Opinion by Kip Hansen — 7 January 2025 – 750 words/3 minutes
“Swim Swim Swim. Blub Blub Blub. The little fish swam along the river. He was a happy little fish.”
And this little fish was very proud. All by itself, just by swimming along in the Little Tennessee River, the happy little fish stopped the creation of the Tellico Reservoir – for six long years.
This is one of the seminal stories of the great Environmental Movement of the 1970s . And one of the many stories of the destructive overreach of the United States’ Environmental Protection Agency.
The Snail Darter, then Percina tanasi was claimed by the EPA to be an Endangered Species. It was listed on October 9, 1975 for the specific purpose of preventing the completion of the Tellico Dam which was claimed to present a threat to the continued existence of the Snail Darter — if the dam was built the Snail Darter would go extinct.
Years of legal challenges, all the way to the Supreme Court, delayed the completion of the dam. Finally, legislative efforts resulted in President Jimmy Carter signing a bill that exempted the Tellico Dam from the Endangered Species Act on September 25, 1979. The bill, proposed by Senator Howard Baker, exempted the Snail Darter from the provisions of the Endangered Species Act (ESA).
The episode is discussed in a Wiki article Snail darter controversy – I have no idea how accurate the article is or if it is biased in any particular direction. Only now, fifty years later, do the real facts become known.
It was suspected at the time that the listing of the snail darter under the ESA was a political move to placate the growing Environmental Movement in the United States. Many activists left without a cause with the ending of the U.S. involvement in Viet Nam had quickly realigned themselves with environmentalism, within a few years following Earth Day in 1970. Challenging the building of a major new dam in Tennessee gave them something to fight against.
Fast forward to earlier this week, to January 03, 2025, and the publication of Comparative species delimitation of a biological conservation icon; Otto et al. 2025.
As explained in the New York Times:
“On Friday, a team of researchers argued that the fish was a phantom all along.”
“There is, technically, no snail darter,” said Thomas Near, curator of ichthyology at the Yale Peabody Museum.”
“Dr. Near, also a professor who leads a fish biology lab at Yale, and his colleagues report in the journal Current Biology that the snail darter, Percina tanasi, is neither a distinct species nor a subspecies. Rather, it is an eastern population of Percina uranidea, known also as the stargazing darter, which is not considered endangered.”
Dr. Near, bless his heart, gets a little more honest when he says:
“Dr. Near contends that early researchers “squinted their eyes a bit” when describing the fish, because it represented a way to fight the Tennessee Valley Authority’s plan to build the Tellico Dam on the Little Tennessee River, about 20 miles southwest of Knoxville.”“I feel it was the first and probably the most famous example of what I would call the ‘conservation species concept,’ where people are going to decide a species should be distinct because it will have a downstream conservation implication,” Dr. Near said.”
The environmental movement points to a book “The Snail Darter and the Dam” by Zygmunt J. B. Plater:
“The untold story of a notorious environmental case and the citizen crusade that carried a little fish through Washington politics and the Supreme Court
Even today, thirty years after the legal battles to save the endangered snail darter, the little fish that blocked completion of a TVA dam is still invoked as an icon of leftist extremism and governmental foolishness. In this eye-opening book, the lawyer who with his students fought and won the Supreme Court case—known officially as Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill—tells the hidden story behind one of the nation’s most significant environmental law battles.”
It tells the story of brave “the little fish that could”.
But you see, just like The Little Train That Could, the Little Fish was, all along, a fiction.
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Author’s Comment:
A cautionary tale – perk your ears up, turn your Critical Thinking knob up to full, whenever you hear of some species or other being declared a new species or a new subspecies – such as is being done with the giraffes. Some of these decisions may be being made to bolster conservation claims leading to declarations of Endangered Species status.
The are far more species that are unknown to mankind than have been ‘discovered’ , described and assigned names. How many may be disappearing every year and how many are coming into existence as new species is unknown.
