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Bay Area conservationists said Monday they are seeing an outpouring of gratitude for their move to intervene in a suit by a Sacramento activist group to weaken protection for a threatened bird. 

Representatives of the Environmental Protection Information Center and the Oakland office of the Center for Biological Diversity say groups along the Pacific Coast have contacting them to support their action in a challenge by the Pacific Legal Foundation to federal action on behalf of the western snowy plover. 

The PLF suit, brought in a federal court in Oregon under the federal Endangered Species Act in May, charges the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service with illegally designating 28 critical habitat areas that affect 20,000 acres of land for conservation of the species. 

Snowy plovers are small birds that lay their eggs in slight depressions of sandy beaches. After hatching, flightless chicks forage for food along the beach. Numbers of the western snowy plover, which the federal government listed as threatened in 1993, have dwindled to fewer than 2,000 individuals. The bird has been found throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, but only a few remain. 

“We have moved to intervene to ensure the plover habitat is vigorously defended,” Galvin said. “Unfortunately, we cannot rely on the current administration to uphold or defend wildlife and environmental regulations.” 

The two broad-based environmental groups are joined by several Audubon society chapters, including the Marin Audubon Society, in their motion to have their views on the matter heard by the court. 

Center for Biological Diversity conservation biologist Peter Galvin said the groups are particularly interested in the PLF suit because the Bush administration has settled a series of similar lawsuits that industry groups have filed in an attempt to weaken wildlife and environmental protections. 

Galvin said the plover is threatened by coastal development, dogs unleashed in their nesting areas, and by beach driving, as well as by coastal pollution. 

“Industry has launched a jihad against environmental protection, and it's playing it out in the court system, with the Bush administration rushing to settle these (lawsuits) out on favorable terms for the industries,” Galvin said Monday. “So we're rushing in to try to stop the Bush Administration from essentially caving in on these lawsuits.” 

But according to the Pacific Legal Foundation complaint, federal officials did not balance the economic impact of prohibitions on recreational and other human activities against the potential benefit to the species when they determined the critical habitat needed for western snowy plover conservation.