Species Act

Nobody cares when habitat diesCause habitat don't have big brown eyes -- Graffiti at an endangered species conferenceWas there an American who did not thrill to the nationally televised release recently of Hope, an injured and rehabilitated bald eagle, at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge?The event publicized the heartening rebound of the national symbol, up from a scant 417 nesting pairs in 1963 throughout the lower 48 states.The comeback of the bald eagle, now at 4,000 pairs and climbing, was enough for federal officials to upgrade the big raptors from "endangered" to "threatened" and to envision full recovery.

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama overrode the Bush administration on a key step in administering the Endangered Species Act yesterday, restoring a requirement that federal agencies consult with experts on threatened species before launching construction projects that could affect their well-being. Environmentalists said reinstating the requirement blocks the Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Forest Service and others from "nibbling away" at critical wildlife habitat. Business and industry groups, on the other hand, warned that it could hamper road-building and other projects that would help jump-start the economy.

Snail darter, spotted owl, marbled murrelet, fairy shrimp, Furbish lousewort, cuckoo bee, red-cockaded woodpecker.A rogues' gallery for the property rights posse in its effort to reform the Endangered Species Act? Or a pantheon of noble creatures saved by the intervention of this 20-year-old law that badly needs reinforcement?These plants and animals on the endangered list have caused problems for human economic enterprise. Their official protected status means that activities on government lands or on private property requiring federal approval must not harm their survival.

WASHINGTON - A coalition of animal protection organizations is suing Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey to stop what they call harsh methods of training and controlling the circus's Asian elephants. The group argues that the chains and instruments shaped like fireplace pokers are inhumane and violate the Endangered Species Act. In a trial that begins here today in U.S. District Court, lawyers for the plaintiffs will argue that Ringling abuses its elephants by using a hooked pole, or "bull hook," that punctures the animals' leathery hide behind the ears, under the trunk and on the legs, where skin is thinnest.

WASHINGTON -- With the Republican-controlled Congress preparing to rewrite the Endangered Species Act, the Clinton administration proposed changes yesterday intended to increase the law's flexibility and decrease its economic costs without putting rare plants and animals in greater danger of extinction.Among other things, the administration said it wanted to exempt from regulation activities on most small plots, like house lots, allowing owners to disturb the habitats of endangered and threatened species as long as the overall effect on the species was negligible.

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama overrode the Bush administration on a key step in administering the Endangered Species Act yesterday, restoring a requirement that federal agencies consult with experts on threatened species before launching construction projects that could affect their well-being. Environmentalists said reinstating the requirement blocks the Army Corps of Engineers, the U.S. Forest Service and others from "nibbling away" at critical wildlife habitat. Business and industry groups, on the other hand, warned that it could hamper road-building and other projects that would help jump-start the economy.

The Chicago Tribune said in an editorial May 22.EVER since Congress passed it 25 years ago, the Endangered Species Act has been taking potshots from all directions. It has placed property owners and developers against naturalists and environmentalists, their disagreements often caricatured in TV news snippets as a battle between a family man about to lose his livelihood and a heretofore unknown critter about to lose its place on this planet.Fortunately for men and critters, this tugging and pulling has led to an uneasy equilibrium that affords the protection of endangered plants and animals a secure place in the law books.

Santa Fe, N.M.--We are fond of proclaiming that ours is a government of laws. But there are times when we expect too much of laws and not enough of ourselves. This explains the depressing failure of the Endangered Species Act.In the United States, we have caused the extinction of 500 of our bird and mammal species. Another 500 are in trouble, probably terminal. One of every seven of our plant species is at serious risk. Since its passage in 1973, the endangered species law has divided the nation while documenting our accelerating failure to save species.

Fourteen members of Congress unveiled legislation yesterday that would revise the Endangered Species Act by eliminating critical-habitat protections and providing compensation to property owners. California Rep. Richard W. Pombo, the Republican chairman of the House resources committee, said the changes are necessary because the 32-year-old law is too hard on landowners and spawns excessive litigation. "The Endangered Species Act is not working for its stated purpose, to recover endangered species," Pombo said.

