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WILMINGTON, N.C. -- Gill net fishermen in Pamlico Sound could kill up to 100 threatened and endangered sea turtles every year through 2010 under a federal permit sought by the state. The permit also would allow up to 320 additional turtles to be caught and released during each September-to-December flounder fishing season. The proposal has outraged environmentalists and drawn criticism from some federal and state officials. They note that the Army Corps of Engineers isn't allowed to harm a third of that number of turtles for its dredging operations across the whole Southeast. The state Division of Marine Fisheries believes...

The eight salamanders found on the site of the new Ann Arbor high school are not endangered Smallmouth Salamanders [Ambystoma texanum] as originally thought. Instead, they are hybrids, part Blue-spotted Salamander [Ambystoma laterale] and part Jefferson Salamander [Ambystoma jeffersonianum], said James Ball, a York Township research scientist in herpetology who did some of the testing on the amphibians. Neither the Blue-spotted nor the Jefferson Salamander are on the threatened and endangered species list in Michigan, and hybrid salamanders do not qualify as threatened or endangered in the state, either. District officials, who learned of the salamanders' lineage on June 8,...

ASHLAND, ORE. - Nobody's very happy with the federal Endangered Species Act - arguably the most powerful of all environmental protection laws. Scientists and activists say it fails to protect hundreds of "candidate" species headed for extinction because agencies haven't been able to get to them yet for lack of resources or political support. Property rights advocates say the law unfairly harms farmers, ranchers, and developers who have on their land what some deride as an inconsequential bug or weed. Western governors of both parties say they should have more influence over how the law is defined and enforced. And...

Missouri's status as the only state with both subspecies of hellbender could be in jeopardy. Jefferson City, Mo. - infoZine - Pity the hellbender. For years, its numbers have been dwindling in the face of indiscriminate killing, illegal collecting and changes in the streams it inhabits. Even its love life has been affected. Now it faces a new tribulation, physical deformities. What's an amphibian to do? This one is getting help from the conservation agencies. Missouri is the only state that has both hellbender subspecies-Ozark and Eastern. To the average person, they are indistinguishable. Both are endangered in Missouri. The...

Washington, D.C.–In a letter to House Resources Committee Chairman Richard Pombo (R-CA), the American Policy Center (APC) and over 50 public policy groups called for an end to the federal government’s unconstitutional practice of taking land and property rights under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Chairman Pombo plans to make reauthorizing the ESA a priority of the current Congress. "There are some who claim that the Act needs to be ‘strengthened,’ ‘updated,’ or ‘modernized,’" said APC president Tom DeWeese. "How absurd. For three decades this law has done nothing but steal property, destroy economies, shatter livelihoods, cost billions of dollars,...

CHEYENNE, Wyo. — The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service plans to reintroduce several hundred more Wyoming toad tadpoles in Albany County. The Wyoming toad is the only toad in the Laramie Basin and the basin is the toad's only home. The toad was listed as endangered in 1984 and thought to have gone extinct in 1987, although toads were later found at Mortenson Lake southwest of Laramie. Thousands of toads have since been bred in captivity and released, with mixed results. The latest release is planned on private land near Centennial and the Mortenson Lake National Wildlife Refuge. It's part...

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for shooting whales. Get a bunch of tourists, put them on boat, send it out to the North Pacific and let them fire off some rounds for an hour or two. Of course the ammunition used would be Kodak and Fuji stock, but it's a lot more humane than blowing them up. And it doesn't make the water go all red. With the exception of some Japanese and Scandinavian fisherman, a few Japanese scientists and the Japanese government, in the minds of most people -- whale hunting ranks up there with clubbing baby seals...

Save Some Salamanders Wednesday, June 15, 2005: Lawrence, Kansas - CNAH - NEWS RELEASE The Center for North American Herpetology Lawrence, Kansas http://www.cnah.org 16 June 2005 SOS FIGHTS FOR A NEW SALAMANDERAustin environmentalists want federal officials to put the Tonkawa Springs Salamander on endangered list Modified from an article by Stephen Scheibal American-Statesman Staff 14 June 2005 An Austin environmental group has asked federal officials to add the Tonkawa Springs Salamander (Eurycea tonkawae) to the list of endangered species, potentially creating new development controversies along the Travis-Williamson county line. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which enforces the Endangered Species...

