Homebuilder charged with Endangered Species Act violations

KCAL ^

[chance33_98]

Homebuilder charged with Endangered Species Act violations

OAKLAND, Calif. (AP) A developer who wanted to build 3,200 homes in Pittsburg has been charged with violating the Endangered Species Act.

West Coast Homebuilders Inc. of Concord was charged in U.S. District Court in Oakland Friday with two counts of violating the act after authorities said a department of Fish and Game warden found a dead California red-legged frog on the site last year.

Prosecutors say Albert Seeno Jr. owner of the company ordered his workers to fill in ponds that were home to the endangered frog.

The frog is believed to be the one Mark Twain made famous in his short story ``The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County.'' It was put on the endangered species list in 1996, and has disappeared from nearly three-quarters of its natural range.

The company could be placed on five years' probation and fined if convicted of violating the act. The company is expected to plead July 19.

Seeno's attorney Bill Goodman declined to comment on the case Saturday.

[Dr. Frank fan]

No I don't. If I had the answers, I wouldn't have asked the question. Glad to see your world is black and white though.

Thanks for the content-free post. Now can you answer my question of Post #76?

Why must every species of critter on Earth continue to have descendants forever?

[leadpenny]

You see sir, you have decided that this minor sub-species of amphibian needs to be saved, regardless of what I believe.

Where did I say "I have decided?" What is it about the political process you don't understand? And why so hostile?

[leadpenny]

Why must every species of critter on Earth continue to have descendants forever?

I never said they must. But Who and How will decide which ones will not have descendants?

[leadpenny]

it be decided

[Dr. Frank fan]

I never said they must.

It is the logical consequence of your statements. If you think it is wrong of me to pave a pond where the Last So-and-so Critters live, then (logically speaking) you think these Critters (and, presumably, all other species of Critter) ought to always have descendants, forever and ever.

If that is not what you believe then perhaps you ought to re-examine your knee-jerk anti-pond-paving attitude, you see?

But Who and How will decide which ones will not have descendants?

A handful of environmentalist ideologues from Brown University who have cushy jobs working for the government, obviously. < /sarcasm >

Okay, I'll tell you. Nature decides. Or God, if you believe in him. You see, once you admit that some species will cease having descendants no matter what we do (and yes, this is a given), then it makes little sense to fetishize over every single Red-Legged Frog subspecies as if Species-No-Longer-Having-Descendants is the greatest tragedy of the universe (which it's not).

You see, the only semi-plausible argument for why it's necessary that there still be so-called "Red-Legged Frogs" in that pond even in the year 12,345 is if it is for some reason necessary for all species to always have descendants (are Red-Legged Frogs the most important species in the world? Doubtful.)

But if you agree with me, as you now seem to, that it's not absolutely necessary for all species to always have descendants... then what exactly is the argument for painstakingly bending over backwards to ensure that this particular frog species always have descendants? There is none.

Unless, of course, you belong to the Cult of the Sacred Frog which was enshrined by the Hero, Mark Twain. In other words, unless you have religioius feelings towards this frog species. Do you? Let me know,

[Sabertooth]

Thanks for the correction. The legs on my little froggy didn't look too red.

Tell you what I'd like to know in all of this frog controversy...

I've been in the pet biz for years, and a lot of stores sell tadpoles. Almost always, they are Bulfrog tadpoles. I wouldn't let them in my store. Bullfrogs are from the Mississippi basin, non-native to California, and they wipe the heck out of indigenous frog populations here. They're ideally suited to riparian conditions in California.

What do you suppose mom and dad do when the kids' tadpole becomes a Bullfrog?

But when State Fish and Game comes by to do the inspections, they aren't looking for tadpoles. They're busy measuring carapace length on captive bread tortoises to see if they're under 4", or looking to see if we've got Piranhas.

The CA state legislature overreacted to salmonella fears some years ago by banning baby turtles under 4". Never mind that any turtle, or any chelonian, or any reptile can carry forms of salmonella, most of which aren't communicable to humans. I'd always advise parents buying a reptile for the kids, "No kissing the lizard, and always wash hands after handling it. If your kid's not old enough to know to wash his hands after going to the bathroom, he's not old enough for a reptile." You know, common sense.

And common sense combined with good husbandry leads to commercial captive breeding programs that lessen the need to collect pets from the wild. But not if you've got to raise the tortoises for two years to bring them to market, rather than selling hatchlings. We're not even sure right now whether baby tortoises are legal or not, we get conflicting info from Fish and Game.

And Piranhas are banned in CA, even though they could never surve the winters here. There's no chance that these Amazon River fish could establish a breeding population in California. They're just scary, glamorous fish by reputation, though a real bore in the aquarium. Never mind that, some politician somewhere has it on their resume that they saved our kids from Piranhas.

Tell you what, any time you hear about a Piranha being fished out of a golf course pond on the local news, odds are it's just a Pacu, a vegetarian cousin, also from the Amazon. But Fish and Game don't know that. And it's always in Spring or Summer... what a coincidence!

