Published: January 5, 2012
BASTROP — Near a glade of blackened pines, a Ph.D. student at Texas
State University used microchip technology to search for an endangered
Houston toad. Her device beeped as she held it over a carpet of pine
needles, and after a bit of digging, a live toad emerged, half-buried in
dirt.
The creature was waiting for warmer, wetter weather before mating, but
its species’ future is grim. The huge wildfires that swept through
Bastrop County last fall may wipe it out.
“That was an extinction-level event,” said Michael Forstner, a Texas
State biology professor who is overseeing the toad research.
But if the Houston toad becomes extinct and falls off of the federal
list of endangered and threatened species, plenty of other species are
waiting to get on it. More than 20 statewide, including several types of
salamanders and snails, are under serious consideration for an
endangered listing over the next four years, and dozens more are in the
early stages of the process, according to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.
The agency is reviewing the status of 96 species in Texas as of Nov. 1.
Experts call this an unprecedented flurry of activity.
 |
|
Erich Schlegel for The Texas Tribune
If
the Houston toad becomes extinct, Texas will lose a creature with a
unique call,
Dr. Forstner said, and it will also be a worrying indicator
of the health of the piney ecosystem. |
“I’ve never seen anything like this,” Texas Comptroller Susan Combs said
in an interview this week. Her agency says even more species are under watch,
including some from the National Marine Fisheries Service. The list of
endangered species candidates is “very, very fluid,” she said, and could
expand.
The hustle is partly a result of legal settlements last year. Two environmental groups, the Center for Biological Diversity and WildEarth Guardians, sued the United States Fish and Wildlife Service
to compel the agency to speed its process of deciding whether animals
and plants are endangered. Their concern was that some species were left
in limbo for years without a final decision. In the settlements, the
Fish and Wildlife Service agreed to review the candidacy of more than
250 species nationwide over six years.
Tom Buckley, a Southwest regional spokesman for the wildlife service,
said that not all Texas species under review would actually get proposed
for an endangered listing, and that “probably the majority will not
be.”
Nonetheless, the prospect of more species being listed as endangered has rattled industries like
oil and gas and ranching.
 |
Dr. Michael Forstner, Texas State biology professor, left, and a
graduate student,
Melissa Jones, seeking the endangered Houston toad. |
“Landowners are very much on the defensive right now,” said Jason
Skaggs, the executive director of government and public affairs for the
Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association. His group wants
Congress to re-evaluate the Endangered Species Act, which was passed in
1973.
Justin Furnace, the president of the Texas Independent Producers &
Royalty Owners Association, said endangered species issues are a big
concern because of the oil and gas drilling all over Texas — and
precautions to protect endangered species could affect production.
“We’re really looking for real peer-reviewed science before they take
the steps to list these species and cost jobs,” Mr. Furnace said.
Oil companies have reacted with particular ire to the prospect of adding
a small lizard that lives in the sand dunes of West Texas to the
endangered list. In December, under pressure from the oil and gas
industry, the Fish and Wildlife Service delayed by six months its
decision on whether to list the dunes sagebrush lizard so the agency can
gather more information about it.
Mr. Furnace said he is also keeping an eye on the spot-tailed earless
lizard, which inhabits the booming Eagle Ford Shale area and could
become listed. Mr. Skaggs, with the cattle group, said that his concerns
included the lesser prairie chicken in the Panhandle and freshwater
mussels.
Environmental groups say industry can cope with new listings. “We hear
these horror stories pretty much every time there’s a proposal to list
an endangered species or declare a critical habitat,” said Ken Kramer,
the director of the Lone Star chapter of the Sierra Club. “Most of those
wild allegations never come to pass.”
Currently, F.W.S. classifies more than 90 animals and plants in Texas as
endangered or threatened. In good news, the concho water snake, which
inhabits Central Texas, was removed from the endangered and threatened
species list in October.
For some Texas scientists, the acceleration of the listings process has
meant a flood of work. Dr. Forstner, of Texas State, said that over the
last eight months, his projects have included the sand dunes lizard, the
spot-tailed earless lizard and several species of salamanders, all of
which could land on the endangered species list — in addition to the
already listed toad.
“Doing it literally one right after another isn’t how we normally do
this,” said Dr. Forstner, who is urging more cooperation between
universities to get the research done with more cost effectiveness. The
state is also figuring out how best to research the listings candidates
and to help landowners deal with endangered species. On Monday, a
multiagency task force on endangered species led by the comptroller’s
office will hold its first meeting this year.
Ms. Combs said that Texas was “trying to have our priority of research
match the feds,” but that this was often difficult to achieve and
frustrating.
“I think this listing process is very burdensome, and I don’t think it’s based on sound science,” she said.
Financing for studies of potentially endangered species comes from a
variety of sources, ranging from the federal government to affected
industries. Toby Hibbitts, a scientist at Texas A&M University, said
that his recent fieldwork on the dunes sagebrush lizard was financed
partly by oil and gas. He plans more work in late spring, when the
reptiles are active again.
The ultimate goal, Dr. Forstner said, is that other species do not end
up as the Houston toad has — on labor-intensive life support. In the
Bastrop woods, graduate students working with him spent this week
setting up large blue plastic tubs and filling them with sand and a bit
of water to emulate a beach, so that tadpoles have a better chance of
surviving.
If the toad becomes extinct, Texas will lose a creature with a unique
call, Dr. Forstner said, and it will also be a worrying indicator of the
health of the piney ecosystem.
“Losing the toad is losing a native Texan,” Dr. Forstner said.
kgalbraith@texastribune.org