I have my doubts about the whole species thing.
Thanks for reading.
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The ‘snail darter’ game continues. In 2021, the Rice whale was declared a distinct species rather than a subgroup of the more common Brydes whale, both common only to the Gulf of Mexico. As a newly distinct ‘endangered’ species, the whole ‘Rice whale’ purpose was the Biden administration stopping offshore oil and gas leasing in GoM as otherwise required by law.
Puget Sound (area) Orcas are (claimed to be) a distinct species because they communicate & hunt differently than other Orcas.
(those ‘scientists’ that are using the species defn as a club, or for notoriety, would be characterized as racist if they applied the criteria to people.)
DonM ==> Ya, heard about that — it is all a –really this time — a scam — purpose-built findings in support of activists claims.
I am English and communicate by speaking English, French people communicate by speaking French and therefore are a different species to me.
Need to also address culture and diet.
Do you eat mollusks out of their shells?
Do you eat horse, without thought that it is weird?
Do you, or someone you know, stink (and don’t care)?
For sure!
Those orcas, the Southern Resident Killer Whales, are Darwin Candidates: culturally limiting themselves to large salmon while their transient cousins eat the seals that eat the salmon the SRKWs want.
One eco-bleep even claimed their jaws are too small to eat seals. (I ask if the two groups inter-breed. A few studies looked at breeding with close relatives, a practice believed to cause mental decline, and concluded they do not inter-breed with very close relatives.)
The SRKWs do roam, spending time off the west coast of Vancouver Island where Chinook stay over the continental shelf rather than going to deep ocean as sockeye do.
OTOH, the NRKWs north of Vancouver Island do much better as they get a good run of Chum into a river there. (Chum runs in Puget Sound are small as rivers are small, the big rivers are Fraser to the north end and Columbia out and down the coast.)
Near Norway orcas figured out how to corral herring to gulp many at once.
The SRKW families and clans will die out, the species will carry on.
thanks,
there is also that NMFS guy that harasses & kills ’em every once in a while. It’s worth it though cuz it’s for science.
Rud ==> Yep –they are still at it…and will continue as along as they are allowed to get away with it.
Volokh consiracy, libertain legal blog, has become dominated by far leftists commentators who have serious distortions of basic scientific facts in search of achieving their leftist woke goals.
See the attached discussion of the snail darter
https://reason.com/volokh/2025/01/04/there-is-technically-no-snail-darter-but-the-snail-darter-still-delayed-the-tellico-dam/
joe ==> Great, thanks! Interesting piece.
“….the incentive structure created by the ESA–an incentive structure that encourages the distortion and politicization of scientific findings. Under the ESA, the listing of a species (or subspecies or distinct species population) triggers regulatory restrictions, such as those that halted the Tellico Dam. Section 7 of the Act, for example, bars federal agencies from undertaking actions that could jeopardize a species’ survival or destroy any of its critical habitat.”
There doesn’t seem to be much concern for the whales over the effect of building off-shore wind turbines.
You better read Wojick’s posts here….
List of dam removals in the United States – Wikipedia
According to the non-profit advocacy organization American Rivers, 2,119 dams were removed in the United States between 1912 and 2023. The peak year was 2018, which saw 109 removals. Pennsylvania removed 390 dams in this period, more than any other state. Mississippi is the only state with no documented dam removals.
__________________________________________________________________________
I’m not combing through 2000 lines to see how many were originally constructed for flood control. I’m just waiting for the Green Mob to claim that climate change is causing more floods.
I number of dams were built many years ago and silted in. I have seen two small ones and know of others. Unless there is an expository list of the 2,119, there is no way to evaluate the removals. The best documented, that I have seen is from Duck Assist {beta}:
“The Elwha River dam removal project involved the removal of two dams, the Elwha Dam and the Glines Canyon Dam, between 2011 and 2014 to restore the river’s natural ecosystem and improve fish migration, particularly for salmon. This project is the largest dam removal in U.S. history and has significantly benefited the river’s ecology and fish populations.”
