If you would like to have your voice heard, email the FWCC Commissioners who will be making historic votes this year (perhaps as early as April) on the Panama City Crayfish. Here's their email address. Send email early and often:
Commissioners@MyFWC.com
Here are their names and home towns. Their bios can be found here:
Mr. Rodney Barreto, Chairman 2006 Miami
Mr. David K. Meehan, Vice Chairman St. Petersburg
Mr. H.A. "Herky" Huffman Enterprise
Ms. Sandra T. Kaupe Palm Beach
Mr. Richard A. Corbett Tampa
Mr. Brian S. Yablonski Tallahassee
Ms. Kathy Barco Jacksonville
Sunday, January 7, 2007
Upcoming FL Fish and Wildlife Meetings
Here are the upcoming FWCC Commission meetings. If you are concerned about endangered human liberties, you may want to attend:
2007 Commission Meetings
February 7-8
Sandestin Resort
9300 Emerald Coast ParkwayWest
Destin, FL 32550
Phone: 850-267-8000
April 11-12
Ramada Conference Center
2900 North Monroe Street
Tallahassee, FL 32303
Phone: 850-386-1039
June 13-14
Radisson Suite Hotel Oceanfront
3101 North Highway A1A
Melbourne, FL 32903
Phone: 321-773-9260
2007 Commission Meetings
February 7-8
Sandestin Resort
9300 Emerald Coast ParkwayWest
Destin, FL 32550
Phone: 850-267-8000
April 11-12
Ramada Conference Center
2900 North Monroe Street
Tallahassee, FL 32303
Phone: 850-386-1039
June 13-14
Radisson Suite Hotel Oceanfront
3101 North Highway A1A
Melbourne, FL 32903
Phone: 321-773-9260
Crayfish Endangers Hurricane Evacuation Route
Here's the "Biological Status Report" (April 2006) for the Panama City Crayfish, which is an attempt to document the rationale for upgrading it to state level "Threatened". Here are some quotes from the report:
..."However, I think that it is abundantly evident that there is an overwhelming lack of biological and life history data available for this species. "
Hey, but let's go ahead and move it up higher on the endangered list so we can impose additional regulations on everyone!
All: There are many unknown consequences to PCC if the proposed Gulf Coast Parkway is built. There will be habitat loss and direct take of PCC along Star Avenue, Nehi Road, and Tram Road It is unknown whether DOT has a mitigation plan for these losses. Also unknown is whether the mitigation would be enough to recover the PCC population size to pre-construction levels. It was agreed that the proposed road expansion be monitored closely to alleviate negative impacts to PCC.
So, a popular hurricane evacuation route expansion that would improve safety for humans might be slowed down by bureaucracy as they try to maintain the human-made ditches beside this road for crayfish habitat!
..."However, I think that it is abundantly evident that there is an overwhelming lack of biological and life history data available for this species. "
Hey, but let's go ahead and move it up higher on the endangered list so we can impose additional regulations on everyone!
All: There are many unknown consequences to PCC if the proposed Gulf Coast Parkway is built. There will be habitat loss and direct take of PCC along Star Avenue, Nehi Road, and Tram Road It is unknown whether DOT has a mitigation plan for these losses. Also unknown is whether the mitigation would be enough to recover the PCC population size to pre-construction levels. It was agreed that the proposed road expansion be monitored closely to alleviate negative impacts to PCC.
So, a popular hurricane evacuation route expansion that would improve safety for humans might be slowed down by bureaucracy as they try to maintain the human-made ditches beside this road for crayfish habitat!
A "Development-Free America"
From a Wall Street Journal article, 2002:
The Endangered Species Act was passed nearly 30 years ago in a show of bipartisan good intentions, to help animals on the brink of extinction. But since that time, environmental groups have hijacked the act, turning it into a bludgeon by which they can enforce their vision of a development-free America. It's rural parts of the country, where small landowners lack deep pockets and political clout, that bear the brunt.
The Endangered Species Act was passed nearly 30 years ago in a show of bipartisan good intentions, to help animals on the brink of extinction. But since that time, environmental groups have hijacked the act, turning it into a bludgeon by which they can enforce their vision of a development-free America. It's rural parts of the country, where small landowners lack deep pockets and political clout, that bear the brunt.
Communism - We're Not Kidding
You may have chuckled when you read the introductory post, and you came across the word "communism". But stick with us. Here is a quote from an environmental extremist:
"The collective needs of non-human species must take precedence over the needs and desires of humans." [Dr. Reed F. Noss, The Wildlands Project]
Spot the communist overtones? This guy is with the University of Florida and he is active in mapping out a statewide plan for government control of land that will be paid for by you, the collective human populous, but used only by wildlife. ONLY by wildlife.
