critical habitat for the Louisiana pinesnake.

Once abundant in central Louisiana and east Texas, the harmless burrowing snakes now exist in only six isolated populations because of destruction of the longleaf pine forests where they live.

“If the Service doesn’t protect the vanishing forests that Louisiana pinesnakes call home, we could lose these gentle, charming snakes forever,” said Lindsay Reeves, a New Orleans-based senior attorney at the Center. “Many organizations, including our local zoos, have been working to prevent pinesnakes from going extinct, but they won’t recover in the wild unless their forests are protected.”

The designation of critical habitat is an important step in the snakes’ recovery. A Center study found that plants and animals with federally protected critical habitat are more than twice as likely to be moving toward recovery than species without it...more