The Bay Trail -- A Disaster for Wildlife

On Mar 27, 11:15 am, Mike Vandeman wrote:

- You have never been out there to see the massive and amazing
diversity and numbers of creatures who inhabit the wetlands near the
trail. Virtually everything except grizz, elk and sea otters are out
there (and none of these were lost due to passive recreation or a
trail), and in vibrant numbers...even salt marsh harvest mice leats
terns and snowy plovers. There is plenty of room too enhance those
habitats too.

As I said, anecdotal evidence is irrelevant.

Like you have anything better to offer? SHOW ME. I have seen these
animals. If you want to call it anecdotal evidence, so be it - but I
know river otters and raptors when I see them.

- You cannot point to a single species that has suffered as a result
of the trail being there, and several have thrived since it has been
in place (on top of old historic levees that have always been used).

You have no way of knowing that, unless you compare with pre-human
numbers.

Of course I don't, dumbkopf! That's why I asked you to SHOW ME! You,
however, have no way of showing me either! I stand by my statement,
and challenge you to SHOW ME!

FURTHERMORE, I am not talking about pre-human numbers, and neither are
you (that was very disingenuous of you, and a poor retort). I have no
doubt that many species are diminished since before the Ohlones were
here, some are extinct, and new ones have moved in. European culture
brought in greater stresses (red foxes, for example), and almost wiped
out the wetlands, which have since been partially restored.

HOWEVER, Mike, you and I are not talking about pre-human numbers, so
your argument does not wash. We are both talking about pre-TRAIL
numbers, and that is probably fairly well known. So I still say, show
me that any species have declined since the trail was established and
people started using it for passive recreation. Prove me wrong. Give
me an intellectual uppercut, if you can.

Your "priorities" are conveniently tailored to accomodate your
preferred form of recreation -- typical of humans: always
rationalizing what they want to do and backing it up with ZERO
science.

I am not the one making extraordinary claims - you are. I invite you
to prove me wrong. If you can, I will stop riding my bike and animal-
watching there, and encourage every other person to do likewise. Go
ahead - SHOW ME! Your prioritiies remain, as I said, utterly screwed
up. I, on the other hand, have first-hand knowledge of the presence
of many species there, and can easily acquire current data on SMHM,
least tern and snowy plovers. I CAN SHOW YOU, but you go first - I
want to see the look on your face.

- I will be happy to go out there WITH YOU, binos and spotting scope
in hand, so you can show me firsthand the hundreds of thousands of
creatures (which we WILL see) who are suffering because we are
watching them.

Irrelevant. Unless you are doing science, you are proving nothing.

You arrogant lying coward. I can show you firsthand the presence of
creatures in the wetlands. That IS Science, in its purest, most
fundamental form. I will prove they are there beyond a shadow of a
doubt (unless, of course, you are prone to hallucinations, which would
not surprise me).

Contacting me is not hard - I am at the Alameda County
Planning Dept. in Hayward.

That explains a lot. Hayward is the armpit of Alameda County. E.g.
there is NO safe bike route from Hayward BART to West Winton Ave. The
bayshore in Hayward is a dump. Literally! Plan THAT! Tell me about how
the wildlife are "thriving" in the midst of all the broken glass....
And about how bicycle-friendly Hayward is....

You frigging gutless demagogue. I am a planner for the County, not
the City. The City planner so ftoday inherited a mess, and so did the
EBRPD, and they've worked wonders for it. When was the last time you
looked at the wetlands here with your own eyes, you worthless pathetic
overblown sack of putrid fartgas?

This last statement of yours proves you have nothing to offer except
bigotry and bias. My OFFER however, still stands, despite the fact
that it will be hard for me to look you in the eye without laughing
and barfing simultaneously. If you come out here, you pathetic
coward, I will SHOW YOU you how the wildlife is thriving in the
"dump," pushing your stupid reckless uninformed theory even farther
out on the ledge where it is about to jump off and crash and burn.
The place is full of thousands of birds and mammals and I CAN PROVE
IT. It is subject to natural tidal influences and I CAN PROVE IT. It
is a working and vital ecosystem, and I CAN PROVE IT. Your stupid
uninformed bloviations cannot change what is on the ground, and I CAN
PROVE IT.

This Saturday morning? Anytime from 1 hour before sunrise is fine
with me - I'll give you an eyeful. What do you say? Grant Avenue,
Winton Avenue, the Hayward Shoreline, doesn't matter - they're all
plenty lively with critters, and I am willing to walk the whole
thing. I promise I will resist the urge to rub your nose in the
copious amounts of animal dung from the many species who call it
home...

By the way, I ride my bike in Hayward and I am still alive after all
these years - imagine that!

Bruce Jensen

....

On Mar 26, 7:52 pm, Mike Vandeman wrote:
On 26 Mar 2007 05:31:24 -0700, "Olebiker" wrote:
They are not endangered simply due to contact with humans.

I never said they are.

I will quote you, "But it's equally obvious that we need to stay out
of it, if it is to survive."

But it is certainly a major impact, and when
1/4 of the world's species are in danger of extinction, we can't
afford ANY threats. Or LYING about wildlife "thriving". Look it up in
the dictionary, before you use it again.

The fact that you don't agree with me does not make me a liar.

We're talking about whole species here, Mike, not individual animals.
Individual animals have always been killed by predators without entire
species being killed off.

Predators certainly don't help. Nor does human presence. Both restrict
usable habitat.

