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The Dunes Sagebrush Lizard did not vote in November’s presidential election, but it had a lot riding on the outcome. In the coming months, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will decide whether to list the lizard as endangered a designation that would make it an offence even to disturb its habitat.
This matters a lot to the lizard. But it also matters to the drillers and frackers of southeastern New Mexico and western Texas, home both to the shinnery oak dunes in which the lizard lives but also to the shale rocks of the Permian, the world’s most prolific oilfield.