Patrick Donnelly/Center for Biological Diversity via AP
This photo taken June 1, 2019, by Patrick Donnelly of the Center for Biological Diversity shows the rare desert wildflower Tiehm’s buckwheat in the Silver Peak Range, about 120 miles south of Reno.
Monday, Jan. 9, 2023 | 12:58 p.m.
A national conservation advocacy group announced today plans to sue the federal government for failing to preserve the habitat of an endangered flower species that grows on a small swath of land in western Nevada.
In a letter Monday to U.S. Interior Secretary Debra Haaland and Bureau of Land Management Director Tracy Stone-Manning, the Center of Biological Diversity said it intends to file a lawsuit against the government pursuant to the Endangered Species Act. The group alleges livestock grazing, unfettered by BLM, has adversely impacted the designated habitat of the Tiehm’s buckwheat — a rare species of wildflower found only on 10 acres of BLM land in the Rhyolite Ridge area of the Silver Peak Range mountains in Esmeralda County.
Tiehm’s buckwheat, the letter states, faces numerous threats, including a proposed lithium mine near the flower’s natural habitat.
The plant grows about six inches from the ground and blooms into small, yellow flowers resembling a pom-pom. There are about 15,000 Tiehm’s buckwheat plants growing in Nevada.
Patrick Donnelly, the Center of Biological Diversity’s director for the Great Basin region, said in a news release announcing the letter he recently took a trip to the plant’s protected 10-acre allotment and photographed seven cows grazing and trampling over plants on the land.
“Tiehm’s buckwheat is one of North America’s most endangered plants, but federal officials are letting the livestock industry run roughshod over its fragile habitat,” Donnelly said. “The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recognized cattle grazing as a threat to the buckwheat’s existence, but the Bureau of Land Management has done nothing to protect these wildflowers.”
The wildflower earned endangered status in December after federal regulators gave it additional protections for its critical habitat across its entire range, according to the release.
In the filing establishing the buckwheat as an endangered species, regulators said the BLM agreed in January to voluntarily remove the cattle from the site.
