There are many 'W'rong decisions that were made by the EPA regarding the 'natural treasures' of the USA under the Bush Executive Branch. Many.
Please see below to continue...
Gray wolf is back on the endangered species list (click here)
Thursday, January 22, 2009, 4:22 PM
by Bob Meyer
The gray wolf is back on the Endangered Species list in the Western Great Lakes and northern Rocky Mountains…at least for a while. On Tuesday, President Obama signed an executive order putting a “hold” on all last-minute rules made by the Bush Administration, one of those rules was the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service reinstatement of the delisting last week.
The wolf was originally delisted early last year and management of their population was turned over to the affected states. A federal judge put them back on the list saying the state management plans could not guarantee a sustained recovery. Last week the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service said they had met the concerns of the court and reissued the delisting.
Some of the worst decisions made by Bush's EPA was to drastically cut funding and personnel from US Fish and Wildlife. Bankrupting the country was a way of 'persuading' the American populous to realize that 'exploitation' of their natural resources while cutting to the bone any scientific and support staff to the USA's natural world was THE ONLY WAY out of Bush's negligence of the USA economic stability.
continued below...
January 19, 2007
Contact(s) Deborah Bagocius, (202) 772-0239
Feds Slash Staff at National Wildlife Refuges in Midwest (click here)
Over 70 Refuge Positions Cut in 8 Midwest States, 3 Refuges to Lose Entire Staff
Washington, D.C. -- The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) is making drastic reductions and redeployments of staff in the National Wildlife Refuge System throughout the Midwest region. Reductions in services will be felt in Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa and Missouri. The consequence of these reductions will be the elimination of environmental education programs for school children, endangered species recovery programs, reduced habitat management and law enforcement. These cuts come on the heels of a crippling budget backlog of over $2.5 billion....
The US Fish and Wildlife Service are 'the police' to prosecutions taken before US Attorneys when violations to our nation's laws exist. Without US Fish and Wildlife 'agents' protecting the USA's natural heritage through 'protection' laws there would be no way that any US Attorney could bring charges of violators. (And by the way, the protection laws need to STOP being misdemeanors and take on far more serious consequences. The more exploitation that occurs, the more precious the species and the costly it is to restore it. The laws aren't WEIGHTED CORRECTLY to oppress violators. They are OLD standards when restoration wasn't as critical as it is now given the extent that Human Induced Global Warming is causing damge to the nation's natural world.)
Convenient. Bush could actually say that convictions fell during his years as the 'enforcement' of laws worked better than ever before, while our natural world was being exploited and reduced by profiteers that 'simply got away with it.'
And they did get away with it. The EPA cut US Fish and Wildlife to the bone through most of the nation. There were poachers caught here and there, one or two. But, for the most part the departments of the EPA have been grossly understaffed and in some cases redirected to 'track what might be potential terrorists' in cities and towns. Chemical plants were more the focus of agents, yet under Bush there were numerous Chemical Plant explosions as the 'rules and regulations' they had to abide by became less and less in number and restriction.
The new Secretaries of the EPA and Interior have a lot of work ahead of them to restaff their agencies and begin again to protect forests and wildlife from damage and extinction.
Encroachment and 'over building' in our nation has gone to nearly ever corner of the county in what was "W"rongfully called an economy. It is going to require the 'RE-HIRE' of qualified people to return protections under the law to this country.
Why is it important? I'll use the Bald Eagle as an example. In places in Maryland, along the Chesapeake Bay there have been reports of the destruction of nests since the delisting of our national symbol. As soon as the delisting occurred, within days there were permits issued for building homes in what once was protected areas. That put 'pressure' on the nesting Bald Eagles and today there are abandoned nests that no longer provide for the return of a precious and endangered species.
The article below is from 1995 and discusses the success of the Bald Eagle program. You have to understand these programs were important enough to Americans to 'spend money' on the restoration of the Bald Eagle and now in the year 2008 with the 'W'rongful delisting of the nation's raptor; the bird is becoming less in number in some of their territory. All those monies were wasted for the 'gain of wealth' of a few housing contractors that caused a 'flooding of the housing' market.
Md. survey finds eagle numbers up (click here)
March 1995
By Karl Blankenship
Maryland in January recorded the second highest number of bald eagles ever counted near the Chesapeake Bay during the 20 years it has conducted a midwinter eagle survey, according to the state Department of Natural Resources.
"Surveys of both breeding and wintering bald eagle populations in Maryland continue to demonstrate the success of the Chesapeake Bay restoration efforts," said former Natural Resources Secretary Torrey Brown.
This winter, 194 bald eagles and one golden eagle were counted at three of the state's primary eagle concentration areas. That is second only to the 263 bald eagles counted in 1990.
"That year, extremely cold weather conditions prevailed throughout the northeastern United States, forcing more eagles into Maryland," said Glenn Therres, DNR's bald eagle biologist. "This year's number is extremely encouraging given the mild winter we have had so far."
On Jan. 13, biologists found 72 bald eagles and one golden eagle at Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge near Cambridge on the Eastern Shore. Surveys on Jan. 15 found 101 bald eagles at the U.S. Army's Aberdeen Proving Ground and 21 along the lower Susquehanna River.
Maryland's midwinter survey does not include most of the 159 pairs of bald eagles that nested in the state in 1994 because those birds are dispersed to their breeding areas.
The midwinter bald eagle survey is a national effort conducted in the lower 48 states to assess the wintering population of the endangered bird. Last winter, 15,305 bald eagles were counted during the national survey. The survey is designed to measure changes in eagle populations; it is not intended to be a complete census.
In Maryland, the survey is conducted in cooperation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the U.S. Army. The National Biological Service coordinates the survey nationally.
Contributions on line 63 of the Maryland Income Tax Form, and donations to the Chesapeake Bay and Endangered Species Fund help to support threatened and endangered species work such as the eagle survey, as well as other nongame wildlife and Chesapeake Bay projects.
In a nation dedicated to 'doing the right thing' and unholding their right to a natural world to protect within our borders it requires PERSONNEL to 'stand the line' on species demise and delisting. US Fish and Wildlife can't carry out its enormous responsibility and literally there are plenty of examples throughout this country were species laws have been abandoned for one reason and one reason only and that is because QUALIFIED scientists and agents were removed from positions within departments of the Federal Government.
There is a lot of work to do and none of it is frivilous or unnecessary. If we are to 'Save Earth for our Children' we have to FIRST restore the staffing to agencies that carry out that responsibility before we can RESTORE our nation's species that are now facing hideous threats from negligence and criminal intent by the 43rd President of the USA.
