Proposed Safe Harbor Agreement Will Benefit Threatened Chiricahua Leopard Frog
Posted: 06-Oct-2003; Updated: 23-Oct-2003
The Malpai Borderlands Group has applied for a Safe Harbor agreement benefiting the Chiricahua leopard frog at selected sites on a million acre landscape in Arizona and New Mexico. Neither habitat restoration nor the frog are new to the Malpai Group, which originated in a series of informal conversations among neighboring ranchers. In 1994 the ranchers formally organized, defining their mission as restoring and maintaining a healthy, unfragmented landscape while continuing ranching and other traditional livelihoods in the borderlands region. The name "Malpai" is derived from the Spanish word for badlands and reflects the area's open landscape of grasslands and desert, surrounded by mountains.
Chiricahua leopard frog. (Jim Rorabaugh/USFWS)
Since the group's founding, Malpai ranchers have set aside 42,000 acres of private land in conservation easements, pioneered "grassbanking" (click here to find out more about grassbanking) to protect grasslands while continuing to feed cattle, and participated in a variety of other conservation initiatives. Rancher Anna Magoffin and her family aided the Chiricahua leopard frog during a prolonged drought by hauling over 1,000 gallons of water a week.
In their proposed Safe Harbor agreement, the Malpai Group proposes to establish new frog populations by maintaining livestock tanks and other artificial waters in Cochise County, Arizona and Hidalgo County, New Mexico. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is accepting comments on the proposed agreement until November 5, 2003.
FIND OUT MORE
- Federal Register notice for Malpai Borderlands Chiricahua frog Safe Harbor agreement and full text of draft agreement
- Malpai Borderlands Group web site
- Information on the endangered Chiricahua leopard frog:
- Species Profile, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
- Pima County, Arizona web site
