Native Plant Conservation Campaign News: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Adds Guadalupe fescue to the federal list of endangered species and designates critical habitat. But plants remain 2nd class conservation citizens.
September 15, 2017
On September 6, The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service added the Guadalupe fescue to the federal list of endangered species and protected 7,815 acres of the fescue’s last U.S. location, in Big Bend National Park, Texas, as “critical habitat.”
The fescue is the first species officially protected under the Endangered Species Act by the Trump administration. Today’s decision is a result of legal action by the Center for Biological Diversity. The fescue was first identified as needing protection in 1975, more than 40 years ago.
The Guadalupe fescue is a 3-foot-tall bunchgrass now only known to exist in a single location in the Chisos Mountains within Big Bend National Park, and one site in Mexico.
Guadalupe fescue is native to oak woodlands above 6,000 feet across a few high mountains — known as “Sky Islands” because these unique ecosystems are isolated and far different from the lowland environments surrounding them.
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