Lawsuit Filed Over Endangered Gopher Frog
By Megha Satyanarayana, The Sun Herald, Biloxi, Miss.
Dec. 2–A conservation group is suing the federal government on behalf of a frog that used to live in ponds throughout Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama but now lives in just three places in De Soto National Forest and Jackson County.
The Mississippi gopher frog’s population had dwindled to about 100 breeding adults, prompting the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2001 to declare the animal endangered.
Per the Endangered Species Act, the FWS must next designate the frogs’ forest enclave a “critical habitat” in need of protection. The FWS also is supposed to develop a plan to help restore the animal’s population. The lawsuit claims the FWS has done neither.
“The frog is one, if not the most endangered species in the nation,” said Kieran Suckling, the policy director of the Center for Biological Diversity in Arizona, the group filing the suit. “There is no recovery plan and it was supposed to be done in three years.”
But although there is no official plan, the frog is not being left to die off, said Linda LaClaire, a FWS biologist who studies the frog and its Coast habitat. LaClaire runs an informal group of scientists, conservationists and government officials called the Mississippi Gopher Frog Working Group, which is trying to restore the frog’s population.
This is not an easy task, she said.
The three-inch Mississippi gopher frog lives in Glen’s Pond in De Soto National Forest and Mike’s Pond in Jackson County. It has been spotted in another Jackson County pond, said LaClaire. The exact location of each pond is closely guarded, she said. If the Center for Biological Diversity wins its suit, and the frog’s habitat is declared critical, the FWS would have to reveal where the ponds are.
The extra attention could draw hunters, four-wheelers and pets to a delicate habitat already altered by nearby development.
“People do a few doughnuts around the pond and it kills the vegetation,” she said.
Within 650 feet of Glen’s Pond is Tradition, a planned community started before the frog’s endangered listing. The proximity of the development prevents wildlife officials from doing the expansive controlled burns needed to purge woody overgrowth that snarls the frogs’ grassy habitat, she said.
The ponds are where the frogs are born. For much of the year the pond is empty, but after sufficient rains, frogs lay their eggs in the pond where they attach to vegetation. The tadpoles grow in the water, and as adults hop back into upland forest where they become squatters — they live in holes vacated by other species.
The last major rain was several weeks ago, and though there are tadpoles in the ponds, the ponds are drying too quickly, said LaClaire. Her group is trying to raise the tadpoles in nearby water tanks. Many tadpoles have recently died from a parasitic infection in their livers and intestines, said Joshua Cox, a University of Southern Mississippi Gulf Coast Research lab student and member of the gopher frog group. He is studying the unknown agent.
Despite LaClaire’s concerns over revealing the location of the ponds, Suckling is confident the frog lawsuit will be settled quickly.
The Mississippi gopher frog lawsuit is one of a large group of lawsuits filed by the Center for Biological Diversity on behalf of endangered and threatened species. Some of the suits challenge decisions made by a former wildlife official that the group believes were politically motivated, Suckling said. Deputy Assistant Secretary for Fish Wildlife and Parks Julie MacDonald, who is not a biologist, resigned her position in May 2007 after a federal investigation revealed she instructed U.S. Fish and Wildlife scientists to change several species’ critical habitat decisions.
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Criticism of the Critical Habitat Program
Responding to claims that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was using “bad science” in its policy-making, the Government Accountability Office released a report in 2003 examining the critical habitat program.
The GAO found the science used in listing an animal was straightforward and sound. However, scientists questioned in the report raised concerns about the data used in determining some critical habitats. The FWS has long held that beyond listing an animal as threatened or endangered, critical habitat designation offers little extra protection. But the FWS has yet to come up with an alternative.
Among its key findings was the cost of fighting and settling lawsuits to determine critical habitats is draining the agency’s budget. Legal wrangling has tied up money and personnel needed to push through with hundreds of listing requests awaiting decisions or implementation.
The report concluded, “While the service recognized it has lost control of the program, it has yet to offer a remedy.”
– GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE
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Copyright (c) 2007, The Sun Herald, Biloxi, Miss.
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