Anti-Grazing Radicals File
Another Suit Against Cattle

TUCSON, Ariz. — Armpit-deep in controversy over secret deals it has already cut with federal bureaucrats, a Tucson-based anti-grazing activist group has filed yet another lawsuit seeking to drive thousands more head of livestock off public rangelands.

The Tucson-based Southwest Center for Biological Diversity is targeting grazing leases in southern Arizona's Coronado National Forest which they say violate federal requirements for protection of endangered species.

The activist group said it was filing a lawsuit Friday citing concerning 47 of the 200 livestock grazing leases in the forest.

The suit seeks "protection" for the cactus ferruginous pygmy owl, the lesser long-nosed bat, two fish — Gila topminnow and Yaqui chub — and the Huachuca water umbel, a plant.

It asks for an order that the Forest Service halt grazing on the allotments until it has guidance from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on how grazing terms must protect the species.

Peter Galvin, spokesman for the group, said the endangered species study and protection measures the group seeks would result in fewer cattle in the forest, limits on where they would be allowed, and possibly seasonal restrictions on their siting.

Cattle could be barred from some of the allotments, he said.

Jeff Humphrey, a spokesman for Fish and Wildlife's Phoenix office, said the two agencies have been working on endangered species concerns in the forest with a goal of starting a formal process in October.

Galvin said that's good but not enough.

"The agency has been saying it intends to get its grazing house in order for at least a decade. It still has not," he said. "The Forest Service is in violation of the law. It needs a firm prodding and, that's what this lawsuit is for."

The cited leases cover 430,000 of the forest's 1.7 million acres and deal with land below 4000 feet on which about 10,000 head of cattle graze. That's about a third of all the cattle using the forest's land.

Last week, surveyors found a pygmy owl, the 32nd sighted in southern Arizona this year, in the Rincon Mountains foothills south of Saguaro National Park's east unit, said Ron Senn of the Coronado forest.

Senn said it was the first pygmy owl found on Coronado forest land.

The Forest Service agreed earlier this year to limit cattle grazing in the 11 Arizona and New Mexico national forests to settle lawsuits brought by the center and by Forest Guardians of Santa Fe, N.M.

The agreements would keep cattle away from 330 miles of streams on 80 grazing allotments.

New Mexico ranchers picketed the Forest Service last month to protest the decision, reached in secret negotiations with the activists, and Congress has launched an investigation of the matter.