Last August, the Sierra Club and other conservation groups celebrated when a federal judge ruled that the Fish and Wildlife Service couldn't prematurely take gray wolves off of the Endangered Species List in Montana and Idaho. That celebration was short-lived.
Now, it's not just the gray wolf that's threatened -- it's the Endangered Species Act itself. HR 1, the Continuing Budget Resolution passed by the House last week, has an amendment that would specifically exclude wolves from protection in Montana and Idaho. Similar legislation was introduced by Montana's senators.
It gets worse, though -- bills have also been proposed in both the Senate and the House that would remove endangered species protection for all wolves in the United States -- forever. That includes the fewer than fifty Mexican gray wolves struggling to survive in Arizona and New Mexico.
Any of these bills would be disastrous for gray wolves, but their ultimate consequences would extend much further -- to every single species that might someday find itself at odds with a powerful commercial or political interest. Endangered species don't vote, don't make campaign contributions, and don't stand a chance if their fate is subject to the whims of politicians rather than sound science and habitat management. The Endangered Species Act simply cannot work if politicians are allowed to start cherry-picking which species they think should or should not be allowed to survive.
There was a time when many people believed that wildlife and wild lands had no value beyond their potential for commercial exploitation. You could argue that our forebears simply didn't know any better when they shot the last passenger pigeon or killed the last Caribbean monk seal. We won't have that excuse.
You can help protect both gray wolves and the Endangered Species Act by sending a message to your Congressional representatives today.
Follow Michael Brune on Twitter: www.twitter.com/bruneski
Mark Hyman, MD: Grass-Fed Fish?
They were not taken off prematurely. The legal protected population for the region was 300. The total population is now much much higher.
Great, hopefully that means that SC will no longer support the millions of acres of permanent wildlands destruction for Chevron Solar and BP Wind and will finally get serious about AGW solutions that DON'T KILL WILDERNESS like rooftop solar and efficiency? As you say, you don't have any excuse, including the argument that Big Solar is faster, cheaper or reduces GHGs more, because all of those statements are provably false. LOCAL, non-deadly solutions are faster, cheaper and cleaner.
Another article today showing how UNSUBSIDIZED rooftop solar in Los Angeles is substantially cheaper, on a per-kWh basis than remote desert solar, not even counting the enormous local economic benefits, property value improvements, increased number of jobs, nor counting the huge transmission losses and production drops from desert solar when it's hot and power is needed most:
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/blog/post/2011/02/home-solar-pv-cheaper-than-any-concentrating-solar-power-plant?cmpid=WNL-Friday-February25-2011
Germany's rooftop program is exponentially faster than the US' Big Solar boondoggles, and produces substantially fewer GHGs.
So, are you going to keep fighting to let Chevron and Goldman Sachs kill off wilderness for power than WE can produce faster, cheaper and cleaner? The greenwash needs to end now, as do attempts to silence those of us telling the truth.
http://www.iucnredlist.org/apps/redlist/details/3746/0
When we can follow the scientific recommendations of the scientists we hire to study and make determinations, instead of one federal judge with no scientific background, we will be a lot better off.
Aldo Leopold also wrote the book Game Management.