My first reaction if I spotted a red-cockaded woodpecker in our
yard would probably be to fill the bird feeder and toss around some
bread. If I saw him twice, I’d most likely buy another birdhouse,
with a hole fitted to woodpeckers.
The last thing I’d do is run for my gun, or cut down the tree.
But that’s exactly what people are doing, thanks to the pro-bird
bureaucrats in the federal government.
In their study of red-cockaded woodpeckers in North Carolina,
“Pre-emptive Habitat Destruction Under the Endangered Species Act,”
economists Dean Lueck, at Montana State University, and Jeffrey A.
Michael, at North Carolina State University, show that landowners
have “pre-emptively destroyed” the habitats of endangered species
in order to avoid potential land-use regulations prescribed under
the Endangered Species Act.
“Under the ESA it is not only illegal to kill an endangered
species, but it is also illegal to damage their habitat,” explain
Lueck and Michael. “By preventing the establishment of an
old-growth pine stand, landowners can ensure that red-cockaded
woodpeckers do not inhabit their land and avoid ESA regulations
that limit or prohibit timber harvest activity.”
Checking data on timber harvesting for 16 years in more than
1,000 individual forests, the professors found that “increases in
the proximity of a plot to red-cockaded woodpeckers increases the
probability that the plot will be harvested and decreases the age
at which the forest is harvested.”
It’s best to cut down the trees, in short, if a woodpecker is
spotted anywhere nearby. It’s sort of like neighbors not wanting a
new pool hall to open in a nearby storefront, lest it attract the
wrong characters. In this case, it’s old-growth trees that might
attract the wrong thing, a bird in allegedly short supply
accompanied by its allies from a heavy-handed regulatory
system.
T.R. Mader, research director at the Abundant Wildlife Society
of North America, provides a specific example: “An elderly couple
in Georgia, needing money for medical expenses, sought to sell
timber on their private land only to be stopped by a bird, the
red-cockaded woodpecker. No, the bird doesn’t live on their land,
but U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the Georgia Forestry
Commission officials reportedly found 17 trees with ‘possible’
abandoned red-cockaded woodpecker nests. The family has lived there
for 80 years. Nobody, including the FWS, has ever seen this
woodpecker on the property.” Still, no birds, no timber harvesting,
no money for medical expenses.
The conclusion by Lueck and Michael? “The Endangered Species Act
actually reduces the amount of endangered species habitat.”
IT’S THE SAME WITH MICE. A study published last December in
Conservation Biology examined the reaction of private landowners to
the listing under the Endangered Species Act of the Preble’s meadow
jumping mouse as “threatened.” More than 30,000 acres in Colorado
and Wyoming are listed as “critical habitat” for the mouse, meaning
mandatory set-asides and restricted building options for
landowners. What the study found was that landowners, once a
species is listed, are more likely to destroy needed habitat than
they are to adopt conservation measures.
More is being destroyed, unfortunately, than wildlife habitat:
In California, people have seen their homes burn to the ground
because they weren’t permitted to create a firewall by plowing
under brush on their own property, brush that was officially
designated as “critical habitat” for kangaroo rats.
In New York, a court, citing endangered species law, ruled that
property owners couldn’t install a short snake-proof fence to
prevent rattlers from freely traversing their land. In Washington
state, four firefighters died in an out-of-control fire in the
Okanogan National Forest after repeated requests to obtain water
from a river containing “endangered” fish were denied by the U.S.
Forest Service.
Robert J. Smith, director of environmental studies at the Cato
Institute, provides the lesson that the government is teaching:
“Make sure there is nothing on your land that might attract
wildlife or rare species. It will merely bring oppressive attention
from federal bureaucrats.” The solution that people have come up
with when they spot something that’s allegedly endangered on their
property? It’s called “shoot, shovel and shut up.”
The government’s answer, in short, has backfired. What started
out as a goal of protecting bald eagles and grizzlies has turned
into a bureaucracy that now puts rats and bugs ahead of property
rights and the lives of firefighters.
