From The New York Times:
WASHINGTON, May 23 - The southwestern regional director of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service has instructed members of his staff to limit their use of the latest scientific studies on the genetics of endangered plants and animals when deciding how best to preserve and recover them….
Dale Hall, the director of the southwestern region, in a memorandum dated Jan. 27, said that all decisions about how to return a species to robust viability must use only the genetic science in place at the time it was put on the endangered species list - in some cases the 1970’s or earlier - even if there have been scientific advances in understanding the genetic makeup of a species and its subgroups in the ensuing years.
Mr. Hall’s memorandum prompted dissent within the agency. Six weeks later, his counterpart at the mountain-prairie regional office, in Denver, sent a sharp rebuttal to Mr. Hall.
Mr. Hall’s policy, he wrote, “could run counter to the purpose of the Endangered Species Act” and “may contradict our direction to use the best available science in endangered species decisions in some cases.”
Q: So what do these new guidelines mean to me?
A: It probably means more to the species and subspecies that weren’t identified clearly befor the 1970’s.
Q: What?
A: See, genetic science has taught us more about speciation than we’d previously known, but this memo makes it all right to ignore that.
Q: So can I shoot this thing here?
A: What thing?
Q: There’s a sort of furry thing here. I want to shoot it.
A: It depends on what it is.
Q: It’s furry and sort of brownish grey. Can I shoot it?
A: Does it look like a squirrel?
Q: Kind of like a very big squirrel with longer legs and bigger teeth than most squirrels have and horns and… well, yeah, mostly like a squirrel.
A: Go right ahead. Squirrels aren’t endangered.
Q: Thanks! *BLAM!*
A: No problem.
Q: Now how about this thing over here?
A: What thing?
Q: Looks sort of like an Alabama Sturgeon. It’s be nice to throw an M-80 in there and watch it blow up, but I heard they’re endangered. Are they?
A: Well, if you identify ‘em that closely, yeah.
Q: But…?
A: But what if we weren’t such sticklers about classification? Would you say, for instance, that what you’re looking at is a sort of “fish?”
Q: Oh yeah. No doubt about that. It’s a fish. So?
A: Are “fish” themselves endangered?”
Q: Not on yer life! There’s gazillions of ‘em!
A: Yes there are.
Q: So I can - ?
A: Yes.
Q: KABOOM!
A: Heh heh.
Q: That was great! Say, would you like to help me dynamite that herd of - uh, “generic mammals” down there?
A: I thought you’d never ask.
Fanny Roborat
27 comments
Skerlnik
May 24, 2005 at 3:45 pm
1Hoo boy.
Just another example of this Administration’s committment to fuzzy thinking. Let’s just redefine the rules, so the rules just go away.
Only them egghead liberals would want to use methodology as BORING as actual science! See how much more fun and profitable land development can be if we just plan by whim and gut feeling? Who needs hard data, when decisions can be more easily made with the Bible as a guide? If it’s good enough to be used as a biology textbook in schools, surely it’s good enough to guide our biological and environmental policymaking?
Excuse me while I repeatedly bash the sides of my head with these bricks…
Jim
May 24, 2005 at 4:21 pm
2Thank Lobster that Hall is from the southwest region (Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, and Oklahoma) rather than my home pacific region (which actually includes the far southwest, i.e. California and Nevada, as well as the Pacific Northwest and Pacific Islands).
Though he apparently was involved in our spotted owl brouhaha in the early nineties.
is the link to his personal bio. Love the last paragraph.
If my linkage knowledge is faulty, just copy and paste:http://www.fws.gov/southwest/rd.html
monarchist
May 24, 2005 at 4:58 pm
3This is not exactly germane, but seems like a good forum to outline part of my platform for the kingship.
On a recent fishing trip to a neighboring state, I became enraged at the fishing regulations, which were if anything slightly more byzantine than those of my home state but apparently sponsored and produced by the same consortium of stoned fish biologists, tackle companies, and printers that specialize in documents that get ink all over your hands and rapidly decompose into dense wet logs under your truck seats.
All I wanted to know was if I was permitted to catch a bass and if so, whether I could whack it over the head (note to self–not worth the trouble. Let the poor blighters go).
