Bush administration moves to end protection for old growth bird

[Khephra]

Going against a recommendation from its own scientists, the Bush administration took another step toward removing the marbled murrelet from the threatened species list, which could ultimately increase logging in old growth forests.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decided Wednesday that marbled murrelets in Washington, Oregon and California, though they continue to decline in population, should not be considered for protection apart from their more abundant cousins in Canada and Alaska.

The marbled murrelet is a robin-sized seabird that spends most of its life at sea, but flies as much as 50 miles inland to lay a single egg in a mossy depression on a large branch of an old-growth conifer. The habitat needs of the murrelet, combined with the northern spotted owl and salmon, resulted in sharp declines in Northwest logging in the past 10 years, particularly on national forests that provide 90 percent of the murrelet's habitat.


Endangered Species Act protection remains in place for the bird on the West Coast, but Fish and Wildlife will review its status across its entire range in the lower 48, British Columbia and Alaska -- a process that could take a year. Depending on what the review finds, Fish and Wildlife could recommend the murrelet be taken off the threatened species list, a process that would take another year.

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2004/09/02/news/state/8_14_209_2_04.txt

[Connie_Corleone]

1. I'm convinced now.

The Bushes and their minions are Reptilians.

[aquart]

2. Another reason for George not to be here next year.

[struggle4progress]

3. kick for a massive wave of extinctions

:kick:

[sandnsea]

4. We're logging in Oregon

Just so's everybody knows. Every single highway in every direction of me is in some stage of clear cut or replant. The only land remotely resembling Old Growth is in some very old State Parks and a few stretches of federal forest land. If logging has slowed here in the last 10 years, I hate to think what it would have looked like otherwise. This is just horrible. Are we just going to let all the animals in the lower 48 die because there's still a few up in Alaska? I hate these people.

[glitch]

5. Same with Washington and California - they're committing waste as fast as

they can cuz they know they won't get another chance at stewardship.

edited to add: and Alaska.

[Gregorian]

7. I'm down near Eureka.

And I spend a lot of time in the forests. I was riding my bike today, and cursing the word "replant". Funny you'd mention it. It's a curse word, to me. And they don't cut the trees near the roadways, down here, so people never realize that everything behind the road, is cut. Just last week I thought I was lost when I was riding along a dirt path. It wasn't dirt last year. It was a dense, lush green forest. Now it's glaring sun, on bare dirt. Really sad. And these were huge trees. In the last few years, they've cut more trees than in the last ten. I see it here, too. Most people don't see it. Only us "lucky" ones who live in what used to be the most beautiful place on earth. My post can't do it justice. You have to see it. And yet, I talked to a woman the other day who thinks that "we will all benefit" when the administration opens up the parks to logging. The are some screwed up people. Life is what they see through the windshield of their car. They are so out of touch. Damn them. I know their grandchildren will.

[sandnsea]

8. I know, I really do

I visited Eureka and the redwoods for the first time back in 1968 or so. I know. I am honestly sick to my stomach. And I just read they're opening up millions of acres along the Appalachian Trail for clear cutting. Can you imagine? What the hell are they thinking??? We have those replants and a hundred yards of roadside trees that hides them from the casual driver. It takes a few times along those roads to look through the breaks and see the devastation behind them. Then they wonder why fires get so hot and burn forests like dried up cornfields. I just do not understand how anybody can be so greedy and callous.

[truthisfreedom]

6. a bird in the hand is worth two more months of bush.

or something.

[Dem2theMax]

9. This makes me sick to my stomach.

This, plus what everyone else has written so far. Forests are my 'heaven on earth.' To say that I hate * and his minions is an understatement. He CANNOT be elected to a second term.
This country won't survive, in any form.

[Carolab]

10. Climb a tree

and stay there...like that woman who lived in one did a few years back in order to save it (sorry, can't remember her name)