The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (FWS) is proposing to list the acuna cactus (Echinomastus erectocentrus var. acunensis)  as an endangered species and establish critical habitat for it in Arizona.  Will such a listing and critical habitat actually have a positive effect on the cactus?

As described by FWS, the Acuna cactus is a small, spherical cactus, usually single-stemmed, that can be up to 16 inches  tall and 3.5 inches wide.  Rose, pink, or lavender flowers which are produced in March.  The fruits are pale green and contain small, black seeds.   This cactus occurs in valleys and on small knolls and gravel ridges of up to 30 percent slope in the Arizona Upland subdivision of the Sonoran Desert scrub at 365 to 1,150 m (1,198 to 3,773 ft) in elevation.

In a press release, FWS says, “Current evidence suggests that the acuña cactus and Fickeisen plains cactus are in danger of becoming extinct in the foreseeable future.”  The Arizona Daily Star puts it more dramatically: “Small cactus in Organ Pipe National Monument faces extinction.”

Let’s look at the threat assessment according to FWS (from Federal Register vol. 77, no. 192):

Urbanization:

Urbanization near Ajo and Florence may have direct or indirect effects on the cactus, but these areas comprise “less than 21 percent of known living acuna cactus individuals.”  “The majority of the range in the United States is protected from urban development because populations are on Federal lands, where little or no development will take place. In addition, most populations of the acuna cactus are relatively remote or otherwise protected from the effects of urbanization. We conclude that urban development and site degradation is not currently a threat to any entire population of the acuna cactus.”

Cattle grazing:

About 65 percent of acuna cactus occur in National Parks or National Monuments and are thus protected from cattle grazing.  Cattle grazing is not a threat.

Border Activities:

About 78 percent of known living acuna cactus live along or near the U.S.-Mexican border.  FWS concludes that “cross-border violators” are a threat the cactus habitat.

Invasive species:

Throughout the Sonoran Desert invasive species such as bufflegrass, red brome, and Lehmann’s love grass “have altered nutrient regimes; species composition and structure; and fire frequency, duration, intensity, and magnitude.”  However, FWS is not aware of any effect on populations of acuna cactus and concludes that invasive species pose no threat.

Mining:

FWS says, “We are aware of no acuna cactus populations that are currently impacted by active mining.”   “We conclude that current and future mining activity is not a threat to the acuna cactus and its habitat.”

Drought and Climate Change:

After a very long discussion, FWS concludes that “drought and the effects of climate change, combined with insect predation, rise to a rangewide level threat.”

Disease or predation:

FWS concludes “that predation is a threat that is resulting in significant population impacts to the acuna cactus, and this threat is expected to continue into the future.”

To summerize, FWS says that the cactuses are threatened by “border activities,” climate change, and by predation or disease.

Wryheat conclusion:

Listing the cactus as endangered and establishing critical habitat will only make the “border activity” problem worse because it will limit enforcement activities.

I do not see how the endangerment listing and establishment of critical habitat could have any impact on the effects of climate change, predation by animals, or upon disease.

The conclusion, therefore, is that the acuna cactus should not be listed; it’s just a waste of time, money, and resources.

See also:

Repeal the Endangered Species Act

Endangered Species paperwork to cost $206,098,920

Since the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) and radical environmentalists want to establish “Critical Habitat” for the very rare jaguar in Southern Arizona, I propose they also consider protecting habitat for a predator just slightly rarer than jaguars: dragons. Maybe dragons don’t currently live here, but that shouldn’t be a problem, since USFWS and Pima County aim to reintroduce several other animals that don’t live here either.

When speaking of dragons, I don’t mean those common creatures like the little horned dragon of Australia or the larger Komodo dragon of Indonesia; no, I mean the big, flying, fire-breathing western dragons of legend. They must be an endangered species; you don’t see them around much any more. Imagine the large habitat they would require. USFWS and Pima County could control tens of thousands of acres as habitat for each dragon. And, dragons would tend to thin out all those nasty cows that enviros claim are destroying our desert and forests.

Some skeptics may think that dragons are just a myth. But I will prove, using the best available science, and biological logic at least as good as that appearing in Pima County’s Sonoran Desert Conservation Plan, that these fire-breathers could actually exist, and may have existed in Arizona. However, because peer-reviewed, scientifically rigorous, published accounts of known populations are few, habitat modeling based on environmental characteristics and the “best guess” of dragonologists must be used in constructing a model of dragon physiology and habitat requirements.

