The Center for Biological Diversity and Maricopa Bird Alliance sued the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Feb. 3, alleging illegal cattle grazing in Arizona’s Tonto National Forest.
The groups filed suit after threatening a lawsuit in September. They claim the federal agencies violated the Endangered Species Act (ESA) by failing to protect threatened and endangered plants and animals from cattle grazing in the forest.
“We won’t tolerate destruction of Arizona’s precious desert riparian habitats, so we’re going to court to protect them,” said Center for Biological Diversity co-founder and board member Robin Silver.
The groups allege that through surveys conducted by the Center for Biological Diversity,
damage was found from cattle grazing along 55% of 122 miles of waterways across 25 grazing allotments. As a result, the groups said, habitat has been damaged for yellow-billed cuckoos, southwestern willow flycatchers, Chiricahua leopard frogs, northern Mexican garter snakes, narrow-headed garter snakes, spikedace, razorback suckers and Gila chub.
The lawsuit asks a Phoenix, AZ, district court to find the federal agencies in violation of the ESA and Administrative Procedure Act and enjoin USFS from authorizing livestock grazing in occupied habitat for the aforementioned species. The suit also asks for all active USFS grazing authorizations in the Tonto National Forest that allow livestock grazing in occupied species habitats to be set aside.
Finally, the groups ask for the 2022 and 2025 biological opinions guiding grazing authorizations to be set aside, and for the impacts of grazing on the species to be reevaluated. — Anna Miller Fortozo, WLJ managing editor
16 Comments