Colorado hookless cactus
Celebrate Three Cacti in One Happy Hour with CNE!
Come lift a glass to three cacti that finally are each protected in their own right under the Endangered Species Act. Three cheers for Pariette cactus, Colorado hookless cactus, and Uinta Basin hookless cactus!
Please join us on the second floor of the Wynkoop Brewery (here’s a map) on Thursday, October 15 from 5-6:30 PM to celebrate the first day of protection under the Act for these cacti. Please RSVP here. Hmm, seems like sipping some juice from another succulent, the agave, might be in order…
Back in 1979 when Uinta Basin hookless cactus was first protected under the Endangered Species Act, botanists hadn’t noticed that the cacti looked different in different parts of its range. In the early 1990s, researchers realized that they were actually oberving three separate species altogether: Pariette cactus (Sclerocactus brevispinus), Colorado hookless cactus (Sclerocactus glaucus), and Uinta Basin hookless cactus (Sclerocactus wetlandicus). Unfortunately, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and land management agencies kept
Pariette cactus. Ben Franklin photo.
treating these cacti as if they all belonged to the same species, and high-impact projects were approved on the basis that they wouldn’t adversely affect the entire cactus population.
In 2005, Center for Native Ecosystems and the Utah Native Plant Society petitioned the Service to recognize Pariette cactus as its own Endangered species because of a proposal to drill 900 new oil and gas wells in its only remaining habitat.
The final rule recognizing each of these three cacti as Threatened under the Endangered Species Act goes into effect this Thursday, October 15th. We’ll be celebrating four years of hard work by CNE and our partners to secure these protections.
Uinta Basin hookless cactus
We’re still working to gain Endangered status for Pariette cactus (a more protective designation than Threatened), as the first set of those 900 oil and gas wells in its habitat was just proposed. We’ll be watchdogging that project carefully, and continuing to push for greater protection for this tiny gem. The Pariette will have a long road to recovery, but just being recognized as its own species worthy of protection is a critically important first step, so please come celebrate small miracles with us.
For the love of wild places and three cool cacti,
-The CNE Crew
Support our efforts to protect the biodiversity of the Southern Rockies. Donate today!
What do you mean when you say the species has a “long road to recovery”? pariette cactus was never more common than it currently is. your statements regarding land management agencies aproving projects on the basis that they would not affect the population of cacti is completely false. I encourage you to respect the protections that scientists and land managers have created for these species instead of acting as though nothing was or is in place to protect them.
also, i have personally documented nearly 30,000 individual S. wetlandicus in the past two years.