I have a graduate degree in science and am fairly literate, but this took me a solid half hour of squinting, page turning (page 16; see page 132; page 132: see page 40; page 40, see page 16), an effort that your average redneck who is more concerned with getting something done than reading the directions, is not going to be willing or able to undertake.
So if I were king, fishing regulations would consist of a legible, waterproof map, with all waterways, navigable or otherwise, clearly marked along political lines. Blue would be for the esthete catch and release types. Red would allow for some sustainable level of harvest (KILL!), say 1 big one per person per day (not safe to eat any more that this anyway, what with all the mercury spewing from power plants).
God save the queen,
Nigel Bullman, M.C.S.S
Skerlnik
May 24, 2005 at 5:31 pm
4Why Nigel, don’t you realize what that would mean? Simplicity and transparency of the entrenched bureaucratic process would allow, you know *them* to fully participate in our (ahem!) “democratic” system. By *them* of course, I mean the inconsequential peons making less than, say, $75,000/year.
Nay, far better to have a U.S. Tax Code that weighs in at 34 lbs., or a ridiculously complex legal system, which precludes understanding and limits it to a select priesthood trained in arcane lore. Why, if the common peasantry was actually able to entangle the Byzantine web of intimidation, it would be anarchy! They might actually demand meaningful *change*! Could you imagine?
No, no, best not let common sense and simplicity rule this nation, whether it’s getting a ’simple’ fishing license, or USFWS policymaking.
dave
May 24, 2005 at 5:38 pm
5Why worry about it when Armageddon is coming next Mon…er, soon? Jesus will turn breadsticks into fishsticks or something.
Bob
May 24, 2005 at 6:10 pm
6I’m waiting for the Medicare administator’s memo, which will call for limiting all medical care to that extant in 1965, when Medicare was passed into law.
Should save us a bundle. Hope you like leeches.
Allison in Santa Cruz
May 24, 2005 at 6:35 pm
7Egad. This makes my skin crawl. Talk about a return to the Dark Ages. At least in the real European Dark Ages people really didn’t know any better. This bozo knows that we have modern science giving us a much more complete understanding of species than we had 40 years ago, and is choosing to ignore it!!
The guy’s bio doesn’t read like that of an idiot, but then again, actions do speak louder than words.
Skerlnik
May 24, 2005 at 7:15 pm
8Hey Bob, along that same line of thinking, let’s limit women voters to those what were 18 at the time of the passage of sufferage in 1920… Rock the vote, you 103-year olds!
tim
May 24, 2005 at 7:31 pm
9The Bush Administration ignoring science and deciding that a species is endangered when they say it is…someday we’ll all look back on these guys and laugh. Sure, it will be from a gulag in the Alaskan wilderness, but it’ll still be funny. I mean at that point, we’ll laugh at pretty much anything to keep from thinking about the endless winter nights and our frost-bitten fingers and toes. And the wolves. You can’t forget the wolves, picking us off one by one. Yup. It’ll be hilarious.
Ann
May 24, 2005 at 7:49 pm
10Not to worry, Tim. Global warming will ensure that our gulag is nice and toasty, and the wolves will have been hunted to extinction (or at least to their 1970 population levels).
"simply wrong" in Annapolis
May 24, 2005 at 7:59 pm
11Adam,
You are one sick fuck . . . I LOVE that!
:)
Pete IVDL
May 24, 2005 at 9:20 pm
12Sounds like Dale Hall’s about to become an endangered species hisself - a Scapeus goatus.
Now, what sort of arbitrary thinkfest came up with 1970 as the go/no go genetic zone? Is that the number of squirrel generations back to Cain or something? Or the last oil price-hike era? Or just some pretty numbers?
Don’t worry about the wolves, Tim. They only eat the weak and the lame…
David
May 24, 2005 at 10:29 pm
131970 was the year of the first Earth Day, if memory serves, which makes it the beginning of official recognition of the claims of the looney left and all their tree-hugging, granola-crunching, herbal-tea-sipping, gopher-turtle-protecting subversion of the AMERICAN WAY, Lobsterdamn their un-American asses, those nattering nabobs of negativism one and all.
tess
May 24, 2005 at 11:16 pm
14Ugh, what’s with this administration and it’s war against science?
