It could take 65 years and $20 million to pull two teensy-tiny Texas snails and a shrimp-like crustacean back from the brink of extinction, the Fish and Wildlife Service says in a new recovery plan.
Known cumulatively as the Diamond Y invertebrates, the three endangered species are confined to a small, isolated spring system and wetlands in the Chihuahuan Desert of western Texas. The so-called Diamond Y spring system in Pecos County contains the largest remaining springs still flowing in that county.
“Desert wetlands, or cienegas, used to be more abundant in the Northern Chihuahuan Desert,” Michael Warriner, biologist with the FWS’s Austin field office, said in a statement, adding that “multiple springs have gone dry.”
The FWS attributes much of the drying up to “intensive groundwater pumping” for myriad human uses. This has put at risk the Diamond tryonia and Gonzales tryonia, which are small freshwater snails, as well as the crustacean known as the Pecos amphipod.