So, should we make territory off limits to predators also?

Whether our presence is beneficial to them or not is not what we are
discussing here. What we are talking about is whether our presence
necessarily endangers whole species.

Endangerment has many contributing factors. The presence of humans is
one of them. Loss of habitat is the greatest factor. The presence of
humans makes habitat unavailable or less effective, contributing to
extinction. Besides, extinction isn't the only concern about wildlife.
Loss of biodiversity is also important.

Every time you eat a leaf of lettuce, you impact the biodiversity of
the world's flora, too. You have to accept that you are not going to
be able to preserve every possible genetic variable.

You are trying to reframe the discussion into whether our presence is
beneficial to wildlife.

Of course. That's a major factor harming wildlife.

Humans are here. They (we) are going to stay. You can choose to do
something positive, such as creating and maintaining wildlife habitat
like groups like Ducks Unlimited have done, or you can sit on your
poseur ass in California, read books and throw brickbats. What have
you actually done to increase wildlife habitat? How about all those
trips abroad for amateur hour to present your essays? How much damage
have you done to the environment with all your jet trips? Don't you
realize the damage done to the ozone layer?

Over the years I have checked many of the books you reference,
especially your bible, "Wildlife and Recreationists." I have never
found any scientific evidence in any of those books supporting your
claim that wildlife need territory off limits to humans.

Then you don't know how to think.

No, Mike, I know how to think and, better than that, I know how to
act. You take scholarly publications, make a list of them, and claim
that they support your sick point of view. You misuse real science.
Years ago I challenged you to do more than just provide a bibliography
and cite chapter and verse of your favorite books that support your
views. You refused to do it because you can't.

You are a liar, a poseur, and you damage the efforts to promote
wildlife and biodiversity.

That book catalogs several ways in
which the PRESENCE OF HUMANS harms wildlife. The only way to eliminate
that harm is to remove humans. DUH!

No, it doesn't. It catalogues ways in which destruction of habitat
due to activities such as building ski resorts reduces the amount of
land wildlife has available to it.

Some of it is absolutely ludicrous, like Chapter 11, "Indirect Effects
of Recreationists on Wildlife." They criticize the mere act of
walking on the grass.

Unequivocal, Olebiker, "warming of the climate system is unequivocal"

http://www.time.com/time/health/arti...603320,00.html
Warming May Create Climates, Cut Others

Some climates may disappear from Earth entirely, not just from their
current locations, while new climates could develop if the planet
continues to warm, a study says. Such changes would endanger some
plants and animals while providing new opportunities for others, said
John W. Williams, an assistant professor of geography at the
University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Using global change forecasts prepared for the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change, researchers led by Williams used computer models to
estimate how climates in various parts of the world would be affected.
Their findings are being published in this week's online edition of
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The IPCC, representing the world's leading climate scientists,
reported in February that "warming of the climate system is
unequivocal, as is now evident from observation of increases in global
average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice
and rising global average sea level."

Tropical regions in particular may face unexpected changes,
particularly the rain forests in the Amazon and Indonesia, Williams'
researchers concluded.

This was surprising, Williams said in a telephone interview, since the
tropics tend to have little variation in weather.

But that also means temperature changes of 3 or 4 degrees in these
regions might have more impact than a change of 5 to 8 degrees in a
region that is accustomed to regular changes.

Species living in tropical areas may be less able to adapt, he said,
adding that that is speculative and needs further study.

Areas like the Southeastern United States and the Arabian Peninsula
may also be affected, the researchers said, adding that mountain areas
such as in Peruvian and Colombian Andes and regions such as Siberia
and southern Australia face a risk of climates disappearing
altogether.

That doesn't mean these regions would have no climate at all - rather
their climate would change and the conditions currently in these areas
would not occur elsewhere on Earth.

That would pose a risk to species living in those areas, Williams
observed.

If some regions develop new climates that don't now exist, that might
provide an opportunity for species that live there, Williams said.
"But we can't make a prediction because it's outside our current
experience and outside the experience of these species

On 27 Mar 2007 17:38:03 GMT, Chris wrote:

Mike,
He invited you to actually GO SEE the issue first hand. Why not take
him up??

You missed the point. Looking is not science. You only see what
animals & plants are there, not the ones that were destroyed or driven
away. DUH!
===
I am working on creating wildlife habitat that is off-limits to
humans ("pure habitat"). Want to help? (I spent the previous 8
years fighting auto dependence and road construction.)

Please don't put a cell phone next to any part of your body that you are fond of!

http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande

Unequivocal, Mike Vandeman, "warming of the climate system is
unequivocal"

http://www.time.com/time/health/arti...603320,00.html
Warming May Create Climates, Cut Others

Some climates may disappear from Earth entirely, not just from their
current locations, while new climates could develop if the planet
continues to warm, a study says. Such changes would endanger some
plants and animals while providing new opportunities for others, said
John W. Williams, an assistant professor of geography at the
University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Using global change forecasts prepared for the Intergovernmental Panel
on Climate Change, researchers led by Williams used computer models to
estimate how climates in various parts of the world would be affected.
Their findings are being published in this week's online edition of
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The IPCC, representing the world's leading climate scientists,
reported in February that "warming of the climate system is
unequivocal, as is now evident from observation of increases in global
average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice
and rising global average sea level."

Tropical regions in particular may face unexpected changes,
particularly the rain forests in the Amazon and Indonesia, Williams'
researchers concluded.

