WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 (UPI) — A petition to protect the Joshua tree, the rare plant that only survives in deserts of the Southwest, was sent to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service Wednesday, a conservation group said.
WildEarth Guardians petitioned the government to protect the plant under the Endangered Species Act. They said that, like the polar bear, which was given federal protection in 2008 due to melting sea ice, the Joshua tree is also being affected by climate change.
The Joshua tree is actually a succulent called Yucca brevifolia that can grow up to 40 feet high, has a lifespan of over 200 years, and is depended on by other desert species like ants, ladder-backed woodpeckers, desert night lizards, kangaroo rats, termites and yucca moths.
But its reproduction has slowed or stopped for decades and if Southern California continues to get warmer and drier, computer models suggest the namesake of the Joshua Tree National Park could lose up to 90 percent of its range by the end of this century.
“Joshua trees are an irreplaceable part of the Southwest and we must protect them,” Taylor Jones, endangered species advocate for the group told the Los Angeles Times. “Because Joshua trees grow so slowly, they cannot quickly adjust to our changing climate and will need safeguards to ensure they are here for future generations.”
But the Joshua tree is a highly specialized species that has adapted to live in an extreme environment, making it less adaptable to a changing environment than many other species. Federal protection would only be part of a solution to save the plant.
“It’s already difficult to be a Joshua tree, since many factors need to come together in just the right way for them to reproduce,” Jones said. “We need to address climate change now if we want to see Joshua trees in the future.”
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service now has 90 days to respond.
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