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Essentially, the Fish and Wildlife Service tried to reach out and seize 1,500 acres of private land on a thoroughly specious pretext. FWS got slapped down, and properly so. But my question is, what is the underlying story? Why did FWS want this land, or at least effective control over this land, to begin with? I wonder if there's a hidden agenda, or if there's a local activist group with a burr under its saddle.

If this 1,500 acres is so all-fired important -- which, per the story, seems clearly not to be the case -- the straightforward course of action would be for FWS to attempt to buy it, or do a land swap. Perhaps FWS was just being lazy and didn't want to go to Congress for the money. But this action is so arbitrary -- reach out and grab 1,500 acres on which the frog hasn't lived in 50 years -- that I wonder if something else underlies the action.