As reported in today's Oregonian, the Bush Administration has tossed another bone to its pals in the extractive industries with another assault on the Endangered Species Act. It seems that Bush and Co. have "hatched" a plan to count hatchery fish along with their wild cousins in determining whether Pacific salmon should retain their "endangered" designation. A fish, after all, is a fish.
As I wrote in my March 27 Joe's School post, the Endangered Species Act is a kind of backasswards effort to save species, plant or animal, by protecting the
habitats, or ecosystems, that support them. I say "backasswards" because an enlightened version of the law would protect ecosystems directly. It's like the canary in the mine. When the canary dies, you know there's something wrong in the mine shaft. It's a apt metaphor for the ESA. When species extinction accelerates at unnatural rates, you know we're messing, dangerously, with Mother Nature.
The article says that the proposal "raises wider questions about standards for other endangered species. If hatchery fish can count toward reducing extinction risk, what about zoo populations? What combination of genes and rearing does it take to make an artificially produced animal the same as its wild kin? What, finally, does it mean to be wild or natural?"
This is only one of an array of measures designed to undermine the ESA and make it easier for our captains of industry to cut down trees (preferably the oldest ones), dig for gold, and drill for oil. The Bend Bulletin reports that Congressional Republicans have four bills in the chute that would modify environmental laws. Among the culprits are Oregon's own Sen. Gordon Smith and Rep. Greg Walden. Smith's bill is ironically entitled "The Critical Habitat Reform Act of 2003", which, as is the Republican wont,
would have absolutely the opposite effect.
Walden's bill is just a devious. It's called "The Sound Science for Endangered Species Planning Act of 2003", implying that all the science to date regarding the environment has been something other than "sound".
If the Republicans were honest, they would attach a disclaimer to each bill that read something like this:
"If passed, this bill will likely contribute to the continuing degradation of our remaining natural places. However, it will, in the short run (the very short run), make a few people a whole lot richer."
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