Habitat and Humanity. If
there is a Don Quixote of federal laws, it is the Endangered Species Act (ESA): For over three
decades this law's regulations have endangered the species in distress that they are endeavoring
to protect.
The
Endangered Species Act. Once on the list, it is nearly
impossible for a species to be taken off. Very few species (only 31) have
ever made it off the list. For example, although the bald eagle has been
flourishing in recent years (three have been spotted in the Washington, D.C. area
alone), the Department of the Interior (DOI) has not taken the eagle off the list
because environmental groups have lobbied to keep the bird on the list. DOI
succumbs to such pleas, even when species is no longer endangered. The 1,232
species on the list have more rights than property owners.
Rewrite
of Endangered Species Law Approved. Setting the stage for the most sweeping restructuring
of endangered species protections in three decades, the House Resources Committee yesterday approved
legislation that would strengthen the hand of private property owners and make it harder for federal
officials to set aside large swaths of habitat for imperiled plants and animals.
The Endangered Species Act is
Out of Control. Is a salmon born in a hatchery a different species from the same
salmon born in the wild? It is hard to believe, but recent Federal court rulings are
claiming that otherwise genetically identical fish are separate species, forcing an appeal
being announced recently to the 9th Circuit Court. Two court decisions in the last two
months show how much is at stake in these questions.
U.S. Supreme Court to Decide Whether ESA
Listing Exceeds Federal Power. The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to decide whether the Interstate
Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution gives the federal government authority to regulate Alabama sturgeon
under the Endangered Species Act. A lawsuit contending the federal government overstepped its bounds in
seeking to regulate Alabama sturgeon was filed by attorneys with the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF), an
organization that litigates on behalf of property owners against government overreach.
Researchers Fear
Southern Fence Will Endanger Species Further. The debate over the fence the United States is building along
its southern border has focused largely on the project's costs, feasibility and how well it will curb illegal immigration.
But one of its most lasting impacts may well be on the animals and vegetation that make this politically fraught landscape
their home.
'Survival of the fittest' is thwarted again...
Feds: Kill sea lions to
protect salmon. A federal agency recommended killing about 30 sea lions a year at a Columbia
River dam where the marine animals feast on salmon migrating upriver to spawn. By many estimates, the
sea lions devour about 4 percent of spring runs. Fishermen and Columbia River tribes have urged
action for years against the sea lions at Bonneville Dam.
Sea
lions' death warrant? Federal officials have called for killing about 30 sea lions near
Bonneville Dam each year to keep them from gobbling a rising share of Northwest salmon that the government
spends millions of dollars to protect. … The strategy would authorize state officials to shoot or trap
and then kill as many as 85 California sea lions each year, or as many as necessary so they eat no more than
1 percent of salmon passing through Bonneville Dam.
And again...
Kill all wild horses in
Australian national park: environmentalists. Environmentalists called Wednesday [1/16/2008]
for hundreds of wild horses to be shot dead to prevent a unique Australian national park becoming a
"horse paddock," with little room for native species.
Group will sue to list walrus as threatened.
A conservation group gave notice Tuesday [5/27/2008] that it will sue to force federal action on a petition to
list the Pacific walrus as a threatened species because of threats from global warming and offshore petroleum
development.
Groups
seek drilling halt near sage grouse habitat. Two conservation groups have asked the federal government
to impose new restrictions on oil and gas development in the West to protect the greater sage grouse, a
popular game bird on the decline. Scientists contend sage grouse breeding areas are suffering in the
face of accelerating oil and gas exploration in Wyoming, Montana, Colorado, Utah and other Western states.
West Nile virus, drought and residential development also have taken a toll on the bird, which is being
considered for the endangered species list.
The Editor points out the obvious...
Here's another possibility to consider: Perhaps the "popular game bird" is on the decline because
people are shooting them, which has nothing to do with the presence of oil wells.
What's Wrong with the Endangered Species Act and How to Fix
It. The Endangered Species Act (ESA), passed in 1973, was designed to recover species to a level
at which they are no longer considered endangered and therefore do not require the Act's protection.
Unfortunately, the law has had the opposite effect on many species. The ESA can severely penalize
landowners for harboring species on their property, and as a result many landowners have rid their property of
the species and habitat rather than suffer the consequences.
Who Pays for the Delhi Sands Fly?
How successful have the Feds been at recovering species? Not very. Since 1973, only 40
species have been removed from the endangered and threatened species list and only 15 of those have been
de-listed because their populations had recovered. The other de-listed species either went extinct
(nine species) or shouldn't have been listed in the first place (16 species). Only about one
percent of listed species have been declared no longer in endangered or threatened by extinction.
Despite this sorry performance, the activist group Endangered Species Coalition hails the ESA as
"one of our nation's strongest environmental laws."
Endangered Species Act Needs
Dose of Sanity. If there is a Don Quixote of federal laws, it is the Endangered
Species Act (ESA): For over three decades this law's regulations have endangered the species
in distress that they are endeavoring to protect. The House last Thursday took
the first step toward injecting a dose of sanity into species recovery efforts by passing the
Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery Act (TESRA), a bill that fixes the perverse incentives
in the original legislation that pit property owners against wildlife.
How to Fix the Endangered
Species Act: On average, humans are natural-born animal-lovers, and we quite
naturally want to do what we can to protect them and their habitat. Alas, the
Endangered Species Act has never been an effective way to do that. Using the ESA,
the federal government tried to protect endangered species in its usual "command and
control" manner, punishing people who discovered their land harbored a rare and vulnerable
animal by imposing restrictions on how the land could be used. Under the ESA, most
folks are better off looking the other way — or worse, finding ways to make the
endangered species leave or "disappear."