This was surprising, Williams said in a telephone interview, since the
tropics tend to have little variation in weather.

But that also means temperature changes of 3 or 4 degrees in these
regions might have more impact than a change of 5 to 8 degrees in a
region that is accustomed to regular changes.

Species living in tropical areas may be less able to adapt, he said,
adding that that is speculative and needs further study.

Areas like the Southeastern United States and the Arabian Peninsula
may also be affected, the researchers said, adding that mountain areas
such as in Peruvian and Colombian Andes and regions such as Siberia
and southern Australia face a risk of climates disappearing
altogether.

That doesn't mean these regions would have no climate at all - rather
their climate would change and the conditions currently in these areas
would not occur elsewhere on Earth.

That would pose a risk to species living in those areas, Williams
observed.

If some regions develop new climates that don't now exist, that might
provide an opportunity for species that live there, Williams said.
"But we can't make a prediction because it's outside our current
experience and outside the experience of these species

On Mar 27, 7:29 pm, Mike Vandeman wrote:
On 27 Mar 2007 17:38:03 GMT, Chris wrote:

Mike,
He invited you to actually GO SEE the issue first hand. Why not take
him up??

You missed the point. Looking is not science. You only see what
animals & plants are there, not the ones that were destroyed or driven
away. DUH!
===

Like I said, looking and recording is the first step to science - DUH
No. 1. You can add to thgis recent observations by other skilled
watchers as well (oh, wait, but Mike says that that's only hearsay and
not allowable in his own special court of law...Phoeey! - it's
perfectly OK to use bird lists and observations, you whack-job - if
not for observations, NO SCIENCE would ever get accomplished).

Like I also said, after you look, you can lookup what the records show
just prior to trail use (which is after all, the variable we are
concerned with - right Mike? Or have you changed the variable again
for your convenience?) - DUH No. 2.

The equation after this becomes simple. You either see what was there
before or you don't and draw conclusions. That's science at its
simplest, but science nonetheless. Only then CAN YOU KNOW what
animals were destroyed or driven away. DUH NO. 3.

By the way, if we use your own definition of science, that
observations by others - even yourself, apparently - cannot be used,
then it is impossible to know what was out there prior to any time, or
even currently. By that admission alone, YOU cannot make the claim
that animals are destroyed or runoff...and your own hypothesis
collapses on itself. For you to insist that you are right makes you a
liar.

Your choice Mike. You can put your money where your mouth is, or you
can be branded the coward you always wanted to be. I think, and this
is only a hypothesis but a damned good one, that you are scared you
will see thriving animals that you think shouldn't be living in what
you term a pile of broken glass! Fine - the birders and wildlife
watchers who use the site and have great experiences will have one
less psychopath to trip over when they set up their scopes.

Mike, I dare you - come and see the lack of wildlife you purport there
to be out there. Educate yourself for a change. But know this -
until you do, you do not have the right to call anyone else a liar on
this subject. I see what's out there; I know what's out there - and
you, sir, DO NOT, because you don't have the courage of your
convictions, the nerve to see for yourself and compare to historic
records.

Think carefully. You're about to totally lose the last shreds of
respect of a person who should be your ally.

Bruce Jensen

Coal Interests Fight Polar Bear Action :: Unequivocal, Bruce Jensen,
"warming of the climate system is unequivocal"

http://www.statesman.com/blogs/conte...interests.html
Coal Interests Fight Polar Bear Action

An organization representing companies that mine coal and burn it to
make electricity has called on its members to fight the proposed
listing of the polar bear as an endangered or threatened species.

"This will essentially declare 'open season' for environmental lawyers
to sue to block viirtually any project that involves carbon dioxide
emissions," the Western Business Roundtable said in an e-mail.

To settle a lawsuit by environmental groups, the Department of
Interior announced last month that it would take a year to consider
whether global warming and melting Arctic ice justifies declaring the
bear "endangered" or "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act.

"This seems a little unfair, pitting all those big coal companies and
power companies against the poor polar bear," sniffed Frank O'Donnell,
president of Clean Air Watch.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/20...urce=whitelist

Inside the secretive plan to gut the Endangered Species Act

Proposed regulatory changes, obtained by Salon, would destroy the
"safety net for animals and plants on the brink of extinction," say
environmentalists.

By Rebecca Clarren
Print Email Digg it Del.icio.us My Yahoo RSS Font: S / S+ / S++
story image

March 27, 2007 | The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is maneuvering to
fundamentally weaken the Endangered Species Act, its strategy laid out
in an internal 117-page draft proposal obtained by Salon. The proposed
changes limit the number of species that can be protected and curtail
the acres of wildlife habitat to be preserved. It shifts authority to
enforce the act from the federal government to the states, and it
dilutes legal barriers that protect habitat from sprawl, logging or
mining.

"The proposed changes fundamentally gut the intent of the Endangered
Species Act," says Jan Hasselman, a Seattle attorney with
Earthjustice, an environmental law firm, who helped Salon interpret
the proposal. "This is a no-holds-barred end run around one of
America's most popular environmental protections. If these regulations
stand up, the act will no longer provide a safety net for animals and
plants on the brink of extinction."

