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Among the mesquite thickets and cacti in parts of southern Arizona, it was previously fairly common to hear the high -pitched, muffled whistle of a small but fierce predator. Where woodpeckers make cavities in giant desert saguaroos, monogamous Cactus Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl pairs often migrate to the nest. They prey on birds that are twice their size and run from perches to pick lizards from the ground for their hungry offspring.
Today, however, small raptors are running out of habitat. The federal government once considered owls, which also live in Texas and Mexico, as endangered in Arizona. But that protected status was scrapped in a late 2006 court victory for developers. Environmental groups challenged the decision and continued fighting in court for bird protection. Meanwhile, however, new houses, roads, and an impressive wall along the country’s southern border have carved out the bird’s home. Estimates now put Arizona’s population at nearly 100 owls.
“The Cactus Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl is a symbol of the Sonoran Desert, its ferocity,” said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “If we lose that part of the desert, we lose a little bit of what makes the place special.”
Now, the bird has a new shot at protection. Urged by a lawsuit from Greenwald’s group and Defenders of Wildlife, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) in December proposed to re -protect the owl under the Endangered Species Act, in this case there is an endangered list in its entirety. The agency received public comments earlier this year and is expected to make its final decision by the end of the year.
The reddish-brown-and-white subspecies of the Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl once had a wider range in Arizona ranging from the desert scrub borderlands to the cottonwood groves of the Salt River Valley in the Phoenix area. But urbanization, herding of animals, and other human activities have disrupted its habitat. Meanwhile, the rapid spread of wildfires, fueled by invasive buffelgrass, is destroying the mesquite and columnar cacti trees the owl needs to thrive. “Widespread distribution is likely to have dropped by more than half in Arizona over the past 100 years or so,” said Aaron Flesch, a research scientist at the University of Arizona’s School of Natural Resources and the Environment.
The subspecies also faces threats elsewhere in its domain. Agricultural development and urban sprawl are eating away at its habitat along the border with Texas and the neighboring Mexican state of Chihuahua. Farther south, deforestation in Mexico’s tropical forests has wiped out trees where birds also nest. Given these widespread pressures, the FWS considered the risks serious enough to have protection under action throughout the owl range. Although such a list would directly protect pygmy-owls north of the border, it could lead to strengthened binational cooperation in bird conservation, said Scott Richardson, a supervisory biologist at the agency.
The Cactus Ferruginous Pygmy-Owl’s Range
The future of the owl on the borders could be more dangerous as its northern habitat gets hotter and drier, Richardson said. “Climate change, especially in the Sonoran Desert, has the potential to affect the distribution of saguaroos and even saguaroos will remain where they are today,” he said.
Aside from the extreme weather, the high border walls that penetrate the owl’s habitat also pose a threat to its existence, according to the FWS. “Of particular concern is the potential for border infrastructure to reduce habitat connectivity to occupied pygmy-owl habitat in Mexico,” the agency wrote in its proposal to re-list the bird.
The Trump administration has spent $ 15 billion to build approximately 450 miles of new and replacement walls along the nearly 2,000-mile border, which has severely scarred some ecologically fragile terrain. President Biden stopped construction when he sat down and called on Congress to cancel funding for the wall. But that’s not happening yet, so the administration uses those funds for “activities necessary to address immediate life, safety, environmental, or other remediation needed to protect border communities,” according to the Department of Homeland Security. Included in that some new constructionsuch as closing gaps in parts of the wall, though the White House maintains that it only cleans up the mess of the previous administration.
The wall and adjacent trails could separate Mexico’s pygmy-owl populations from those in Arizona and Texas, FWS and conservation groups said. Previously, lower barriers on protected public lands blocked vehicles while allowing the passage of wildlife. But the Trump administration has replaced them with steel bollards up to 30 feet high, blocking many animals from crossing the border.
Although the barrier may not be much of a barrier for many winged creatures, pygmy-owls prefer to stay close to the ground, cloaked in vegetation to avoid predators. Flesch said birds generally do not fly over trees. “Their flying behavior makes you not expect these owls to fly over the border wall.”
The re -listing proposal comes after years of litigation and political tension around the owl. The population decline first prompted the FWS to list it as endangered in 1997. That year, a survey of Arizona’s historic bird range saw only a dozen sightings. The list was a blow to the developers, as it made it more difficult to build on the habitat designated critical for owl recovery. The National Association of Home Builders has sued, arguing that, because of its low number, Arizona’s owl population does not contribute significantly to the survival of the subspecies.
The builders made a similar argument against the newly proposed list. “If you look at the science, it’s pretty hard to make a credible argument that the entire pygmy-owl species faces a risk of extinction, because of the size of its range and the number of owls in Mexico,” Norman James said, an attorney representing the organization. He called the return to an FWS decision in 2011 that the owl did not qualify for listing under the ESA “particularly disturbing” because, while it is in serious trouble in the Sonoran Desert, it is safe elsewhere. But that decision was based on a misinterpretation of the law, a federal judge ruled in 2017. Then, in 2019, environmentalists got a court -enforceable deadline for FWS to reach a new list decision. .
The resulting proposal to label the bird endangered — indicating that it is not in danger of extinction now but could be as well soon — has garnered a lot of pushback, including from wildlife managers. The Write the Arizona Game and Fish Department this contradicts re -listing, to the point of arguing that “the best available science shows that perceived threats to the owl do not exist.” Kenneth Jacobson, raptor management coordinator for that agency, said concerns relate to the possible impact on current conservation actions, including nest monitoring and a breeding and reintroduction program launched more than a decade ago. that past in southern Arizona.
In opposition to the proposed list coming from many directions, the final threat list is not a done deal. But to Greenwald of the Center for Biological Diversity and other conservationists who have long fought for the pygmy-owl, renewed protection is the obvious choice. “It shouldn’t take 16 years to get a species identified as endangered protected again,” he said.
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