Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, June 19, 1990 TAG: 9006190200
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: COPPERAS COVE, TEXAS LENGTH: Medium
But today, those trying to save the endangered 2nd Armored Division at Fort Hood say that its best hope is another endangered species - the black-capped vireo songbird.
The U.S. Department of Defense in January put the 2nd Armored Division on the "hit list" of divisions that could be eliminated by next June.
A group of community leaders called Keep Hood Alive and Kicking Inc. joined Bell County in filing suit Friday in U.S. District Court in Waco to get an injunction against the deactivation.
"The black-capped vireo may keep the Second Armored Division here," said radio executive Gaylon Christie, chairman of KHAKI. "It's my second-favorite bird - it's rivaling the eagle right now - and I didn't even know this thing existed before our environmental firm pointed it out."
Christie said Horizon Environmental Services of Austin told the group that the vireo lives best in a tumultuous environment like Fort Hood, where 11,600 soldiers and thousands of vehicles roam the 217,000-acre post.
"If you put him in a pasture where everything is peaceful, he dies," Christie said of the vireo. "They love to get in there with the tank tracks."
Christie said his attorneys will argue that without an environmental-impact study, the pullout could further endanger the bird. "If the judge accepts it, there are going to be T-shirts: `Save the bird, save the fort,' " he said.
The chief concern of KHAKI, of course, is saving the economy of the Fort Hood area, which includes Kileen, Harker Heights and Copperas Cove.
"These communities are here only because of Fort Hood," Christie said. "We don't have any other industries."
Jane Lyons, Southwest regional director of the National Audubon Society, said Fort Hood has one of the largest populations of black-capped vireos in Texas. In 1989, the Audubon Society counted 141 males and 108 females. Probably fewer than 2,000 black-capped vireo are left in the United States, she said.
Lyons said she approves of the attempt to get the Army to conduct an environmental impact study on the post before removing the troops.
"There is enough question about the survival of the species that they should be required" to get a federal environmental-impact study, she said.
"Some of the activity on the base does in fact create the kind of habitat the vireo need."
The Army occasionally clears large trees and grass from an area of the post on which it is conducting exercises, and lets smaller trees and shrubbery - the vireo's preferred nesting sites - grow back over the years, she said.
The fact that a full and active Army post limits private use of the land also protects the bird, Lyons said.
The Army allows some private cattle-grazing on the land, which could threaten the birds' nests and eggs. If the Army demands less of the land for its use, more of the land might be used for grazing, which could further endanger the vireo, Lyons said.
"On the other hand, there are certainly activities that the Army has done that are negative," she said. "I went up there and saw vireo nests that had been run over by a tank."
Maj. Joe Padillo, media relations officer for the Army in Washington, D.C., said the final decision on the fate of the 2nd Armored Division will not be made until late this month.
The Army did conduct an environmental assessment - which is not a full impact study - earlier in the spring, Padillo said. The results have not been officially released, he said.
by CNB