Summer in Arizona reminds us all of the area’s most precious habitat: riparian forests that provide cool, canopied respite from the blazing sun. The cool, clear waters and the shade trees are valuable not just for humans looking for a break from the desert glare, but for the unique and special wildlife species that call our region home. Protecting these habitats is a primary focus for sustaining biodiversity in our deserts, and reducing unnecessary threats to the water quantity and quality is a major goal of conservationists throughout the southwest.

So why then is the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service backing down on ensuring the ecological integrity of riparian areas on the four public lands grazing allotments leased by Rosemont Mine on the Coronado National Forest? In an article published in the Arizona Daily Star last week, reporter Tony Davis identifies several suspicious changes between the draft and final Biological Opinion for the mine.

The Service dropped several reasonable mitigation measures from its final biological opinion for the mine, including a measure that would have kept cattle out of the riparian habitats, a well-known method of improving riparian health, allowing for tree regeneration, improved water quality and protecting soils along the river banks. The science behind this management practice is well-established, but it doesn’t take a degree to see or smell the difference between a cow-bombed creek and a protected riparian forest. Southern Arizonans flock to riparian recreational sites that exclude cattle from the waterways (Sabino Canyon, Madera Canyon, etc.) and, it turns out, so do species like the yellow-billed cuckoo.

Riparian livestock exclusion is a common practice in the West, so the Service’s willingness to let an international mining company keep on grazing its token livestock on these habitats on our public lands is even more mysterious. It isn’t like Hudbay’s profits are tied to their cows’ ability to chomp native trees, stomp on wet soils and foul these washes. It would seem that keeping cattle out of riparian areas on the four allotments is the least the mining giant could do, and the Service’s timidity on retaining this small measure is truly pathetic. Excluding cattle from the four allotments all together wouldn’t be unreasonable, but it looks like the agency can’t even limit grazing in the most sensitive habitat.

Add this excised measure from the Final BiOp to the other changes that throw ‘protected’ species under the bus – removing provisions to protect groundwater and surface flows, preventing non-native species infestations, and ensuring broader conservation in the watershed – and it makes you wonder for whom the Service’s Arizona Field Supervisor is really working. Here’s a hint: It doesn’t seem to be imperiled species.