Three Things to Know About the Endangered
Species Act: (#2) The Endangered Species Act punishes landowners for good environmental
stewardship. Private property owners who care for their land, and maintain habitat for endangered
species, find themselves subject to severe land use restrictions. This creates a perverse incentive
for landowners to rid their property of species and habitat in an effort to avoid land use restrictions and
potentially devastating losses in property value that accompany them.
Endangered Species
Day Highlights Need For Reform. Early last month, Congress passed a resolution designating
[May 11 as] Endangered Species Day. National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) Senior Fellow
H. Sterling Burnett suggests the day would be a perfect time to end the perverse incentives that pit
property owners against wildlife.
The Endangered Species Act is a Broken Law.
Just last week, the Endangered Species Act was declared "broken" by the senior Bush Administration official in
charge of overseeing the law's enforcement. This assessment comes as no surprise to anyone knowledgeable
of how the ESA is implemented by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The fact is that "ESA policy" is
often based on politically motivated pressure from eco-activists in the environmental community and within the
agency itself.
Loons
and Bears Versus Eskimos and Oil: "A petition seeking Endangered Species Act protection for a
rare loon that breeds in Alaska's National Petroleum Reserve has been accepted for review by the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service," noted a May 29, 2007 Associated Press article. "Conservationists hope an eventual
listing of the yellow-billed loon will curb petroleum development in the 23-million acre reserve that covers
much of Alaska's North Slope." So, at a time when a $100 barrel of oil makes economies around the world
quiver, the "conservationists" are more interested in a yellow-billed loon than in your ability to drive to
work, pick up the kids at school, or just go anywhere in your car.
Did someone mention
the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge?
Government run amok:
[Scroll down] I realized this a few years ago when I came across a story concerning Taiwanese immigrant Taung
Ming-Lin, a farmer in Kern County, Calif., who was arrested for allegedly running over an "endangered" kangaroo
rat while tilling his own land. His tractor was seized and held for over four months, and he faced a year
in jail and a $200,000 fine. ... As time has passed, it is now clear that what happened to the farmer in Kern
County was not an anomaly, but part of a developing pattern of government invasion of private rights.
Conservation group seeks
protections for Alaska ribbon seals in effort to protect environment. Frustrated by a lack of
regulations limiting global warming, a conservation group wants ribbon seals listed as threatened or endangered
because their habitat — sea ice — is disappearing amid climate change. The
Center for Biological Diversity on Thursday filed a 91-page petition with the National Marine Fisheries
Service seeking to list ribbon seals as threatened or endangered.
Federal
Judge Sides With Desert Tortoise. A federal judge in San Francisco is
refusing to allow cattle grazing and off-road vehicle use on 4-million acres of California
desert, which is set aside as "critical habitat" for the desert tortoise. It is not
enough to consider the survival of the desert tortoise, the judge said in her ruling. She
said the Fish and Wildlife Service must also consider "recovery" of the species — boosting
the population, in other words, to the point where it can be removed from the endangered
species list.
Editor's Note: That
will probably never happen. Read the next article.
More Specious Species
Claims. Well over 1,000 species have been declared threatened or endangered
since the ESA was enacted in 1973. Since then, only 27 species have been removed
from the list — 27 out of over 1,000. Yet of the 27, seven were delisted
because they went extinct. The Interior Department acknowledges that an additional
nine were "data errors" and never should have been listed in the first place. The
remaining eleven are officially listed as recoveries, yet the ESA cannot be credited with
saving a single one. Those species either never deserved to be listed as endangered,
or recovered due to factors beyond the ESA's control. Thus, in [its first] 25 years,
the ESA failed to recover a single species.
Commonly Asked Questions About the
Endangered Species Act: Simply stated, the Endangered Species Act
is the most powerful environmental law ever enacted.
The Polar Bear is used for emotional leverage
As I have noted on another page, many people take sides
on political issues based on the emotional rhetoric in TV sound bites or catchy bumper stickers, without taking
the time to do a little research and discover the cold hard facts. The notion that "global warming" is
melting polar ice, and that polar bears are thereby endangered, is a work of fiction that is now being used
to restrict business and industry in all 50 states.
The Polar Bear And The
ESA: Backdooring Global Warming Regulations. The federal Endangered Species Act has long been known
as extremely burdensome to practioners and the landowners they represent. If the polar bear is listed, a new set
of industries will feel those burdens directly.
The Bear Facts: The International
Union for the Conservation of Nature has just put the polar bear on the endangered species list because it is
supposedly "facing extinction" — mainly, it claims, as a result of global warming. But statistics show
the polar bear is not facing extinction, not by a long shot.
Senate Keeps Focus on
Polar Bear. Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) said the Department of Interior has been "foot-dragging" on
listing the polar bear as an endangered species and has asked the department's secretary to appear before the Senate
Environment and Public Works Committee.
There's no need to 'save' the polar bear.
Environmental groups are pushing to list the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act,
and the Bush administration is considering their demands. It might make sense — if the polar bear were
endangered. But the worldwide population of these bears has more than doubled since 1965, to an
estimated 20,000-25,000 today. Far from being threatened, by all accounts the bears are thriving.
So what's behind the push to "save" the bears? A desire to ban energy exploration in much of Alaska,
and a threatened species tag is just the ticket to make it happen.
How
the Endangered Species Act Could Accomplish What Al Gore Couldn't: As I noted a fortnight ago,
the listing of the bear is just the first step in an elaborate dance that will result in the imposition of
extraordinarily expensive and delay-inducing permitting requirements on any industrial or commercial activity
that (1) requires a federal permit of any sort and (2) emits greenhouse gases.
ESA Listing for Polar Bears Unsupported by Sound
Science. "The leftist Center for Biological Diversity conceived abuse of the Endangered Species
Act for creating in the public mind a false crisis over polar bears that will force radical social changes it
has been unable to obtain through the democratic process. … The intended outcome is the crippling of the
U.S. economy through fossil fuel starvation, increased dependence on insecure energy sources, and a green path
to serfdom…."