In recent months, the Fish and Wildlife Service has gone to
extraordinary efforts to keep drafts of regulatory changes from the
public. All copies of the working document were given a number
corresponding to a person, so that leaked copies could be traced to
that individual. An e-mail sent in March from an assistant regional
director at the Fish and Wildlife Service to agency staff, asking for
comments on and corrections to the first draft, underscored the
concern with secrecy: "Please Keep close hold for now. Dale [Hall,
director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service] does not want this
stuff leaking out to stir up discontent based on speculation."

Many Fish and Wildlife Service employees believe the draft is not
based on "defensible science," says a federal employee who asked to
remain anonymous. Yet "there is genuine fear of retaliation for
communicating that to the media. People are afraid for their jobs."

Chris Tollefson, a spokesperson for the service, says that while it's
accurate to characterize the agency as trying to keep the draft under
wraps, the agency has every intention of communicating with the public
about the proposed changes; the draft just hasn't been ready. And, he
adds, it could still be changed as part of a forthcoming formal review
process.

Administration critics characterize the secrecy as a way to maintain
spin control, says Kieran Suckling, policy director of the Center for
Biological Diversity, a national environmental group. "This
administration will often release a 300-page-long document at a press
conference for a newspaper story that will go to press in two hours,
giving the media or public no opportunity to digest it and figure out
what's going on," Suckling says. "[Interior Secretary Dirk] Kempthorne
will give a feel-good quote about how the new regulations are good for
the environment, and they can win the public relations war."

In some ways, the proposed changes to the Endangered Species Act
should come as no surprise. President Bush has hardly been one of its
fans. Under his reign, the administration has granted 57 species
endangered status, the action in each case being prompted by a
lawsuit. That's fewer than in any other administration in history --
and far fewer than were listed during the administrations of Reagan
(253), Clinton (521) or Bush I (234). Furthermore, during this
administration, nearly half of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
employees who work with endangered species reported that they had been
directed by their superiors to ignore scientific evidence that would
result in recommendations for the protection of species, according to
a 2005 survey of more than 1,400 service biologists, ecologists and
botanists conducted by Public Employees for Environmental
Responsibility, a nonprofit organization.

"We are not allowed to be honest and forthright, we are expected to
rubber stamp everything," wrote a Fish and Wildlife Service biologist
as part of the survey. "I have 20 years of federal service in this and
this is the worst it has ever been."

The agency has long seen a need to improve the act, says Tollefson.
"This is a look at what's possible," he says. "Too much of our time as
an agency is spent responding to litigation rather than working on
recovering the species that are most in need. The current way the act
is run creates disincentives for people to get involved with
recovering species."

Kempthorne, boss of the Fish and Wildlife Service, has been an
outspoken critic of the act. When he was a U.S. senator from Idaho in
the late 1990s, he championed legislation that would have allowed
government agencies to exempt their actions from Endangered Species
Act regulations, and would have required federal agents to conduct
cost-benefit analyses when considering whether to list a species as
endangered. (The legislation failed.) Last June, in his early days as
interior secretary, Kempthorne told reporters, "I really believe that
we can make improvements to the act itself."

Kempthorne is keeping good on his promise. The proposed draft is
littered with language lifted directly from both Kempthorne's 1998
legislation as well as from a contentious bill by former Rep. Richard
Pombo, R-Calif. (which was also shot down by Congress). It's "a wish
list of regulations that the administration and its industry allies
have been talking about for years," says Suckling.

Written in terse, dry legal language, the proposed draft doesn't make
for easy reading. However, the changes, often seemingly subtle,
generally serve to strip the Fish and Wildlife Service of the power to
do its stated job: to protect wildlife. Some verge on the biologically
ridiculous, say critics, while others are a clear concession to
industry and conservative Western governors who have long complained
that the act degrades the economies of their states by preventing
natural-resource extraction.

One change would significantly limit the number of species eligible
for endangered status. Currently, if a species is likely to become
extinct in "the foreseeable future" -- a species-specific timeframe
that can stretch up to 300 years -- it's a candidate for act
protections. However, the new rules scale back that timeline to mean
either 20 years or 10 generations (the agency can choose which
timeline). For certain species with long life spans, such as killer
whales, grizzly bears or wolves, two decades isn't even one
generation. So even if they might be in danger of extinction, they
would not make the endangered species list because they'd be unlikely
to die out in two decades.

"It makes absolutely no sense biologically," wrote Hasselman in an e-
mail. "One of the Act's weaknesses is that species aren't protected
until they're already in trouble and this proposal puts that flaw on
steroids."

Perhaps the most significant proposed change gives state governors the
opportunity and funding to take over virtually every aspect of the act
from the federal government. This includes not only the right to
create species-recovery plans and the power to veto the reintroduction
of endangered species within state boundaries, but even the authority
to determine what plants and animals get protection. For plants and
animals in Western states, that's bad news: State politicians
throughout the region howled in opposition to the reintroduction of
the Mexican gray wolf into Arizona and the Northern Rockies wolf into
Yellowstone National Park.

"If states are involved, the act would only get minimally enforced,"
says Bob Hallock, a recently retired 34-year veteran of the Fish and
Wildlife Service who, as an endangered species specialist, worked with
state agencies in Idaho, Washington and Montana. "States are, if
anything, closer to special economic interests. They're more
manipulated. The states have not demonstrated the will or interest in
upholding the act. It's why we created a federal law in the first
place."

Additional tweaks in the law would have a major impact. For instance,
the proposal would narrow the definition of a species' geographic
range from the landscape it inhabited historically to the land it
currently occupies. Since the main reason most plants and animals head
toward extinction is due to limited habitat, the change would strongly
hamper the government's ability to protect chunks of land and allow
for a healthy recovery in the wild.

