The dunes sagebrush lizard, declared endangered last year, requires a rare habitat, which is being threatened by oil drilling and fracking along with sandmining in West Texas. Photo by L. Fitzgerald​.

Jan. 30, 2025

A small lizard found only in the sand dunes of southeastern New Mexico and a few West Texas counties has, after decades of delay, finally been listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

However, that listing came without protection for the places it lives, and such protection is crucial. 

Efforts to save the dunes sagebrush lizard are threatened by pushback from the oil drilling and fracking industry and opposition from the State of Texas to Endangered Species protection, despite scientific studies showing how vulnerable it is and attempts to protect the lizard under the ESA.  

The lizard's continued existence is uncertain. Its survival challenges us to consider what value we place on a small species tucked away in a very specific and limited habitat, up against powerful industries and politicians. 

Does a lizard that most people will never see deserve some of the pride and affection that motivated us to save the once-endangered bald eagle? 

THE DUNES

Large stands of shinnery oak grow on top of dunes in West Texas. Photo by Michael Smith.

The dunes sagebrush lizard, Sceloporus arenicolus, is a sort of cousin of the Texas spiny lizard that is familiar to people across much of Texas. The desert lizard is small, growing to nearly six inches, including tail. It has a yellowish or tan back with a couple of vague bands going down its sides. 

The lizard has, in the course of evolution, become a habitat specialist. It's completely dependent on sand dunes on which a shrub-like oak tree, the shinnery oak, grows. The best examples of this habitat in Texas can be found in and around the Monahans Sandhills State Park, a 3,840-acre expanse of sand dunes southwest of Odessa. The dunes extend beyond the park, upward and into New Mexico. 

Some of the dunes have little vegetation and bring to mind the Sahara Desert of Africa. In other areas, the shinnery oaks (also called “shin” oak or “Havard” oak) grow like shrubs over the crests of the dunes. 

The oaks stabilize the sand, provide refuge and shade for lizards and support insects that the lizard eats. 

Where the winds scour out a bare, slightly bowl-shaped depression in sand, a “dune blowout” is formed. Such blowouts, surrounded by shinnery oak, are the habitat needed by the dunes sagebrush lizard. When blowouts are disturbed, the habitat is lost and has been shown not to recover after 30 years. Dr. Lee Fitzgerald, a professor of ecology and conservation biology at Texas A&M University, and colleagues have written that “once disturbed, the dune-blowout landform is irreplaceable.” They also note that “the dunes sagebrush lizard is not found at sites lacking shinnery oak dune habitat.” 

Among their other findings: the lizard will not even venture across a road unless it is covered by wind-blown sand. In many places within the dunes, there are networks of roads and drill pads for oil and gas development, fragmenting the lizards’ habitat and isolating them. Studies demonstrate that the more fragmentation, the fewer dunes sagebrush lizards.

An attempt was made to start a new population by moving dunes sagebrush lizards to suitable new habitat from which they had disappeared. Despite some initial positive signs, after several years all the lizards had disappeared from the new site.

ADVOCATES

A gravid (pregnant) female lizard fitted with a radio, allowing researchers to track the lizard. Photo by L. Fitzgerald.

Among the organizations advocating for the lizard is the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD). Michael Robinson, Senior Conservation Advocate with CBD, said that the Center has tried to bring more federal attention to the lizard for decades. 

Robinson recalled that even before the damage from the petroleum industry, “herbicides were sprayed to kill off the shinnery oaks and allow for marginally more grass to grow” so that more cattle could be grazed in the area. He added that “the oil and gas boom has resulted in industrialization of a large portion of the dunes.” 

Additionally, CBD has argued that climate change and fracking are quickly reducing groundwater, which could eliminate the shinnery oaks and undermine the stability of the dunes. 

SANDMINING

A sand mining facility north of the park near Kermit, Texas. Photo by Michael Smith.

The takeaway seems to be that this is a species that is completely dependent on a particular kind of dune habitat that is itself very vulnerable. With this in mind, I wanted to take a look at potential habitat outside of Monahans Sandhills State Park. 

I found that the dunes are being “mined” for sand to be used in hydraulic fracturing (or “fracking”) to extract natural gas. Tanker trucks and big “sand box” trucks for carrying sand raced up and down the roads and lined up at sand mining facilities. Those facilities look like factories for pulling sand out of the dunes. 

The area is crisscrossed with roads and dotted with drilling pads. In places the dunes have been transformed into an outdoor industrial park. Everywhere there is dust, sometimes enshrouding traffic like morning fog. At night, the sand mining operations are lit up and visible for miles around, and huge flames from stacks dot the landscape around drilling operations that are flaring methane gas. 

RESPITE

A sand blowout within Monahans Sandhills State Park. Photo by Michael Smith.

Within the state park, on the other hand, dunes stretch out into the distance without interruption. In one area a volleyball net was set up and there were picnic areas nearby. The dunes were rippled by the wind and also dotted with innumerable trails of what may have been insects, birds and rodents, each leaving their tracks in the sand. 

In another area in the park, more grasses and sunflowers grew and nearby dunes had shinnery oak growing on them. In our morning walk, we passed by a side-blotched lizard (a distantly related species) and soon found a blowout. An open area of sand sloped upward towards shinnery oak growing over the crest of the dune. 

