Environmental Activist Group Files Suit on Saving Rare AZ Snail, Where It Is Should Raise Eyebrows

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By Becca Lower

It seems like, without fail, the activist Left seeks out ways of using the legal system to get whatever radical policy they want retained via a judge's ruling or stop some Conservative policy that half of the American people overwhelmingly voted for during a recent presidential election.

Such might be the case in this new story, where an environmental group has filed suit in my state of Arizona against the Trump administration ... over the habitat of a rare species of desert spring snail.

But the fact that this snail can only live where President Trump is planning on building a second border wall should raise thinking people's eyebrows:

Here are some details:

The Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit Thursday seeking to force federal officials to finalize Endangered Species Act protections for the Quitobaquito tryonia. The tiny springsnail, which is roughly the size of a poppy seed, lives exclusively within Quitobaquito Springs inside Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument along the Arizona border.

According to the Center, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined in 2023 that the snail deserved an endangered listing but missed its legal deadline to finalize the protection.

“Federal officials are stalling while one of North America’s rarest animals' inches toward extinction,” Russ McSpadden, Southwest conservation advocate at the Center, said in a statement. “The Quitobaquito tryonia lives in a tiny ribbon of desert water that could be destroyed for the useless political theatre of Trump’s second border wall.”

The report linked above, from Phoenix news radio station, KTAR, continued:

The lawsuit comes as contractors prepare to build a second border wall approximately 100 feet north of the existing barrier. Environmentalists warn the planned path runs directly through the fragile wetland area, which could disrupt the spring’s hydrologic functions and water retention.

The entire habitat for the snail, a freshwater spring flowing into a pond, is only about one-third the size of a soccer field.

The spring also holds deep cultural significance for the Hia C-eḍ Oʼodham and Tohono O’odham people. Additionally, the waters support two other federally protected species: the endangered Quitobaquito pupfish and the Sonoyta mud turtle.

...

The lawsuit seeks a court order compelling the Fish and Wildlife Service to issue its protection for the springsnail.

You may have caught the part of the reporting about the tribes' potential concerns over the lands. That connects nicely with another similar story on lawsuits in a minute.

This is a possibly nefarious pattern by environmental and tribal activist groups, who sue with the understanding that the lawsuits can drag on for years. 

Case in point: A similar rare snail was the focus of a 2023 lawsuit about a proposed lithium mine in what's called the Thacker Pass on the Oregon-Nevada border - one of a series of lawsuits that dragged on under the Biden administration. In that situation, there was also a tribal legal dispute over sacred lands with the project.

The result? The judge in the case dismissed the tribes' claims, in late 2023, that building the mine would be illegal. And all of the other lawsuits eventually failed. 


In fact, the current Trump administration ended up making the whole thing a national security win - in Oct. 2025 - buying a minority (5 percent) stake into the Thacker Pass lithium mining project as joint venture with General Motors. Readers might recall around the same time that Trump approved a new mining road in Alaska for upping our domestic copper and zinc production.

Here's the thing the Left needs to get straight about these vicious lawsuits: not every piece of land in our country needs to be a park. And as much as I appreciate what snails and earthworms do to aerate the topsoil, they aren't as important as human beings - and human beings' safety as a nation. That's a major difference between Conservatives and the Democrats - and something voters should keep in mind as the primaries across the nation play out this summer.

The suit, filed Thursday, May 28, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona, Tucson Division, names U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Brian Nesvik and Interior Sec. Doug Burgum as defendants. You can read the full lawsuit here.

U.S. Department of the Interior, meanwhile, posted this on X - without comment about the lawsuit - on Wednesday:

Original Here
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