US government sued over
failure to protect polar bears. The US government agency responsible for compiling the country's list of
endangered species will face a new legal challenge today over its failure to protect the polar bear. Environmental
groups are set to sue the Bush administration in a federal court in California, claiming the Fish and Wildlife Service is
now in breach of its own mandate.
Judge says U.S.
must decide whether polar bears are endangered species. A federal judge in Oakland has ordered
the Interior Department to decide by May 15 if the polar bear should be protected as an endangered species
because of melting sea ice due to global warming. U.S. District Judge Claudia Wilken decided, in a ruling
released today, that government failed to meet the deadline of Jan. 9, a legal requirement under the Endangered
Species Act. She dismissed the Bush administration's plea to give it until June 30, saying officials
offered "no specific facts that would justify the existing delay, much less further delay."
The Editor says...
Notice that all it takes is one federal judge to override our elected officials. That's dangerous.
And really, the polar bears must be dropping like flies if a decision has to be made in a couple of weeks.
Obviously, the judge has bought into Al Gore's "planetary emergency" canard.
Officials say polar bears to be
protected species. The Interior Department has decided to protect the polar bear as a threatened
species because of the decline in Arctic sea ice from global warming, officials said Wednesday [5/14/2008].
Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne scheduled a news conference to announce the action. It comes a day
before a court-imposed deadline on deciding whether the bear should be put under the protection of the federal
Endangered Species Act.
Unbearable Legislation. The
decision announced yesterday by the Secretary of the Interior, to list the polar bear as "threatened," removes
all doubt that the Endangered Species Act is broken and in need of urgent repair. It is the environmental
movement that must take responsibility for breaking it. A sensible discussion of the polar bear requires
acknowledging a simple fact: that the polar bear is merely a proxy for something else.
Bear Baloney: The case started
with a lawsuit filed by Greenpeace and the Natural Resources Defense Council in 2005. To settle it, the
Fish and Wildlife Service, the Interior division that administers the Endangered Species Act's land-animals
provisions, proposed in December 2006 to list the bears as threatened. The environmental groups argue
that warming will melt sea ice, on which the bears often live, and that this loss of habitat will doom the
bears to extinction. In other words, they don't claim a current threat, but one decades down the
line.
The
Endangered Values List. Environmentalists have now succeeded in placing the polar bear on the
Endangered Species List despite the fact that, according to The International Union for Conservation of Nature,
their population has almost doubled from 10,000 in 1965 to over 20,000 in 2006. This action will
restrict the production of oil and natural gas in Alaska even further.
March of the Polar Bears.
A preventive war worked out so well in Iraq that Washington last week launched another. The new preventive
war — the government responding forcefully against a postulated future threat — has been
declared on behalf of polar bears, the first species whose supposed jeopardy has been ascribed to global warming.
Sue, Sarah,
Sue. The polar bear … marks the first species on the "threatened" list whose supposed
predicament is linked directly to global warming. The current Alaskan polar-bear population may be near
an all-time high. But Interior Department computer models — such as they are —
project widespread melting of the polar ice the bears need to hunt. And that's a big problem, given the
near-limitless powers embedded in the Endangered Species Act.
The Carbon Curtain: Czech
President Vaclav Klaus warns that environmentalism is becoming a new totalitarianism. There is still a bear in the
woods, but it's no longer the Russian bear. This time, it's a polar bear.
Polar
Bears Endangered — By Greenie Bureaucrats. There [are] roughly twice as many polar bears in the
world today as thirty years ago. But on May 14th U.S. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, invoking the U.S.
Endangered Species Act, proclaimed polar bears as a "threatened species." In 1972 the creatures had already lost value
in the U.S. when the Marine Mammal Protection Act prohibited their hunting in Alaska. (And no, it's not the hunting
ban that caused their increased numbers; they proliferated equally in Canada which continued the polar bear season.)
The inconvenient truth:
Not all ecophiles are goofballs, but many show considerably less concern for humans than for the kangaroo rat,
the Delhi Sands flower-loving fly and that little darling the snail darter. Radical environmentalism is
often hazardous to your health. That's the inconvenient truth Al Gore ignores.
Eco-Freaks.
Construction on a dam in Tennessee that was 95 percent completed had come to a halt because the courts had
ruled it would violate the Endangered Species Act by harming the habitat of the snail darter. Congress voted
in to make an exception to the law, but the Senate vote was actually very close.
Report
pegs cost of species protection in billions. The yearly cost of enforcing the
Endangered Species Act runs into the billions of dollars, not millions as reported to Congress
by government agencies, says an audit released [4/14/2004] by property rights
groups. Despite the estimated $3 billion per year spent, the government
has little to show for its recovery efforts, says the Property and Environment
Research Center, which conducted the study for the Pacific Legal Foundation.
"Endangered Species" Cost USA
Billions. At a time when this nation is engaged in a war, putting the lives
of its soldiers in harm's way to end the threat of Middle Eastern terrorism, it would seem
inconceivable that its government would also be wasting billions to protect some species
of salmon or the shortnose suckerfish. But it is.
This is the report mentioned above:
Accounting for
Species: The True Costs of the Endangered Species Act. The report
found "limitations and inaccuracies" in the federal reporting. For example, the only
estimates provided by the Department of Energy are from the Bonneville Power
Administration. Without accurate figures for the costs of the Endangered Species
Act, the ongoing public debate over whether the law is effective will be
a misinformed one.
Lawsuit Targets Government Mouse
Protections. Hurricane victims and other property owners in Perdido Key, Florida, … have been
prevented by the new mouse "habitat" regulations from rebuilding after their homes were destroyed by 2004's
Hurricane Ivan. In October, 2006, federal wildlife officials designated 6,200 acres in coastal Alabama
and the Florida Panhandle as additional "critical habitat" for three mice on the Endangered Species Act list,
including the Perdido Key beach mouse.
