Judge says Northwest's marbled murrelet deserves continued protection despite Bush appointee's actions

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« Free-the-orcas answer still "no" despite $1 million offer, Elton John involvement | Main | Sawmills silenced -- rare birds not to blame »

Judge says Northwest's marbled murrelet deserves continued protection despite Bush appointee's actions

A federal judge today threw out a timber-industry lawsuit seeking to removed Endangered Species Act protections for the marbled murrelet, a robin-sized seabird that hatches its young in older forests and whose numbers have plummeted as those older forests have been cut.

Marbled murrelet

We've covered before how a timber industry lawyer working for the Bush administration and a disgraced former Bush administration official are wrapped up in the dispute. The Government Accountabilty Office and the Department of Interior's Inspector General are still investigating.

Today Judge John Bates of the D.C. district court rejected the industry's assertions that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has to remove the bird's ESA protections. The contention was based in part on the idea that murrelets here are not a "distinct population segment."

A review of the bird's status forced by the timber industry came to that conclusion based in part on the actions of Julie McDonald, the former Interior official accused of bullying agency scientists.

Noah Greenwald of the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the environmental groups who intervened through the Earthjustice law firm in a suit by the industry against the government, predicted the Bush administration would next seek to knock out much of the bird's "critical habitat" designation. Needless to says, the enviros will fight that.

Posted by at February 5, 2008 2:40 p.m.
Categories: Endangered species, Timber/forestry

Comments

#94932

Posted by DAVIDRF at 2/5/08 3:13 p.m.

And we're suprised that the Bush administration tried to ram something into law that is bad for the environment...why, exactly?

Good for the judge for hopefully putting this action on the part of the timber industry to a halt.

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#95122

Posted by unregistered user at 2/6/08 8:44 a.m.

I have seen the bullying described here in person. Although the issue was salmon, I overheard a top NOAA official complaining to his senior staff biologist that the CEQ (White House Council on Environmental Quality) was emailing and phoning him during critical meetings to decide a fishing season for the west coast. At issue that year was the Klamath River Fall Chinook and how many, if any would be caught by fishermen that year.

This occurred after the White House had decided that the Klamath salmon should be driven to extinction by drying up the Klamath river (Spring, 2001). Whether or not there was a plan to esterminate the fishing fleet at the same time is a matter of conjecture. However, because the anti salmon activity from CEQ was managed by Greg Schildwalker, Senator Larry Craig's former senior staff, it is easy to see there was no sympathy for either salmon or fishermen there.

It is well past the time that the immoral use of "science" by the despots currently in the White House is exposed and halted by everyone from federal judges to the person in the street. Almost no administration on Earth uses propoganda to such warpped ends as Bush. Except Jong Il Kim.

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