AR-News: (US-CA)Environmentalists Want Beetle Protected

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Environmentalists Want Beetle Protected 

2 hours, 54 minutes ago
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PALM SPRINGS, Calif. - Environmentalists want emergency federal protection for the Casey's June beetle, one of the rarest insects in the world that lives on only 600 acres south of the city and is threatened by the desert building boom. 

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In a petition to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Sierra Club (news - web sites) and the Center for Biological Diversity listed two building projects already under way in beetle habitat and five more in development. They want emergency protection under the Endangered Species Act. 

"Unless we take immediate action to preserve its habitat, Casey's June beetle is history," said David Wright, an ecologist who produced a report on the bug for the environmental groups. 

Casey's June beetles are about three-fourths of an inch long, dusty brown or whitish with brown and whitish stripes. As larvae, they feed underground on plant roots, then emerge as adults between March and June. 

Their habitat is limited to the plains bordering the San Jacinto and Santa Rosa Mountains. It is believed to have dwindled to just 600 acres in nine isolated fragments, mostly around the Smoke Tree Ranch area of Palm Springs. 

It is unlikely that Endangered Species Act protection would stop development already under way, but it could make it more difficult and costly in the future. 

John Sanborn, whose firm designed a 24-acre subdivision in south Palm Springs, said it would have been impossible to incorporate the beetle into that project. 

"Basically, as far as I am concerned it is pure extortion," Sanborn said. "They threaten to sue you and the developer says it is easier to find a piece of land and give it to them than trying to fight it out in court." 

City planning director Doug Evans said developers of another subdivision have already set aside $85,000 to offset damage to beetle habitat. He said there is a danger that too much land might be considered beetle habitat. 

"Nobody really knows what land to set aside," Evans said. "(The environmental groups are) just listing everything they might think is potential habitat." 

Emergency protection is necessary because developments threaten to wipe out the beetle before the government acts, Sierra Club attorney Wayne Brechtel said. 

"It is losing habitat at an alarming rate," Brechtel said. "Sometimes the wheels of the federal government don't move fast enough to stop some species from going extinct." 

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Information from: The Desert Sun, http://www.desert-sun.com 





		
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