Salmon and Steelhead May Lose Protections

We may have misjudged just how much damage these bastards can do with four more years. The next four haven’t begun yet and look at this in today’s LA Times.

“The Bush administration on Tuesday proposed dramatically rolling back protections for salmon and steelhead trout streams from Southern California to the Canadian border, saying the rare and endangered fish are sufficiently protected in other ways.” [That protection will presumably be provided by cans and freezer wrap.] The revised plan, which was prompted by a lawsuit from the National Assn. of Homebuilders, could exclude 80% to 90% of the "critical habitat" that the National Marine Fisheries Service [NMFS] designated four years ago as necessary to keep West Coast salmon and steelhead populations from going extinct and to allow their depleted populations to recover.

“… We would get down to excluding around 90% of the critical habitat that had been [previously] identified," said Jim Lecky, an assistant regional administrator for the Fisheries Service.”

“The new plan, released late Tuesday, was immediately applauded as "a very large improvement" by Christopher Galik, an environmental policy analyst for the National Assn. of Homebuilders.”

“But environmentalists and fishermen said it failed to meet the agency's [the NMFS] own scientific criteria for what is needed for the once-abundant fish to return to healthy population levels.”

… “Nicole Cordan, policy and legal director of Save Our Wild Salmon, called the plan "ridiculous" on its face, predicting that eliminating 90% of protected habitat would fail to meet the biological needs of salmon and the legal tests of the Endangered Species Act.” … All these actions, Cordan said, "are typical of this administration — ignore science, ignore sound economics and ignore the law."

“Glen H. Spain, northwest regional director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Assns, said the administration is making a critical error in its economic analysis by failing to consider the benefits of restored salmon populations — such as helping the struggling salmon fishing industry.”

"Conservation makes good economic sense," Spain said, "and we are a perfectly good example of this. Our livelihood is on the line."

Do I really have to comment? Click the link above to read the entire article.