A couple more:
"We must make this an insecure and inhospitable place for capitalists and their projects.. We must reclaim the roads and plowed land, halt dam construction, tear down existing dams, free shackled rivers and return to wilderness millions of tens of millions of acres of presently settled land." [David Foreman, Earth First!]
"While the death of young men in war is unfortunate, it is no more serious than the touching of mountains and wilderness areas by humankind." [David Brower, founder of Friends of the Earth and former executive director of the Sierra Club]
More outrageous quotes are here.
"The collective needs of non-human species must take precedence over the needs and desires of humans." [Dr. Reed F. Noss, The Wildlands Project]
Spot the communist overtones? This guy is with the University of Florida and he is active in mapping out a statewide plan for government control of land that will be paid for by you, the collective human populous, but used only by wildlife. ONLY by wildlife.
A couple more:
"We must make this an insecure and inhospitable place for capitalists and their projects.. We must reclaim the roads and plowed land, halt dam construction, tear down existing dams, free shackled rivers and return to wilderness millions of tens of millions of acres of presently settled land." [David Foreman, Earth First!]
"While the death of young men in war is unfortunate, it is no more serious than the touching of mountains and wilderness areas by humankind." [David Brower, founder of Friends of the Earth and former executive director of the Sierra Club]
More outrageous quotes are here.
Scientists Caught in Fraud
from DiscerningToday.org:
Outright Fraud and Religious Zealousness
Government scientists are not above actually planting evidence to support their anti-human beliefs. In the fall of 2001 the U.S. Forest Service found that seven federal and state wildlife biologists planted false evidence of a rare and threatened Canadian lynx in the Wenatchee and Gifford Pinchot National Forests in the state of Washington. The three U.S. Forest Service, two U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and two Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife employees planted lynx fur on rubbing posts. The posts were installed to identify existence of the creatures in the two national forests as part of a lynx habitat study started in 1999. DNA testing of two of the samples matched that of a lynx living inside an animal preserve. The third DNA sample matched that of an escaped pet lynx being held in a federal office until its owner retrieved it.
Had the fraud gone undetected it would have closed roads to vehicles. They would have banned off-road vehicles, snowmobiles, skis and snowshoes, along with livestock grazing and tree thinning. Representatives Richard Pombo (R-California) and John Peterson (R-Pennsylvania), the chair communications chairman, respectively, of the House Western Caucus, were especially critical of the incident in a jointly released statement:
As Americans, we should have been astounded by the recent findings that federal officials intentionally planted hair from the threatened Canadian lynx in our national forests in order to impose sweeping land regulations. But in truth, many of us who come from rural America have grown accustomed to environmental activism prevailing over the rule of law and over the best interests of families and communities.
The guilty employees claimed they were not really trying to manipulate or expand the lynx habitat, but instead were merely testing the lab's ability to identify the cat species through DNA analysis. They did not come forward, however, until after a fellow Forest Service colleague had exposed them. “That would be like bank robbers taking money from a bank and saying they were just testing the security of a bank, they weren't really stealing the money,” said Rob Gordon, executive director of the National Wilderness Institute. Nonetheless, the story given by the seven guilty biologists prevailed, and the guilty parties received no discipline — thereby encouraging more fraud in the future. Representatives Pombo and Peterson were aghast: “This lackadaisical approach to willful, unethical conduct is unacceptable, and we see no credible alternative other than to terminate the parties if there is convincing evidence that they knowingly and willingly planted unauthorized samples.”
Retired Fish and Wildlife Service biologist James M. Beers called the false sampling amazing but not very surprising. “I'm convinced that there is a lot of that going on for so-called higher purposes,” he said. The higher purpose to which Beers referred is known as “conservation biology.” Untested, conservation biology rests on the unproven pantheistic assumption that nature knows best and that all human use and activity should follow natural patterns within relatively homogenous soil-vegetation-hydrology landscapes called ecosystems. Such belief holds that the government should not permit unnatural human development like roads, and activities snowmobiling, livestock grazing and harvesting. Furthermore, ecosystems cross unnatural property lines. Since conservation biology ostensibly calls for holistic management of entire ecosystems to protect its perceived fragile web of life, the rights of nature must be superior to the rights of people, including their property rights.
