Nature groups join legal fray over status of songbird
State agency wants to take warbler off the endangered species list
SAN ANTONIO — Four environmental groups, two of them based in Texas, are asking to join the fight to keep the golden-cheeked warbler on the endangered species list.
Travis Audubon, the Texas Ornithological Society, the Center for Biological Diversity and Defenders of Wildlife filed a motion Tuesday asking a judge to let them intervene in a lawsuit by the Texas General Land Office to take the bird off the list.
The Texas Public Policy Institute, a conservative think tank, is representing the GLO. In June, it sued the Interior Department and one of its agencies, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, arguing that a 2015 Texas A&M study shows the bird has recovered and that protections on its habitat are devaluing state lands.
The GLO’s petition states that three appraisal studies concluded that bans on treecutting and other protections have led to a 2,326-acre parcel in Bexar and Kendall counties to lose an average of 43 percent of its value.
A songbird that spends its winters in Mexico and Central America and nests in only 35 counties in Central Texas, the golden-cheeked warbler has for decades been a symbol in the debate over growth and development in the San Antonio-Austin corridor and the Hill Country.
While the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under President Donald Trump has been rolling back rules meant to curb pollution, the Trump Administration has not shown a clear path on the Endangered Species Act, one of America’s toothiest environmental laws.
The warbler case could test whether Trump’s Department of Justice and Department of the Interior will defend protections for endangered species.
“We’re not going to let rich developers collude with the Trump administration to push these beautiful little birds toward extinction,” Center for Biological Diversity attorney Ryan Shannon said in a statement.
Alan Glen, an environmental attorney in Austin who is not involved with the case, said he has not seen any changes in how Justice Department lawyers have been litigating endangered species issues since Trump took office.
“In my practice, I have yet to see any real reaching down on listing issues,” he said. “It tends to take time to get people in place, and if there is a philosophical approach that they want, that takes time.”
Even if the GLO wins, the warblers wouldn’t immediately lose protections, Glen said. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would be obligated to do another scientific review, which could take a year. It might again conclude that the bird needs protecting, he said.
“The possible outcomes in this kind of a case are not all that interesting,” he said.
In the motion, the groups argued they have an interest because of their basic missions of protecting wildlife. Travis Audubon uses the bird in its logo and manages the 715-acre Baker Sanctuary as a warbler preserve.
“It’s simply too soon to remove protections from the warbler, which continues to lose habitat to urban sprawl,” said Joan Marshall, Travis Audubon’s director.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said pretty much the same thing last year after reviewing a petition from the Texas Public Policy Foundation and other groups to take the bird off the list.
That petition also cited the Texas A&M study, which used a computer model to estimate there are 19 times more warblers in Texas than scientists knew about when it was put on the endangered list in 1990.