Using the ESA as a weapon:
Developer
says rare flower was a plant. When the sudden appearance of an endangered flower halted a
controversial housing project in the heart of California's wine country, the developer, Scott Schellinger,
suspected he was the victim of a set-up. Now, after calling in experts from the state's fish and game
commission, who have backed his findings, he is claiming that the "discovery" of rare and protected Sebastopol
meadowfoam on the eight-hectare site near San Francisco was the work of opponents who transplanted the flowers
from elsewhere.
Trouble in Bloom at California Development
Site. Did someone in this wine country town illegally plant an endangered flower to sabotage a
proposed housing development? That is the question at the center of a quarrel folks here have dubbed
"Foamgate."
Biologist Charged With Destroying Plants.
The Los Angeles City Attorney's office says the former park supervisor cut down non-native plants in one of the
largest coastal wetlands in Southern California, killing a ficus tree and myoporum shrubs. He is facing
six misdemeanor charges that include injuring vegetation without permission. Each count could bring jail
time and thousands of dollars in fines.
["Injuring vegetation without permission"?? Don't forget, it's California.]
ESA Listing Not Needed for Polar Bears.
Many analysts see the proposal to list the polar bear as threatened as not so much about the welfare of the bears
themselves but as an effort to force the Bush administration to adopt regulations to limit greenhouse gas
emissions. … [Steven] Milloy noted, "If the administration admits that the bear is dying due to climate
change, it may be forced to start energy rationing to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in order to comply with the
Endangered Species Act. This is what the environmentalists filing the lawsuit had in mind all along."
Bill Delays
Oil Exploration for Polar Bear Listing. Biological Diversity is one of several environmental
groups that has sued the Department of Interior for failing to meet itsdeadline for classifying the polar bear
under the Endangered Species Act by Jan. 9, 2008. If the polar bear is not listed as an endangered
species, [Kassie] Siegel said her group will take the government to court.
The Mouse that Cost the
Economy $100 Million May Never Have Existed. After six years of Endangered
Species Act regulations and restrictions that have cost builders, local governments, and
landowners on the western fringe of the Great Plains as much as $100 million by some
estimates, new research suggests the allegedly endangered Preble's mouse never
existed. Instead, it seems to be genetically identical to a cousin considered
common enough not to need the federal government's protection.
What a relief!
Rat-Squirrel Not Extinct
After All. It has the face of a rat and the tail of a skinny squirrel — and
scientists say this creature discovered living in central Laos is pretty special: It's a species
believed to have been extinct for 11 million years.
Biologist withdraws claim of rabbit's
disappearance. A Montana biologist has withdrawn his claim in a recent study that a rabbit species has
disappeared from the Yellowstone area. Joel Berger, a senior scientist with the Wildlife Conservation Society, said
Thursday [3/6/2008] that he has been contacted by at least six biologists and naturalists refuting his conclusions about
the white-tailed jack rabbit.
Loggerhead turtles
may be put on endangered list. The federal government is considering listing loggerhead sea
turtles that live along California's coast and off Hawaii as an endangered species and further protecting
their habitat. Loggerhead turtles everywhere are already classified as "threatened" under the federal
Endangered Species Act, but environmentalists say a higher level of protection is needed.
What is the monetary value of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker?
Lost and
found: Reports of the Ivory-billed Woodpecker's demise were greatly exaggerated.
Woodpecker Racket: The 2005 reported
sighting of the thought-to-be-extinct Ivory-billed Woodpecker in eastern Arkansas raised hopes of bird-watchers
everywhere. But a prominent bird expert cast serious doubt on the report in 2006, characterizing it as
"faith-based" ornithology and "a disservice to science." But the debunking may not matter.
Environmental groups used the dubious sighting to convince a federal judge in July 2006 to stop a nearby
$320 million Army Corps of Engineers irrigation project.
Rare Woodpecker
Sends a Town Running for Its Chain Saws. Over the past six months, landowners here have been
clear-cutting thousands of trees to keep them from becoming homes for the endangered red-cockaded
woodpecker. The chain saws started in February, when the federal Fish and Wildlife Service put Boiling
Spring Lakes on notice that rapid development threatened to squeeze out the woodpecker. … Hoping to
beat the mapmakers, landowners swarmed City Hall to apply for lot-clearing permits.
Same story:
Woodpecker mapping gets chain saws
buzzing. The sharp chirps of the endangered red-cockaded woodpeckers and the whine of chain
saws sound discordantly in this coastal community of old pine forests. Since word got around this
spring that owners could face problems selling land or building houses where the birds lived, people have
been rushing to clear undeveloped lots of pine trees and yanking the woodpecker welcome mat.
Disputed Woodpecker
Halts Project. A federal judge halted a $320 million irrigation project Thursday
[7/20/2006] for fear it could disturb the habitat of a woodpecker that may or may not be extinct. The
dispute involves the ivory-billed woodpecker. The last confirmed sighting of the bird in North America
was in 1944, and scientists had thought the species was extinct until 2004, when a kayaker claimed to have
spotted one in the area. But scientists have been unable to confirm the sighting.
Arkansas men say the saw
rare woodpecker. Kip Davis and Jay Robison saw what they believed was an ivory-billed woodpecker
on Thursday [12/14/2006], one of thousands of reported sightings piling up as leaves in an east Arkansas
swamp drift down.
Ivory-billed woodpecker remains elusive.
The local search for a woodpecker officially listed as endangered and unofficially accepted as extinct has ended
the same way it started: with hope.