Those dams were built, what?, 100 years ago?
Nature developed a newer ecosystem that removing the dams destroyed.
(Plus, I think at least one them was a hydro power dam. “Green” energy lost.)
“I think at least one them …”
You will have to name and give the location and the electrical output. I do not intend to sort through 2,000+ actions to find this out. A recently removed one {no power output} is the Camp Kwoneesum Dam on Wildboy creek in SW Washington State:
45.671489, -122.218848
One down, 2,118 to go.
I was referring to one of the two dams in your quote.
““The Elwha River dam removal project involved the removal of two dams, the Elwha Dam and the Glines Canyon Dam,…”
I didn’t mean the expository list of the 2,119.
Sorry I didn’t make that clear.
My bad.
Steve ==> In my area we have a lot of little dams — five/ten feet, built for reservoir and water power purposes many years ago. Most are inconsequential and do nothing,and certainly nothing more than the many waterfalls created by natural rock formations. There is some madness in the “Free the Rivers” movement.
Where migratory fish, like salmon are involved,it becomes more complicated, but fish should not rule the human world.
It would be interesting to find out the size of the dams that are being removed.
I image a lot of them were built on private land to trap water for livestock, and perhaps help to water fields during the summer.
Haven’t verified, but those old mill dams/diversions that been destroyed count as dam removal. 390 in Pennsylvania.
I know where there is a nice solid 12′ high 75 yr old unpermitted concrete dam (slats haven’t been in place for a while). Would this one count as a removal … mebbe I can contrive some credits to sell to BPA.
Damn those removals!
There is an opinion that the flooding in Valencia last year was aggravated by the removal of about 150 dams over the past years that had formerly slowed the speed of the rivers that caused the flooding.
It’s a dam shame.
California has the infamous “Delta smelt”, which may be extinct. In any case,the interests of the little fishy controls water releases into the Delta, purportedly.
One can argue it is Green Blob opposition to Big Ag and capitalism in general that affects policy on water use.
The last survey to find any delta smelt was in 2015. It found exactly one. Nothing since. For sure extinct in the wild. There is one CA hatchery keeping a small captive population alive.
Do the Animal Rights activist know they are being held captive? 😎
The definition of species and subspecies seems surprisingly elastic. That is just an invite for activists to manipulate the system.
The dictionary definition seems very exact
species. 1. : a class of things of the same kind and with the same name : kind. 2. : a category of living things that ranks below a genus, is made up of related individuals able to produce fertile offspring, and is identified by a two-part scientific name..
That fertile offspring seems to be a very definitive barrier. Though I don’t know if biologists have such hard definitions. Are the biological species rules set in concrete or just what a tame biologist says they are?
It isn’t so simple.
Wolves and coyotes are clearly separate species. Wolves are about twice as big, hunt big game in packs, and howl at the moon. Coyotes are solitary hunters of small game, and yap at the moon. Yet they can interbreed and produce fertile offspring colloquially known as coywolves. The so called climate change endangered red wolf of Albemarle Sound is actually a coywolf, reintroduced into that wildlife refuge after domestic breeding to cull obvious coyote traits precisely because there are no coyotes there with which to further crossbreed.
Ditto polar bears, descended from brown (grizzly) bears perhaps a million years ago. Distinct species by morphology (swim adapted) diet (seals), and behavior (polars do not hibernate), yet can still interbreed. In Inuit, the cross breeds are jokingly referred to as either pizzlies or grolars depending on which species was the mom.
Rud
The same type of thing could be said about dog breeds where they are all regarded as one species. There are significant size and behavioral differences, but successful interbreeding. And humans as well, but that could open a whole new can of worms.
Homo Sapiens are just “people”.
Labeling us as different “races” just creates artificial divisions in society.
Has that been a good thing?
