Federal wildlife officials designated a unique lizard in southeastern New Mexico and West Texas as an endangered species on Friday. In one of the most valuable oil and natural gas basins in the world, future energy development, sand mining, and climate change are the main risks to the survival of the lizard.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared, “We have determined that the dunes sagebrush lizard is in danger of extinction throughout its entire range.” It was determined that in 47% of its range, the lizard is already “functionally extinct.”
Scientists have found that a large portion of the 2.5-inch (6.5 cm) spiky, light brown lizard’s remaining habitat has been broken up, making it difficult for the species to locate mates outside of those who already reside nearby.
New Endangered Listing For Rare Lizard Could Slow Oil And Gas Drilling In New Mexico And West Texas
The service stated in its conclusion, published in the Federal Register, that “even if there were no further expansion of the oil and gas or sand mining industry, the existing footprint of twould operations will continue to negatively affect the dunes sagebrush lizard into the future.”
The ruling ends twenty years of legal and regulatory battles between the US government, environmentalists, and the oil and gas sector. Environmentalists applauded the decision, but business leaders denounced it as a danger to the continued extraction of fossil fuels.
According to Bryan Bird, the Southwest director of Defenders of Wildlife, the decision offers a “lifeline for survival” for a rare species whose “only fault has been occupying a habitat that the fossil fuel industry has been wanting to claw away from it.”
“The dunes sagebrush lizard languished in a Pandora’s box of political and administrative back and forth for far too long, even as its population was rapidly declining and facing extinction,” Bird stated.
Both the New Mexico Oil & Gas Association and the Permian Basin Petroleum Association expressed disappointment, claiming that the decision defies current scientific understanding and disregards decades-long state-sponsored conservation initiatives spanning hundreds of thousands of acres and costing millions of dollars in both states.
New Endangered Listing For Rare Lizard Could Slow Oil And Gas Drilling In New Mexico And West Texas
In a joint statement, PBPA President Ben Shepperd and NMOGA President and CEO Missi Currier stated that “this listing will bring no additional benefit for the species and its habitat, yet could be detrimental to those living and working in the region.” They also believed that the federal government’s overreach could hurt local communities.
According to scientists, the distribution of lizards is the second-smallest of any North American lizard and is limited to the Permian Basin. The reptiles burrow into the sand to shield themselves from harsh temperatures, and they graze on insects and spiders in their habitats among shinnery oaks and dunes.
In 2010, federal officials determined that protecting the species, which environmentalists had first requested in 2002, was justified. Some members of Congress and local communities that depend on the development of oil and gas for jobs and tax income expressed outrage about this.
After several Republican senators wrote to Obama administration officials pleading for a postponement of the final decision, federal authorities opted not to list the dunes sagebrush lizard in 2012.
New Endangered Listing For Rare Lizard Could Slow Oil And Gas Drilling In New Mexico And West Texas
According to then-U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, the decision was based on voluntary conservation agreements in Texas and New Mexico and the “best available science.”
In its ruling on Friday, the Fish and Wildlife Service stated that although these agreements “have provided, and continue to provide, many conservation benefits” for the lizard, “we conclude that the risk of extinction for the dunes sagebrush lizard is high despite these efforts based on the information we reviewed in our assessment.”
It went on to say that industrial development “will continue to have edge effects on surrounding habitat and weaken the structure of the sand dune formations,” and the network of roads will continue to restrict movement and facilitate the direct mortality of dunes sagebrush lizards from traffic.
SOURCE – (AP)