Editor's Note: Some articles about
the Ivory-billed Woodpecker celebrate the "return" of the woodpecker after all these years. There's just
one technicality I'd like to point out: Animals do not return from extinction. If the woodpecker is
still around, obviously the experts were wrong! These birds were somewhere for decades, but
nobody saw them. This goes to show that even the experts don't know the whereabouts of every animal,
and can't say with any certainty that any animal this small is
extinct. This page has
information on about 50 rediscovered species that were once thought to be extinct.
$27M Woodpecker Habitat
Plan Unveiled. Federal wildlife officials say spending more than $27 million to research
the suspected habitat of the ivory-billed woodpecker is worth the cost, despite conflicting views on whether
the elusive bird even exists. … The agency this week released a 185-page draft plan aimed at preventing
the extinction of the bird.
The
bird is still the word. August was a good news-bad news month for the ivory-billed woodpecker,
the bird rediscovered in the Big Woods of the Bayou de View in 2004.
The
great woodpecker hunt: Away down in the swampy bottomlands of Dixie, the most
intensive search ever for a bird is gearing up for a make-or-break season. Big reputations
are riding on the controversial quest for the ivory-billed woodpecker, the most magnificent and
most elusive of America's tree-knockers.
Scientists
Nudge Fish Closer to Extinction. Scientists trying to study the
endangered Devils Hole pupfish near Death Valley inadvertently nudged the endangered
fish closer to extinction. About 80 of the inch-long silvery pupfish died in
traps set last year in Devils Hole, a limestone cavern about 90 miles northwest of
Las Vegas, National Park Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service scientists said.
Another 'extinct' animal makes a
comeback. A duck that was feared to be extinct has been found alive and well in the wild after
zoologists spent 18 years looking for it in the wrong sort of habitat. The Madagascar pochard was
last seen alive in 1991. It had been given up for dead by most ornithologists.
Both Sides Await
Word on Cave Bugs Case. The U.S. Supreme Court could signal as early as today [1/24/2005] whether
it will allow Central Texas cave bugs into its halls of justice, in a case that property rights advocates hope
will gut the Endangered Species Act. A decision by the Supreme Court whether to hear the case … in
a dispute over six species of tiny bugs that have held up a housing and commercial development in Travis County
for the past 17 years.
Florida Adopts New Standards for
Endangered Species Listings: On April 14 [2005] the FWCC jettisoned the
state's preexisting means for designating species as being "of special concern," "threatened,"
or "endangered," in favor of international standards that rely on objective data instead of
emotional public relations campaigns.
The mud puddle
preservation plan. When I was a boy growing up in California we called them "mud
puddles." If they grew large enough, grown ups called it "flooding." But now the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), which enforces the Endangered Species Act, has adopted
the bogus poetry of the environmentalist left, calling them "vernal pools."
Environmental Regulations
Impede Pentagon Readiness. The nation's ability to prepare troops for the
deadly business of combat is being undermined by environmental restrictions being applied
to military bases around the country. Lawsuits brought by such groups as the Center
for Biological Diversity and the Natural Resources Defense Council have sought to impose the
Endangered Species Act, Migratory Bird Treaty Act, Marine Mammals Protection Act, and other
environmental statutes on military bases. The lawsuits, and the restrictions on training
that result from them, have come in direct conflict with military readiness.
More about Environmentalists vs. Military Preparedness.
Farmer Fined for Shooting Non-Native Wolf
That Threatened Livestock. North Carolina farmer Richard Mann thought he was shooting a large
dog that was threatening his cattle. But when he came back the next day to bury the animal, he was
confronted by federal wildlife officials who charged him with killing a red wolf — a
federally-protected species. Mann was fined $2,000 and required to perform community service by
building "wolf houses" and feeding the wolves.
Activists Sue to Block ESA Wolf Delisting.
Environmental activist groups have filed suit to block a federal government plan to allow state management of
wolf populations in the Northern Rocky Mountain region. With gray wolves set to be taken off the Endangered
Species list, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming have developed programs that would allow a limited amount of hunting
designed to keep wolf populations at current levels.
The Endangered Spices Act: Bad for People, Bad
for Wildlife. Residents of wildfire-prone Riverside County, California were prevented by the
ESA from clearing firebreaks on their land lest they disturb the habitat of the endangered Stephens'
Kangaroo rat. When the inevitable fires came, people's homes and the rat's habitat went
up in flames.
The Endangered Species Act is Not Working and Reforms are
Needed. Only eight out of the more than 1,400 listed species have recovered since the act was
passed in 1973. This is not a success story by any measure. The far-reaching powers vested in
federal agents to control landowners' use of their property have not worked to protect endangered species
and may have had the opposite effect.
National Invasive Species Act
The Exotic
Species War: In the United States the public regularly reads
anguished stories about the "damage" being caused by alien invaders such as
zebra mussels and purple loosestrife. … In response, Congress passed
the National Invasive Species Act and the executive branch has adopted a
National Invasive Species Management Plan aimed at closing our borders
to alien species.
Invasion of Alien Species: How
Severe A Problem? We can never stop this problem, but we can learn to live
with it if we commit ourselves to flexible informed management rather than to panic
regulation and symbolic action. We will make intelligent decisions only when the
debate shifts from the unsupportable notion that "native" is always better to the
all-important question of how we manage change in our natural economy.
New Report Warns Against Expansive New
Regulation of 'Invasive Species'. The report says limits would be of dubious value but would
require massive new regulations on property use. Furthermore, most "invasive species" actually are
beneficial.
Invasive Species: Animal, Vegetable
or Political? What do mute swans, kudzu, red clover, pigs, and starlings have in common? Not
much, except that they are all non-indigenous species — that is, the species does not originate from
within the United States. And that is essentially all they have in common. Yet many government
agencies, lawmakers and environmental special-interest groups would like to clump together the thousands
of these species introduced within our borders and stamp out their existence.
