Texas residents are challenging the Fish and Wildlife Service’s designation of critical habitat for the Georgetown and Salado salamanders, two threatened species that have been whipsawed by litigation.
Previous lawsuits filed by environmentalists pushed the federal agency to protect the two salamanders under the Endangered Species Act and designate 1,315 acres in central Texas as critical habitat. Now, it’s city and county officials’ turn to seek judicial help in reconsidering a decision they say relied on flimsy science.
“Despite much research, little is known about the history, life cycle, and basic habitat needs of the salamanders, including, but not limited to, the limits of surface and subsurface occupation of habitat, the precise water quality conditions necessary for the species,” attorney Paul Weiland wrote in the federal lawsuit filed in San Antonio.
Weiland added that the FWS’s “admitted lack of information concerning the basic life history and needs of the salamanders” should have led the agency to a conclusion that critical habitat for the two species was “not determinable.”
