Klamath Falls Herald and News

June 17, 2011

(3 Comments)

 

The question is prompted by the government review of the ESA listing of the Lost River and shortnose suckers.

Even though those specific listings have an impact on the local area, how about looking at the ESA in a broader light, including the basic concepts underlying them.

Surely, a case can be made for saving species of animals, both for their own value and what their status may say about the ecosystem at large. But surely there have been cases where the ESA wasn't used to preserve a species as much as it was to preserve a "use" for a specific area because someone didn't want any development or change in that area?

Anyone want to talk about the northern spotted owl, or the snail darter?

Are there cases when the cost of preserving a species outweighs the value?

Please send us your comments.

— Opinion Editor Pat Bushey

Readers Comments:

Cloudbase Dave posted at 5:52 am on Fri, Jun 17, 2011.

The ESA as it is implied today puts wildlife ahead of the needs of humanity! This is an outrage, where were these whack job environazi's, liberal judges/attornenies when the Passenger Pigeon and other species went extinct? I think its another tool to be used in the overall plan to subrogate our Constitutional (Property Ownership), Civil Rights. Our Founding Fathers would say that the "PEOPLE" are the true endangered ones!!

oefarmer posted at 11:02 pm on Thu, Jun 16, 2011.

It is common knowledge that the ESA is more often than not used to stop development, harvesting or any other human activity. Environmental groups, tribal groups and others have been very open in the past about admitting exactly that. They often times plainly point out,spotted owl as an example, that if the spotted owl was not successful in shutting down timber harvesting, there was 4 or 5 other species that would be used to make sure the harvesting stopped. Thus shutting down thousands of jobs, destroying entire communities and causing continuing budget problems for local governmental services.

The fact is, ecosystems change ,species change or come and go on a regular basis, whether human influence is present or not. The human influence and human needs are just as much a part of nature as any other plant, animal or any other living thing.

Here locally, the cost of money spent ($billions), attempting to save the spotted owl,(that will even live in a Walmart sign), or the sucker fish, which has proven to even survive attempts to irradicate them, is not viable. The added $billions in economic devastation is certainly not justifiable. The ESA was never intended to be used in this way. The ESA has a justifiable reason to be in existence, but it has to be reformed to put the intended BALANCE back into it's implementation.

Boomslang posted at 8:14 pm on Thu, Jun 16, 2011.

In the case of the spotted owl, the science was very bad. It was based on one survey of a substantial area, but not the total habitat. Instead of extrapolating based on similar habitats, the scientist just assumed(on purpose) that there were no owls elsewhere. That's how he came up with only 1,100 pairs of breeding owls. In reality, there were probably double that amount or more. Then you get a liberal judge who has an agenda making a ruling, you get what we have now.

The ESA and the EPA are totally abused by the leftists. They need to be terminated. Then we could start from scratch with a better law and a better regulatory agency.

 

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