A good book that deals with how poor a job the Endangered Species Act has done with regard to saving animals is called “A Green Gone Wild” by M. David Stirling of the Pacific Legal Foundation - http://www.amazon.com/Green-Gone-Wild-Elevating-Nature/dp/0936783532.
I know that ESA has decimated our local economy - plunging families into poverty, drugs and abuse. I KNOW it wasn’t worth it. After all the regulations and shut downs, the spotted wol and coho salmon are not one step closer to recovery. In fact, last year there were only a handful of coho that returned to the Shasta River weir and all were male. With the morratorium on forest management, spotted owl old growth forests are burning to the ground in my area. (250,000 acres in 2008 alone.)
Thanks for the recommendation. I’ll read it next.
I’d like to see the ESA changed to the Endangered Genus Act.