The proposal would also allow both ongoing and planned projects by
such federal agencies as the Army Corps of Engineers and the Forest
Service to go forward, even when scientific evidence indicates that
the projects may drive a species to extinction. Under the new
regulations, as long as the dam or logging isn't hastening the
previous rate of extinction, it's approved. "This makes recovery of
species impossible," says Suckling. (You can read the entire proposal,
a PDF file, here.)

Gutting the Endangered Species Act will only thicken the pall that has
hung over the Fish and Wildlife Service for the past six years,
Hallock says. "They [the Bush administration] don't want the
regulations to be effective. People in the agency are like a bunch of
whipped dogs," he says. "I think it's just unacceptable to go around
squashing other species; they're of incalculable benefit to us. The
optimism we had when this agency started has absolutely been dashed."


http://www.earthjustice.org/news/pre...otections.html
Bush Administration Rewrite of Endangered Species Act Regulations
Would Gut Protections

Hush-hush proposal "a no-holds-barred end run around one of America's
most popular laws"

Washington, DC -- A secret draft of regulations that fundamentally
rewrite the Endangered Species Act was leaked to two environmental
organizations, which provided them to the press last night An article
in Salon quotes Earthjustice attorney Jan Hasselman saying, "The
proposed changes fundamentally gut the intent of the Endangered
Species Act."

The changes are fiercely technical and complicated, but make future
listings extremely difficult, redefine key concepts to the detriment
of protected species, virtually hand over administration of the act to
hostile states, and severely restrict habitat protections.

Many of the changes -- lifted from unsuccessful legislative proposals
from then-Senator (now Interior Secretary) Dirk Kempthorne and the
recently defeated congressman Richard Pombo -- are reactions to
policies and practices established as a result of litigation filed by
environmental organizations including Earthjustice.

"After the failure of these legislative proposals in the last
Congress, the Bush administration has opted to gut the Endangered
Species Act through the only avenue left open: administrative
regulations," said Hasselman. "This end-run around the will of
Congress and the American people will not succeed."

A major change would make it more difficult for a species to gain
protection, by scaling back the "foreseeable future" timeframe in
which to consider whether a species is likely to become extinct.
Instead of looking far enough ahead to be able to reasonably determine
whether a species could be heading for extinction, the new regulations
would drastically shorten the timeframe to either 20 years or 10
generations at the agency's discretion. For species with long
generations like killer whales and grizzly bears, this truncated view
of the future isn't nearly enough time to accurately predict whether
they are at-risk now.

"These draft regulations represent a total rejection of the values
held by the vast majority Americans: that we have a responsibility to
protect imperiled species and the special places they call home," said
Kate Freund, Legislative Associate at Earthjustice.

According to several sources within the Fish and Wildlife Service
quoted by Salon, hostility to the law within the agency has never been
so intense. "I have 20 years of federal service in this and this is
the worst it has ever been," one unnamed source is quoted as saying.

In addition, the proposal would allow projects by the Forest Service
and other agencies to proceed even if scientific evidence suggests
that the projects might drive species to extinction so long as the
rate of decline doesn't accelerate owing to the project.

The Bush administration's antipathy to the law is shown by the numbers
of species it has protected, in each case as the result of litigation
-- 57. By comparison, 253 species were listed during the Reagan
administration, 521 under Clinton, and 234 under Bush I.

The administration reportedly had expected to reveal the new
regulations in a few weeks. The draft regulations must be published in
the Federal Register for public comment before they can become final,
which is likely to be at least a year off.

Contact:

Jan Hasselman, Earthjustice, (206) 343-7340, ext. 25

On 27 Mar 2007 13:05:58 -0700, "Bruce Jensen"
wrote:

On Mar 27, 11:15 am, Mike Vandeman wrote:

- You have never been out there to see the massive and amazing
diversity and numbers of creatures who inhabit the wetlands near the
trail. Virtually everything except grizz, elk and sea otters are out
there (and none of these were lost due to passive recreation or a
trail), and in vibrant numbers...even salt marsh harvest mice leats
terns and snowy plovers. There is plenty of room too enhance those
habitats too.

As I said, anecdotal evidence is irrelevant.

Like you have anything better to offer? SHOW ME. I have seen these
animals. If you want to call it anecdotal evidence, so be it - but I
know river otters and raptors when I see them.

You continue to miss the point. If you see one river otter (or 10),
but last year, unknown to you, there were a hundred times as many,
what good is it to crow about what you see? Answer THAT, and stop
evading.

- You cannot point to a single species that has suffered as a result
of the trail being there, and several have thrived since it has been
in place (on top of old historic levees that have always been used).

You have no way of knowing that, unless you compare with pre-human
numbers.

Of course I don't, dumbkopf! That's why I asked you to SHOW ME! You,
however, have no way of showing me either! I stand by my statement,
and challenge you to SHOW ME!

All you have to do is read the journals of the explorers. But you
already knew that, and are apparently playing dumb.

FURTHERMORE, I am not talking about pre-human numbers, and neither are
you (that was very disingenuous of you, and a poor retort).

It's an analogy. The point is that you only see PRESENT numbers. ONE
observation is meaningless.

