Judge temporarily bans off-road vehicles from California desert areas

From the LA Times:

Judge Backs Desert Refuge
Off-road vehicles are ordered banned from half a million acres to protect an endangered tortoise species. But the restriction may not last.

By Janet Wilson
Times Staff Writer
January 5, 2005

A federal judge has ordered the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to ban off-road vehicles from more than half a million acres of California desert that are home to the reclusive desert tortoise, which is protected under the Endangered Species Act.

The injunction by U.S. District Judge Susan Illston is a setback for the Bush administration and its public lands agencies, which have been whittling back critical habitat for scores of endangered species, conservationists said.

"It takes a 2-by-4 over their heads to get their attention, and this is a 2-by-4," said Elden Hughes, chairman of the Sierra Club's desert committee.

"The court's ruling checks the abuses of the executive branch, and upholds … the Endangered Species Act, America's most important wildlife law," said Daniel Patterson, of the Center for Biological Diversity, which, along with the Sierra Club and two other groups, filed suit in 2003 to overturn desert management plans crafted by the BLM and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in recent years.

"Critical habitat works, and the Bush administration must follow the law," Patterson said.

Federal officials said they would immediately implement the ban, which covers a huge swath of the Sonoran and Mojave deserts in Riverside, Imperial and San Bernardino counties that is honeycombed with washes that are popular routes for off-road recreation.

But the officials predicted the ban would be temporary, likely to last only about six weeks. They said once a scientific report addressing concerns about the desert tortoise was complete, the ban would automatically be lifted.

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More: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-desert5jan05,1,5921248.story?coll=la-headlines-california

Whether he has anything to do with this being overturned, Bush will make a big show of this if/when it happens. Remember that the people who don't care about habitat preservation, & would even enjoy destroying habitat just to piss off liberals -- let's call them "dickheads" for lack of a better term -- are a big part of Bush's base. When he returned snowmobiles to some national parks they ate it up...