[hinckley buzzard]

The F&WS would be the last to know an eastern cougar from any other cougar. In fact it is highly doubtful there is a separate species at issue here in the first place.

This flunks the smell test big time for me, given the loose and promiscuous way the gubmint assholes use the term "extinct:" see the Endangered Species Act where it is formally defined.

"Extinct" does not mean what you think it means.

[seowulf]

In fact it is highly doubtful there is a separate species at issue here in the first place.

You got that right.

These are the same people who classify Coho salmon from different rivers as different species.

Although, I suspect I might be a different species from Californians.

[Erasmus]

The administrators of the EPA had an excellent scam going.

They take a neighborhood that has some fairly common animal in it. This "Fibong," say, exists in two genetically identical populations on either side of the Fuqawi river.

Well, they classify the two groups as "West Fuqawi Fibongs" and "East Fuqawi Fibongs." That way, the biologists and other bureaucrats can double their workloads with regard to this particular species.

Then, developers or farmers or whatever begin to encroach on the east side of the river. All of a sudden, now the "East Fuqawi Fibong" becomes an endangered species, allowing the pecksniffs to come down hard on the citizens and the businesses on the east side of the river.

Meanwhile, the "West River Fibong" is doing just fine.