The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has approved plans by ranchers to manage for threatened and endangered species on nearly one million acres of grassland straddling the southeastern corner of Arizona (Cochise County) and the southwestern corner of New Mexico (Hidalgo County).
The Malpai Borderlands Group has completed a habitat conservation plan (HCP) designed to improve grasslands and watersheds and allow participating ranchers to conduct specific ranch management activities while minimizing and offsetting potential adverse effects to 19 wildlife and plant species of concern - nine protected under the Endangered Species Act. The Service has issued a permit allowing Malpai and rancher-enrollees to take threatened and endangered species if it occurs incidentally to their operations.
Additionally, the operators of the Bar Boot and 99 Bar ranches and the Service have developed the Leslie Canyon Watershed Safe Harbor Agreement - a plan to assist in the recovery of six Endangered Species Act-protected species on private ranchlands in the southeastern Cochise County watershed.
"Once again the Malpai Borderlands Group and area ranchers have shown that the people who work and live on the land are the most capable of managing it properly," said Steve Spangle, the Service's Arizona Ecological Services Field Supervisor. "These people have kept this country wild and healthy for generations and are motivated to continue to do so for the generations to follow."
Malpai Borderlands
The Malpai Borderlands HCP proposes grassland improvement projects - including prescribed fires and fire use, erosion control and mechanical brush removal projects. The plan also addresses routine ranch management activities - including construction of fences, pipelines and roads; livestock management; and use and maintenance of livestock ponds/tanks.
Grassland improvement and ranch management projects may result in the taking of threatened or endangered species and have short-term impacts to species and their habitats. But through these activities, long-term benefits for the species are anticipated.
Federally threatened and endangered species are protected from "take," including harassment or harm resulting from altering or destroying their habitat. The Service may however, under limited circumstances, issue permits to take federally listed species when such a taking is incidental to - and not the purpose of "otherwise lawful activities and the taking does not jeopardize the continued survival of the species.
In the past, endangered species issues in the Malpai Borderlands have been addressed on an inefficient, project-by-project basis. As a result, Malpai Borderlands Group developed the HCP as a more comprehensive alternative to multiple individual consultations frequently conducted through other federal agency intermediaries.
The endangered and threatened species that occur in the Malpai Borderlands include Yaqui chub, Yaqui topminnow, Yaqui catfish, beautiful shiner, Huachuca water-umbel (an aquatic plant), northern Aplomado falcon, Mexican spotted owl, Chiricahua leopard frog, and New Mexico ridge-nosed rattlesnake. The candidate yellow-billed cuckoo and nine other species of concern are also addressed in the HCP.
Malpai Borderlands Group is a private, non-profit organization composed of ranchers who live in the 828,000-acre Malpai borderlands - an area named by ranchers from the Spanish "Mal pa
