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Now!
It's always front-page news when an
alligator kills a human. The same would be true for a bear mauling
or an attack by a mountain lion or shark.
We are hard-wired for horror
when a top predator kills one of us. It happens rarely, but when
it does, television cameras spark with an impulse older than
lights on a Christmas tree.
At the same time, the panthers
or gators we may have hunted down after dragging a person into
a canal are also on a thousand bronze statues, representing the
highest order of strength, endurance and accomplishment.
Protect or eradicate? Honor
or revile?
Decades ago, Congress decided
that saving species from extinction is the right thing to do.
The federal Endangered Species Act's underlying value is to protect
the diversity of life. In fact, only a few endangered species
are top predators.
Protecting key species -- such
as the Florida panther or American crocodile -- should, in principle,
protect habitats the species need to survive. A particular economic
activity that affects habitat may trigger the provisions of the
Endangered Species Act. In particular, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service is required to review the proposed activity through a
formal biological opinion, written by staff biologists. The biological
opinion should address the threat to the listed species based
on science. That's the principal.
Not in the state of Florida,
however, where biological opinions are authored, at least in
part, by the same developers, miners and economic interests seeking
to block an adverse finding in court.
The story was reported last
week by journalist Craig Pittman in the St. Petersburg Times.
"To speed things up (due to our heavy workload) we are asking
the consultant for each project that adversely affects panthers
to prepare a BO (biological opinion) based on a template BO that
we will send you," federal biologist John Wrublik wrote
in the e-mail to RaeAnn Boylan, a consultant for a Lee County
project to widen a road through panther habitat. Wrublik wrote
in his e-mail that adapting the "template" to fit various
projects destroying panther habitat should be "pretty straightforward,"
requiring only some "deleting and inserting" of information
"where appropriate."
In 2004, the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service was not too swamped with paperwork to fire an
18-year employee, biologist Andy Eller, one week after he had
written a biological opinion against Mirasol, a development proposed
for panther habitat in Collier County.
Eller's case quickly became
a national cause celebre, an example of intense political pressure
on science -- one of the most egregious legacies of the Bush
White House.
Public Employees for Environmental
Responsibility, an organization that supports whistleblowers
who work for government agencies, said about scientists like
Eller, "The essential dilemma is that they are paid to conduct
defensible scientific reviews but face possible termination if
they accurately report what they have found."
An endless stream of money
has been spent by special interests to declaw, defang and decommission
the Endangered Species Act, one of the most important laws protecting
America's natural heritage.
Mirasol is the project of a
West Virginia coal-mine owner whose advocacy in Congress for
mountaintop removal to mine coal may have led to expectations
how the conflict between the environment and the force of progress
would resolve in Florida.
Recently, I happened to see
a dead top predator. It was early evening on an edge road in
south Miami-Dade County. Only minutes before my arrival, a panther
crossing the road had been struck by a car.
I pulled up in front of what
I took to be a lifeless dog. Locked in the headlights, it was
one of Florida's premier endangered species, dead in the road,
blood congealing on its broken jaw and torn skin.
Nearby, a rock miner is seeking
permits to build a small city of 6,000 homes in an area significantly
impacting wetlands.
Today, Florida is seeking to
wrestle control of wetlands jurisdiction from the federal government.
In 2005, Andy Eller was reinstated
to his job at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service after the agency
admitted fault in distorting science related to panther habitat
near the proposed Mirasol development.
For risking his career, Eller
received an award from the Everglades Coalition.
And over the weekend, the alligator
that took the life of a Broward woman was hauled from the canal
not far from the tragic accident and shot. Two more people have
been killed by alligators in the past week, despite the fact
that attacks on humans by alligators are exceedingly rare.
So far this year, six panthers
have been killed on Florida roads.
What conflicting and contradictory
impulses carry us on our brief journey?
Alan Farago of Coral Gables, who writes about
the environment, can be reached at alanfarago@yahoo.com.
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