Has a yearslong battle between cattle and a frog species finally croaked?
The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in late October that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) failed to meet its obligations to protect the Oregon spotted frog when the agency allowed cattle to graze within its critical habitat in Oregon’s Fremont-Winema National Forest.
After a federal judge dismissed a suit last year filed in U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon Medford Division, environmental groups appealed the decision and came out victorious in the 9th Circuit. The judge ruled the agency fell short when it released a biological opinion (BiOp) that allowed cattle to graze on Jack Creek in the national forest.
However, the court did not rule against the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) in its decision.
“Maybe, just maybe, the Forest Service will finally come to terms with the fact that cattle grazing is incompatible with the habitat needs of the Oregon spotted frog here on Jack Creek,” said Adam Bronstein with Western Watersheds Project said in a statement. “The Forest Service’s efforts to prop up irresponsible cattle operations can no longer stand, particularly in the face of the accelerating climate and the extinction crises.”
Lawsuit, ruling details
The battle between grazing on the Antelope Allotment and the Oregon spotted frog has stretched on since 2008. The allotment is located in the Fremont-Winema National Forest and comprises nearly 170,000 acres. Jack Creek runs through two pastures and is the primary habitat for the frog species.
The environmental groups argued in their latest suit that USFS failed to scrutinize key issues in a final environmental impact statement (FEIS) regarding threats to the spotted frog: direct impacts such as trampling, climate change and increasing drought, and population-level effects.
However, on this claim, the court ruled, “Although the FEIS did not specifically compare the magnitude of these particular threats across alternatives, the FEIS included sufficient information for a reader to understand how the different grazing strategies would affect these threats, thus allowing for an ‘informed comparison of alternatives.’”
The environmental groups also argued USFS failed to demonstrate consistency with the Winema National Forest Plan, which the court also ruled against.
On the claim that the USFWS’ 2018 BiOp was deficient in its discussion of climate change, the court ruled in favor of the environmental groups. “The BiOp does not account for climate change as a cumulative effect or baseline condition,” the court ruled.
The decision continued, “Although the BiOp considered how drought conditions might harm the frogs, the BiOp nevertheless failed to consider how climate change will impact frogs in nondrought years.”
The court said the BiOp needed to consider whether the frog could sustain grazing-related impacts on top of potential climate change effects. In addition, although USFWS acknowledged the threat of low water conditions in Jack Creek, the order said the BiOp failed to engage with information suggesting climate change could affect water levels and streamflow.
“Because FWS failed to address available information indicating that climate change would make low water conditions—an acknowledged threat for Oregon spotted frogs—more frequent or severe, it failed to consider an important aspect of the problem,” the decision read.
Therefore, the court reversed the grant of summary judgement to the USFWS and ordered the 2018 BiOp to be vacated and remanded back to USFWS for reconsideration. — Anna Miller, WLJ managing editor
