An environmental group filed another federal lawsuit against the federal government and its management practices that it contends endangers a Jumping Mouse species.
The latest suit was filed in Albuquerque over the habitat of the New Mexico Meadow Jumping Mouse in the Sacramento Mountains.
The lawsuit filed Aug. 27 by the Tucson, Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity, sought an injunction against the U.S. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico.
“We don’t have laws in the United States that protect habitat,” said Michael Silver, co-founder of the Center. “We only have laws that protect the plants and animals, that depend on the habitat.”
A similar lawsuit was filed in February claiming U.S. land managers failed to keep livestock and wild horses out of streams and other wetlands in Arizona’s White Mountains, resulting in damage to habitat required by the mouse species.
Officials in the Forest Service’s Southwest region disputed the allegations in the lawsuit, saying the agency has been working since the mouse was listed as an endangered species in 2014 to use new and existing fencing to control livestock access to riverbank and wetland areas all while balancing water rights.
The battle over the meadow jumping mouse has lasted years. The listing of the mouse as endangered prompted the Forest Service to fence off streams and watering holes in some national forests to protect habitat thought to be ideal.
Source: Ruidoso News