I have no
doubt that many species are diminished since before the Ohlones were
here, some are extinct, and new ones have moved in. European culture
brought in greater stresses (red foxes, for example), and almost wiped
out the wetlands, which have since been partially restored.

So you can't call today's numbers "thriving". DUH!

HOWEVER, Mike, you and I are not talking about pre-human numbers, so
your argument does not wash. We are both talking about pre-TRAIL
numbers, and that is probably fairly well known. So I still say, show
me that any species have declined since the trail was established and
people started using it for passive recreation. Prove me wrong. Give
me an intellectual uppercut, if you can.

It's pretty obvious. If you approach a bird, it flies away. This isn't
rocket science. Do you really need me to PROVE to you that animals run
away when you approach them (and if you do it often enough, leave for
good)?! Come on! We all learned that at about age 3 or 4.

Your "priorities" are conveniently tailored to accomodate your
preferred form of recreation -- typical of humans: always
rationalizing what they want to do and backing it up with ZERO
science.

I am not the one making extraordinary claims - you are.

Yes, you a you claimed that wildlife don't need human-free habitat
to thrive. Most species do.

I invite you
to prove me wrong. If you can, I will stop riding my bike and animal-
watching there, and encourage every other person to do likewise. Go
ahead - SHOW ME! Your prioritiies remain, as I said, utterly screwed
up. I, on the other hand, have first-hand knowledge of the presence
of many species there, and can easily acquire current data on SMHM,
least tern and snowy plovers. I CAN SHOW YOU, but you go first - I
want to see the look on your face.

I already pointed to several books, which you pooh-poohed. I don't
think ANY amount of evidence will convince you.

- I will be happy to go out there WITH YOU, binos and spotting scope
in hand, so you can show me firsthand the hundreds of thousands of
creatures (which we WILL see) who are suffering because we are
watching them.

Irrelevant. Unless you are doing science, you are proving nothing.

You arrogant lying coward. I can show you firsthand the presence of
creatures in the wetlands. That IS Science, in its purest, most
fundamental form. I will prove they are there beyond a shadow of a
doubt (unless, of course, you are prone to hallucinations, which would
not surprise me).

Oh, sure. Try to PUBLISH your observations in a SCIENTIFIC JOURNAL,
and then tell me that you've done science. We already know, and have
known for over 100 years that those animals are there. You are 100
years late in publishing those observations. Even 100 years ago, that
isn't enough to be accepted as science. Darwin developed observations
into the theory of evolution. All you do is try to justify your
favorite form of recreation. Quite different!

Contacting me is not hard - I am at the Alameda County
Planning Dept. in Hayward.

That explains a lot. Hayward is the armpit of Alameda County. E.g.
there is NO safe bike route from Hayward BART to West Winton Ave. The
bayshore in Hayward is a dump. Literally! Plan THAT! Tell me about how
the wildlife are "thriving" in the midst of all the broken glass....
And about how bicycle-friendly Hayward is....

You frigging gutless demagogue. I am a planner for the County, not
the City. The City planner so ftoday inherited a mess, and so did the
EBRPD, and they've worked wonders for it. When was the last time you
looked at the wetlands here with your own eyes, you worthless pathetic
overblown sack of putrid fartgas?

Careful, your true nature is showing.

This last statement of yours proves you have nothing to offer except
bigotry and bias. My OFFER however, still stands, despite the fact
that it will be hard for me to look you in the eye without laughing
and barfing simultaneously. If you come out here, you pathetic
coward, I will SHOW YOU you how the wildlife is thriving in the
"dump,"

No honest person could call that junk pile "thriving".

pushing your stupid reckless uninformed theory even farther
out on the ledge where it is about to jump off and crash and burn.
The place is full of thousands of birds and mammals and I CAN PROVE
IT. It is subject to natural tidal influences and I CAN PROVE IT. It
is a working and vital ecosystem, and I CAN PROVE IT. Your stupid
uninformed bloviations cannot change what is on the ground, and I CAN
PROVE IT.

This Saturday morning? Anytime from 1 hour before sunrise is fine
with me - I'll give you an eyeful. What do you say? Grant Avenue,
Winton Avenue, the Hayward Shoreline, doesn't matter - they're all
plenty lively with critters, and I am willing to walk the whole
thing. I promise I will resist the urge to rub your nose in the
copious amounts of animal dung from the many species who call it
home...

No, thanks. It would prove nothing. Now find me some recent studies on
the effects of recreation on wildlife. That would be more to the
point.

By the way, I ride my bike in Hayward and I am still alive after all
these years - imagine that!

Must be a "Hummer" bike. I used to cross the railroad tracks, just
to avoid the W. Winton death trap, I mean, overpass.

Bruce Jensen
===
I am working on creating wildlife habitat that is off-limits to
humans ("pure habitat"). Want to help? (I spent the previous 8
years fighting auto dependence and road construction.)

Please don't put a cell phone next to any part of your body that you are fond of!

http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande

On Mar 27, 7:08 pm, wrote:
Coal Interests Fight Polar Bear Action :: Unequivocal, Mike Vandeman,
"warming of the climate system is unequivocal"

http://www.statesman.com/blogs/conte...interests.html
Coal Interests Fight Polar Bear Action

An organization representing companies that mine coal and burn it to
make electricity has called on its members to fight the proposed
listing of the polar bear as an endangered or threatened species.

"This will essentially declare 'open season' for environmental lawyers
to sue to block viirtually any project that involves carbon dioxide
emissions," the Western Business Roundtable said in an e-mail.

