SQUIRREL WINS DAY IN COURT; ENVIRONMENTAL STUDY ORDERED FOR RODENT.Byline: Jim Skeen Daily News Staff Writer The Mohave ground squirrel The Mohave Ground Squirrel, Spermophilus mohavensis, is a species of ground squirrel found only in the western Mojave Desert, California. It is listed as an endangered species in California, but not in the United States. The IUCN lists this species as vulnerable. , Antelope Valley's most litigated rodent, won another legal battle when the state Supreme Court ruled the creature should not have been taken off the threatened species list without an environmental review. In a 5-2 vote, the state's high court upheld a decision of the state Court of Appeal's 1st District requiring an environmental review before the animal could be delisted by the state Fish and Game Commission. Such a review, the court ruled, is required by the California Environmental Quality Act The California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) is a California law (California Public Resources Code section 21000 et seq.) passed in 1970, shortly after the Federal Government passed the National Environmental Policy Act. . The ruling had been appealed by the state Fish and Game Commission and Kern County, which had petitioned for the animal's removal from the list. ``It marks a significant victory for the environment,'' said Joseph Brecher, an attorney for the Sierra Club Sierra Club, national organization in the United States dedicated to the preservation and expansion of the world's parks, wildlife, and wilderness areas. Founded (1892) in California by a group led by the Scottish-American conservationist John Muir, the Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund. Assemblyman Roy Ashburn Roy Ashburn (born March 21, 1954 in Long Beach, California) is the California State Senator representing the 18th District, which includes Kern, Tulare, Inyo and San Bernardino Counties. , R-Bakersfield, who initiated the fight to remove the squirrel from the list when he was a Kern County supervisor, said the ruling raises a bigger issue - the legality of the listing of each of 224 species on the state's threatened and endangered species endangered species, any plant or animal species whose ability to survive and reproduce has been jeopardized by human activities. In 1999 the U.S. government, in accordance with the U.S. list. ``Those species were never considered under the California Environmental Quality Act,'' Ashburn said. ``The issue is fairness and equity and having the same standard apply - whether it's putting a species on the list or in taking one off the list.'' It was not immediately known whether Kern County or the state Fish and Game Commission would act to remove the squirrel from the list, this time following the requirement for an environmental review. Phone calls to the commission were not returned Friday. The Kern County Board of Supervisors The examples and perspective in this article or section may represent an unduly geographically limited view of the subject. Please [ improve this article] or discuss the issue on the talk page. The Board of Supervisors is the body governing counties in the U.S. has not yet had a chance to discuss the ruling with counsel. Active above ground from about mid-March to June, the squirrel ranges eastward from Palmdale and Lancaster through the desert areas of Kern, Inyo and San Bernardino San Bernardino, city, United States San Bernardino (săn bûr'nədē`nō), city (1990 pop. 164,164), seat of San Bernardino co., S Calif., at the foot of the San Bernardino Mts.; inc. 1854. counties. Its numbers have dropped because of development and drought, state biologists said. Originally listed as a ``rare'' species in 1971, the commission put the squirrel on the threatened species list in 1985. Threatened species are those not facing extinction, but which could become extinct without government protection. Acting on a petition by Kern County, the state Fish and Game Commission voted in May 1993 to remove the squirrel's threatened status - the first such action in the history of the state's Endangered Species Act The federal Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA) (16 U.S.C.A. §§ 1531 et seq.) was enacted to protect animal and plant species from extinction by preserving the ecosystems in which they survive and by providing programs for their conservation. . Kern County officials say provisions protecting the squirrel have virtually stopped development in the eastern portion of the county. Those provisions include requiring builders to provide three acres of habitat for every acre developed. The commission's action was overturned in June 1994 by San Francisco Superior Court Judge Thomas Mellon Jr. and upheld in 1996 by the appellate court A court having jurisdiction to review decisions of a trial-level or other lower court. An unsuccessful party in a lawsuit must file an appeal with an appellate court in order to have the decision reviewed. . In a separate ruling, the appellate court rejected an appeal by environmental and conservation groups contesting a finding by Mellon that the decision to take the squirrel off the list was ``supported by substantial evidence.'' Ashburn said that decision shows the animal should never have been listed as threatened. |
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