Desert Tortoise Will Not Be Protected by the Endangered Species Act

Richard B. Seman is secretary of the CNMI Department of Lands and Natural Resources while Manuel M. Pangelinan is the director of the CNMI Division of Fish and Wildlife.

The Endangered Species Act was established in 1973, and is now administered by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Instead, federal and state stakeholders are collaborating on a conservation agreement that represents a more flexible and effective way to protect the tortoise.

We concluded that a number of the 23 species included here do not meet the definitions of “threatened” or “endangered”, and we did not feel that these require federal protection at this time.

As of late, there around 470,000 to 970,000 adult desert tortoises in Mexico and the United States. “And, because the black pinesnake is found in the same geographic areas as other listed species like the population of threatened gopher tortoises west of the Tombigbee Waterway, endangered dusky gopher frog, and endangered red-cockaded woodpecker, a few protections are already in place”.

“While American eels still face local mortality from harvest and hydroelectric facilities, this is not threatening the overall species”, the statement read, adding that the effects of these threats are reduced by harvest quotas and mechanisms that restore eel passage around dams and other obstructions. “Our Species Status Assessment, a tool we did not have previously, showed that our federal land-management partners have been managing this species for more than 30 years, and doing it well”, Steve Spangle, Arizona field supervisor for the service, said. Kamps said that every endangered species listing costs time and money.

Mining would have also suffered as the BLM listed 9,675 new mining claims from 1990 to 2002, 36% of which fall within Sonoran desert tortoise’s habitat.

The Sonoran Desert Tortoise (Gopherus morafkai) occupies portions of western, northwestern and southern Arizona, and the northern two-thirds of the Mexican State of Sonora. Solar energy would also likely have been harmed as “large solar projects on desert floors” are considered a potential threat to the Sonoran desert tortoise.

Wednesday’s action was prompted by the 2011 settlement agreement between the agency and the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and its allies, that mandates listing determinations for hundreds of species within a 6-year period. The agency had earlier, in 2010, said that the tortoise was in a bad situation and required federal protection but other species were in more need of this protection since they were at a greater risk.

In all, there are 14 individual plans tailored specifically to different regions that have been identified as essential habitats for the grouses’ continued survival.