Western lizard species subject of lawsuit

GRANTS PASS, Ore. — Conservation groups sued the federal government yesterday for failing to respond to their petitions to protect two species of salamander from southwestern Oregon and Northern California under the Endangered Species Act.

The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Portland, claims the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service violated the Endangered Species Act by missing 90-day and 12-month deadlines to respond to petitions to list the Siskiyou Mountains and Scott Bar salamanders as threatened or endangered species.

It seeks a court order for Fish and Wildlife to make a preliminary finding within 30 days.

Noah Greenwald, a biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity, said the Bush administration has not listed any species as threatened or endangered except when ordered by a federal judge.

He said the Siskiyou Mountains salamander was one of hundreds of rare species protected from habitat loss from logging under the Northwest Forest Plan until the Bush administration replaced the regulation with a less-restrictive test.

A federal judge recently ruled the regulation was changed illegally, without regard to the effect on plants and animals.

"One of the reasons why [the salamander] needs Endangered Species Act protection is that the Bush administration is weakening other forest protections," Greenwald said.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman Joan Jewett said the agency told the petitioners in a July 19 letter that it did not have the resources to evaluate another species for threatened or endangered status. There are 286 species that are candidates for listing.

"We're stuck in that situation where we have a lot of court-ordered critical habitats and a backlog of listing petitions," Jewett said from Portland.

The Siskiyou Mountains salamander is found in the Applegate River drainage in Oregon and the Klamath River drainage in California. The Scott Bar salamander is found along the Klamath River near Scott Bar.