Endangered Species: The
Endangered Species Act, designed to protect rare wildlife and plants, is up for congressional
reauthorization. It requires that species be listed as endangered or threatened solely on
the basis of five scientific considerations. It does not allow consideration of any
economic factors. The Supreme Court has interpreted the act as mandating that efforts
to save a covered species must be undertaken "whatever the cost."
Can Government Really Protect
Our Wildlife? Special interest groups have convinced many Americans that the
ESA has been a great success. At the same time, they have used exaggerated claims of
species extinction to convince the public that the ESA must be strengthened. Among these
are estimates that one-third of U.S. species are in danger, and that 100 species a day
worldwide are going extinct. But these claims are based on guesswork, not on facts.
The Endangered Species Act
Debate: Under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, private property
may not be taken for any public purpose without the payment of "just
compensation." Unfortunately, most environmentalists and private property
owners disagree on whether the ESA is being used to take privately owned property or
simply to protect a preexisting public interest in the natural flora and fauna.
Endangered Species
Dangers: The costs associated with enforcement of the Endangered
Species Act are constantly increasing as the act is applied in new ways and to
additional species, subspecies and distinct populations of plants and animals.
Throw Precaution
to the Wind — Please! Although the science may not be in just yet,
many environmentalists say the consequences may be so dire that we need to adopt tough new
regulations "just in case."
It's time for new
owners. Nearly half of America is now owned by the government. How can
free enterprise exist if government owns the land and resources?
"Saving" Salmon
in the Pacific Northwest: The ESA Hits Home. Two elderly women in Lynwood,
Washington, have been prohibited from selling an 18 acre plot of land because a tiny creek
that runs through it drains into the Swamp Creek watershed, which is habitat for salmon. Farmers
in the Methow Valley have had their irrigation ditches shut off for the first time in 100 years
and may lose an entire season of crops. The city of Richland, Washington, cannot get
approval to install 10 new traffic lights because of concerns over how transportation
projects will affect salmon.
Salmon Recovery is
Based on Junk Science. Over the past decade, more than two dozen subgroups of
Pacific Northwest salmon and steelhead have been placed on the Endangered Species List. Yet
salmon populations are surging. For example, Sockeye runs are the highest in
15 years and spring Chinook salmon runs are the highest since 1938.
Endangered Species
Act Hits Home for Klamath Farm Families. The Klamath Basin, located on the border
of California and Oregon, is a community that was created, sustained, and is now being
destroyed by the federal government. This destruction is being wrought because of federal
policies concerning an appropriately named creature — the suckerfish.
Ensuring
That Humans Also Are A Protected Species: Some work on levees and other
flood-mitigation efforts has been stopped due to the presence of threatened or
endangered species, putting human lives needlessly at risk. Is Congress
really willing to sacrifice the lives of Americans to protect a fly because it does
not have the courage to stand up to special-interest environmental extremists?
Reforming the Endangered Species
Act to Protect Species and Property Rights: "The incentives are wrong here. If a rare metal
is on my property the value of my land goes up. But if a rare bird is on my property the value of my
property goes down."
How Regulation is Destroying American
Jobs: The federal government's efforts to protect the northern spotted owl, under the Endangered
Species Act and other related laws, means millions of acres of land in Washington, Oregon, and northern
California have been closed to logging operations. Tens of thousands of loggers have lost or will lose
their jobs because of these regulations, and thousands more jobs have been lost in communities dependent on
logging as the principal industry.
The Sad Case of the Spotted Owl. Spotted
owls, we were told a decade ago, were disappearing because big bad timber companies were cutting down "old
growth" forests. So the environmental movement rushed to the forests, hugged the trees and issued news
releases to decry the evils of the logging industry. Save the owl. Save the trees. Kill the
timber industry. Of course, that was exactly the point. Kill the timber industry. … In short,
American industry suffered in the name of protecting the spotted owl. Turns out it wasn't true.
Gray Wolves to
Leave Endangered List. Wolves in the northern Rockies will be removed from the endangered species
list within the next year, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Friday [1/26/2007], a move that would open
the population up to trophy hunting.
How has the ESA Impacted
America? There have been numerous examples of how the ESA has had adverse
impacts throughout the country. From Oklahoma where a thirteen mile highway project was
delayed for four years because American burying beetles were found along two proposed
routes, to Kentucky where loggers lost their jobs when the Forest Service shut down logging
in the Daniel Boone National Forest for eight months in order to protect the red-cockaded
woodpecker; people all over the country have felt the sting of the ESA's rigid enforcement.
ESA blamed
for firefighter deaths: An investigation into the July 10 "30-mile fire" in
central Washington state has uncovered that the Endangered Species Act (ESA) played a
central role in the deaths of four young firefighters combating the blaze.
Pombo
Calls for Changes to the Endangered Species Act. The importance
of ESA reform is confirmed by many endangered species analysts. "After
three decades, and billions of dollars of spending by private parties, as well
as local, state, and federal governments to comply with the Act, only 15 species
out of the 1,853 species listed as endangered or threatened have been recovered," noted
Daniel Simmons, a research fellow at the Mercatus Center. "Clearly, the Act is due for
a makeover."
The
Endangered Species Act Reform Project: It appears our collective long-range
efforts to reform the ESA will take us down a number of side roads along the
way. The blatant, almost campaign-like overreach by federal environmental
regulatory agencies to expand their jurisdiction is one of our most serious roadblocks.
Klamath
water crisis was a painful betrayal. When the federal government shut off
irrigation water on April 6, 2001, to 220,000 acres of farmland and two wildlife refuges
to "protect" a pair of bottom-feeding suckerfish species and Coho salmon — so
plentiful [that] U.S. Fish and Wildlife workers were clubbing them to death
elsewhere — it forever changed the face of controversial Endangered Species Act and
people's lives.
