Free Republic

A small songbird that makes its home in sage scrub habitat on the Palos Verdes Peninsula and elsewhere on the Southern California coast should no longer be protected by federal law, a new lawsuit argues. The California gnatcatcher, which was named a threatened subspecies by the federal government in 1993, is the subject of litigation from the Pacific Legal Foundation, a Sacramento law group that successfully sued several years ago to remove Endangered Species Act protections for the bald eagle.

LOS ANGELES -- In a reversal for developers and the Bush administration, a federal judge ruled that a tiny threatened bird known as the California gnatcatcher and the endangered San Diego fairy shrimp will remain protected while the government studies more than 500,000 acres of their habitat. The land, mostly sage scrub and shallow freshwater pools, is in Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside and San Diego counties. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had joined developers in requesting that the area's "critical habitat" designation be lifted while the agency studies its economic impact on the area. The designation, allowed...