Win for Wildlife in Arizona's Coconino National Forest

Just this week, the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona ruled in our favor in the Fossil Creek case challenging a U.S. Forest Service plan to allow livestock grazing in habitat for the threatened Chiricahua leopard frog in central Arizona's Coconino National Forest.

The court held that the Forest Service violated the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the U.S. Fish and Widlife Service violated the Endangered Species Act (ESA). This case will force the agencies to reexamine their grazing systems to ensure that the ecological needs of the forests and imperiled wildlife species are met before permitting livestock in these fragile desert ecosystems.

Stay tuned, though, because this case may just be getting interesting as the parties are commencing the remedies phase of this litigation, which means that Advocates for the West will be asking for some injunctive relief modifying or barring livestock grazing until the agencies comply with the law.

Advocates for the West attorney Todd Tucci represented our conservation partner Center for Biological Diversity in this case.