How the Endangered Species Act affects the price
of water: Not since the snail darter has a creature so infuriated — and
inspired — conservatives around the country. The all-but-inedible, bottom-feeding
suckerfish, which makes its home in a lake that feeds this normally fertile agricultural valley, has become
the latest rallying cry in the battle to rewrite the Endangered Species Act.
Republicans to Planet Earth: Drop
Dead. "For all of its power, the ESA has not worked well. Of the 1,524 species listed
as either endangered or threatened during the ESA's more than 20 years of existence, only 27 had been
delisted by the end of 1995. Seven of the 27 had become extinct, eight others had been wrongly
listed and the remaining 12 recovered with no help from the ESA. In fact, no species recovery
can be definitively traced to the ESA."
Dead Snake Costs California
$1 Million: When California officials found a garter snake lying dead at a construction
site, alarm bells rang and state officials scurried around while all work was shut down for over two
weeks to unlock the mystery surrounding the tiny serpent's death.
The
Endangered Species Act remains a dividing force: "We believe the
Endangered Species Act has been an utter and dismal failure," said Andy Caldwell,
director of the Coalition of Labor, Agriculture and Business, or
COLAB. "It has failed to recover very many species at all — despite the
number of years and hundreds of millions of dollars that have gone into it."
Excellent!
Up
In Smoke: The Stephen's Kangaroo Rat was listed as "endangered" by the
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on October 31, 1988. This little-noticed
action launched a revolution in land use in southern California that has
culminated in the fires that have now claimed at least 17 lives, destroyed
close to 2,000 homes, and consumed more than 600,000 acres throughout the region.
The
Many Facets of The Endangered Species Act
How
Protecting a Fly Hurt the Sick: U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service bureaucrats
have held up construction of a hospital in Southern California and threatened county
officials with heavy fines and arrests — all in the name of saving the Delhi
Sands flower-loving fly. In 1992, less than 24 hours before San Bernardino
County was to begin construction of the hospital, the U. S. Fish and Wildlife
Service listed the fly as an endangered species and demanded that the county set
aside the entire 68-acre hospital site as a preserve for eight flies known to live
on the property.
Insect Halts Building Plans
Worth Millions. Developers and environmentalists in Southern California
are at odds again, this time over the fate of a tiny, and not particularly lovable,
fly. But the Delhi Sands fly is unique: It is the only fly to have made
the list of endangered species, and that fact is holding up construction projects
worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
What Gives You the Right? The
notion that property rights are incompatible with protecting the environment, justice, and morality lies
behind Bill Clinton's designation of National Monuments in the final months of his administration;
Clinton's executive order closing roads on some 58 million acres of public lands; the extraordinary
abuses of private property owners under the Endangered Species Act; and most recently the radical and
dangerous proposal in the Bush energy plan authorizing the federal government's use of eminent domain to
take private property to clear the way for new power lines and pipelines.
Suckers
for junk science? On May 12, 2002, the United States Fish and Wildlife
Service (FWS) published a Federal Register notice rejecting petitions I had filed to remove
from the Endangered Species List two species of sucker fish found in the Klamath Basin. The
fish were listed as endangered in 1988, on grounds that almost immediately
proved to be false. Biologists claimed, for example, the fish had not successfully
spawned in 18 years. Yet more than 10 times the expected population was found soon
after the listings, with fish from all age classes, proving the suckers had been
spawning all along.
Congress
scrutinizes Endangered Species Act: Members of the U.S. Congress, with
the consent of the Bush administration, are taking a renewed look at the Endangered
Species Act in light of numerous cases during the Clinton-Gore administration in which
the Act's definitions and guidelines were often stretched to extremes to restrict
use of private property and public lands.
More Specious
Species Claims: For years critics of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) have
noted how the ESA imposes draconian burdens on landowners without helping wildlife.
Bill
Challenges Environmental Extremism: After years of government-sanctioned
harassment of citizens seeking to make an honest living, a House committee
Wednesday [7/10/2002] is scheduled to vote on a bill to rein in the extremism
of the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The measure, H.R. 4840, would require
"sound science" — solid, valid, legitimate scientific data to place a species on
the endangered species list.
"Glades
guru" joins opposition to feds: An unabashed environmentalist and
scientist has joined a rapidly growing coalition of residents, farmers and recreational
groups in South Florida who are fighting back against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
and National Park Service, as the agencies artificially flood tens of thousands of acres
of prime residential and agricultural land in proximity to the Everglades National Park
to "provide a crucial habitat for the Cape Sable Seaside Sparrow."
The Green Taliban Of
America: The hubris of the Greens has allowed them to dictate to everyone just how we should
conduct our lives for decades. That is why you can't build a home, an office building, a factory, a
hospital or a school, without an "environmental" study. That is why Americans have been steadily
deprived of pesticides, many used safely for decades, to protect us against the diseases spread by insect
and rodent pests. That's why millions of acres of our national forests burned this year because
Greens won't let them be managed through selective logging or to allow roads to be built into those
forests. The list goes on and on because the Greens have been responsible for one third of every
law and regulation in the Federal Register today.
The
ESA turns energy into solid waste. On April 4, 2001, a federal judge ruled
that the Bureau of Reclamation's dam operations in the Klamath Basin violated the
Endangered Species Act, which protects Coho salmon. The judge's ruling and
a USFWS Biological Opinion released on April 6 that called for increased lake
levels to protect shortnosed and Lost River suckerfish, prompted the Bureau to cut
off irrigation water to 90% of the irrigated farmland in the Basin. There was
no warning, and no discussion. [And certainly no referendum.]
Environmentalists
Square Off in Squirrel Squabble: When a Pacific Northwest utility company announced in
January [2001] it would build the world's largest wind power plant, it came at a moment when the West was
feeling the pinch of energy-starved California. But there's a problem: The Washington ground
squirrels, which are protected under the Oregon Endangered Species Act.
