More than 100,000 acres in New Mexico is under new land-use restrictions after being designated a critical habitat for the jaguar, but a legal team is calling it the "phantom jaguar" since the animal hasn't been spotted in the state in years.
A lawsuit challenging the government's action has been filed by the Pacific Legal Foundation on behalf of the New Mexico Farm & Livestock Bureau, New Mexico Cattle Growers' Association and the New Mexico Federal Lands Council.
Defendants are the U.S. Department of the Interior and its director, Sally Jewell, and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and its director, Daniel Ashe.
The claim was filed after the federal government designated some 110,000 acres of state, federal and private land, including large parcels of Hidalgo County, as "critical habitat" for jaguars "even though the species has not been sighted in the county, or anywhere else in New Mexico, for years."
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"Indeed, the state doesn't even have any environmental features that are essential to jaguar recovery."
Federal officials declined to comment to WND on the dispute.
The legal team argued the restrictions that accompany the designation are unnecessary and illegal.
"The jaguar's global population is estimated to be at least 30,000; 90 percent live in tropical, jungle and swamp habitats in Central and South America," Pacific Legal said in a statement posted online. "According to the FWS Recovery Outline for the species, there are no jaguar populations in New Mexico – or anywhere in the United States.
"Habitat designations mean significant – sometimes crippling – restrictions on property owners and managers, both private and public," said Tony Francois, staff attorney for PLF. "They also compete for the limited money and resources available for environmental protection."
In the claim filed in U.S. District Court in Albuquerque, New Mexico, PLF lawyers note that jaguars have not been seen in Hidalgo County, where much of the habitat is, or anywhere else in New Mexico, "for years."
PLF explained that the jaguar has been "endangered" since its listing in 1972, but the Fish & Wildlife Service didn't address the issue of habitat until more than 40 years later.
"This long practice of not designating jaguar habitat reflected a basic biological reality, at least in New Mexico: The state has not been occupied by jaguars in many decades, and it is not home to any environmental features that are essential to the future of jaguar recovery," the lawyers explained.
The nearest confirmed population is some 140 miles south, in Mexico, the complaint alleges.
"Clearly, the government doesn't have the luxury of careless overreach when it comes to roping off property as critical habitat," Francois continued. “But that's exactly what we see with the jaguar habitat designation in New Mexico. The bureaucrats have cordoned off tens of thousands of acres for a phantom species. This amounts to reckless regulating, and a heavy-handed power play against landowners.
"At most, only two jaguars have been credibly sighted anywhere in the state over the past four decades," Francois noted. "There are no breeding pairs or evidence of resident jaguars in the state. This species' connection to New Mexico is a matter of distant memory, not recent reality. There is no justification for bringing down the regulatory fist on property owners, and wasting scarce environmental resources."
He noted that the rules specifically hinder fire management strategies in the national forest lands "for an animal that isn't there."
"The jaguar habitat designation can also impede development of community infrastructure like road improvements and pipelines, and range improvements for cattle ranches that are important to the local community and economy," he said.
Chad Smith, CEO of the New Mexico Farm & Livestock Bureau, said food producers are "under the gun" by the federal moves.
"The designation of tens of thousands of acres of prime New Mexico ranch lands as critical habitat for endangered jaguars is one more example of how endangered species have taken precedence over people. We must restore balance, and members of the New Mexico Farm & Livestock Bureau ask the federal government to ensure a successful future for ranchers in Southern New Mexico by overturning the designation of jaguar habitat," He said.
The complaint explains the designation violated the rules "because it was not occupied when the jaguar was listed."
According to the complaint, "Jaguars prefer a warm, tropical, and wet climate, including swampy savannas and tropical rainforests in Central and South America. The largest populations of jaguars are in Central and South America. … More open, dry areas – such as those in New Mexico – are of marginal benefit to jaguars for cover, food and water."
The complaint asserts there are "no known jaguars resident in the United States, and no breeding populations of jaguars in the United States."
There is a "small" breeding population in northern Mexico, it says.
"In addition, a handful of individual jaguars have been sighted in southern Arizona in the past 43 years, and one or perhaps two have been sighted in Hidalgo County, New Mexico, over that time span."
The government decided in 1997 and again in 2006 not to designate any habitat, but then in 2014, it listed several units of land in Arizona and New Mexico.
"The service considers Units 5 and 6 to have been occupied at the time of listing of jaguars in 1972, based upon evidence of the presence of one jaguar in Unit 5 in 1995 and 1996, and evidence of the presence of one jaguar in Unit 6 in 2006," the complaint explains. "Even if the date of listing were within 10 years of either of the individual jaguar sightings in Units 5 or 6, the sighting of one member off the species over a period of more than four decades, with no evidence of resident members or breeding pairs of the species, is inadequate as a matter of law to establish that either unit is or has been occupied."
Although the Fish & Wildlife Service declined comment, a document from 2013 was located online.
"There are no known breeding pairs of jaguars within the borders of the U.S. at this time, and no female jaguars have been detected in the U.S. since 1963," the document says. 'The service believes that the U.S. currently only supports dispersing or wandering male jaguars that are part of the jaguar population that includes northwestern Mexico."
At the time, the service said it had "contributed substantial funds to local and international efforts to help conserve the jaguars, and has helped secure financial support from other sources for on-the-ground jaguar recovery projects the U.S., Mexico, Belize, Brazil and Argentina."
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