Rare Woodpecker Sends a Town Running for Its Chain Saws

The New York Times ^ | Published: September 24, 2006 | By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

[.cnI redruM]

BOILING SPRING LAKES, N.C., Sept. 23 (AP) — Over the past six months, landowners here have been clear-cutting thousands of trees to keep them from becoming homes for the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker.

The chain saws started in February, when the federal Fish and Wildlife Service put Boiling Spring Lakes on notice that rapid development threatened to squeeze out the woodpecker.

The agency issued a map marking 15 active woodpecker “clusters,” and announced it was working on a new one that could potentially designate whole neighborhoods of this town in southeastern North Carolina as protected habitat, subject to more-stringent building restrictions.

Hoping to beat the mapmakers, landowners swarmed City Hall to apply for lot-clearing permits. Treeless land, after all, would not need to be set aside for woodpeckers. Since February, the city has issued 368 logging permits, a vast majority without accompanying building permits.

[.cnI redruM]

Anyone who has ever spent a delightful July and August at Ft. Bragg can read this and laugh. Cut down all the trees, and The Red-Cockaded Woodpeckers have to fly away.

[Dick Vomer]

The EPA laws have taken away "property rights".... this is such bs.... if you cut down their trees they'll move...

evolve of die!!

[Hydroshock]

Shoot, Shovel, and Shutup.

[.cnI redruM]

Personally, I think it's funny. I'm glad the NC towns are stiffing the EPA on this one.

[TomGuy]

A couple of years ago there was a big story about a rare woodpecker that had been sighted in eastern Arkansas. Its sighting caused havoc, as construction and forestry almost came to a halt.

IIRC, it turned out to be a hoax.

[JimRed]

S, S & SU. Great minds think alike!

[EQAndyBuzz]

You probably can make a good Rare Red Woodpecker Stew like you would prepare squab.

[Always Right]

[6SJ7]

Long before there was a town, locals carved V-shaped notches in the pines, collecting the sap in buckets to make turpentine. These wounds allowed fungus to infiltrate the tree’s core, making it easier for the woodpecker to excavate its nest hole and probe for the beetles, spiders and wood-boring insects it prefers.

This species only settled in the area because of the harvesting of turpentine by man. Now overreaching environmental laws are having unintended consequences. What a surprise.

[sittnick]

The rare red cockaded woodpecker not only gets EPA protection, but also has a REALLY annoying laugh.

[.cnI redruM]

Yeah, liberals know only their cause. They don't stop to think about anything else. They have a five minute attention span and a ten minute planning horizon. They were profoundly stupid to think these towns were going to sit back and let their employment base get legislated out of existence.

[Boston Blackie]

Rare Woodpecker being protected by common peckerheads

[mbynack]

A guy I work with told me a about a situation that happened with his father a few years ago. His father is a farmer in north Alabama and some university students thought they spotted a rare bird on his property. They filed legal papers to prevent him from "disturbing the birds", which meant that he couldn't run his tractor on the that part of his farm. He lost part of his crop because he couldn't harvest it. Later the students returned and couldn't locate the bird. They speculated that either the bird was just passing through, or that one of the students had made a mistake when identifying it.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

These are the same people who want to provide our health care.

[Mrs. Shawnlaw]

Not only the citizen getting the permits but apparently the local permit-issuing bureaucracy is on the side of the locals! Apparently NO ONE wants the feds showing up bossing them around about their property! Cool!

[Sarajevo]

This is so stupid it defies words. Almost every military base I've been on has those stupid Red-Cockaded Woodpecker Nesting Area signs posted. If these birds are so rare, why do so many bases have restricted training area's?

[.cnI redruM]

That's when someone needs to organize those farmers and start filing class action law suits against the enviroes, the gubbermint, the student, and anyone else who played a role in getting the injunction filed against the farmers that stopped them from harvesting on time.

[.cnI redruM]

Because it provides our friends of The Goddess Gaea an excuse to screw with our lives.

[Eagle9]

I see two of those woodpeckers in my backyard all the time. This is much ado about nothing.

On second thought, I've never seen a bird like that in my life. No not me. Never.

[sd-joe]

He He He