(Sure, there are cultural/political differences, but we’re all just born as “people”.)
The point is that the same standards should be applied to all “species”.
Didn’t I read somewhere that “Homo Sapiens” DNA has one or more segments normally associated with “Neanderthal Man”?
Yes, we have contributed up to 3% or so of your DNA.
Yer welcome.
CM, studied up on this. All ‘dogs’ are domesticated epigenetic phenotypes of the grey wolf, possibly domesticated twice (like for sure hogs from wild boars). The ‘dog’ subspecies name is Canis Lupus familiarensis, covering hundreds of recognized epigenetic breeds.
Epigenetics is a fascinating ‘new’ evolutionary discovery. As the classic example, all the various ‘dried beans’ on any supermarket isle—black, red, white, navy, pinto, kidney,…—are from a DNA perspective identical, all ‘just’ epigenetic phenotypes of wild Americas precursor P. vulgaris. Epigenetic racetype selection occurred in MesoAmerica between 8 and about 2000 ya, in likely three separate geographic regions.
Dogs are a more complicated but much faster example of the same epigenetics.
People who don’t like genetically modified food should avoid the dozen or so vegetable varieties that have all been selectively bred from wild mustard. They should skip red grapefruit and all the other ~3,000 food and ornamental plants created by mutating their multi generations ago parents with gamma radiation.
Red grapefruit was a change mutation in a radiation garden. It happened to breed true so that commercial quantities of trees were able to be produced. But with successive generations of trees the mutation has been reversing. Red grapefruit from newer trees doesn’t have that dark ruby red color.
I’ve read that there’s a couple of ongoing projects to get it back. One is blasting pink grapefruit trees with gamma radiation, hoping to random chance to re-create the mutation. A second is working on direct genetic editing to get the color back and fix whatever has made it fade.
“Coyotes are solitary hunters of small game”
….. not in Ks . I live in an area where packs are common.
And they frequently kill and eat calves .
Local opinion is the only good coyote is a dead coyote .
You probably have coywolves rather than coyotes.
My Wisconsin dairy farm has coyotes, and the occaisional roving south from northern Wisconsin national forest wolf pack. The coyotes never are a problem with the pasture borne calves. And the wolves only transit in the winter, when there are no pasture borne calves. We coexist.
OTOH, a black bear once rummaged thru the pastures where we kept our horses, and damn near killed my Mare, who panicked and bolted thru the pasture fence and ripped her neck open busting thru the barbed wire—thankfully missing the jugular, but still a bloody messy week at the large animal vet starting next morning. Hunted but never found the bear.
“You probably have coywolves rather than coyotes”
Sorry Rud. Don’t think so .Have not heard of wolves in Ks since pioneer days.
I have lived in rural and semi-rural Ks for more than 70 years …. seen a lot of coyotes in this time .
Maybe coyotes hunt differently in different areas ?
We lived in Topanga Canyon very near the large Topanga state park. We actually had to build a fence to keep the coyotes from running through the property. I saw many lone coyotes and had one instance where our Doberman was frantically asking to get outside so I opened the slider and he and a coyote collided. The coyote of course out ran my dog.
Another instance I let the cat out on the deck; a coyote appeared almost instantly. Things happened so fast that I thought the cat was a goner. 3 days later she reappeared apparently hiding under the deck.
The coyotes do hunt in packs as well. I very often heard them after a kill (usually a rabbit) yapping for minutes..definitely a pack.
They hunt and live in family groups. The puppies are driven off when the female is going to give birth. The process is repeated every year.
I was stationed at Ft Riley, KS 1983-84. I remember one night in the field, maybe 2am on guard duty. A pack of Coyotes very close to me suddenly started howling. Scared the crap out of me.
IIRC those polar grizzly hybrids are legal to hunt.
Chris ==> Read Rud below — and my Specious Species and Darwin — We’ve Got a Problem and The Gray, Gray World of Wolves .
