Posted on 08/31/2021 8:34:12 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The snail darter, a tiny fish that notoriously blocked a federal dam project in Tennessee decades ago, should no longer be on the endangered species list, federal officials announced on Tuesday.
Arguing that the fish is no longer in danger of extinction, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has begun the process to delist the species, a move backed by the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group that has favored lifting protections for the fish since 2019.
“Thanks to the persistence of many people, the extinction of the snail darter was ultimately avoided, and today we can celebrate its recovery,” said Zygmunt Plater, the attorney who wrote the citizens’ petition to save the snail darter in 1975.
The fish garnered national attention shortly after the passage of the landmark 1973 Endangered Species Act. The law made it illegal to “harass, harm, pursue, hunt, shoot, wound, kill, trap, capture or collect” endangered animals, and forbid the elimination of their habitats. It led to many legal battles, but the struggle over the lowly darter became one of the most notable.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
TVA had already cleared areas for the Tellico Lake...It grew a lot of brush etc while the dam was held up...It became some of the best rabbit hunting land I ever hunted...It was awesome...
They are basically “minnows” and excellent for crappies. Too bad i didn’t know they were endangered...😎
Whew, we can all rest a little easier now.
The dam was ultimately finished, the lake filled, the fish survived anyway. Just made it all a lot more expensive than it already was. Remnants of Hurricane Ida will pass over the reservoir later today.
Professor David Etnier is the one who discovered the Snail Darter...He claimed it only existed in the Little Tennessee River. (It was later found in other streams and rivers in East Tennessee)
dam
Well, I’ll sleep better tonight. A world without snail darters would be like a world without...bait.
Yeah, 'cause it turned out the little f***er never was endangered. After a bit of hubbub, preaching, species-sploitation and hair-tearing, they found it all over the place.
How soon they forget. I don't.
Same for the water being stopped from going to the calif Central valley over a bait fish introduced by man.
All politics plus insiders buy up the dried up land cheap.
The snail darter was never in danger of extinction, as normal people understand the term. The legalism of “extinction” means it may disappear from a specified location, like one river, even though it may be abundant in the next river over. This was an early example of “law fare”, the abuse of the law to achieve an irrelevant agenda.
Ah, another biologist seeking fame and academic immorality!
Well, he is now Professor Emeritus at University of Tennessee...
It is amazing how “scientists” find “new species” which, to the layman, are indistinguishable from the old species.
Yet the red-headed, green-eyed Irish lass, the tribesman from New Guinea, Kim Jung Un and Boy George are all of the same species... 🤔
Who cares?
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