Endangered Species  by Roger King  

Table of Contents

  1. Introduction
  2. Polar Bear
  3. Penguin
  4. Other Animals
  5. Conclusion

Introduction

Not So Private Property?: Endangered Species Pose Problems for Landowners  FOXNews.com  December 16, 2009   As much as 40 percent of all land in the United States is already under some form of government control or ownership -- 800 million to 900 million acres out of America's total 2.2 billion acres.

The government now appears poised to wield greater control over private property on a number of fronts. The battle over private property rights has intensified since 2005, when the Supreme Court ruled in the Kelo v. City of New London case that the government could take property from one group of private landowners and give it to another.  ...

The Endangered Species Act was passed in 1973 with laudable goals, to protect plants and animals facing possible extinction, but over the years the list of species in trouble has grown significantly.

The list contained 271 species in 1979 but had more than doubled to 615 by 1989. In the 1990s, several advocacy groups fought relentlessly to expand the list, and the additions doubled again, totaling 1,300 by 1999. Over the last 10 years, additions pushing the list over 1,400 included species from grizzly bears to certain deer to New Mexican ridge-nosed rattlesnakes.

According to the act, the government can dictate how private property is used if it's home to an endangered species -- and can even require landowners to help pay for programs that preserve certain endangered wildlife.

Widen research to avoid climate-change errors: Study  by Michael Oliveira at The Canadian Press   July 31, 2008   Many biologists who are studying the potential impacts of climate change on different species and the environment could be coming to faulty conclusions unless they widen the scope of their research, a new Canadian study suggests.  The report, published in the journal Global Change Biology, suggests biologists often use only one of the 31 different climate-change models provided by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change   Those models, while generally consistent at predicting climate, can differ significantly in providing data about how the living conditions for certain species are expected to change, the study found.

"We basically got opposite answers when we should have gotten the same answer," Newman said.  "What we've shown is if you use more than one model you can get entirely different results, so (based on studies that used only one model) maybe we have no view at all of what the impacts are going to be."  

Impact: New York Times Features EPW Polar Bear Report   by Marc Morano   February 1, 2008   Alaska Senator Ted Stevens (R) called the potential listing of the polar bear under the ESA "unprecedented" in his testimony to EPW.  "None of the almost 1,900 previously listed species were occupying their entire geographic range at the time of listing, yet the polar bear is readily found throughout the Arctic," Stevens said in testimony submitted to EPW. "None of the previously listed species had rising populations at the time of listing, yet the global population of polar bears has been steadily increasing for 40 years. This proposed listing is unique because it is based on mathematical models as opposed to biological observations," Stevens explained    

'Endangered' Polar Bear Is Trotted Out As The Extremists' Latest Trojan Horse  by Damien Schiff  February 25, 2008   Section 10 of the Endangered Species Act lets private citizens sue anyone, including government agencies, for violating the act

Hence, environmentalists would be able to sue the Environmental Protection Agency to make it issue regulations substantially restricting car emissions, on the theory that those emissions contribute to climate change and reduce the polar bear's habitat.

And how would a court adjudicate that kind of a lawsuit? Very simply: It would have to decide whether man-made greenhouse gases cause global warming.

Yes, that's right — what is perhaps the most contentious scientific issue of our time would be placed for decision before a few unelected federal judges, whose judgments would bind entire federal agencies and, through their own regulations, the American people.

That's a profoundly undemocratic result — and at odds with the Supreme Court's most recent statement on global warming, in last term's Massachusetts v. EPA    

Endangered Species Act

  1. The Endangered Species Act doesn't recover endangered species.  In the 33 years the Endangered Species Act has been on the books, just 34 of the nearly 1,300 U.S. species given special protection have made their way off the "endangered" or "threatened" lists.  Of this number, nine species are now extinct, 14 appear to have been improperly listed in the first place, and just nine (0.6% of all the species listed) have recovered sufficiently to be de-listed.  This amounts to a recovery rate of less than one percent.
  2. The Endangered Species Act punishes landowners for good environmental stewardship.  Private property owners who care for their land, and maintain habitat for endangered species, find themselves subject to severe land use restrictions. This creates a perverse incentive for landowners to rid their property of species and habitat in an effort to avoid land use restrictions and potentially devastating losses in property value that accompany them.  This is detrimental to the recovery of rare plants and animals, considering 75 percent of threatened and endangered species occur on private land.
  3. The Endangered Species Act is very costly.  It is estimated that the Endangered Species Act costs Americans billions of dollars annually.  Many social costs attributable to the ESA's regulatory burden are ignored by government agencies when they account for the Act's price tag.  Some of these include:  lost jobs and reduced business activities; increased public service costs; reduced tax revenues due to lost business income, lost personal income, and property devaluation; and increased public assistance costs to those individuals who lose their jobs.