“The environmental movement I helped found has lost its objectivity, morality and humanity. The pain and suffering it is inflicting on families in developing countries must no longer be tolerated. This is the first book I’ve seen that tells the truth and lays it on the line. It’s a must-read for anyone who cares about people, progress and our planet.” – Patrick Moore, Greenpeace co-founder “Paul Driessen has given us an amazing tour de force. He explores one of today’s most perplexing problems: the environmentally sensitive rich demanding that the Third World’s poor forego feeding themselves, solving their health and...

Frightening Quotes from Environmentalists (Attack Of The Socialist-Luddites) The right to have children should be a marketable commodity, bought and traded by individuals but absolutely limited by the state. —Kenneth Boulding, originator of the “Spaceship Earth” concept (as quoted by William Tucker in Progress and Privilege, 1982) We have wished, we ecofreaks, for a disaster or for a social change to come and bomb us into Stone Age, where we might live like Indians in our valley, with our localism, our appropriate technology, our gardens, our homemade religion—guilt-free at last! —Stewart Brand (writing in the Whole Earth Catalogue). Free Enterprise...

Tolerance: The Enlightenment Vs Multi-Culturalism. By Robert Wolf Tolerance, as exemplified by the Enlightenment ‘philosophes’, incorporated the belief that each individual should be free to pursue his own interests. In the words of Locke, “The commonwealth seems to me to be a society of men constituted only for the procuring, preserving, and advancing their own civil interests. Civil interests I call life, liberty, health, and indolency of body (recreation); and the possession of outward things, such as money, lands, houses, furniture, and the like.1 Unlike Hobbes’ Leviathan’, Locke regards this contract as revocable, a government that depends upon the consent...

Age of Opinion By Robert Wolf Garbage in Garbage out, a concept well understood by computer geeks, is the perfect metaphor for what has happened to public education in the United States. Just as democracy, a generic substitution for the more specific, republic, is the word of the day in politics, so egalitarianism or multi-culturalism is the by-word in American Education. Egalité is not a synonym for democracy, as those with a vested interest in promoting the concept would have you believe. The standard dictionary definition of egalitarianism is affirming, promoting, or characterized by belief in equal political, economic, social,...

Authorities look into potential eco-terrorist link to home fires By BREE FOWLER The Associated Press 6/4/03 6:03 PM WASHINGTON TOWNSHIP, Mich. (AP) -- To many people, the subdivision of luxurious new homes straddling spacious lots would be an ideal place to live. But for others, the neighborhood, built on what once was rural land, represents everything that is wrong with urban sprawl. Federal and state officials on Wednesday were investigating the possibility that the Earth Liberation Front, an anti-sprawl terrorist group, was involved in early morning fires that destroyed two homes under construction in this Macomb County community north of...

A tax on supermarket shopping bags in Britain seems certain because a report to the Government on Ireland's recent experiment is understood to recommend a levy of up to 10p. A 10p tax on each disposable supermarket bag is likely to be among the first environmental policies recommended by Michael Meacher when he returns from the Earth Summit. Shoppers in Ireland have reduced the number of bags they have been using by 90 per cent since the tax of 15 cents (10p) per bag was introduced in March. Most Irish shoppers now keep their bags and reuse them. In Britain,...

What are your views on what "green" design/lifestyle means and requires. As an architecture student, this is a major topic these days, but I wonder what everyone else thinks of this topic and it's importance. I am a conservative in a field of liberals, especially on this topic, and am interested in green design without the eco-freakishness. Comment away, and I will reply later with a little more on where i am going with this.

I am in the process of joining the Society for Range Management and one of the sponsors recommended that I also look at joining an organization named the Native Habitat Organization. After looking over their website, it looks as thought there could be some liberal, green ties. Does anyone know anything about this particular group? Thank you, I_Publius