Federal wildlife officials facing pressure from members of Congress on Tuesday delayed action on their proposal to designate nearly 550,000 acres in nine states, including parts of Colorado, as habitat for the imperiled yellow-billed cuckoo.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife service officials decided to reopen a public comment period, which ended Tuesday, for 60 more days.
This month, agency leaders announced a of yellow-billed cuckoos as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act. The 546,335 acres of “critical habitat” along rivers and streams in 65 counties would be used to help the cuckoo survive.
is that dams and other development along rivers have destroyed 90 percent of the cottonwood habitat they need. Damming rivers to provide power, irrigation and water supplies for cities has caused cottonwoods to vanish — in favor of tamarisks and other invasive plants.
But carving out habitat for cuckoos could subject water providers and others to regulations.
Congressional members, including Colorado Reps. Doug Lamborn and Scott Tipton, on Oct. 6 sent a letter to Fish and Wildlife Service director Dan Ashe questioning federal biologists’ data that establishes the Western yellow-billed cuckoo as a distinct species. A similar bird is common east of the Continental Divide.
“This proposal lists as ‘threats’ a number of critical activities in rural areas, including operation of dams, reservoirs, diversions, groundwater pumping, channel and floodplain clearing, grazing, agriculture, irrigation, water withdrawals, mining, forest management, residential construction, road-building and maintenance, control of invasive species and fire management and used of crop protection products,” said the letter, signed by 18 congressional representatives.
This year, late objections led — after agency biologists had proposed to do so.
A coalition of wildlife groups this week filed a lawsuit in federal court challenging the reversal on wolverine protection.
“We’ve seen a definite trend of this agency reversing course when presented with objections from state interests,” said Tim Preso, an Earthjustice attorney who filed that lawsuit.
Yellow-billed cuckoos are highly secretive. They once numbered in the thousands across Colorado and other Western states. Now only 500 breeding pairs are confirmed, according to federal data, with 10 pairs in Colorado.
Bruce Finley: 303-954-1700, bfinley@denverpost.com or twitter.com/finleybruce