First, we have the anecdotal evidence. Dragons, with surprisingly similar characteristics, are mentioned in the annals of many cultures ranging from England, Scandinavia, Africa, the Middle East, India, and China. Dragons are even mentioned frequently in the Bible, though mainly with bad press. Some sculptures in Mayan ruins of Central America feature both snakes and dragon-like creatures. The Apache Indians of Arizona have a dragon legend. It seems that dragons were more common than pygmy owls.

 Western dragons (a species separate from the Chinese wingless dragon) are reputed to be up to 90 feet long and at least 10 feet thick. They can fly; and not only that, they can hover. They can expel fire; their blood is said to be caustic or poisonous; and they are reputed to horde gold. Although reputed characteristics of Western dragons may sound improbable at first, I will present a unified theory of dragons, showing that all these characteristics are not only probable, but necessary.

The key to dragon theory is their manner of flight. Aerodynamic calculations show conclusively that such big animals could not fly if they depended solely upon their wings. Ask not how such a large animal could fly; ask, instead, why the animal needed to be so large in order to fly.

The answer is that dragons were dirigibles. Rather than being constructed like a dinosaur or snake, dragon bodies were actually filled with a honey-comb of hollow bones and “lifting” bladders which captured vast quantities of hydrogen that made dragons nearly weightless. The wings were not for lift, but merely for propulsion and maneuvering.

 Hydrogen may be produced by hydrochloric acid (HCl) in dragon digestive juices. Hydrochloric acid is the common digestive juice of most animals, including humans. When HCl attacks calcium in the lifting bladders, we have a reaction which produces hydrogen: Ca + 2HCl = H₂ + CaCl₂. Calcium chloride is the mineral hydrophilite which is found associated with the exhalations of volcanoes, and, perhaps, dragons. Of course, in the organic system, things are more complicated, but this shows the general principle.

Some dragonologists say that methane (CH₄), a byproduct of digestion, also contributed to the flammable lifting gas of western dragons. This process explains much about dragons. They are reputed to live in caves which are usually found in limestone country, and limestone is calcium carbonate. The streams and lakes around the area would be rich in the calcium needed to replenish their supply. Perhaps dragons even ingested limestone pebbles, much as dinosaurs did. That, too, would help replenish the calcium.

 Dragons expelled fire for two reasons. First, because they lived in caves, expelling hydrogen (and methane) would soon make the habitat unliveable, unless it was burned off. Secondly, they controlled their buoyancy in flight by producing and expelling hydrogen. The mixture of hydrogen and oxygen is highly flammable. There is some question as to how dragons would have ignited the mixture. Some dragonologists propose an electric spark. We know that certain animals, such as electric eels, produce an electric charge, but there is a question of sufficient voltage to make a spark. It has also been proposed that dragons ignited the hydrogen using an exothermic chemical reaction. We know, for instance, that bombadier beetles ward off attackers by producing a liquid emission which has a temperature of several hundred degrees. Or maybe dragons had flinty teeth. It is not a great leap of faith to suppose that dragons could have ignited hydrogen by these processes.

Dragons were actually rather fragile animals, that’s why they stayed in their caves so much. They were nearly defenseless against the knight and his sword, because the sword would puncture the hydrogen bladders and quickly ground the dragon. The puncture would allow hydrochloric acid to seep out, giving rise to the legend of caustic blood.

 How did such a creature evolve? Perhaps much like birds. An upright dinosaur would run and leap. To gain speed, the solid bone structure would become a lighter lattice of bones like that in birds, rabbits, and deer. Over the millennia, flaps of skin and bones would allow the leaps to become glides and the glides to become flight. Perhaps the dinosaurs that became dragons where particularly dyspeptic and the gas was gradually put to good use. Because dragons were actually such light creatures, they needed to feed only once or twice a month, another characteristic of legend. They would fly out from their lairs and attack cattle in the field, spouting flame to help control their flight. That they devoured a princess or two on the way is probably just a vicious lie.

Several radical enviro groups are campaigning to reintroduce large carnivores to the continental U.S. Why deal with puny pumas, gratuitous grizzlies, wandering wolves, or journeying jaguars when you can have a really big zoophagous dragon?

We’ve seen from the discussion above, that potential habitat for dragons must include mountains for their caves, prairies for the cattle, and riparian areas for a water source. Dragons would be a splendid “umbrella” species, for, by preserving dragon habitat, we necessarily preserve habitat for many other animals.

I’ve accounted for all the reported characteristics of dragons, save one: the collection of gold. While this may in fact be a myth, there is a reason why dragons would collect gold nuggets. Because of the caustic nature of HCl and hydrogen, a dragon would tend to line its nest with material that is not easily affected by the caustic nature of its physiology. Gold is such a substance. Do you suppose that accounts of lost treasure, such as the Peralta and Lost Dutchman mines, could actually be descriptions of fossil dragon nests? If so, then this is evidence that dragons once inhabited Arizona.