Protecting
the environment: California's San Bernardino County was just about ready to
build a new hospital. That was until the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department discovered that
the endangered flower-loving Delhi Sands fly was found on the site. The county had to
spend $4.5 million to move the hospital 250 feet; it also had to divert funds from its
medical mission to pay for mandated Delhi Sands fly studies.
Shattered
Dreams: 100 Stories of Government Abuse. This publication
highlights how regulations that are poorly written and/or inflexibly enforced
can overwhelm, intimidate, bankrupt or otherwise harm average Americans. It
features situations related to the Americans with Disabilities Act, building codes,
INS, IRS, the Endangered Species Act, OSHA, Indian Affairs, zoning, property
rights issues, etc.
Environmental
litigation threatens endangered species: Out of control litigation over the
environment is actually threatening to do what the environmentalist movement doesn't want
to see: threaten endangered species.
Panthers
and taxes: the tools of landgrabbers. The goals of the Wildlands Project
are to convert "at least" half of the U.S. land area to wilderness, to manage "most" of
the rest of the land for "conservation objectives," and to force people to live inside
urban boundaries in what's euphemistically called "sustainable communities."
California's Next Crisis?: The
Golden State may soon run out of water. The problem: California is currently
home to more than 34 million people, each and every one of whom gets thirsty from time
to time. It will have closer to 50 million in 20 years. The state also
hosts such multi-billion dollar industries as agriculture, tourism, and computer production,
all of which require a steady flow of agua to stay afloat. Rounding out the cast of
characters is a hardcore environmental lobby that earnestly defends every inch of undeveloped
land as indispensable for the state's ubiquitous endangered species. They all want
water, but there isn't enough to go around.
Washington, D.C. is the only city in the nation that can legally dump toxic sludge
in its waterways. The Environmental Protection Agency issues special discharge
permits to the Army Corps of Engineers to transport — in the dead
of night — chemically treated sludge from the Washington Aqueduct, a
water purification facility, to the Potomac River, where it is dumped in
violation of the Clean Water and Endangered Species Acts. The Corps has
admitted dumping as much as 241,500 milligrams of suspended solids per liter
into the river. The maximum allowed limit for most states is about 30. The
nation's power elite are content with insisting that everyone else comply with
burdensome environmental regulations while they ignore them.
- Wall Street Journal (9/4/2002)
Quoted in Waste
Wire
"Everybody Knows
They're Not Really Endangered: We just need them to stop mining."
The
Endangered Species Act deserves extinction: I often wonder why people
can't just put two-and-two together to come up with four. Take, for example,
a recent decision by a New Jersey appellate court regarding alleged "endangered
species." Rejecting a plea from the New Jersey Builders Association, the
court ruled, in essence, that it was more important to "save" the Pine Barrens
tree frog or the bog turtle, than to provide housing for those who live in the
most densely populated State in the Union.
Global
Green Goals: How Environmentalists Intend to Rule the World. It's
the smoking gun. Restructuring the Global Economy is a detailed roadmap
to a green future ruled by radical elites from new command structures to
be created in the United Nations.
Environmentalism,
Eco-Terrorism and Endangered Species: While mainstream environmental
groups may try to distance themselves from the Earth Liberation Front and its "eco-terrorist"
methods, the truth is that ELF did directly what mainstream environmentalists have been doing
indirectly for years via the U.S. government's Endangered Species Act (ESA).
After a Long
Struggle, Whooping Crane Population Hits Milestone. One of the most beloved groups of winter
Texans is back, in the largest number in a century and with a record 45 youngsters in tow, including an even
rarer seven pairs of twins. They flew 2,400 miles from Canada's Northwest Territories and can be seen
munching on blue crabs and bright red-orange wolfberries among the marshes of the Aransas National Wildlife
Refuge.
NW Montana grizzly count
nearing 550. More than 500 "unique individual grizzlies" roam the northwestern Montana backcountry
from the Canadian border to Lincoln, with Glacier National Park boasting the largest number, according to DNA
studies conducted by the U.S. Geological Survey. In 2004, the bears left behind identifying hairs at tree
rubs and on barbed wire, which researchers collected. … Not every bear in the ecosystem visited
the hair-collection locations, so the 545 figure is a minimum count, not a total population estimate.
Endangered
Species Act endangers rights of landowners: By stripping landowners of
control over their land, the act has discouraged species protection. [Some people
believe] if you find a listed species, you should kill it, bury it and never say
anything. Less dramatically, owners of forest land cut down trees to avoid attracting
the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker, which nests in old-growth trees; and adjust
logging practices to discourage the habitat favored by the northern spotted owl.
Web site: Undue Influence dot
com: Tracking the environmental movement's money,
power, and harm. "The environmental movement is not what you think
it is. It is not about the environment. It is about power."
Here is another very
interesting ESA page with a bunch of timely articles.
Ruled
by scoundrels: The more federal control over education, the worse it
becomes. The Endangered Species Act has attacked and trivialized private property
rights.
Economic
Debates on the Performance of the Endangered Species Act: Over
50% of the money actually expended on the ESA recovery by federal and
state agencies, between 1989 and 1991, was spent on the "top" ten species. These
species are also referred to as megafauna. Scientists feel that people will
part with their money for these species because they are easier for the majority
of the population to identify with. The following is a list of the actual
breakdown of these ten species (Metrick and Weitzman, 1996).
Bald Eagle $31.3 million
Grizzly Bear $12.6 million
Northern Spotted Owl $26.4 million
Least Bell's Vireo $12.5 million
Florida Scrub Jay $19.9 million
American Peregrine Falcon $11.6 million
West Indian Manatee $17.3 million
Florida Panther $13.6 million
Red-cockaded Woodpecker $15.1 million
Whooping Crane $10.8 million
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