Liberty Matters News Service
January 8, 2003
Small bird Needs Lots of Wing Room
According
to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service a pigmy owl (6 inches wing span
and weighing a whopping 2 pounds) needs a lot of room to spread its
wings. The Service is
considering designating 1.2 million acres of public and private land in
Arizona to accommodate 18 of the little fellows, each of which would
have approximately 66,000 acres to call his own.
Fish and Wildlife estimates that the Pima county economy (Tucson
area) will suffer a $108 million economic loss over 10 years because of
the designation, which the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)
says is low ball figure. They
say the designation will severely limit the available acreage for
housing and will likely add $12,000 to the cost of new homes.
NAHB filed suit to learn where the birds are located and
the U.S. Court of Appeals in D.C. ordered the Service to reveal the
information, but the agency has decided to appeal instead.
“I think they are holding back the data because it is not the
best scientific data available and does not…justify putting aside 1.2
million acres of land,” said Duane Desiderio head of legal affairs for
NAHB. A Fish and Wildlife spokesman said they don’t want to
reveal the locations to prevent bird-lovers from harassing the creatures
and trespassing on private land.
Plan to set aside land in Arizona for
owls slammed
Feds’
Wolves Overrun the West
The
federal grey wolf re-introduction plan, or rancher eradication project,
as it is known in some circles, has been wildly successful depending
upon one’s point of view. The
wolf population in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho has exploded, now
numbering over 700 individuals, according to Ed Bangs, USF&W
biologist who has run the program since its inception in 1995.
Those figures mean the wolves can be downgraded from endangered
to threatened and the Service hopes to delist them by spring.
The three host states must develop wolf management plans once
that happens. So far, only Idaho has adopted a plan while Wyoming is
considering legislation under the Tenth Amendment, declaring that they
have exclusive jurisdiction over all wildlife management within its
boundaries, including the right to manage wolves.
Defenders of Wildlife figure if federal protection is lifted
“it could be a free-for-all. They
could receive predator status which would mean they could be hunted with
no protection at all.” Ron
Gillet, a hunting guide from Stanley, Id., calls them “land piranhas
and wildlife terrorists” and would like to see the wolves gone.
His guide business has suffered because of wolf depredations of
elk herds. “Once you put
them in there, they kill everything that moves…”
Wolves
Endangered or “Wildlife Terrorist”
Wolves and Snakes
WY Anti-wolf bill
California
University to Sponsor Forum for Eco-Saboteurs
Fresno
State University’s Department of Political Science and Public
Administration is sponsoring a conference aimed at creating
understanding of the “practical, political, and spiritual aspects of
revolutionary environmentalism,” and the growing movement of sabotage.
The conference, “Revolutionary Environmentalism: a dialogue
Between Activists and Academics,” hopes to explain the principles that
represent the radical environmental community.”
Speakers include a variety of jailbirds such as PETA’s Gary
Yourosfsky, arrested numerous times for “liberating farm raised
minks,” Michigan State sociology professor, Ric Scarce, jailed for his
association with the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), Rodney Coronado of
the Animal Liberation Front, who spent four years in the slammer for
setting fire to a Michigan State University lab, and Paul Watson, former
Green Peace member wanted in Costa Rica and Iceland for ramming and
sinking whaling ships. Mark
Martosko, of the Center for Consumer Freedom says the publicly-funded
university has no business promoting eco-terrorism. “Here is a rogue’s gallery of domestic terrorists
and people who move in domestic terrorist circles, presenting themselves
as literary scholars, with no balance at all presented from an opposing
viewpoint.”
Environmental
Panel includes Radicals
New
Chairman for Senate Environment Committee
Oklahoma
Republican, James Inhofe is the new chairman of the Senate Environment
and Public Works Committee. The
change may signal a new direction for the committee, which has been
dominated by eastern liberals for many years, most notably James
Jeffords, (I-VT) who was awarded the plum as a reward for bolting the
Republican Party to give Democrats the Senate majority.
Sen. Inhofe is a conservative who has not hidden his disdain for
the Environmental Protection Agency, labeling it a “Gestapo
bureaucracy,” prompting criticism from environmentalists:
“This is the first time since the passage of major
environmental laws 30 years ago that someone with a truly
anti-environmental record will be chairman of that committee,” said
Julie Sibbing of the National Wildlife Federation.
Observers predict that Republicans will not make the mistake of
trying to ram through sweeping environmental law changes, a factor, some
say that led to the downfall of supporters of the Contract with America,
but will take a more subtle approach concerning regulations.
Sen. Inhofe supported a moratorium on new listings to the ESA;
voted against raising grazing fees; supported increased logging in
national forests to ease fire danger and opposed major Everglades
restoration legislation. Also
in his favor, he consistently scores near the bottom of the League of
Conservation Voters’ list of environmental friends.
Big
Changes for Senate Committee