WASHINGTON -- Officials at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington could hardly contain their delight 16 months ago when a wealthy California real estate developer, Kenneth E. Behring, pledged $20 million in cash to the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History."

In its final weeks, the Bush administration is pushing changes that could decimate threatened Chesapeake Bay wildlife, along with 1,353 at-risk species across the nation. The Interior Department posted a proposal over the summer for sweeping changes to the 35-year-old Endangered Species Act. They would eliminate mandatory scientific review by experts at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service of all federally approved development projects that might affect endangered plants or animals.

To environmentalists, the Preble's meadow jumping mouse is a scarce creature whose habitat in the grasslands of Colorado and Wyoming is being devoured by development. But in the eyes of Western farmers and developers, it is no more real than the jackalope - a gag-gift cross between an antelope and a jackrabbit. And to California Representative Richard W. Pombo, the mouse is just the most recent example of what's wrong with the Endangered Species Act, a "sacred cow" in desperate need of revision.

The federal government is no longer considering listing the Eastern oyster as an endangered species, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said yesterday. A spokeswoman for NOAA said the agency dropped the idea because the petition to list the oyster, which is native to the Chesapeake Bay, was withdrawn by the Maryland-based environmental consultant who proposed it in January. The consultant, Wolf-Dieter N. Busch, a fisheries biologist who retired in 1999 after 35 years with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said he backed off because the proposal was causing fear of a federal crackdown on oyster harvesting in other parts of the country, such as the Gulf of Mexico.

Rancher and congressman Richard W. Pombo has made no secret of his contempt for the Endangered Species Act. The California Republican believes the 1973 ground-breaking environmental law intended to preserve rare plants and animals imposes too great a burden on property owners for too little return. He's been itching to repeal it ever since he arrived in Congress in 1993. Now, while most lawmakers' attention is heavily focused on the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, Mr. Pombo is making his move.

Fourteen members of Congress unveiled legislation yesterday that would revise the Endangered Species Act by eliminating critical-habitat protections and providing compensation to property owners. California Rep. Richard W. Pombo, the Republican chairman of the House resources committee, said the changes are necessary because the 32-year-old law is too hard on landowners and spawns excessive litigation. "The Endangered Species Act is not working for its stated purpose, to recover endangered species," Pombo said.

WASHINGTON - Commercial fishing advocates from Louisiana to Rhode Island joined Maryland in objecting to the proposed listing of the Eastern oyster as an endangered species, saying it's unnecessary and would kill the troubled industry. "We believe this petition is a misuse of the Endangered Species Act," said S. Lake Cowart Jr., vice president of the Cowart Seafood Corp. of Virginia. "The Eastern oyster is not in danger of extinction; healthy populations exist in the Gulf Coast states and the north Atlantic, which makes up the majority of its range."

THE Endangered Species Act is in trouble of its own making. The current clash in the Senate over who should decide to protect what species highlights a major problem. It's not simply party politics. The Clinton administration last year froze new listings because it was bogged down by court cases dealing with the 1,243 plants and animals already on the protected list. It claimed too few resources to catch up with mandated duties. Using the same excuse, the Bush administration wants to relax deadlines and requirements of the 1973 law, giving federal officials wide discretion on actions.

SEATTLE - The Bush administration yesterday proposed placing killer whales that reside in Washington state's Puget Sound on the list of endangered species, in an effort to save the last 84 of the acrobatic, often photographed orcas. National Marine Fisheries Service, which ruled two years ago that endangered species protections were unwarranted, reversed itself after a federal judge ordered it to reconsider its legal justifications. "It was never a question of whether we cared about the whales or not," said Robert Lohn, northwest regional administrator of the fisheries service.

STARS ARE ALIGNING tomorrow to produce two seemingly contradictory events in the course of the 30-year-old Endangered Species Act, one of the nation's best-known conservation laws. The eastern gray wolf will be formally proposed for removal from the list of nearly 1,300 plants, animals and birds threatened with extinction, a step touted by Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton as a success story prompted by the wolf's strong resurgence in three Midwest states. Meanwhile, the House Resources Committee is expected to approve legislation that would roll back federal protections that helped save the wolf, the bald eagle and a dozen other once-imperiled species.