FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Protection for endangered plant needs a critical update

Dirt bikes, subdivisions, and superhighways threaten clay-loving wild buckwheat's habitat

The clay-loving wild buckwheat, whose habitat is threatened by dirt bike and ATV damage, suburban sprawl, and even a proposed highway project in the Montrose Valley, received critical aid today when Center for Native Ecosystems, the Colorado Native Plant Society, and the Uncompahgre Valley Association formally requested that several as-yet unsecured populations receive habitat protection. The petition calls on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to amend the critical habitat designation for the clay-loving wild buckwheat, which grows only near Delta and Montrose in western Colorado, by including several populations discovered shortly after the plant was first protected.

The endangered clay-loving wild buckwheat. Photo courtesy of J.L.Reveal

An endangered native plant whose habitat is threatened by dirt bike and ATV damage, suburban sprawl, and even a proposed highway project in the Montrose Valley received critical aid today when Center for Native Ecosystems, the Colorado Native Plant Society, and the Uncompahgre Valley Association formally requested that several as-yet unsecured populations receive habitat protection.  The petition calls on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to amend the critical habitat designation for the clay-loving wild buckwheat, which grows only near Delta and Montrose in western Colorado, by including several populations discovered shortly after the plant was first protected.

“We can’t recover the clay-loving wild buckwheat without protecting its key habitat,” said Josh Pollock of Center for Native Ecosystems.  “Too much is threatened with destruction.”

The Fish and Wildlife Service designated critical habitat for this native Colorado plant when it was first protected as endangered in 1984, but only in a single location of less than 125 acres.  Since then, several other populations of the clay-loving wild buckwheat have been discovered, some of which are probably even more important for recovering the wild buckwheat.

Though the Fish and Wildlife Service recognized the value of additional Critical Habitat for the clay-loving wild buckwheat as early as 1988, the agency in charge of endangered species has taken no action to expand it for the wild buckwheat.

“The Fish and Wildlife Service simply needs to update its critical habitat designation to reflect the best current scientific information,” said Pollock, “and they need to do it soon.  Otherwise, the plant could die in the corner of the waiting room without being noticed.”

The clay-loving wild buckwheat is threatened by habitat loss everywhere it is found.  On the private land east of Olathe and Montrose where it grows, the rapid conversion of agricultural lands into suburban housing developments threatens to entirely destroy large segments of its habitat.  On the adjacent Bureau of Land Management land west of the Gunnison Gorge, growing cross-country trespass by dirt bikes and ATVs threatens to trample several populations.  A recent proposal by the city and county of Montrose to divert Highways 50 and 550 onto BLM and farmland east of the city would run directly through several populations, including some of the largest and healthiest ever found.

In their official Recovery Plan for the clay-loving wild buckwheat, the Fish and Wildlife Service specifically planned for additional critical habitat for this plant, but the new territory was never added.  Fish and Wildlife Service data show that endangered species with designated critical habitat are more likely to recover than those without.

“It would take so little to secure the habitat this Colorado native needs,” said Dave Anderson of the Colorado Native Plants Society.  “It lives on only around 1000 acres altogether.  For such an imperiled plant, it just makes sense to do this.”

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