Posted on 06/30/2023 3:41:06 PM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — U.S. wildlife managers on Friday proposed federal protections for a rare lizard found only in parts of one of the world’s most lucrative oil and natural gas basins.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said the dunes sagebrush lizard should be listed as an endangered species due to the ongoing threats of energy development, mining and climate change in southeastern New Mexico and West Texas. The agency will be collecting public comments on the proposed listing through Sept. 1.
Environmentalists have been pushing for protections for the reptile for decades, resulting in petitions and lawsuits. There have also been conservation agreements, but some groups have criticized them for not doing enough to protect the lizard’s habitat.
“The dunes sagebrush lizard is marvelously adapted for life in extreme environments but it needs our help to survive the oil and gas industry’s destruction,” Michael Robinson, with the Center for Biological Diversity, said in a statement. “The Service needs to move quickly to implement these long-overdue protections.”
Biologists aren’t able to say how many lizards might exist because there are so few of them and they’re hard to detect, making precise counts very difficult. However, they note there are fewer lizards detected in areas where there are more oil and gas wells or areas where habitat has been disturbed.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
That’s some funny Sh$t right there.
The mountains near me have been closed to protect the lilly livered frog for quite a few years now, we dont care and ride our dirt bikes there anyway
Of course. This retardation needs to stop.
How come no “endangered” animals are found where windmills will be installed?
Shades of Tellico Dam and some darter thingy.
Your theory might be absolutely correct.
Search around for “vin suprynowicz tortoise”. He has a good number of articles out there on the same thing.
He wrote quite a bit in the 90s about an “extinct” tortoise that seemed to come back to life in more recent times. The feds stepped in and everyone went off the deep end to save the tortoise because there were only a few left. Everyone, especially the ranchers, had to get off the “fragile habitat”.
A sanctuary was set aside for a small number and all of them were to be brought there. They were overwhelmed almost overnight.
Come to find out that they of course never were extinct, there was only ever a very small number because they live in a desert. Deserts dont support life very well. People were now finding them because the ranchers and the cattle they grazed along the edges were accidentally making improvements that made life easier for the tortoise.
Move ‘em out somewhere. How about to a more hospitable environment like Nancy Pelosi’s Vineyard.
I was joking, based on fish congregating around offshore oil rigs ... but you have a point. Our furry, scaly, and feathered friends are often very good at adapting to and taking advantage of our activities.
I see lizards all the time this time of year in our courtyard which is mostly concrete and has areas of plants and bushes where they live. Outside the building are suburban homes and various commercial buildings. I see raccoons, possums, skunks, squirrels and rats and lizards.
A desert area of millions of acres where a oil rig and equipment take up a few acres of space would not have any impact at all.
I bet these same people would welcome square miles of solar panels and bird chopping windmills.
Thats similar to another story from different Freeper.
He runs some sort of fishing boat in the Gulf.
One day he runs across some experts doing some important threatened species work in an effort to find and count a nearly extinct fish. They told him about the fish and showed him the net they were using and were quite sure that there should have been some at the depth they were fishing but alas, it seemed they were gone.
This is when he told them that there was a whole layer of these fish down there and using the right sized net and depth should find them. They did as he said and hauled in a whole net of extinct fish!
Like most research paid for by government grants, I think the only thing that is proven is that the governments preferred answer is what will be found to be correct.
Imagine how angry those con-artists were. They thought they had the good life ahead of them using federal money to spend their lives fishing their days away, er, researching critically endangered fish, and here he came along and blew it all up.
Sagebrush lizard snail darter, etc.
Water, oil and mineral mining. Essential to human civilization.
I see a pattern here.
5.56mm
too bad they didnt kill it
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As a matter of fact, growing up in Southeast New Mexico and West Texas, we found wild lizards to be adventuresome Astronaut Lizards.
When packing the parachute of the Estes Rocket, these little lizards fit nicely in there as experimental payload for our studies on the biological effects of rocket acceleration on reptiles.
What we found, though, is how essential it is to pack the protective fireproof wadding first, then lizard, then chute.
Otherwise, without fireproof wadding, after launch, when rocket is at apogee and nosecone ejection fires from the Estes Rocket Engine, the plastic parachute gets welded to the lizard astronaut.
By the way, the same thing happens if you substitute a small horny toad.
“Someone brought one in and said LOOK”
BINGO!
It’s habitat is the Shinnery Oak forest which is already protected in most parts of the Western Permian Basin.
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