A lizard that may have lost almost half of its habitat due to
off-road vehicle activity, military training and expansion of
farming and housing in the desert is being reconsidered for
federal protection.
Acting on orders from a federal judge in San Diego, the U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service announced yesterday it will again
consider listing the flat-tailed horned lizard as a threatened
species under the Endangered Species Act.
The action triggers a 120-day period for anyone with new
information of the lizard's life cycle or habitat to submit
comments to the federal agency. A final decision will be made by
Dec. 26, 2002.
Fish and Wildlife first proposed protection for the lizard in
1993, but withdrew the proposal in 1997. That prompted a lawsuit
by the nonprofit Defenders of Wildlife. A federal court in San
Diego upheld the agency's decision, but the 9th Circuit Court of
Appeals in San Francisco overturned the lower court ruling in
July.
Jane Hendron, a spokeswoman for the service's Carlsbad
office, said the proposed listing was abandoned because proof of
the lizard's population decline wasn't conclusive and "some
of the threats to the lizard's habitat were found to be less
serious" than officials originally thought.
Another major factor in the withdrawal of the listing was a
pact signed in 1997 by several state and federal agencies to
preserve portions of the lizard's 1.2 million acres of habitat,
most of which is in California.
The habitat management agreement touted by federal officials
has been ridiculed by environmentalists, who said it fails to
set aside enough of the lizard's primary range and allows
continued degradation of the protected areas by off-road-vehicle
enthusiasts.
Lester Milroy, president of the Southern California Chapter
of the Horned Lizard Conservation Society, said he was pleased
that the courts have forced the Fish and Wildlife Service to
reconsider protecting the lizard, which has the smallest range
of any horned lizard in the United States.
"It was originally proposed for listing in 1979, and the
best science then showed the population was in severe
decline," said Milroy, a resident of Apple Valley.
The lizard "looks like a diminutive dinosaur with all
the horns on its head -- and everyone (mistakenly) calls them
horny toads," he said.
Another factor in the lizard's continued decline may be the
parallel drop in population of its primary food. Native
California harvester ants have diminished due to pesticides and
competition from non-native ant species.
The flat-tailed horned toad inhabits harsh, parched areas of
the desert where temperatures soar to 115 degrees and higher.
Its range includes the Coachella, Imperial and Borrego valleys,
a small portion of southwest Arizona, northeastern Baja
California and mainland Mexico.
The most recent estimates place the lizard's habitat loss at
49 percent.
Concerns about the proposed listing are expected from private
landowners; the military, which operates desert bombing ranges;
American Indian tribes and off-road-vehicle enthusiasts, Hendron
said.
Comments about the lizard's life cycle or habitat should be
sent to Field Supervisor, Carlsbad Fish and Wildlife Office,
2730 Loker Ave., Carlsbad, CA 92008. Comments can be sent by
e-mail to the Fish and Wildlife office at fthl@rl.fws.gov.
E-mail submissions should avoid the use of special characters or
encryption, and the message should include the sender's name and
return address.
