[CPEO-MEF] BIOTA: Ft. Irwin (CA) and the endangered milk-vetch

[Lenny Siegel <lennysiegel@gmail.com>]

Wildlife agency agrees to revisit protections for rare Mojave Desert plant

By Abby Sewell
Barstow Desert Dispatch (CA)
June 24, 2008

BARSTOW - The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service agreed Monday to consider 
new protections for the habitat of a rare plant that grows only in the 
Mojave Desert in and around Fort Irwin.

The Center for Biological Diversity, a non-profit environmental advocacy 
group, sued the Fish and Wildlife Service in an attempt to make the 
department reconsider an April 2005 decision not to designate any 
critical habitat for the Lane Mountain milk-vetch plant, a flowering 
perennial in the pea family. The plant, which was placed on the 
endangered species list in 1998, grows only in a 20-mile strip of land, 
a majority of which is located within the newly expanded boundaries of 
Fort Irwin, said Ileene Anderson, a biologist with the Center for 
Biological Diversity.

In April 2005, the Fish and Wildlife Service released its decision not 
to designate any critical habitat for the plant. Designating areas as 
critical habitat would require more evaluation of the activities that 
could take place on parts of Fort Irwin and on Bureau of Land Management 
land where the milk-vetch grows.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.desertdispatch.com/news/barstow_3663___article.html/revisit_desert.html

--


Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org



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