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There may be a surprise in store for environmentalits - removing cattle grazing could actually be damaging to the environment. An article published in the latest issue of Conservation Biology finds that cattle grazing plays an important role in maintaining wetland habitat necessary for some endangered species. Removing cattle from grazing lands in the Central Valley of California could, inadvertently, degrade the vernal pool habitat of fairy shrimp and tiger salamanders. Cattle grazing influences the rates of evaporation which work together with climate to determine the depth and duration of wetland flooding. Cattle have been grazing in the land for...

USFWS Contacts: Al Pfister(970)243-2778 x 29 or Diane Katzenberger (303)236-4578 The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today announced the withdrawal of the Southern Rocky Mountain population of the Boreal Toad (Bufo boreas boreas) from the list of species being considered for protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The Service has determined that listing this population of the Boreal Toad at this time is not warranted because it does not constitute a distinct population segment as defined by the ESA. Although no further action will result from this finding, the Service will continue to seek new information on the taxonomy,...

Environmentalists proposed a $404 million global action plan yesterday at a conference in Washington D. C. to protect and preserve amphibian species. The conference came in response to a study last year that revealed one-third of all amphibian species face a high risk of extinction. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and Conservation International joined other wildlife groups to plan further research studies and long term initiatives to protect amphibian habitats. Next is the task of securing funds for the projects from private institutions and individual donors. "The frogs are trying to tell us something," said Andrew...

WASHINGTON - (KRT) - The new version of the Endangered Species Act approved by the House is unlikely to pass muster in the Senate, at least right away. Critics worry especially about a murky provision that could pay landowners tens of millions of dollars in damages for property devalued by restrictions due to rare critters or plants. Nonetheless, sponsors' success in getting this far and winning bipartisan backing shows widespread recognition of problems in one of the nation's most venerable environmental laws. In a barometer of emotions flowing on the issue, no fewer than four Old Testament books (Genesis, Psalms,...

Expecting to be fed, boreal toads at an Alamosa hatchery turn toward the photographer. Scientists say they now won t have to get special permits to study the creatures, speeding research on a fungus decimating the population. (Special to The Denver Post / Mark H. Hunter) Colorado's boreal toad was removed as a candidate for the federal endangered-species list Wednesday by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. That could be good news for ski-slope developers - and maybe even for the toad itself. An exotic fungus that is hammering the warty, high-elevation amphibian made it a candidate for endangered-species protection...

A lizard known for its dinosaur-like features is back in line for endangered species protection, according to backers of the tiny, desert reptile. A federal judge in Arizona on Tuesday ruled the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service erred when it dropped the Flat-tail Horned Lizard from consideration as a "threatened" species eligible for special legal protection. In a 15-page ruling, District Court Judge Neil Wake said the government "violated the Endangered Species Act" by failing to evaluate the impact of habitat loss on the species when it withdrew a proposal to list it as threatened. The ruling, according to environmentalists...

You don’t have to be a conspiracy buff to think the recent spate of incidents at BP facilities was maybe a little much to comfortably call coincidence. The FBI’s not going near that, but did confirm it was conducting what it called routine investigations of the incidents. Bureau officials said there was no evidence or indication that any of the incidents might involve deliberate acts, and that such probes had become routine since the 9/11 terrorist attacks. BP’s Texas City oil refinery and a subsidiary’s chemical plant at Chocolate Bayou have been at the center of six large incidents in...

Group Aims to Save Rattlesnakes in New York Park Westport, New York: The ponytailed environmentalist hiked down the ridge, over the gray rocks and matted brown leaves, stopped among the hardwoods, and said, "Right down the side, it's prime country here." The warm, southeast-facing rock cliffs overlooking Lake Champlain mark the northern limit of the Timber Rattlesnake's habitat. Jaime Ethier, in boots and jeans, was bushwhacking from Champlain Palisades down to the pebbled shores of the lake - through terrain where he wouldn't see a coiled dark snake unless he nearly stepped on it. The Adirondack Council conservation director appeared...

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,...