Audubon Society Files Suit Against U.S. in Flap Over Songbird Habitat

The National Audubon Society has filed a lawsuit claiming that federal wildlife officials have dragged their feet in identifying protected habitats for the least Bell’s vireo, a songbird added to the federal endangered species list in 1986.

The suit, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in San Diego, maintains that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has delayed designating 43,000 acres in San Diego and four other counties “critical habitat”--a protected status that requires area developers to consult with federal officials before building. With the designation, developers can be forced to modify projects or mitigate damage done to the bird’s habitat areas.

“An unwillingness on the part of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to give the issue high priority has delayed protection efforts,” said Audubon Chief Counsel John Echeverria. “We hope this suit will strengthen the least Bell’s vireo’s chances of survival.”

The vireo, once abundant in the low thickets along willow-lined waterways from Northern California to Mexico, has dwindled to about 300 pairs because of predators, farming and urban development.

The growth along streams and creeks where the birds thrive has been encroached upon, leaving only small pockets of bird populations, primarily in San Diego and Riverside counties. In San Diego, the least Bell’s vireo has been spotted on Marine Corps land at Camp Pendleton and in Oceanside along the San Luis Rey River basin, where a freeway extension is being considered.

Other nesting sites are along the Tijuana River Valley; Hollins Lake, where an extension of California 52 has been proposed, and the Sweetwater River area in the Cuyamaca Mountains, according to Barbara Moore, a volunteer coordinator for the Chula Vista Nature Interpretive Center, where a vireo habitat is being developed.

The five-county critical-habitat area was proposed in 1987, after U.S. Fish and Wildlife biologists charted vireo nesting sites. For more than a year, the proposal was considered by the U.S. Department of Interior, said David Klinger, a Fish and Wildlife spokesman.

“It took an extensive amount of review time, then they sent it back and told us to update it,” Klinger said.

Studies were conducted on development that had taken place since the first report was written, and the revised proposal was submitted last spring. Klinger said he did not know the cause for delay in the Interior Department.