The religious zealousness driving the ESA has gotten so bad that David Stirling, Vice-president of the Pacific Legal Foundation, a conservative legal foundation taking cases that have Constitutional merit, notes:
For three decades, environmental purists have actively promoted the pantheistic notion that plant and animal life rank higher on the species hierarchy than people. Their "return-to-the-wild" agenda argues that human life activities are the enemy of plant and animal species, and only through their efforts to halt growth and shut down people’s normal and necessary life endeavors will Mother Earth smile again. From as far away as the paved-over streams and erstwhile species habitat of Manhattan, a recent New York Times editorial called for farmers in the Klamath Basin to turn their land back to nature.
David Graber, Research Biologist with the National Park Service, graphically expresses this radical view:
Human happiness, and certainly human fecundity, are not as important as a wild and healthy planet. I know social scientists who remind me that people are part of nature, but that isn’t true. Somewhere along the line — at about a million years ago, maybe half of that — we quit the contract and became a cancer. We have become a plague upon ourselves and upon the Earth…. Until such time as Homo Sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along. Conservation biology is little more than earth worship, seasoned with a little science.
Outright Fraud and Religious Zealousness
Government scientists are not above actually planting evidence to support their anti-human beliefs. In the fall of 2001 the U.S. Forest Service found that seven federal and state wildlife biologists planted false evidence of a rare and threatened Canadian lynx in the Wenatchee and Gifford Pinchot National Forests in the state of Washington. The three U.S. Forest Service, two U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and two Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife employees planted lynx fur on rubbing posts. The posts were installed to identify existence of the creatures in the two national forests as part of a lynx habitat study started in 1999. DNA testing of two of the samples matched that of a lynx living inside an animal preserve. The third DNA sample matched that of an escaped pet lynx being held in a federal office until its owner retrieved it.
Had the fraud gone undetected it would have closed roads to vehicles. They would have banned off-road vehicles, snowmobiles, skis and snowshoes, along with livestock grazing and tree thinning. Representatives Richard Pombo (R-California) and John Peterson (R-Pennsylvania), the chair communications chairman, respectively, of the House Western Caucus, were especially critical of the incident in a jointly released statement:
As Americans, we should have been astounded by the recent findings that federal officials intentionally planted hair from the threatened Canadian lynx in our national forests in order to impose sweeping land regulations. But in truth, many of us who come from rural America have grown accustomed to environmental activism prevailing over the rule of law and over the best interests of families and communities.
The guilty employees claimed they were not really trying to manipulate or expand the lynx habitat, but instead were merely testing the lab's ability to identify the cat species through DNA analysis. They did not come forward, however, until after a fellow Forest Service colleague had exposed them. “That would be like bank robbers taking money from a bank and saying they were just testing the security of a bank, they weren't really stealing the money,” said Rob Gordon, executive director of the National Wilderness Institute. Nonetheless, the story given by the seven guilty biologists prevailed, and the guilty parties received no discipline — thereby encouraging more fraud in the future. Representatives Pombo and Peterson were aghast: “This lackadaisical approach to willful, unethical conduct is unacceptable, and we see no credible alternative other than to terminate the parties if there is convincing evidence that they knowingly and willingly planted unauthorized samples.”
Retired Fish and Wildlife Service biologist James M. Beers called the false sampling amazing but not very surprising. “I'm convinced that there is a lot of that going on for so-called higher purposes,” he said. The higher purpose to which Beers referred is known as “conservation biology.” Untested, conservation biology rests on the unproven pantheistic assumption that nature knows best and that all human use and activity should follow natural patterns within relatively homogenous soil-vegetation-hydrology landscapes called ecosystems. Such belief holds that the government should not permit unnatural human development like roads, and activities snowmobiling, livestock grazing and harvesting. Furthermore, ecosystems cross unnatural property lines. Since conservation biology ostensibly calls for holistic management of entire ecosystems to protect its perceived fragile web of life, the rights of nature must be superior to the rights of people, including their property rights.
The religious zealousness driving the ESA has gotten so bad that David Stirling, Vice-president of the Pacific Legal Foundation, a conservative legal foundation taking cases that have Constitutional merit, notes:
For three decades, environmental purists have actively promoted the pantheistic notion that plant and animal life rank higher on the species hierarchy than people. Their "return-to-the-wild" agenda argues that human life activities are the enemy of plant and animal species, and only through their efforts to halt growth and shut down people’s normal and necessary life endeavors will Mother Earth smile again. From as far away as the paved-over streams and erstwhile species habitat of Manhattan, a recent New York Times editorial called for farmers in the Klamath Basin to turn their land back to nature.
