Environmental groups continue to assert that livestock grazing on public lands in Arizona and New Mexico is damaging critical habitat for the northern Mexican garter snake.
The Center for Biological Diversity and Maricopa Audubon Society released a report in mid-September titled “Grazed to Death: Livestock Production Adversely Modifying Most Critical Habitat for Northern Mexican Garter Snakes on Public Lands in Arizona.”
The report comes after the groups’ complaint this summer against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) for what the groups call a violation of the Endangered Species Act for allowing grazing along the Big Sandy River.
“The riparian forests, the river that they adjoin and protect, and the wildlife that use these habitats (including the flycatcher, the cuckoo and the garter snake), have been damaged, degraded, and destroyed by livestock grazing authorized, managed, and allowed by BLM, despite documentation of that damage provided by the plaintiffs,” the groups wrote in the suit.
In their latest report, the environmentalists claim cattle grazing has damaged nearly 60% of the garter snake’s critical habitat. In 2021, USFWS designated about 20,000 acres of critical habitat in Arizona and New Mexico for the snake, with more than half of the habitat acres on public lands.
“Field biologists documented cows concentrated in streams and riparian areas, often leaving bare, denuded ground, destroyed vegetation and streambanks, and polluted, feces-laden water,” the Center for Biological Diversity said. “Cows were often grazing illegally, in places where grazing is prohibited.”
The group continued that damage to the snake’s critical habitat included parts of Tonto National Forest and the San Pedro Riparian National Conservation Area.
The July complaint by the Center and Maricopa Audubon Society said that livestock grazing also damaged nearly 60% of the western yellow-billed cuckoo critical habitat in Arizona and New Mexico.
“Given this pattern of neglect, I question whether these federal agencies want struggling species to survive at all,” said Chris Bugbee, Southwest conservation advocate at the Center. “They’ve systematically chosen to put the interests of ranchers over the plants and animals they’re charged with protecting.”
In a court document filed Sept. 24 with the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona, the government broadly refuted the July complaint’s claims. The agencies denied the complaint’s allegations and also denied that the groups were entitled to any relief. — Anna Miller, WLJ managing editor
