ALEXANDRIA, La. (BP)–If you live in Texas, you have 81. North Dakota has only nine. Florida is home to 100 and California has a whopping 276. In fact, every state in America has at least a handful that have the potential to disrupt and even ruin lives.
What is this ominous presence? Plants and/or animals that are protected under the Endangered Species Act as either threatened or endangered.
Signed into law in 1973 by President Nixon, the Endangered Species Act currently has 407 animal species and 598 plant species listed as threatened or endangered. There are two more animals and one plant that are proposed to be added to the ESA. Another 138 animals and 144 plants are candidates for listing.
The odds that you actually have an endangered or threatened species in your area are probably low. However, if the federal government or, heaven forbid, a radical environmental group even believes you might have transgressed the rights of an endangered or threatened species, your life could be turned upside down.
Consider the plight of a Michigan man who in 2003 killed a poisonous snake he thought was a threat to a child. He was found guilty of “killing a protected reptile or amphibian without a state permit.”
James Galloway told the Ann Arbor News that he was walking up a narrow path when he heard a hissing sound. He saw what turned out to be an Eastern Massasauga rattlesnake, Michigan’s only venomous snake.
Galloway indicated that he saw a toddler and her parents walking on the path toward him. After telling the family to stop, he grabbed a stick and used it to pin down the snake. Galloway subsequently killed the snake when he too felt threatened by the reptile.
A woman observing the events and suspecting the snake was protected contacted the authorities via cell phone. A six-member jury convicted Galloway of killing the protected reptile. The maximum punishment for killing the snake: 90 days in jail and a $500 fine.
Galloway indicated that he did not realize it was a crime to kill a poisonous snake. “I am stunned that the snake had more rights than a human being,” he said.
If Galloway were to peruse the Endangered Species Act, he would discover hundreds of animal and plant species that have rights that trump those of humans.
In 2003, a North Carolina logger cut down a tree where bald eagles nested, USA Today reported. David Norwood was fined $95,000 for destroying the eagle habitat. Keep in mind there were no eagles present at the time. He could have received a year in prison and a $100,000 fine.
As bad as it is to run afoul of the ESA, even more nefarious is how environmental groups use it to derail and even destroy responsible and productive American businesses.
Environmental groups used the ESA to successfully block more than 1,400 Southern Oregon farmers from using water from Klamath Lake to irrigate their fields in 2001.
The groups argued that taking water from the lake would put a particular “sucker fish” at risk — and a federal judge in San Francisco agreed. As a result, many farmers in the Klamath Basin lost everything.
The most recent example comes from Arkansas. According to reports, a federal judge in Little Rock has brought to a halt construction on a $320 million irrigation project because it might possibly disturb the habitat of the ivory-billed woodpecker which may or may not even exist.
The ivory-billed bird in question was labeled extinct decades ago, but a 2004 video captured a woodpecker that some believe to be the once-extinct bird. Others maintain it is not and 100 volunteers found nothing this past winter when they went traipsing through the woods trying to substantiate the claim.
Judge William Wilson ruled that due to the lawsuit brought by environmental groups, he had to assume the woodpecker exists. “When an endangered species is allegedly jeopardized, the balance of hardships and public interest tips in favor of the protected species,” the judge said. “Here there is evidence that the ivory-billed woodpecker may be jeopardized.”
Until the Endangered Species Act is somehow retooled, the protected species trumps any and all human interest whenever one of the 975 endangered or threatened species intersect with human beings.
And while the odds are you may not run afoul of the ESA, you could. And if you do, your life will be turned upside down.
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Kelly Boggs, whose column appears each Friday in Baptist Press, is editor of the Baptist Message, newsjournal of the Louisiana Baptist Convention.
