Suit filed over Riverside Co. Habitat relocation...

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Center Disputes Development in Kangaroo Rat Haven

9/3/2009--To save a wildlife refuge from becoming another concrete jungle, last week the Center for Biological Diversity went to court to oppose development on California's March Stephen's Kangaroo Rat Preserve. Government documents show that the preserve is critical to the survival of the endangered Stephen's kangaroo rat, but in 2006 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decided to allow commercial and industrial development on the site in exchange for granting partial protection to other local lands. It's an unequal trade and will cause more harm than good, destroying essential habitat and wildlife linkages and ultimately threatening the integrity of a network of preserves in Riverside County.

"You can't trade wildlife preserves like stocks or flip them like Miami condos; the animals can't just pick up and move," said the Center's Jonathan Evans. "We owe it to future generations to uphold past promises to protect this land and stop paving over wildlife preserves."

Read more in the Press-Enterprise.

http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/center/articles/2009/press-enterprise-08-28-2009.html