To settle a lawsuit by environmental groups, the Department of
Interior announced last month that it would take a year to consider
whether global warming and melting Arctic ice justifies declaring the
bear "endangered" or "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act.

"This seems a little unfair, pitting all those big coal companies and
power companies against the poor polar bear," sniffed Frank O'Donnell,
president of Clean Air Watch.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/20...urce=whitelist

Inside the secretive plan to gut the Endangered Species Act

Proposed regulatory changes, obtained by Salon, would destroy the
"safety net for animals and plants on the brink of extinction," say
environmentalists.

By Rebecca Clarren
Print Email Digg it Del.icio.us My Yahoo RSS Font: S / S+ / S++
story image

March 27, 2007 | The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is maneuvering to
fundamentally weaken the Endangered Species Act, its strategy laid out
in an internal 117-page draft proposal obtained by Salon. The proposed
changes limit the number of species that can be protected and curtail
the acres of wildlife habitat to be preserved. It shifts authority to
enforce the act from the federal government to the states, and it
dilutes legal barriers that protect habitat from sprawl, logging or
mining.

"The proposed changes fundamentally gut the intent of the Endangered
Species Act," says Jan Hasselman, a Seattle attorney with
Earthjustice, an environmental law firm, who helped Salon interpret
the proposal. "This is a no-holds-barred end run around one of
America's most popular environmental protections. If these regulations
stand up, the act will no longer provide a safety net for animals and
plants on the brink of extinction."

In recent months, the Fish and Wildlife Service has gone to
extraordinary efforts to keep drafts of regulatory changes from the
public. All copies of the working document were given a number
corresponding to a person, so that leaked copies could be traced to
that individual. An e-mail sent in March from an assistant regional
director at the Fish and Wildlife Service to agency staff, asking for
comments on and corrections to the first draft, underscored the
concern with secrecy: "Please Keep close hold for now. Dale [Hall,
director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service] does not want this
stuff leaking out to stir up discontent based on speculation."

Many Fish and Wildlife Service employees believe the draft is not
based on "defensible science," says a federal employee who asked to
remain anonymous. Yet "there is genuine fear of retaliation for
communicating that to the media. People are afraid for their jobs."

Chris Tollefson, a spokesperson for the service, says that while it's
accurate to characterize the agency as trying to keep the draft under
wraps, the agency has every intention of communicating with the public
about the proposed changes; the draft just hasn't been ready. And, he
adds, it could still be changed as part of a forthcoming formal review
process.

Administration critics characterize the secrecy as a way to maintain
spin control, says Kieran Suckling, policy director of the Center for
Biological Diversity, a national environmental group. "This
administration will often release a 300-page-long document at a press
conference for a newspaper story that will go to press in two hours,
giving the media or public no opportunity to digest it and figure out
what's going on," Suckling says. "[Interior Secretary Dirk] Kempthorne
will give a feel-good quote about how the new regulations are good for
the environment, and they can win the public relations war."

In some ways, the proposed changes to the Endangered Species Act
should come as no surprise. President Bush has hardly been one of its
fans. Under his reign, the administration has granted 57 species
endangered status, the action in each case being prompted by a
lawsuit. That's fewer than in any other administration in history --
and far fewer than were listed during the administrations of Reagan
(253), Clinton (521) or Bush I (234). Furthermore, during this
administration, nearly half of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
employees who work with endangered species reported that they had been
directed by their superiors to ignore scientific evidence that would
result in recommendations for the protection of species, according to
a 2005 survey of more than 1,400 service biologists, ecologists and
botanists conducted by Public Employees for Environmental
Responsibility, a nonprofit organization.

"We are not allowed to be honest and forthright, we are expected to
rubber stamp everything," wrote a Fish and Wildlife Service biologist
as part of the survey. "I have 20 years of federal service in this and
this is the worst it has ever been."

The agency has long seen a need to improve the act, says Tollefson.
"This is a look at what's possible," he says. "Too much of our time as
an agency is spent responding to litigation rather than working on
recovering the species that are most in need. The current way the act
is run creates disincentives for people to get involved with
recovering species."

Kempthorne, boss of the Fish and Wildlife Service, has been an
outspoken critic of the act. When he was a U.S. senator from Idaho in
the late 1990s, he championed legislation that would have allowed
government agencies to exempt their actions from Endangered Species
Act regulations, and would have required federal agents to conduct
cost-benefit analyses when considering whether to list a species as
endangered. (The legislation failed.) Last June, in his early days as
interior secretary, Kempthorne told reporters, "I really believe that
we can make improvements to the act itself."

Kempthorne is keeping good on his promise. The proposed draft is
littered with language lifted directly from both Kempthorne's 1998
legislation as well as from a contentious bill by former Rep. Richard
Pombo, R-Calif. (which was also shot down by Congress). It's "a wish
list of regulations that the administration and its industry allies
have been talking about for years," says Suckling.

Written in terse, dry legal language, the proposed draft doesn't make
for easy reading. However, the changes, often seemingly subtle,
generally serve to strip the Fish and Wildlife Service of the power to
do its stated job: to protect wildlife. Some verge on the biologically
ridiculous, say critics, while others are a clear concession to
industry and conservative Western governors who have long complained
that the act degrades the economies of their states by preventing
natural-resource extraction.

