Subject: 10 Year Battle to List Goshawk as Endangered Continues February 25, 1999 Contact: Kieran Suckling Center for Biological Diversity 520-623-5252 x304 mailto:[log in to unmask] 10 YEAR BATTLE CONTINUES -- 3RD LAWSUIT FILED TO ADD NORTHERN GOSHAWK TO ENDANGERED SPECIES LIST Protection of Raptor Would Preserve Old Growth Forests in Every Western State The Center for Biological Diversity and 18 environmental groups from across the West filed suit today against the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service in Federal District Court in Portland, OR (see Attachment One for list of plaintiffs). The suit seeks to add the Northern goshawk to the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) list, by overturning the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's 6-29-98 decision not list the goshawk as endangered in the western United States. This is the third round of litigation since the Center for Biological Diversity submitted a formal petition to list the goshawk as endangered on 9-26-91. The Fish & Wildlife Service lost a similar case in 1996, and another in 1997, when it refused to even consider protecting the goshawk. In both cases, Federal Judge Richard Bilby ruled that Service's decision was "arbitrary and capricious," and much be redone solely on the basis of objective science. Bilby repeatedly chided the agency for bowing to political pressure and contradicting the conclusions of its own biologists (see below for full chronology of Northern goshawk litigation). The Northern goshawk, a large bird of prey, has been popular with falconers since medieval times because of its legendary ferocity and hunting skill. It lives in mature and old growth forests in all western states (see Attachment One for map of its habitat in the West). Each pair of nesting goshawks needs approximately 6,000 acres of forest to feed and rear its young. Extensive logging of old growth forests on federal, state, and private lands has caused goshawk numbers to plummet. It has vanished from southern California and the coastal mountains of central California, and is virtually eradicated from the coast mountain ranges of northern California, Oregon, and Washington. The goshawk is still hanging on in the interior West where larger patches of old growth still occur on federal lands. Even here, however, logging has taken a heavy toll and proposed logging projects from New Mexico to Washington State threaten the goshawk's future. "The goshawk is the best indicator of old growth forest health in the West," said Kieran Suckling, director of the Center for Biological Diversity, "It's decline tells us that many more species and their habitats are also disappearing." Goshawks prey on a large variety of song birds and small mammals. Since the Northern goshawk requires large home ranges and lives in virtually every old growth forest in the West, its protection under the ESA will compel large-scale logging reforms throughout the West. For just this reason, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service has repeatedly caved into political pressure from the timber industry, just as it did with the Bull trout, Lynx, Northern spotted owl, Mexican spotted owl, and Marbled murrelet. On 11-14-97, Ronald Nowak, a chief listing biologist in the Washington, D.C. office of the Fish & Wildlife Service resigned in protest over the agency's "unrestrained use of public funds to carry on litigation and other actions to thwart or delay appropriate classification and regulation of species such as the lynx." (See Attachment Three for Nowak's resignation letter and contact information). "The Fish and Wildlife Service has completely lost its backbone," said Suckling, "it cares more about avoiding political pressure than protecting endangered species. We've been fighting this battle for ten years, we'll fight for another decade if necessary." ----------------------------------------------------------------- To get off the IOWA-TOPICS list, send email to [log in to unmask] Make the message text (not the subject): SIGNOFF IOWA-TOPICS