Obama decisions on wildlife raising environmentalists' ire

Mercury News ^ | 2/21/10 | Paul Rogers

[NormsRevenge]

During his first year in office, President Barack Obama won praise from environmental groups for a wide range of decisions, from toughening gas mileage rules to spending billions on renewable energy projects.

But now there's grumbling on his green flank. A growing number of environmentalists are clashing with the administration over its management of America's struggling wildlife populations and what they call its reluctance to use the nation's most powerful environmental law, the Endangered Species Act, to stand up to industry.

Last week, five conservation groups, led by the Sierra Club, sued the federal government after the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service refused to draw up critical habitat maps for the Florida panther. Florida's state animal, the iconic panther once widely roamed the South, but today numbers 100 or fewer. Protecting its habitat would limit development in parts of South Florida, an explosive political issue.

Two weeks earlier, the administration sparked controversy when it announced it would not add the American pika to the endangered species list. Found in California's Sierra Nevada range and the Rocky Mountains, the pika is a rabbit-like mammal that has been considered symbolic of the impact of global warming because it can overheat and die at temperatures above 78 degrees. However, declaring it endangered might have led to new restrictions on coal mining, oil drilling and other fossil fuel uses. ..

"We're coming off eight years of the Bush administration where they actively worked to cripple endangered species programs," said biologist Noah Greenwald, endangered species program director for the Center for Biological Diversity, a nonprofit group in Tucson. "We would have liked to have seen a strong effort by the Obama administration. But we just haven't seen it."

[sinanju]

GWB really screwed the pooch when he allowed the Polar Bear to be listed as “threatened” based soley on the possibility that they might be endangered by possible global warming some time in the future.

I understand their numbers are doing just fine.

No more appeasing the greenies. Tossing the bully a bone only makes him more aggressive.

[Truth29]

The Director of the US Fish & Wildlife Service died Saturday of an apparent heart attack. I wonder what bearing that will have on any of these issues?

[marsh2]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2455843/posts

This thread has information on the proliferation of nuisance appeals and litigation by environmentalists to through a monkey wrench into any development/management of natural resources on public lands. They sue because they get paid big bucks from the taxpayer to do so.

Many of the northern California counties, chambers of commerce and business are joining together in a coalition to seek legislative reform, offering of more timber sales to approach the levels promised in the Allowable Sales Quantities of the Northwest Forest Plan and fuel reduction relief on the National Forests.

Small rural and frontier counties are seeing their mills close and are experienceing a loss of infrastructure and capacity for any forest management. Unemployment is nearing 20% with attendant social pressures.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

***the pika is a rabbit-like mammal that has been considered symbolic of the impact of global warming because it can overheat and die at temperatures above 78 degrees. ***

LOOK! LOOK! See the tears in my eyes over the Pika! Another cute and fuzzy animal sure to go extinct if we don’t enact Cap and Trade!
But then if it gets above 78 degrees wouldn’t the Pika just go underground where it is about 56 degrees??