The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) has announced that it intends to sue the Bureau of Land Management for how it issues its livestock grazing permits in Arizona. CBD alleges that grazing on federal lands has lead to the endangerment of the Mexican gartersnake and the narrow-headed gartersnake.

This running counter to what scientists have studied about this issue prior to the CBD ever getting involved. According to the AZ Daily Sun, scientists hold the possibility of grazing as a factor with the snakes’ endangerment, but they attribute the cause mainly to invasive species consuming the snakes’ offspring and their altering their habitat. Philip Rosen who is an assistant research scientist at Arizona State University and has studied the gatersnakes since 1985 states grazing contributing to the gartersnakes’ endangered status is insignificant and has more to do with nonnative species.

It does not matter to the Center for Biological Diversity whose obvious goal is to sue to prevent grazing on federal lands as a end run attack on ranchers who raise cattle for humans to eat. According to Erika Nowak who also studies the gartersnake species and grazing is not an issue at Oak Creek Canyon where gartersnakes are not threatened. This is nothing more than a way for environmentalists to pressure or even harass ranchers in order to halt grazing on federal lands. Endangered species is the excuse and it matters little to these green luddites about how their actions can affect ranchers and the people employed because of their actions.