Protecting critters but not their homes, land-use limitations for its endangered species

It was mid-March when a nasally scream of "kee-aah" became a regular feature of the woods behind Bob Szuszkowski's house in Passaic County.

The noisy new neighbors were a pair of endangered red-shouldered hawks, Buteo lineatus, of which there are just a few dozen left in New Jersey.

A state regulation to create broad new habitat protections has been on the drawing board for at least six years, through three administrations. It is now bottled up in the administration of acting Gov. Richard Codey, its prospects unclear.

But others fear it would be one more intrusive government tool to prevent farmers from farming, builders from building, towns from growing and private citizens from doing with their land what they want.

"There's just an awful lot of fear and trepidation," said Helen Heinrich, a consultant who has followed the issue for the New Jersey Farm Bureau. "It's going to affect all kinds of landowners."

Landowners should have to survey their property for threatened and endangered before they change it dramatically, and seek a permit if any of the species are present, Stiles said.

Those are among the provisions that environmentalists have urged the DEP to include in the pending rule, though it is not clear what the current drafts include.

Development is of much greater concern to environmentalists than logging, with vast swaths of habitat disappearing every year to make way for new housing subdivisions.

DEP Commissioner Bradley Campbell announced in July 2003 his intention to become the first commissioner to implement rules protecting threatened and endangered species. He said he had directed his staff to write them and they should be prepared by autumn of that year.

"They're threatened and endangered," said Jeff Tittel of the state Sierra Club. "In fact, I think they're pretty much extinct."

Meanwhile, the gypsy moths have denuded my vacation home in northern MI, and my yard in SE MI looks like a tornado hit from the devastation from the emerald ash borer, (the dead wood is free but you can't move it) my 17-year old cat was picked off by a red-tailed hawk, the Canadian geese crap all over the lawn, and there is enough poison ivy to really mess up your life.

Tittel and Bob Szuszkowski, and Bob Moshman have a vendetta against Galway. He regularly rips their ignorant, fascist proposals to shreds and makes them look like the real ideologues that they are. If the 3 named above had their way, no tree would ever be cut down again in North NJ, and deer hunting would be banned, leaving the canopy cluttered with 3rd growth saplings and underbrush denuded by overpopulated deer herds.

Galway has spent decades (I think around 25+ years) in the forestry industry, working both private and government contracts and tracts. He's one of a few people left in NJ who have a real understanding of forestry, that has been in the field before the universities forestry programs were taken over by ideologues who disregard any science that conflicts with their deep green beliefs. (Looking at you Rutgers).

He is one of the lone voices of reason in the ongoing staged debate framed by ignorant ideologues in the Northern NJ environmental movement who want to turn NJ into Quebec. Where to cut down a tree requires an inspection, permit process, and large amounts of fees, all dictated by the whims of bureaucrats.

As you had posted an earlier article written by one John Atlas, Bob Szuszkowski is also an active member of several Northern NJ environmental organizations and a personal acquaintence of Mr. Tittel. And again, this isn't disclosed by the paper.

Szuszkowski would like nothing more than to permanently destroy the property value of his neighbors land by blocking the forestry program, AND blocking any way to rezone so it can be built on, in an effort to increase the value of his own land.

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