I worked for a professor who studied potential interbreeding in Texas Hill Country darters. The fascinating fish Percina is the largest of the darters which are adapted to running water, ripple types. When dams cover the ripples they can be replaced with more mud tolerant species from the slow accumulation of sediment. You can get some sort of measurement with crosses which develop to various stages from embryo to ‘interspecies’ fertility. These are later expressions of what the current molecular genetics measurement technologies have introduced. Epigenetics in fishes is not really new, as fish genetics proves to be more ‘plastic.’ Kinne, O. 1962. Irreversible nongenetic adaptation. Comparative Biochemistry Physiology. 5:263-282.
While it might be human to love the fish you work with, activism is another matter. Aquaria have been claimed to reduce blood pressure. Dubbed as “nativism” it opened up a whole new controversy. Texas is both trying to protect their freshwater ‘natives’ while stocking salt water species and their hybrids inland.
Dictionary definitions do not control statues. Congress can, and often does, define words in statutes without regard to dictionaries, common usage, or special scientific usage. The Endangered Species Act (16 U.S. Code Chapter 35) defines “species” in Section 1532 (176) as: “The term “species” includes any subspecies of fish or wildlife or plants, and any distinct population segment of any species of vertebrate fish or wildlife which interbreeds when mature.”
If you think that is vague, elastic, and unscientific, you are correct. It is pure Humpty Dumpty:
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”
“Through the Looking-glass And What Alice Found There” By Lewis Carroll Chapter VI Humpty Dumpty
Chris Morris–I’m going to reserve the right to correct myself, but currently will put the new snail darter paper in the anthropomorphic category, fitting in the new millennium age I guess. I have been recalling that despite working on marine fish I ran the darter spawning category for one semester with the professor on leave which included collection and spawning. This was six decades ago but fish spawning culture in this country goes back to the 1880s and millennia before at least for mullet. My less archaic dictionary species definition matches yours but probably predates this millennium.
I seem to recall that the problem was that the snail darter had a larger distribution which was confirmed in the paper in their figure 1. Regardless of the molecular genetic taxonomic competence, been told Biological Supply Houses offer materials cheaply, with my experience studying such for several families of marine species this seems a bit much to discard at least subspecies status. Of course, the paper also focuses on the endangered political aspect as discussed with comments on other species. I get sidetracked easy so maybe will explore it more. Anyway, thanks for the insightful, biased I be, comment. HDH
The Zayante snail, also a phantom species that never existed, was used to prevent the building of the Zayante dam, a central California water project approved and funded 3 times by voters prior to rejection of consideration.
It was used solely by “progressives” to prevent increased water supply to prevent new construction.
65 years later and there is not enough water supply to meet existing demand, leading to mandatory rationing, increased water costs and mandated “Xeriscape” landscaping, which is just their term for fancy weeds.
Anyone who thinks that liberals will never abuse “environmental protections” to accomplish their own agendas is sadly misinformed.
Salmon in the PNW. Activist have gotten hatchery fish declared a separate species from wild fish.
Followed quickly by the spotted owl in the Pacific Northwest. Decimated the timber industry.
Which may be a pattern phase variant of the Barred Owl, as Spotted Owls are “threatened by hybridization” with Barred Owls.
Back when Rush had his TV show, he showed pictures of a pair building a nest in a broken K-Mart sign.
Tom, been following this. The barred owl species was originally just east of the Mississippi and has a wide ‘hunting ‘ range. The spotted owl species is smaller just west of the Rockies, and has a narrower hunting range. So the barred somehow got out west and is outcompeting spotted based on size and hunting range. The USFS solution now is to have hunters kill about 1/2 million barred owls in old growth Forest. Won’t work, of course.
When CWD first jumped the Mississippi into Wisconsin whitetail deer (CWD is endemic in mule deer and elk west of the Mississippi at a very low level), the WDNR original solution was to shoot all the whitetail deer in the vicinity. Didn’t work.
