An unprecedented land swap that has taken place on the city’s northeast side is highlighting recent efforts to remove the golden-cheeked warbler from the federal endangered species list, which local environmentalists worry could quickly allow for the overdevelopment of the Texas Hill Country.
The protection of the tiny songbird — which nests exclusively in Central Texas — has been at the center of several spats regarding land development in recent years, including a recent land swap in the Cibolo Canyons area that may soon see the decimation of tree canopy across 30 acres that were formally federally protected on the city’s northeast side.
The endangered species list, which is maintained by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, protects specific species that are at risk for extinction as well as their habitats, often making land development more difficult.
“It is true that those of us on the conservation side, where possible, use the golden-cheeked warbler to either slow or divert unwarranted development,” said Britt Coleman, president of the Bexar Audubon Society.
Over the past decade, the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a conservative Austin-based think tank, has been petitioning the federal government to see the warbler removed from the endangered list because it limits the development of land in the Hill Country.
The foundation claims that a Texas A&M study shows that the population isn’t as threatened as they are believed to be.
Despite being joined by the state’s General Land Office in a second petition to remove the warbler from endangered status in 2017, the pro-development foundation has been largely unsuccessful.
In early September, a judge from the Western District of Texas ruled that the Biden Administration misapplied a law in order to deny the foundation’s latest petition — filed in 2022 — to delist the warbler. In turn, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been ordered to reconsider the foundation’s petition, opening the door for the possible removal of the warbler from the endangered species list.
“If they delist the warbler, it will remove the barrier that the developers need to have to ensure that they’re preserving habitat,” Coleman said.
A decade of petitions
There have been three different attempts by the foundation to get the warbler considered for removal from the endangered species list — none of which have been successful until now.
The golden-cheeked warbler was first listed as an endangered species in 1990. Warblers primarily inhabit the mixed oak and juniper woodlands found between the San Antonio and Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan areas — a stretch connected by I-35 that outlines the quickly exploding Texas triangle, one of the fastest-growing areas in the United States.
“Golden-cheeked warblers are unique in one way — every golden-cheeked warbler is a native Texan, every one was born here in the state — and you cannot say that about any other bird,” said Bill Reiner, the lead biologist for the City of Austin’s Wildlife Conservation team.
The main reason for the endangered listing was the loss of habitat, according to the federal register. Today, the warbler’s status limits development in areas with heavy ashe juniper coverage — a type of tree also called “mountain cedar” — that are highly populated by the bird.
This is why a 2011 Texas A&M study that seemed to show golden-cheeked warbler populations are higher than they were previously believed to be was met with considerable interest by the state’s pro-development conservative groups and leaders, including Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush.
Pointing to this study, the Texas Public Policy Foundation filed its first petition to see the golden-cheeked warbler delisted in 2015 — citing it as evidence of the warbler’s improved condition.
However, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declined to review the petition — citing a lack of new information that would warrant a change in its endangered status. At that time, the service determined there was no substantial evidence indicating that the species’ situation had significantly changed since its listing.
A second petition was attempted in 2017, this time with the backing of the state’s General Land Office. This petition argued that the GLO leases land along the I-35 corridor to raise money for the Permanent School Fund, an endowment fund that provides funding for public education in Texas, and said that the endangered species restrictions lowered property values on this land, which negatively affected this fund.
In that case, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit found in 2021 that the standards the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service used to deny this second petition were unreasonable, and ordered the service to reconsider the petition. However, the service again stated that there was not enough information submitted in the petition to suggest that the species should be removed from the list.
The General Land Office filed a suit against the Service in 2022 arguing that it had ignored the 2021 order from the Fifth Circuit. This time, their blow landed.
In September, Senior U.S. District Judge David Alan Ezra issued an order for the service to re-evaluate the petition, stating that a review of the warbler’s status “may be warranted.”
The service is currently reevaluating the information and will publish new findings in a separate notice, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s spokesperson Aubry Buzek told the San Antonio Report in an email.
“…the Service has also been working over the past few years to complete a Species Status Assessment analysis for the golden-cheeked warbler to inform the next 5-year review, which is due” by the end of the year, she wrote.
Conflicting studies
Two 2011 studies performed by different Texas A&M researchers seemed to find opposite conclusions about the warbler’s population; one study found their habitat loss was resulting in declining populations while the other found population estimates were higher than previously estimated.
It was the latter study that the foundation and GLO have been utilizing in their arguments to see the warbler removed from the endangered species list, saying this study showed a population increase, Coleman explained. But the scientists weren’t trying to say there was a population increase — they were attempting to show the original methodology used in the 1980s and 1990s may have been incorrect, he said.
“It’s an apples-to-oranges comparison,” Coleman said. “But that isn’t slowing down the TPPF and the GLO — they’re saying the population has increased.”
Subsequent findings by one of the Texas A&M scientists have indicated that the species is continuing to decline in numbers despite existing protections.
How it could affect San Antonio
Removal of the golden-cheeked warbler from the endangered species list could result in developers wiping out the dense Texas Hill Country forests the warbler prefers to live in, Coleman noted.
The protections that currently exist require developers to agree to lessen their environmental impact by leaving certain amounts of land in the area undeveloped.
For example, when the Cibolo Canyons area located in north Bexar County began to be developed by Lumbermen’s Investment Corporation in the early 2000s, it was determined by the service that to develop 846-acres, the group had to protect a minimum of 760 acres of land that the warbler preferred. Under this order, Cibolo Canyon Conservation Area was first created.
Without the protections required for the warbler, these areas could be clear-cut developed, Coleman explained — a type of development where the developer cuts down all trees from a section of land to build homes on.
Cibolo Canyons-area residents are concerned this will be the type of development that takes place on 30 acres adjacent to their homes in the coming weeks, following the allowance of a land swap deal between the service and a developer that took place earlier this year.
Gina Smith, one of the residents, told the Report she and her neighbors are going to be keeping an eye on the developer to make sure they follow all mitigation requirements necessary to protect the warbler.
“So we’re gonna do our best to make sure that they follow these [rules] as they come up,” she said.
