Monday, March 24, 2008

We are living in a golden age (cont)

News item: Under Bush, endangered species list dying off

With little- noticed procedural and policy moves over several years, Bush administration officials have made it substantially more difficult to designate domestic animals and plants for protection under the Endangered Species Act.

As a result, listings plummeted. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne has not declared a single native species as threatened or endangered since he was appointed nearly two years ago.

Some species have vanished. The Lake Sammamish kokanee, a landlocked sockeye salmon, went extinct in 2001 after being denied an emergency listing, and genetically pure Columbia Basin pygmy rabbits disappeared last year after Interior declined to protect critical habitat for the species.

Not even animals are safe from the Wrath of W.

3 comments:

Smiff said...

Dirk Kempthorne: the name even screams "REPUBLICAN ASSHOLE."

And Dumbya, as always, brings good things to death. The guy just loves to make things dead.

k-mad said...

What has the Lake Sammamish kokanee ever done for us, anyway?

k-mad said...

For that matter, I defy anybody to name one thing genetically pure Columbia Basin pygmy rabbits have ever done for us.