One change would significantly limit the number of species eligible
for endangered status. Currently, if a species is likely to become
extinct in "the foreseeable future" -- a species-specific timeframe
that can stretch up to 300 years -- it's a candidate for act
protections. However, the new rules scale back that timeline to mean
either 20 years or 10 generations (the agency can choose which
timeline). For certain species with long life spans, such as killer
whales, grizzly bears or wolves, two decades isn't even one
generation. So even if they might be in danger of extinction, they
would not make the endangered species list because they'd be unlikely
to die out in two decades.

"It makes absolutely no sense biologically," wrote Hasselman in an e-
mail. "One of the Act's weaknesses is that species aren't protected
until they're already in trouble and this proposal puts that flaw on
steroids."

Perhaps the most significant proposed change gives state governors the
opportunity and funding to take over virtually every aspect of the act
from the federal government. This includes not only the right to
create species-recovery plans and the power to veto the reintroduction
of endangered species within state boundaries, but even the authority
to determine what plants and animals get protection. For plants and
animals in Western states, that's bad news: State politicians
throughout the region howled in opposition to the reintroduction of
the Mexican gray wolf into Arizona and the Northern Rockies wolf into
Yellowstone National Park.

"If states are involved, the act would only get minimally enforced,"
says Bob Hallock, a recently retired 34-year veteran of the Fish and
Wildlife Service who, as an endangered species specialist, worked with
state agencies in Idaho, Washington and Montana. "States are, if
anything, closer to special economic interests. They're more
manipulated. The states have not demonstrated the will or interest in
upholding the act. It's why we created a federal law in the first
place."

Additional tweaks in the law would have a major impact. For instance,
the proposal would narrow the definition of a species' geographic
range from the landscape it inhabited historically to the land it
currently occupies. Since the main reason most plants and animals head
toward extinction is due to limited habitat, the change would strongly
hamper the government's ability to protect chunks of land and allow
for a healthy recovery in the wild.

The proposal would also allow both ongoing and planned projects by
such federal agencies as the Army Corps of Engineers and the Forest
Service to go forward, even when scientific evidence indicates that
the projects may drive a species to extinction. Under the new
regulations, as long as the dam or logging isn't hastening the
previous rate of extinction, it's approved. "This makes recovery of
species impossible," says Suckling. (You can read the entire proposal,
a PDF file, here.)

Gutting the Endangered Species Act will only thicken the pall that has
hung over the Fish and Wildlife Service for the past six years,
Hallock says. "They [the Bush administration] don't want the
regulations to be effective. People in the agency are like a bunch of
whipped dogs," he says. "I think it's just unacceptable to go around
squashing other species; they're of incalculable benefit to us. The
optimism we had when this agency started has absolutely been dashed."


http://www.earthjustice.org/news/pre...otections.html
Bush Administration Rewrite of Endangered Species Act Regulations
Would Gut Protections

Hush-hush proposal "a no-holds-barred end run around one of America's
most popular laws"

Washington, DC -- A secret draft of regulations that fundamentally
rewrite the Endangered Species Act was leaked to two environmental
organizations, which provided them to the press last night An article
in Salon quotes Earthjustice attorney Jan Hasselman saying, "The
proposed changes fundamentally gut the intent of the Endangered
Species Act."

The changes are fiercely technical and complicated, but make future
listings extremely difficult, redefine key concepts to the detriment
of protected species, virtually hand over administration of the act to
hostile states, and severely restrict habitat protections.

Many of the changes -- lifted from unsuccessful legislative proposals
from then-Senator (now Interior Secretary) Dirk Kempthorne and the
recently defeated congressman Richard Pombo -- are reactions to
policies and practices established as a result of litigation filed by
environmental organizations including Earthjustice.

"After the failure of these legislative proposals in the last
Congress, the Bush administration has opted to gut the Endangered
Species Act through the only avenue left open: administrative
regulations," said Hasselman. "This end-run around the will of
Congress and the American people will not succeed."

A major change would make it more difficult for a species to gain
protection, by scaling back the "foreseeable future" timeframe in
which to consider whether a species is likely to become extinct.
Instead of looking far enough ahead to be able to reasonably determine
whether a species could be heading for extinction, the new regulations
would drastically shorten the timeframe to either 20 years or 10
generations at the agency's discretion. For species with long
generations like killer whales and grizzly bears, this truncated view
of the future isn't nearly enough time to accurately predict whether
they are at-risk now.

"These draft regulations represent a total rejection of the values
held by the vast majority Americans: that we have a responsibility to
protect imperiled species and the special places they call home," said
Kate Freund, Legislative Associate at Earthjustice.

According to several sources within the Fish and Wildlife Service
quoted by Salon, hostility to the law within the agency has never been
so intense. "I have 20 years of federal service in this and this is
the worst it has ever been," one unnamed source is quoted as saying.

In addition, the proposal would allow projects by the Forest Service
and other agencies to proceed even if scientific evidence suggests
that the projects might drive species to extinction so long as the
rate of decline doesn't accelerate owing to the project.

The Bush administration's antipathy to the law is shown by the numbers
of species it has protected, in each case as the result of litigation
-- 57. By comparison, 253 species were listed during the Reagan
administration, 521 under Clinton, and 234 under Bush I.

The administration reportedly had expected to reveal the new
regulations in a few weeks. The draft regulations must be published in
the Federal Register for public comment before they can become final,
which is likely to be at least a year off.

Contact:

Jan Hasselman, Earthjustice, (206) 343-7340, ext. 25