CALIFORNIA IN BRIEF : SAN DIEGO : Protection Sought for Songbirds

The National Audubon Society is suing the U.S. government for allegedly failing to designate a “critical habitat” in San Diego County for an endangered migratory songbird. The lawsuit in U.S. District Court seeks an order that would designate unspecified wetlands in the county as a habitat for the least Bell’s vireo. Of the fewer than 400 pairs of vireos believed to exist worldwide, more than 300 pairs spend the winter in Baja California, Mexico, then flock to San Diego County in late March and early April. The songbirds, which are on the government’s endangered species list, make their homes in dense willow thickets along the banks of the San Diego, Santa Margarita, Sweetwater, San Luis Rey and Santa Ana rivers. The lawsuit contends that the vireos, once common along Southern California’s inland waterways, face “serious risk of extinction.” The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1985 proposed placing the birds on the endangered list and designating 43,000 acres as the bird’s “critical habitat.”