Endangered: Spring salamander relying on bureaucrats
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Twelve years is a long time when it comes to the bureaucracy. And even after that long, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is just now getting around to deciding it should propose the West Virginia spring salamander be listed as endangered.
According to a report by WBOY, scientists and researchers have been trying for all this time to protect one of our state's unique treasures. It lives nowhere else but a 2.2-mile cave and stream system in Greenbrier County. That tiny area is not yet even designated as critical habitat, though the Center for Biological Diversity says only about 300 of the salamanders remain.
It is not unusual only because of its chosen home. It is also one of the few cave salamanders to undergo complete metamorphosis from aquatic larvae to land-dwelling adult.
Threats to the species include logging, which causes sediment runoff that is clogging the salamanders' stream. Should the salamander make it to the endangered species list and the area be named critical habitat, the stream and surrounding forest would be protected.
Again, we're talking about a cave and stream system only a little more than two miles in size.
"Safeguarding West Virginia spring salamanders will also help protect drinking water for West Virginians, along with some of the most important aquatic diversity on the planet," senior scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity Will Harlan said, according to the station. "By protecting this salamander, we're protecting ourselves too."
It seems like a no-brainer, doesn't it?
But even after all this time, the USFWS still needs to gather comments and MORE information from stakeholders. Then it will make a decision, then it will hold a public hearing, and THEN (surely) it will grant the salamander and its habitat endangered protections.
Here's hoping that process won't take long. No doubt federal officials do not want to wait another 12 years to find out whether the West Virginia spring salamander can hang on, on its own.