Feds sued over livestock grazing in Arizona critical habitat

Filed 1h ago · Via Courthouse News · The Buffoon Desk

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Comic Hero

Kevin MacLeod · incompetech.com · CC BY 4.0

Photo: Carol M. Highsmith · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons

The Center for Biological Diversity and Maricopa Bird Alliance sued the U.S. Forest Service and Fish and Wildlife Service, alleging illegal cattle grazing continues to damage critical habitat along Arizona's Upper Verde River despite areas being explicitly closed to livestock. A 2026 survey found 40% of nearly 34 surveyed miles moderately or significantly damaged, with cattle entering through broken or missing fences.

This marks the second lawsuit over the same issue since 2020, when a prior agreement led to fence repairs and cattle removal for three years before expiring in 2024. The groups cite a March ruling finding the agencies violated the Endangered Species Act at the nearby Agua Fria National Monument on similar grounds, and note that regionwide surveys found half of 3,131 miles of critical habitat significantly damaged by grazing since 2017.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.

✒ FROM THE EDITORIAL DESK

Fix the fence, watch it fail, sue again, repeat. That's not a conservation program, that's a chore somebody keeps forgetting to finish, except the chore is a river full of endangered snakes and fish. A rancher's cows wandering onto posted land once is an accident; doing it for the better part of a decade while the agency in charge shrugs is just a system that was never built to say no to anybody with a cattle brand.

Source: Read the original at Courthouse News → Scored: Comic Hero · Kevin MacLeod · CC BY 4.0

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