Southwestern songbird keeps federal protections after lawsuit dismissal
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (KRQE) – A federal court has dismissed a lawsuit after an attempt to change the protective status of the southwestern willow flycatcher. The dismissal means the bird will retain protection as an endangered species.
The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Washington, D.C. It claims that New Mexico farmers have to “contend with burdensome federal regulations,” including the federal Endangered Species Act, which protects the southwestern willow flycatcher. The New Mexico Cattle Growers’ Association claimed that by listing the flycatcher as an endangered species, the government has effectively reduced the value of property for some New Mexico landowners.
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With that in mind, in 2015, the Cattle Growers’ Association and others petitioned the federal government to remove the southwestern willow flycatcher from the endangered species list; they tried to argue that the flycatcher was not a distinct subspecies of the broader category of willow flycatchers. The federal government denied that petition, which sparked this latest lawsuit.
“I do think there’s been abuse of the Endangered Species Act over the years,” Tom Paterson, the president-elect of the New Mexico Cattle Growers’ Association, told KRQE. “It has been used to really decimate some of our rural communities in New Mexico.”
Now, a federal judge says the federal government did properly rely on experts to classify the southwestern willow flycatcher as a subspecies and that listing the bird as endangered was done properly. Due to those factors, the Cattle Growers’ Association’s lawsuit against the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was dismissed.
“Of course, we’re disappointed with the court’s decision, and we’re in the process of studying the opinion with our counsel for next steps,” Paterson says. Paterson adds that these sorts of cases can have big impacts on places like Luna, New Mexico.
“[Luna] had a gas station. They had a motel. Now, we don’t have our school here, and the kids have to be bussed 40 minutes each way, four days a week. We don’t have a gas station. We don’t have a café. We don’t have a motel. The only thing that is growing is our cemetery. And those are some of the consequences of some of these policy choices.”
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Environmental advocates, on the other hand, have celebrated the recent court decision, arguing that bird protection should take priority over current cattle ranching practices. “Thank goodness we’ve defeated another bogus effort by ranchers to remove protection for this imperiled songbird,” Charles Babbitt, the conservation chair of the Maricopa Audubon Society, said in a press release. “That protection is problematic for ranchers whose unsustainable business model requires that their cows continue to destroy the country’s few surviving desert riparian areas.”
Paterson, from the Cattle Growers’ Association, pushed back on the idea that cattle ranchers are damaging New Mexico’s landscapes. “When the grass gets anywhere close to being short, they take the cattle off,” he said. “[And] much of southwestern New Mexico that has riparian area has been fenced off, so cattle are not allowed to go into those areas.”
