NEW ORLEANS
,
February 22, 2024
(press release)
–
First Action by Center for Biological Diversity’s New Louisiana-Based Attorney The Center for Biological Diversity notified the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today that it intends to sue over the agency’s failure to finalize critical habitat for the Louisiana pinesnake. Once abundant in central Louisiana and east Texas, the harmless burrowing snakes now exist in only six isolated populations because of destruction of the longleaf pine forests where they live. “If the Service doesn’t protect the vanishing forests that Louisiana pinesnakes call home, we could lose these gentle, charming snakes forever,” said Lindsay Reeves, a New Orleans-based senior attorney at the Center. “Many organizations, including our local zoos, have been working to prevent pinesnakes from going extinct, but they won’t recover in the wild unless their forests are protected.” The designation of critical habitat is an important step in the snakes’ recovery. A Center study found that plants and animals with federally protected critical habitat are more than twice as likely to be moving toward recovery than species without it. Louisiana pinesnakes are one of roughly 30 protected endangered and threatened species that require longleaf pine forests, including red-cockaded woodpeckers and eastern indigo snakes. Pinesnakes need open forests with sandy, well-drained soils inhabited by their favorite prey, Baird’s pocket gophers. The pocket gophers also dig burrows used by the snakes. Pinesnakes spend most of their time underground and are harmless to people. Urbanization, agriculture, logging and suppression of natural fires have degraded most of the country’s longleaf pine forests. Development also exposes snakes to being run over on roads that fragment their habitat. Despite listing the Louisiana pinesnake as threatened in 2018, the Service failed to protect any of the snake’s critical habitat within one year, in violation of the Endangered Species Act. The Service announced a proposal for the snake’s critical habitat in 2022 but never finalized the rule. The Service now has 60 days to designate critical habitat. The Center is prepared to go to court to protect the Louisiana pinesnake. RSPine-Snake-Pituophis-ruthveni-USFWS-FPWC(1) center locations
Louisiana pinesnake. Credit: USFWS. Image is available for media use.
The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 1.7 million members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.
* All content is copyrighted by Industry Intelligence, or the original respective author or source. You may not recirculate, redistrubte or publish the analysis and presentation included in the service without Industry Intelligence's prior written consent. Please review our terms of use.