They modified it to mean must shoot a doe before a ‘earning’ a buck, and then come get as many more tags as you want to shoot as many more as you want (idea was to lower herd density carefully built up over almost a century of hunting restrictions) . They test the meat for free and take any disease free excess deer off your hands. Didn’t work, either.
We used to take 8-9 deer off my Uplands dairy farm in a typical 3 day extended family hunt. In all the 20+years since CWD emerged in my part of Wisconsin, had exactly one test positive for CWD—an (estimated by testers) very old 7 year doe I shot out of the Apple stand (one of six on the farm). Old=tough and games. No loss.
CWD = chronic wasting disease?
What has the listing of the spotted owl cost?
Well, by eliminating forest management and fire prevention and control, approximately 6 million acres of old-growth spotted owl habitat has burned up (so far). These acres averaged about 100,000 board feet each, worth (with multiplier effect) at least $1/bf in the economy.
So, (6 x 10^6) acres x (1 x 10^5) $/acre = 6 x 10^11 dollars.
That’s $600 billion with a “B”. Whoosh.
Meanwhile the owl population has crashed from 24,000 in 1994 to less than 2,000 today, or -92%. Whoops.
Catastrophic failure by any measure. Environmentalism is the most destructive scam ever; global warmunism is merely a sub-category.
Turns out environmentalist knew back in the ’80’s the issue with spotted owls was Barred owls and not needing old growth timber but were allowed to bury the fact by our press. Real issues is the two species are related and if the spotted owl wont breed with the barred owl the barred owl will eat it instead. In hiding facts environmentalist caused the crash of spotted owl population by not asking to control the barred owl population.
Oh the books to be written a few decades from now about how those emissions of CO2, from using natural hydrocarbons as fuel, were cleverly branded as a danger to the planet! The story line will sound familiar to this one about the snail darter: Was there any good scientific reason to be concerned about the “warming” effect all along? No.
The story line will sound familiar …
Playwrights will recognize “Waiting for Godot”, others will recognize the pattern of witch trials in the late modern period.
Actually, it isn’t the EPA that designated threatened and endangered species – the act is administered by the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the US NOAA Fisheries Service. EPA can comment on a proposal to list a species, just like any other agency, State or private citizen.
Duane ==> The Endangered Species Act (ESA) is administered by two federal agencies:
The EPA uses the ESA declarations to deny permissions to build dams and reservoirs as part of “protecting the environment”.
EPA has no regulatory authority over dams. There is no “EPA dam permit.”
Dams, unless Federal (most are not), are not subject to anything but a building permit and/or safety permit as issued by state and/or local government agencies.
If wetlands would be impacted by construction and operation of a proposed dam, then the US Army Corps of Engineers (or a state with delegated permitting authority) wetlands permit may be required. Wetlands permits are rarely if ever denied – in most states all that is necessary is to purchase sufficient wetlands mitigation credits to offset impacted wetlands from a licensed wetlands mitigation bank. It’s just a cost of construction.
If it is a Federal damn that is proposed then NEPA may be triggered (if designated a “major Federal project”) but a NEPA environmental impact statement is not a permit, just a documented review in which multiple Federal agencies as well as the public may comment.
If they can’t get a dam removed, they’ll do everything they can to stop people from using it. Deer Flat Upper Embankment, the dam that creates Lake Lowell near Nampa, ID, was built in 1908 to provide irrigation and recreation. A few years ago the environmentalists got it declared a wildlife habitat to stop most recreational use of the lake. Nevermind that the only reason most of that wildlife was there was due to the man made lake, and the wildlife had co-existed with people using the lake for over 100 years, including speedboats making wakes once those came along.
*$60,000 + per acre for mitigation bank (for wetland mitigation). Another $20,000 for processing.
*Sign off on application from numerous agencies and tribes (including water quality … which is State, and under EPA). Including archeological.
* 1200C FED PERMIT … Which can/does snowball into other crap.