David Graber, Research Biologist with the National Park Service, graphically expresses this radical view:
Human happiness, and certainly human fecundity, are not as important as a wild and healthy planet. I know social scientists who remind me that people are part of nature, but that isn’t true. Somewhere along the line — at about a million years ago, maybe half of that — we quit the contract and became a cancer. We have become a plague upon ourselves and upon the Earth…. Until such time as Homo Sapiens should decide to rejoin nature, some of us can only hope for the right virus to come along. Conservation biology is little more than earth worship, seasoned with a little science.
Thursday, January 4, 2007
The Lee Sullivan Show
Thank goodness someone understands the absurdity of listing the Panama City Crayfish as an endangered species. Lee Sullivan is the former Mayor of Panama City Beach, and he has his own local television show in the mornings on the Fox Network (WPGX Channel 28 at 6:00 am weekdays). He has some fun in this clip from his December 8 show. And more fun in the December 12 show with some crayfish boil.
This is not the Manatee....
They had a tough time trying to make it 'cute'. Nobody bit on that one:
Letters to the Editor
Sunday, August 26, 2001
A critter of a mascot we truly can call our own
The Aug. 18 article, "Mascot sought for city," mentioned that the group organizing this wonderful art/fund-raising project was considering using the dolphin as a mascot. While I love dolphins, I think I have a more appropriate representative of our city.
There is a creature that lives nowhere else in the world but right here. It's our very own animal that no one else has. Could there be a better mascot than something that is ours and ours alone?
It's called the Panama City Crayfish and it is found only in a portion of Bay County. Because of its very limited range, it is listed by the state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission as a Species of Special Concern.
The truth is, this little critter could really use some publicity to help it out. What little natural habitat is left for this animal is threatened by development, both directly and through improvements to the infrastructure, and current laws don't really do much to help it.
Why should we help it? Because it's ours and we're the only ones who can. Why should we eliminate a species that we have the power to save, especially since progress would not have to be sacrificed, just made more responsible?
Lisa Keppner, Panama City
Letters to the Editor
Sunday, August 26, 2001
A critter of a mascot we truly can call our own
The Aug. 18 article, "Mascot sought for city," mentioned that the group organizing this wonderful art/fund-raising project was considering using the dolphin as a mascot. While I love dolphins, I think I have a more appropriate representative of our city.
There is a creature that lives nowhere else in the world but right here. It's our very own animal that no one else has. Could there be a better mascot than something that is ours and ours alone?
It's called the Panama City Crayfish and it is found only in a portion of Bay County. Because of its very limited range, it is listed by the state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission as a Species of Special Concern.
The truth is, this little critter could really use some publicity to help it out. What little natural habitat is left for this animal is threatened by development, both directly and through improvements to the infrastructure, and current laws don't really do much to help it.
Why should we help it? Because it's ours and we're the only ones who can. Why should we eliminate a species that we have the power to save, especially since progress would not have to be sacrificed, just made more responsible?
Lisa Keppner, Panama City
Wednesday, January 3, 2007
Panama City Crayfish Documents
The 2001 petition to upgrade the crayfish is here. It's full of assumptions and speculation about this critter. Low on facts, the attitude seems to be "when in doubt, regulate!"
The 2003 petition to delist the crayfish, which was ignored by the State, is here.
Here is the current 'Management Plan' for the Panama City Crayfish, demonstrating a total lack of responsibility for reasonable documentation of issues and or impacts. There's a map so that you can see if you, or a road that you use, will be one the first victims in their target range. It includes a feeble attempt to guess at the economic impact this listing will have on the citizens of Panama City. Priceless: in the "Social Impact" section, they say:
Potentially positive social effects include increased public awareness of
Panama City crayfish and flatwoods habitats in Florida, public recognition and support of
the FWC for taking a comprehensive approach to Panama City crayfish management,...
So they really think the public will look favorably upon the FWC for saddling us with this ridiculous issue? They are really out of touch with the common sense of the average citizen.
The 2003 petition to delist the crayfish, which was ignored by the State, is here.
Here is the current 'Management Plan' for the Panama City Crayfish, demonstrating a total lack of responsibility for reasonable documentation of issues and or impacts. There's a map so that you can see if you, or a road that you use, will be one the first victims in their target range. It includes a feeble attempt to guess at the economic impact this listing will have on the citizens of Panama City. Priceless: in the "Social Impact" section, they say:
Potentially positive social effects include increased public awareness of
Panama City crayfish and flatwoods habitats in Florida, public recognition and support of
the FWC for taking a comprehensive approach to Panama City crayfish management,...
So they really think the public will look favorably upon the FWC for saddling us with this ridiculous issue? They are really out of touch with the common sense of the average citizen.
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