Once I was doing a little work with animal control up in Castaic, just a bit north of L.A. A CalTrans truck comes into the facility with a dead bear they'd hit with one of their trucks. Ooo, a bear! So the local news crews come down, start filming, and ask what kind of bear it is. Since the bear has brown fur, the Animal Control people answer, "A Brown Bear."

I jump in and point out that a Brown Bear is actually a Grizzly Bear, which haven't been seen in California since 1922. The dead bear, I explained, is a Black Bear with a brown pelt. There are different color morphs of the Black Bear. If this was really a Brown Bear, aka Grizzly, this would be huge news, especially considering it was a 165 lb. juvenile, and would have had to have been born here. That would indicate at least another adult male and female Grizzly in the area.

"But it's brown," said the Animal Control folks." It's a brown bear."

I shook my head, and the news crew wrapped and broadcast the story of the Brown Bear killed on a SoCal freeway.

My rambling point is this... the Fish and Game folks and the Animal Control folks often don't know a heckuva lot about the animals they're regulating. They can be just as wrong as the weekend envronmentalists who misidentified the Leopard Frog in the pic you posted.

So, I really wonder about the status of the Red-Legged Frog, and whether or not habitat destruction is the only significant culprit. Bullfrogs are well established throughout California, and I wonder what there populations are over the Red-Legged Frog's former range.

In fact, I'd like to know that about a lot of the missing amphibian species we hear about from time to time.

[leadpenny]

It is the logical consequence of your statements.

I don't think it is. I merely offered the question as a matter of personal choice. I'm assuming you would fill in the pond given the opportunity. I probably would not. All your fancy footwork says to me that you would still be conflicted knowing that you, and you alone, had made the decision to speed the extinction of even one of God's creatures.

[Dr. Frank fan]

It is the logical consequence of your statements. I don't think it is.

Ok fine, then you agree with me that it's ridiculous to suggest that all species of critter need to have descendants for all time immemorial. If that's the case we have no argument.

I merely offered the question as a matter of personal choice.

Good, I agree it should be a matter of personal choice (and that the government should stay out of it). If you owned a piece of land and wanted to try to protect some critter on it, I certainly wouldn't stop you.

I'm assuming you would fill in the pond given the opportunity.

Well it depends, on (1) how badly I want/need the thing I'm "filling in the pond" for, (2) whether the critter in question is particularly cute or special to me, and (3) how "endangered" I think the critter really is (no, I would not take the government employee's word for it). If the choice were up to me then I'd weigh many factors and make the choice I find most appealing. Heck maybe I want to keep the pond and its critters around to show to visitors, who knows?

But I definitely would resent the government robbing me of that choice altogether. As someone said earlier, it's my property.

All your fancy footwork says to me that you would still be conflicted knowing that you, and you alone, had made the decision to speed the extinction of even one of God's creatures.

Sorry to yet again be such a nit-picker, but a "creature" does not go extinct. Creatures die. It is species of creatures - or genetic lines of same - which go extinct.

You probably think this is a minor point but IMHO debates like this are always poisoned by the so-called "environmental" side's slippery use of language. The strategy is to make emotional appeals, and to do so "environmentalists" like to pretend that this is a debate between whether something should be "killed" or "saved". It's not. All these creatures we are talking about will die no matter what we do. The only question is whether they or their relatives will always have descendants.

When viewed that way it's not so obvious why Always Having Descendants is such an important thing, as you've demonstrated by your backtracking. But if you can pretend that I want to "speed the extinction" of "one of God's creatures" (which is IMPOSSIBLE - each of God's creatures is GOING TO DIE, whether I do anything or not!) you can make my position sound more sinister.

The real issue is whether there is some kind of moral obligation to take special measures to ensure that every species of creature - no, not whether it "lives" or "dies" (it WILL DIE) - but whether it passes along its genetic information to descendants.

I simply don't think it's so obvious that such special measures always need to be taken, let alone enforced by the government. Further, people who do think this is obvious end up relying on arguments which are essentially religious in nature. You start straddling the line yourself with this "God's creatures" stuff.

I thought there was supposed to be a "separation of church and state", so why is the government allowed to tell me I must sacrifice some of my property to save the descendents of one of God's creatures?

(So-called "environmentalists" really don't like hearing that last paragraph, however; they don't like being reminded that theirs is a religion, let alone that they are trying to impose it on me....)

[Red Jones]

the spotted owl is listed as an endangered species. Because the Bush admin a dozen years ago classified it as such, that is why it is considered 'endangered'. The facts of course show different. Our government's experts say that when Columbus landed in 1492 the spotted owl population in what would become the united states was 6,000. It is an unusual creature in that it refuses to reproduce unless it has a lot of forest to itself. So, if they feel crowded, then they will not reproduce. In 1890 the spotted owl population was estimated at 4,000 by our government. By 1980 we were very confident of our count as we by then routinely had people in the forest actually counting these birds. In 1980 the government concluded that there were about 4,100 spotted owls in our country. By the time our king george named it as endangered there were 4,150 spotted owls, just 10 years later. So, you can see the population was stable, it was not endangered, ever. There was also absolutely no evidence that disallowing lumber companies from harvesting mature trees would harm this owl in any way.