 

Polar Bear

Polar bears in danger? Is this some kind of joke?   by James Delingpole  at The Times November 12, 2007  in Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth; then that heartrending photo, syndicated everywhere, of the bears apparently stranded on a melting ice floe; then the story of those four polar bears drowned by global warming (actually, they’d perished in a storm). ...  
Now, in a new cinema release called Earth – a magnificent, feature-length nature documentary from the makers of the BBC’s Planet Earth series – comes the most sob-inducing “evidence” of all: a poor male polar bear filmed starving to death as a result, the quaveringly emotional Patrick Stewart voiceover suggests, of global warming.   Never mind that what actually happens is that the bear stupidly has a go at a colony of walruses and ends up being gored to death. 

Polar bears caught in a heated eco-debate  by Oren Dorell, USA TODAY  March 10, 2008  Eskimos in Alaska and Canada have joined to stop polar bears from being designated as an endangered species, saying the move threatens their culture and livelihoods by relying on sketchy science for animals that are thriving   ...  "It would have a really big effect on us Inuit, because we go by dog team to traditionally hunt polar bears," said Jamie Kablutsiak, who guides U.S. trophy hunters for big money onto the ice on Canada's Hudson Bay. As for the bears, "I don't think they're decreasing because there's usually lots, even in summer time," he said.   ...   Big money is at stake. Sport hunters pay between $25,000 and $30,000 each to bag a polar    

Polar bears caught in a heated eco-debate  by Oren Dorell, USA TODAY  March 10, 2008   Willie Soon, an astrophysicist at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said far too few data were used to make predictions about both climate change and polar bear behavior and populations.  "We looked at historical studies. The first thing you notice is the whole climatic system undergoes huge fluctuation," Soon said.

Over the possibly 200,000 years the polar bear has existed as a species, it has survived "very harsh conditions" of extreme cold, such as ice ages, and warmth, such as the last interglacial period, 100,000 to 110,000 years ago, Soon said    

Polar Bear Population Forecasts: A Public-Policy Forecasting Audit  by J. Scott Armstrong  Kesten C. Green Willie Soon   May 3, 2008   Nine government reports were to inform the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service decision on whether or not to list polar bears as threatened under the  Endangered Species Act. We assessed these reports in light of evidence based (scientific) forecasting principles. None of the reports referred to works on scientific forecasting methodology. Of the nine, Amstrup, Marcot and Douglas (2007) and Hunter et al. (2007) were the most relevant to the listing decision. Their forecasts were products of complex sets of assumptions. The first in both cases was the erroneous assumption that General Circulation Models provide valid forecasts of summer sea ice in the regions inhabited by polar bears.   ...   We found that Amstrup et al. properly applied only 15% of relevant forecasting principles and Hunter et al. only 10%, while 46% were clearly contravened and 23% were apparently contravened. As a consequence their forecasts are unscientific and of no consequence to decision makers.    

Polar Bear Pushback  by Hugh Hewitt   May 16, 2008  The Act operates simply. Once an animal is listed, it becomes a felony to harm or harass it without the permission of the feds.  Harm or harassment has been defined to include destruction or impairment of the habitat the species actually occupies.   

Impact: New York Times Features EPW Polar Bear Report   by Marc Morano   February 1, 2008   Ocean researcher Dr. John T. Everett, a former National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) senior manager and past co-chair of the UN IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) Working Group 2 Polar Regions Chapter  ...   "Polar bears have endured warmer periods than are forecast by IPCC, having evolved into their present form some 700,000 years ago (or 100,000 years ago) (or 200,000 years ago) or before the beginning of the last interglacial) and their molars changed some 10,000 to 20,000 years ago. Importantly, polar bears were likely present in some final version of their present form, during the last interglacial (130-110,000 years ago) when there was virtually no ice at the North Pole and average Arctic temperatures at that time were 5.7 to 9.5 degrees F (3 to 5 degrees C) higher than present (IPCC, 2007).  

