Snail May Impede Timber Sales

By Donna Kemp Spangler
Deseret Morning News

A slow-moving land snail known to live only in the Uinta Mountains of northwestern Utah could get in the way of fast-track timber sales.
Two Western conservation groups joined Utah Environmental Congress on Tuesday to formally notify the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that they intend to take legal action to require the federal government to protect the Uinta mountain snail from logging and road-building.
Thought to be extinct for decades, the Uinta mountain snail was rediscovered alive in 2000 in the Uinta Mountains in the Ashley National Forest of Duchesne County. Only one population of the snail is known to exist, in an area less than an acre in size.
In 2001, UEC submitted a petition to protect the snail under the federal Endangered Species Act. The Fish and Wildlife Service, which is required to make a preliminary finding on petitions within 90 days, has not yet acted on the petition.
But Forest Service officials at the Ashley National Forest agreed to do a number of things in order to protect the snail.
They have fallen short of their agreement, say conservationists.
"This being the only existing population of the Uinta mountain snails in the entire world, it is obvious that the Forest Service hasn't lived up to the agreement that they made with the UEC," said Stephanie Tidwell, executive director of UEC.
Forest Service officials, who were unavailable for comment Tuesday, constructed a fence to protect the snail's habitat. But conservationists say the fence hasn't been effective and land managers haven't maintained it. The snail is threatened by livestock grazing, downstream logging and a prescribed fire planned near the snail's only population.
"When we petitioned for the listing, the Forest Service agreed to make mitigations so we didn't sue for emergency listing," Tidwell said.
Described as a "canary in the coal mine," the snail is considered an important indicator of overall forest health. The snail depends on undisturbed forest habitat, making it especially vulnerable to the effects of poor forest management, conservationists say.
"The Uinta mountain snail and other land snails are the building blocks of a healthy forest," said Jeremy Nichols, endangered species program director of the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, based in Laramie, Wyo.
The Center for Native Ecosystems, a Denver-based group, also is threatening to initiate a lawsuit to force protections.

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E-mail: donna@desnews.com

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Activists Unite to Protect Uinta Snail

By Nicole Warburton
The Salt Lake Tribune

A handful of hermaphroditic, mucus-secreting siblings of the brown garden snail are in danger of extinction - and a group of conservationists wants to force the feds to take notice.
The Wyoming-based Biodiversity Conservation Alliance gave notice Tuesday of its intent to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to list the Uinta mountain snail as an endangered species.
The action comes three years after the Utah Environmental Congress petitioned the federal agency to protect the snail under the Endangered Species Act. The agency has not responded, despite the act's requirement that it do so within 90 days. "Litigation is a pretty common precursor to species' actually getting listed [as endangered] these days," said Stephanie Tidwell, director of the Utah Environmental Congress, which supports the proposed lawsuit. "Generally, the Fish and Wildlife Service is very slow to react, and oftentimes what you have to do to get action is to file" a lawsuit. A Fish and Wildlife official was unavailable for comment Wednesday.
For the Biodiversity Alliance's Jeremy Nichols, that lack of response is indicative of the agency's failure to procure adequate funding from Congress.
"Usually they won't issue a finding within 90 days unless they are sued in court," said Nichols. "They claim it's poverty, but they never ask for the money they need . . . They ask for much, much less."
But the Fish and Wildlife Service does have money in emergency funds to protect the Uinta mountain snail, said Nichols.
The notice of intent to sue - which must be answered within 60 days to avoid a lawsuit - specified that the snail receive emergency funds because of small numbers and a limited habitat.
Only a handful of the endangered mollusks are known to exist, residing in an acre-sized area within the Ashley National Forest in the Uinta Mountains.
Like the common garden snail, the Uinta snail breaks down plant parts and "recycles" animal waste.
Its morphology - or shell shape and coloring - is a distinguishing trait.
Environmentalists are asking the Fish and Wildlife Service to rebuild a fence around the snail's habitat and to close a small road nearby. They also want to stop the Forest Service from conducting a "prescribed burn" in the snail's vicinity.
Joining Utah Environmental Congress and the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance in the notice of intent to sue is the Denver-based Center for Native Ecosystems.

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E-mail: nwarburton@sltrib.com