California IN BRIEF : SAN DIEGO : Cattle Called Threat to Rare Butterfly

A rare black and white butterfly found only in San Diego County faces possible extinction as cattle graze and trample thousands of acres of the Cleveland National Forest, environmentalists say. The Laguna Mountains skipper, which exists in a few mountain meadows, has fluttered into a controversy over federal permits allowing ranchers to graze cattle in the forest. For the first time in a decade, thousands of acres of grazing leases are up for renewal, and the U.S. Forest Service will decide how the leases are to be handled. Critics contend that cattle are incompatible with sensitive plants and animals. While Forest Service officials acknowledge that grazing must be fine-tuned to accommodate rare and endangered species, they are committed to multiple uses for the land. Environmentalists say livestock eat or trample the butterfly’s host plant, “plow” meadows with their hoofs and contribute to stream-bed erosion, said Dave Hogan, coordinator of the San Diego Biodiversity Project.