A Global Warming Primer by The National Center for Policy Analysis    Polar bear numbers increased dramatically from around 5,000 in the 1950s to as many as 25,000 today, higher than at any time in the 20th century.     

Polar Bears: 'Still Alive... Having Fun'  by Investor's Business Daily   May 14, 2008   The Interior Department ruled Wednesday that the polar bear will be protected as a threatened species. Why special treatment for an animal whose population has more than doubled over the last 50 years?    

Too Much Ice: Polar Bears Starving  in Not by Fire but by Ice  February 16, 2008  Svend Erik Hendriksen, a certified weather observer in the Kangerlussuaq Greenland MET Office, who is responsible for all the weather observations at Kangerlussuaq Airport (near to Sisimiut), says that the cause is too much sea ice: "Several polar bears located (at least 6) close to Sisimiut town on the West coast ...Too much sea ice, so they are very hungry    

Don't List the Polar Bear Under the Endangered Species Act    by Ben Lieberman   January 25, 2008   Polar Bear global numbers have increased substantially, from an estimated 8,000–10,000 in 1965–1970 to 20,000–25,000 today.[3] Clearly, any warming that has occurred has not had an adverse impact on polar bear numbers. This is true of the polar bear populations in Alaska, Canada, Russia, and other nations.    

The state of Alaska strongly opposes the listing, questioning the need to do so and fearing the economic consequences. The first victim of listing would be new oil and natural gas production throughout the state and in its surrounding waters. 

Polar Bear Pandering   by Debra J. Saunders  November 4, 2007   Bjorn Lomborg addressed the polar bear scare in his book, "Cool It, the Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming." Of the 13 polar bear populations in Canada, the populations of 11 are stable or growing. The biggest cause of polar-bear deaths: hunters, who shoot an average of 49 polar bears in western Hudson Bay yearly.   

Polar Bears on Thin Ice, Not Really!  by H. Sterling Burnett   May 17, 2006   Though polar bears are uniquely adapted to the Arctic region, they are not wedded solely to its coldest parts nor are they restricted to a specific Arctic diet. Aside from a variety of seals, they eat fish, kelp, caribou, ducks, sea birds and scavenged whale and walrus carcasses. In addition, as discussed above, Arctic air temperatures were as high as present temperatures in the 1930s and polar bears survived.  

US government sued over failure to protect polar bears  by Edward Helmore at guardian.co.uk  March 10, 2008  Under Canadian regulations, indigenous communities are awarded licences to kill a certain number of bears each season. These "tags" are typically sold to wealthy US and European hunters, each bringing in as much as $50,000 each to impoverished communities    

Governor: Alaska to challenge polar bear listing  by Dan Joling  Associated Press  May 22, 2008   The state of Alaska will sue to challenge the recent listing of polarbears as a threatened species, Gov. Sarah Palin announced Wednesday.  She and other Alaska elected officials fear a listing will cripple oil and gas development in prime polarbear habitat off the state's northern and northwestern coasts.

Palin argued that there is not enough evidence to support a listing. Polarbears are well-managed and their population has dramatically increased over 30 years as a result of conservation, she said.  Climate models that predict continued loss of sea ice, the main habitat of polarbears, during summers are unreliable, said Palin, a Republican  

Sen. James Inhofe weighs in on polar bear mania   by Michelle Malkin  May 14, 2008   According to Canadian scientists, 11 of the 13 bear populations are stable, with some increasing. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service now estimates that there are currently 20,000 to 25,000 polar bears. These numbers are substantially up from lows estimates in the range of 5,000-10,000 in the 1950s and 1960s.  