How many people wanna bet how long we’re going to see a full-blown Spanish-style Inquisition against anyone who isn’t a Bushie, and not this pansy-assed “We’re sending people to other countries” law bypassing? It just seems like that’s the direction we’re going — forced into ignorance, forced into a religion, and forced into oppression.
Auros
May 25, 2005 at 3:10 am
15Cool new book: The Republican War on Science.
My fav old article on the topic, which christened it a War on Empiricism: Information Is Treason.
Auros
May 25, 2005 at 3:11 am
16PS: Ohmigod is the realtime preview thing cool. Best blog feature EVARRRRR!
Ken... Just Ken
May 25, 2005 at 6:18 am
17Well, I kind of see their rationalization:
If they allow descriptions of species to be updated, they might accidentally stumble across evidence of evolution.
And if they do they might have to think and that’d hurt.
Tom M
May 25, 2005 at 6:42 am
18Look out Ned, he’s coming right for us!! “BLAM*
Allison in Santa Cruz
May 25, 2005 at 1:29 pm
19Auros — The new Bushspeak:
thinking = treason (not reason, without the ‘t’)
faith in the One True God (who is not a lobster) = patriotism
science = liberal brainwashing
Mary
May 25, 2005 at 2:20 pm
20“…those nattering nabobs of negativism…”
Boy, does that take me back. I sure do miss the days of Buckley and Agnew. It was a simpler, more naive time when the left thought those two were the anti-Christ.
To paraphrase Gene Wilder in The Corsican Brothers , “Cutlture wars? Did you say Culture Wars? I’ll show you Culture Wars!”
Harold
May 25, 2005 at 2:39 pm
21So in 1970 the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker was considered extinct, right? And any species considered “extinct” certainly can’t be “endangered”. And woodpeckers are such a nuisance. And them’s good eatin’, especially them big ones with the ivory bills.
Pete IVDL
May 25, 2005 at 5:32 pm
22I just noticed. ‘robust viability’. That sounds suspiciously like ‘robust deterrent capability’… Is it just me, or is this a strange new meaning of the word ‘robust’ (with or without the quotes) of which we have all been unaware?
I always imagined robust as something adorning a female robot. But according to this administration, robust means ‘non-existent’; or perhaps ‘extinct’ would be a closer rendition?
Murray
May 25, 2005 at 5:59 pm
23Hey, this has worked in other areas, why not here? Instead of rewriting wetland legislation to allow building strip malls in fragile ecosystems, just redefine wetlands, (anything that can’t be drained). To claim that manufacturing is doing well we redefine manufacturing to include McDonald’s workers. To protect our forests from fire we redefine scrub brush, and downed wood to include virgin timber.
No need to get worked up with new regulation, all that’s needed is redefining the victim,,er, the object of regulation.
Oh, to protect those endangered species, we are holding a prayer service to ask the Almighty to save one of his own creatures. If he can’t intervene, we ask as compensation, that we profit mightily. (Praise the Lord and Pass the Amunition).
Spitfire
May 27, 2005 at 12:57 pm
24UPDATE
Thank god for activist judges, heh
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/27/national/27dams.html?th=&emc=th&page wanted=print
hedera
May 28, 2005 at 12:30 am
25And one more quote from the Bernstein MASS (which, BTW, we performed twice last weekend to standing ovations and four count them glowing reviews):
God said to spread his commands
To folks in faraway lands.
They may not want us there,
But, man, it’s out of our hands…
hedera
May 28, 2005 at 12:35 am
26And as I think about it, with even eerier significance (this was written in 1971; thank you, Steven Schwartz, librettist for Godspell, who wrote most of the English lyrics for MASS):
God made us the boss;
God gave us the cross;
We turned it into a sword
To spread the word of the Lord.
We use His holy decrees
To do whatever we please…
RBH
May 28, 2005 at 8:39 pm
27Those appropriately credentialed might join the scientists raising hell about this:
http://tinyurl.com/8b2w3