The experts agreed that the population of this animal would be directly correlated to the number of acres that it can inhabit in forest, not by any other factor. By the federal government's failure to properly manage the forests, they've lost a half million acres in the arizona fire. This will cut into the spotted owl's population directly. All the spotted owls in that forest I'm sure flew away, but with a greater concentration of them in the remaining forest they simply will not reproduce at the same rate. Their population has been harmed by this fire, but it was not helped by the government classifying it as endangered. The very nice upward movement of this creature's population will be disrupted by a shrinking of the forest habitat that they can live in, not just due to this fire, but due to all the fires together.

Between 1989 and 1993 the cost of lumber tripled in the United States. This cost increase was widely accredited to king george's malicious decision to classify that bird as being 'endangered'. Tens of thousands of jobs were sacrificed. Lumber that we could've exported was not exported. Many small towns were harmed tremendously. Many families had their lives disrupted. The number one reason that militia members gave for explaining why they joined the militia was the spotted owl issue.

From the point of view of people in the rural west it seems as though the citizens who are in charge in washington are their enemies. Now we see the spotted owl being harmed in reality rather than in fiction and due to the actions of this federal government which has in fact done a poor job of managing the forests.

Turn control of these federal lands completely back to the states and get the federal courts and the federal laws out from where they don't belong and you will see healthier forests, more animals in the forests, more oxygen produced by the forests, less than half the acreage of forest fires every year and on top of all that, you'll see more jobs in the rural areas and more tax revenue for both the states and the federal government.

When we worshop the idols such as enviro-naziism that the liberals give us to worshop we pay a very very high price.

[Lower55]

I would definitely fill the pond in. I wouldn't necessarily kill the frogs in the process, but I don't care one wit about the frogs.

They taste like chicken, and I'd just as soon have chicken.

When the whackos forced the shrimpers down here in the gulf to pull TEDS (turtle excluder devices), there was a murderous rampage that went on.

All shrimpers used to free any turtles they caught, which was very rarely, as soon as the nets were dumped. We even used to pick up and throw back all small flounders and reds and specks as soon as we could. This was voluntary. Now we kill everything. Nobody likes being forced to do anything they already know is stupid.

[leadpenny]

Whatever. You say we have nothing to argue about and then argue. I think you know what I meant when I said 'creatures.' You're very cleaver but have included a lot more than my original question. The thing I don't understand is the use of the word "environmentalist." Is that name-calling? Are you and environmentalist? Do you think I am? What is the opposite of environmentalist?

[leadpenny]

Now we kill everything.

That'll show 'em! Hope the fishing is good for your children and their children.

[Lower55]

It will be. Less turtles to eat the fish. Less fish to eat the shrimp.

[leadpenny]

Pretty simple. I love it when a plan comes together.

[Dr. Frank fan]

I think you know what I meant when I said 'creatures.'

That's what so-called "environmentalists" always say when I call them on their emotionally-loaded and inaccurate use of language. "You know what I meant when I said 'You want the spotted owl to die off!'", etc. Yes, I know what you meant, but the usage was still incorrect and misleading. Don't you want to use words correctly?

Or do you want to keep misleading people with emotionally loaded arguments?

The thing I don't understand is the use of the word "environmentalist."

What don't you understand? There is a group of people who call themselves "environmentalists" and proceed to dictate matters of property usage to the rest of us based on those... qualifications.

So, I am content to accept their word for themselves. They say they are "environmentalists" and so when I refer to them I use their term for themselves. What's the problem? What term should I use?

Do you object to me putting it in quotes? But, that is only the proper thing to do. I'm quoting them, of course. Someone says "I'm an environmentalist"; thus when I refer to him I call him an "environmentalist", quoting him. What else should I do?

Is that name-calling?

Huh? Only if the self-anointed "enviromentalists" are calling themselves a name. I'm using their word, remember?

Are you and environmentalist?

I wouldn't call myself by this term, no.

On an unrelated note, I do care about the environment and the outdoors and nature and even lots of critters. Not that any of that is necessarily related to whether I'm a so-called "environmentalist", of course.

Do you think I am?

I have no idea nor do I really care. You haven't said that you are so I have no reason to believe that you are. Ok?

What is the opposite of environmentalist?

Since the only qualification for being an "environmentalist" is to call yourself one, it seems to me that the opposite of "environmentalist" is "Someone who does not refer to himself by the term 'environmentalist'".

I hope I've answered your questions to your satisfaction. Let me know if you have any others. Best,

[leadpenny]

I see. We sure wouldn't want emotionally charged words to get in the way. Best to you too.

[Lower55]

It's called natural selection.