Polar Bears, Snow Days and Snow Jobs  February 14, 2007  The "endangered" designation is based less on the actual number of bears in Alaska than on "projections into the future," Mr. Vickery said, adding that these "projection models" are "tricky business."   ...most of the alarm over the polar bear's future stems from a single, peer-reviewed study, which found that the bear population had declined by some 250, or 25%, in Western Hudson Bay in the last decade. But the polar bear's range is far more extensive than Hudson Bay. A 2002 U.S. Geological Survey of wildlife in the Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain concluded that the ice bear populations "may now be near historic highs."  

About 300 to 500 Polar Bears could be saved every year if hunting were just halted.  Don't you think that would be a great deal cheaper than Carbon Trading or other expensive measures.

Listing Polar Bears on the Endangered Species list will have the following negative effects

  1. Create hardship for towns that need the nearly $20,000 fee to each bear that is killed on hunts.
  2. Prevent any oil or other natural resources from being removed from areas where the Polar Bears live.
  3. Force CO2 reduction and other measures that will be devastating to our economy.

Governor: Alaska to challenge polar bear listing  by Dan Joling  Associated Press  May 22, 2008   As marine mammals, polarbears are regulated by the federal government, not the state. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne last week made the listing decision and said it was based on three findings.

''First, sea ice is vital to polarbear survival. Second, the polarbear's sea-ice habitat has dramatically melted in recent decades. Third, computer models suggest sea ice is likely to further recede in the future,'' he said.  The bear's numbers rebounded after the 1970s, but conservation groups contend that was in response to measures taken to stop over-hunting.

Polarbear researchers fear recent effects of the loss of sea ice on Alaska polarbear populations. A 2006 study by the U.S. Geological Survey concluded that far fewer polarbear cubs in the Beaufort Sea were surviving and that adult males weighed less and had smaller skulls than those captured and measured two decades previously -- trends similar to observations in Canada's western Hudson Bay before a population drop.

Nunavut Cut Down Polar Bear Hunting Quotas  The allowable harvest (killing) of polar bears in the Hudson Bay area was cut from 56 polar bears down to 38. This goes into effect immediately. The move by the Nunavut government comes 5 months after Environment Minister Patterk Netser’s department held a special hearing in Arviat to discuss hunting levels in the area.      Interesting you never hear that Polar Bears are still hunted and esp. in places like Hudson Bay where the bears are decreasing in numbers.

Polar bear pandering by Debra J. Saunders  November 4, 2007   Bjorn Lomborg addressed the polar bear scare in his book, "Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming." Of the 13 polar bear populations in Canada, the populations of 11 are stable or growing. The biggest cause of polar-bear deaths: hunters, who shoot an average of 49 polar bears in western Hudson Bay yearly.   

Are Polar Bears Really an Endangered Species?   by Kenneth P. Green  May 13, 2008   Predictions of polar bear endangerment are based on two sets of computer models: one set predicts how much Arctic sea ice will melt as a result of global warming, and the other predicts how polar bear populations will respond. But computer models of climate change are known to be fraught with problems, and the ecological models used to predict polar bears’ response to climate shifts are equally limited.  ...   What we do know about polar bears is that, contrary to media portrayals, they are not fragile, “canary in the coal mine” animals, but are robust creatures that have survived past periods of extensive deglaciation.   Link    Link 2

U.S. Senate Report Debunks Polar Bear Extinction Fears  U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee  January 30, 2008   This report shows many references about the health of Polar Bears and goes further to discuss they they are not in danger of extinction.

Penguins

Other Animals

First, the polar bear…now, the Pacific walrus   by Michelle Malkin    May 29, 2008  After successfully mau-mauing the government into listing the polar bear as threatened based on dubious data, green lawyers are now filing suit to get the Pacific walrus listed as threatened, too.  ...   The Center for Biological Diversity gave notice this week that it will sue to force federal action on its petition to list the walrus as threatened because of “threats from global warming and offshore petroleum development.”  

Quoted as Saying:  at Climate Change Fraud  August 20, 2008   Loarie Greg Loarie, an environmental lawyer at Earthjustice, on why using the American pika is the perfect mammal to challenge the recent ruling that the Endangered Species Act was not intended to regulate climate change. Environmentalists filed a lawsuit Aug. 19, 2008, in U.S. District Court in Sacramento, Calif., and requested, among other things, that carbon dioxide be regulated as a pollutant.   

Conclusion