>>1947776>Despite Idaho's objections, the snail was listed as endangered in 1993. Later that year, a federal judge in Idaho removed the snail from the list -- the first time an endangered species had been delisted by a court order. But the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the ruling and restored the snail to the list, where it's been since 1998.The Fish and Wildlife Service has argued the Bruneau hot springsnail is a classic canary-in-the-mineshaft species.
"The snail is the messenger telling us that a water problem exists and must be dealt with or the ecosystem and agriculture upon which human beings depend will continue to crumble," Mollie Beattie, the agency's director at the time, told the National Press Club in 1993. "Once again, the local reaction is quite literally to kill the messenger rather than heed the message."
Today, as the agency prepares a status report on the snail's future, some veterans of the snail wars are bracing for the next round.
"Nobody is taking a swing at anybody yet, but we all wonder how low does that water have to go before the Fish and Wildlife Service must step in and take that first swing?" said Quey Johns, a Bruneau farmer who was president of the Farm Bureau when it sued the government over the listing. "The water hasn't run out, and we are going to keep going until there isn't any more. That's just the way you farm."