*All federal approvals (wetland, etc) are subject to ESA sign off.
* ‘Water of the State’ is subject to ACOE, and Water rights can be subject to ‘in stream rights’, which snowballs to ESA.
So no, the EPA doesn’t really regulate dams directly. Indirectly …
(Indirectly is also how the president significantly impacts oil cost)
Duane ==> It all comes together under the Environmental Impact Statements….maybe not specifically to the EPA but all those agencies cross-pollinate and cross-adjudicate.
Thanks Kip! The just discovered Rice’s Whale may be a similar political fiction to block oil and gas development in the Gulf.
https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/species/rices-whale#:~:text=Rice's%20whale%20is%20in%20fact,about%20the%20whales%20in%201965.
David ==> It all stems from the Species Problem, exacerbated by the ESA’s insanely loose definitions of species,sub-species, and isolated populations. .
I was going through Bishop, California, when the Desert Pupfish was made a stop everything poster child. However, almost every pickup in town had a bumper sticker that said “It takes a thousand pupfish to make a sandwich”.
How many thousands of species of dog would there be, if the same standards were applied to them?
Off topic: I note eia.gov is down. Any reports of it being attacked?
Doesn’t add up ==> Up now for me at 1800 hrs ET
“eia.gov”
Now there’s site that has been over-run by AGW-cultism. !
I read somewhere that more new species were discovered in man’s lifetime than those coming extinct in the same time frame and we know some considered extinct were later found living.
mleskovarsocalrrcom ==> The whole 6th Mass Extinction thing is junk science — Mankind is only aware of the “low hanging fruit”of the species count.
Fun factoids from essay ‘No Bodies’ in ebook Blowing Smoke, concerning climate change extinctions.
A bigger fiction is the story of the decline of the spotted owl in the Pacific Northwest. Anti-logging groups used the owl to stop logging in old growth Forrests. The real cause wasn’t a lacked of old growth Forrest but an invasive owl species from Canada, the Barred owl. Did that revelation lead to a change in logging laws? Of course not! Then came renewable fuels. Now forests in the US Southeast are being felled to burn in formally coal fired power plants in the UK. These tree fired power plant emit high CO2 levels than coal.
“These tree fired power plant emit high CO2 levels than coal.”
Yeah, but while one tree is burning another is growing to replace it, so voila…Net zero.
Well, a bit of a timing issue maybe….
Up here in the northern rockies we have an endangered list,
with 2 types of sturgeon, a whooping crane, northern long eared bat, least tern,
black footed ferret. The threatened list has a bull trout. canada lynx, grizzly bear
and piping plover. Never ending enviro lawfare, the west slope cutthroat was
used to shut down mine/ mill years ago IIRC. All about big money, power and control.
Fish for pikeminnow, formerly called squawfish. Washington pays a bounty on them. The more you catch, the more paid per fish, and they catch, tag, and release a few they’ll pay $500 for.
I was on the Oregon side of the Columbia at a marina. There was a sign up posting the pikeminnow bounty also listed was the top 10 bounty hunters in Oregon. I don’t recall the exact amount but the top earner was over 100k, guy is getting paid to fish all day and I’m jealous.
They’re playing the same game with Monarch Butterflies. They’re all the same species everywhere they exist around the world. But some people are claiming the butterflies are different species in different areas, since some have the long lived final migrating generation in the summer breeding season and Monarchs that live in more temperate areas don’t. They’ve been observed changing migration routes and overwintering locations in response to climate and weather changes.
Gregg ==> Very true — I write about the Monarchs quite frequently — they are an ubiquitous species, there is only one species, and the migratory segment of the two US populations is a very interesting science topic.
As the weather in the southern states becomes more suitable fr them in the winter months, more and more monarchs are apparently settling down for a permanent life in the sunshine states.
Typical eco-activist tactics:
– slice and dice on paper until find a population small enough to be considered threatened