(Photo by Jeff Servoss - U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

Chiricahua leopard frog.

The U.S. Forest Service must reexamine a plan for allowing cattle to graze near Fossil Creek in the Coconino National Forest. A court has ruled the current plan jeopardizes habitat for the threatened Chiricahua leopard frog.
 
A U.S. district court determined the grazing plan failed to consider streams, creeks and other “dispersal corridors” which the frogs use to move between ponds.

The Chiricahua leopard frog lives in Arizona and New Mexico. It needs permanent water sources to survive.

The ruling came after a lawsuit was filed by the Center for Biological Diversity. It claimed the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service inaccurately reported that grazing would not harm the threatened frog.

The agency must revise its assessment by Oct. 1. Until then, the Forest Service can’t issue a grazing permit on the frog’s critical habitat near Fossil Creek. 

The frog was listed as threatened in 2002 because of habitat loss, non-native predators and disease. It was reestablished in the Fossil Creek area in 2008 through a captive breeding program.