We sat for a while and watched for any activity, digging our hands into the sand and finding that, on this sunny October morning, the sand was cool just below the surface. While we did not see the dunes sagebrush lizard, the morning light made the sand and nearby grasses beautiful.  An hour in these lovely dunes was a good antidote to all the trucks and drilling sites we saw the night before.

LIZARDS VS. HUMANS

Footprints of some small creature on a sand dune​ in Monahan Sandhills State Park. Photo by Michael Smith.

In 2010, when the Fish and Wildlife Service proposed listing the lizard, making it a “candidate” species under the ESA, the Texas Legislature transferred responsibility for dealing with endangered species to the Comptroller’s office. Many people questioned having the state’s chief financial officer responsible for endangered species, but others saw ESA listing primarily in terms of how it might impact industry.

Comptroller Susan Combs worked with the petroleum industry, landowners and others to come up with a voluntary plan to protect the lizard. As a result, the federal agency withdrew its proposed listing. However, many in the conservation community saw that as the fox guarding the henhouse.

The Fish and Wildlife Service offers Candidate Conservation Agreements with Assurances (CCAAs) that allow landowners to agree to activities like restoring degraded habitat or refraining from destroying habitat, and then if the species becomes listed as endangered, that landowner will not be required to take any new steps (and they are allowed a certain level of “incidental take,” meaning the killing of animals as a by-product of their use of the land).

Texas A&M researcher Fitzgerald commented that “those conservation agreements are voluntary, and if you break the agreement, the worst that happens to you is you get kicked out of the agreement.” He recalled that when sand mining began destroying lizard habitat, that was a new development that had not been factored into the agreement and “the whole thing sort of fell apart.”

Michael Robinson noted that part of the problem with the CCAAs was secrecy. 

“Those enrolling in these plans were shielded from actually providing any kind of information that would allow any outside party to assess whether in fact there's any conservation going on.”

Earlier this year, the Fish and Wildlife Service did list the lizard as endangered. Texas quickly filed suit against the Department of Interior as well as its Secretary, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and its Director.

UNDERSTANDING THE ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT OF 1973

The ESA can boast of many success stories over the past 50 years. The Fish and Wildlife Service website spells out some facts about the ESA: the distinction between “endangered” and “threatened,” the prohibition on “taking” (for example, collecting or killing) them, measures to protect habitat, and other parts of the law.

The U.S. Department of the Interior website says that “The ESA was enacted in 1973 as a response to the declining populations of many species of animals and plants.” In the 1960s, those endangered species included the bald eagle, American alligator, black-footed ferret, whooping crane and many others.

The law was intended to protect species as well as, in the words of the Interior Department, “ecosystems and habitats necessary for the survival of those species.” After all, it is meaningless to protect a plant or animal if it has no place to live. The dunes sagebrush lizard is one of those species whose home is so specialized and so vulnerable that it cannot continue without protected habitat. 

Regarding listing the dunes sagebrush lizard, CBD’s Robinson said that the Fish and Wildlife Service “should have designed critical habitat in the final rule, but they have a loophole. They're able to defer designating habitat for a year.” There is no question about the habitat that is needed; the delay is based on uncertainty about the economic impact of protecting areas with the dunes.

Because conserving species – and especially conserving places for those species to live – requires some economic trade-offs, the ESA has often been targeted by legislation designed to weaken it. The law is demonized by those whose primary interest is unrestrained development and profit.

On Jan. 20, President Trump's Executive Order Declaring a National Energy Emergency included, in Section 6, a requirement that the Interior Secretary convene the "Endangered Species Act Committee" at least quarterly to consider any requests for "exemption from obligations imposed by Section 7 of the ESA." Section 7 of the ESA requires federal agencies to make sure their actions do not jeopardize endangered species or their habitats. Those interested in endangered species such as the dunes sagebrush lizard should watch for actions from this committee that weaken any protection that the lizard may receive.

WHAT HAPPENS NEXT?

The dunes sagebrush lizard. Photo by L. Fitzgerald.

No one knows for sure what will happen to the dunes sagebrush lizard or to the Endangered Species Act. The Act itself cannot be eliminated by an incoming President; it would take Congress to do that. The President might be able to issue executive orders affecting the listing. The federal courts could uphold or invalidate parts of the law.

The State of Texas’ lawsuit against the federal government claims that the agency did not properly follow what the ESA calls for. The suit alleges that the Fish and Wildlife Service’s justifications were vague and unreasonable. It asks for a judgement that the listing of the lizard was unlawful and flawed and for the court to “vacate” the listing (to set it aside or annul it). 

Organizations such as the Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife, and others will try to have their voices heard in court and rally the public behind the protection of the lizard. 

If we choose to, we can speak up by supporting such conservation groups, by writing to government representatives in support of the dunes sagebrush lizard and for the Endangered Species Act. We can start conversations with friends or family about whether we think threatened and endangered species are worthwhile, especially the smaller, more obscure, “quiet” ones. 

This lizard has what it takes to live and be successful in this very specialized place. It cannot just decide to live in a different place. Living in shinnery oak sand dune blowouts is part of what it is. We have to decide how adaptable we can be. Can we make room for the dunes sagebrush lizard, set aside enough places in those sand dunes so that it can survive, even if that is an inconvenience to the petroleum industry?

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