DENVER-
A federal appeals court on Friday upheld a judge’s dismissal of a lawsuit arguing that lynx protected by the Endangered Species Act in Colorado keep that protection when they wander into New Mexico, outside a designated area of potential habitat for the cats.
Environmental groups including Santa Fe, N.M.-based Forest Guardians had hoped to force the Forest Service in New Mexico to consider protecting the lynx in new management plans for the Carson and Santa Fe national forests, arguing the law declaring the lynx a threatened species gives it protection everywhere.
A three-judge panel of the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the groups’ complaint was insufficient because it assumed an incorrect legal definition of the forest management plans.
The Forest Service would have to consult with the Fish and Wildlife Service on protections for threatened species in official “agency actions,” but the “land and resource management plans” being drawn up for the Carson and Santa Fe forests were not legally agency actions, the court said.
“Because Forest Guardians has not alleged any activity, project or program authorized, funded or carried out by the Forest Service that might constitute ‘action’ within (a section of the Endangered Species Act requiring interagency consultation on agency actions), the Forest Service has no duty to consult with the (Fish and Wildlife Service) pursuant to the statute,” the ruling said.
The Fish and Wildlife Service has declared the lynx threatened in 14 states, including Colorado, Utah and Wyoming, but not New Mexico.
Forest Guardians and other groups appealed after a federal judge in New Mexico ruled in 2005 that forest managers weren’t required to consider lynx in their plans because of their presumed absence in that state.
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The case is No. 05-2181.
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