Birds shelter in nests, rock overhangs, trees, and dense shrubs to avoid the hottest hours of the day, while mammals like the kangaroo rat burrow underground.

Some fear the new protections might push species such as the Texas kangaroo rat or the golden-winged warbler down the same road to extinction as the ivory-billed woodpecker.

Elsewhere they have gone to court for the blunt-nosed leopard lizard and the giant kangaroo rat.