Given the government’s penchant for spending money on, shall we say, special projects, perhaps we could attract dragons by lining a few caves with gold nuggets. Taxpayers shouldn’t mind this expense, after all, we subsidize otherwise uneconomic solar and wind energy ventures, as well as electric cars. Just think of the pleasure of seeing, on a dark night, within the mountain vastness, the flames from bull dragons proclaiming their territories by trumpeting and spouting fire. This project has all the merit of establishing “Critical Habitat” for jaguars.

 Save the dragons!

[Note: the idea for the manner for dragon flight was proposed by Peter Dickinson in his whimsical book "The Flight of Dragons." See that and other Dickinson works by visiting his website: http://peterdickinson.com/ ]

The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) will seek public comment on its proposal to designate “Critical Habitat” for the jaguar in Southern Arizona and New Mexico. USFWS had previously determined that Critical Habitat “for the jaguar in the United States would not be prudent.” However, an Arizona District Court found that the previous decision was “not legally sufficient.”

The proposal is not scientifically sufficient either. Two years ago I wrote:

A Freedom of Information Act inquiry has revealed that the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service decision to declare portions of Arizona and New Mexico as “Critical Habitat” for the jaguar has no basis in fact. USFWS based its decision on unsubstantiated anecdotal stories that did not meet the Endangered Species Act definition of minimum scientific standards. The inquiry also found possible collusion between an employee of the Arizona Fish and Game Department and the Center for Biological Diversity. The report of the inquiry was written by Biologist/Attorney Dennis Parker.

Read the rest of that story in my article: Jaguar Listing and Habitat Designation Based on Junk Science. At the time that story was written the USFWS claimed that designation of “Critical Habitat” was “prudent”, i.e., it was prudent before it was not prudent and now it is prudent again.

FWS is now proposing “Critical Habitat” again. From a FWS press release:

The Service has identified 838,232 acres in six units in primarily mountainous portions of southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico that will be considered for potential critical habitat. These include 547,000 acres of Federal land; 111,741 acres of State of Arizona land; 76,329 acres of Tribal land; and 103,143 acres of private lands. Critical habitat designations have no effect on actions taking place on non-federal lands unless proposed activities involve federal funding or permitting.

I wonder if collecting Social Security payments would be considered “federal funding” and trigger the bureaucratic implications on private land.

The proposed Rosemont copper mine would be directly impacted by “Critical Habitat” designation because the mine site occurs in the northern end of the designated lands (see map from the Arizona Daily Star below).

The Rosemont mine’s footprint is about 4,400 acres according to the Arizona Daily Star. That’s 0.5% of the whole area. Is that half percent really critical? The portion of habitat occupied by the mine is broken in four places by highways. The Arizona Daily Star notes that the proposed “Critical Habitat” “includes areas known to have been occupied by jaguars since 1962, or land considered essential for the animal even if jaguars haven’t been seen there in recent decades.”

So, if jaguars haven’t been seen for decades, how “critical” is the land? In the last twenty years, there have been about a half dozen jaguar sightings throughout Southern Arizona and all those sightings have been of male jaguars. It is obvious that Southern Arizona is not breeding ground for jaguars. Those few male jaguars have wandered north from their main breeding areas in Mexico. Southern Arizona is obviously not “critical” to jaguar breeding.

I find it curious that the proposed “Critical Habitat” includes the Rosemont site, the site of mineral exploration farther south near Patagonia, and the water source for the City of Tombstone, but does not include the Chiricahua Mountains farther to the east near the New Mexico portion of proposed habitat. According to the National Park Service, “The Chiricahua mountains were also historically the home of the jaguar.” Of course, there are no known economic mineral deposits in the Chiricahua Mountains.  That makes it look like the radical environmentalists and USFWS are targeting potentially productive land to make them off limits.

Another question: How will designation of “Critical Habitat” affect border security?

The jaguar’s range extends through Mexico, Central America, and much of South America.  A few thousand acres in Arizona will not make a difference to the species as a whole.  This whole jaguar issue shows how the Endangered Species Act can be abused.  ESA should be repealed.

This “Critical Habitat” proposal is scientifically unjustified. It is just another green utopian obstacle placed in the path of job creation and beneficial use of the land.

See also:

Tombstone versus the United States

Buenos Aires National Game Refuge, where Endangered Species and Illegal Immigration Collide

Rotenone, government fish poisoning my be poisoning us

Mega-fires in Southwest due to forest mismanagement

Repeal the Endangered Species Act