The butterfly and the golf course
The Allegation: In a cover story titled “The
Butterfly Problem,” in the January 1992 issue of The Atlantic, the
authors portrayed an Oregon developer whose lifelong dream of
carving fairways on a section of the Oregon coast was snuffed out
in the morass of Endangered Species Act protection of an endangered
butterfly.
The Response: U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service personnel helped the developer obtain an incidental take
permit under the Endangered Species Act, recognizing that
development of a Habitat Conservation Plan in connection with the
golf course would assist the long-term survival of the butterfly.
The developer, however, was unable to satisfy Oregon’s land-use
planning laws on grounds unrelated to the ESA, and the project was
abandoned.
The widow’s
story
The Allegation: In
testimony before the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee
in April 1992, a representative of the National Cattlemen’s
Association told of a widow near Austin, Texas, who wanted to clear
her fencerow of brush, only to be threatened with prosecution by
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The
Response: The woman was advised by the Service that her clearing of
a 30-foot-wide, one-mile-long fencerow might harm endangered
songbird nesting habitat, but after Service representatives met
with her and assessed the situation, she was given the go-ahead to
clear the fencerow.
Examples
from Facts About the Endangered Species Act, an in-house
publication of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife
Service.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline The butterfly and the golf course; and the widow’s story.
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