The Endangered Species Act imposes significant regulatory burdens on anyone who owns land where endangered and threatened species or their habitats are found. The predictable result of such burdens is to discouragelandowners from accommodating rare species or maintaining habitat. A recent study confirms this prediction, finding that species already threatened with habitat loss have lost an additional 8.1% of their private-land habitat over the last 30 years.
Previously, this effect had been shown for individual species. For instance, a 2003 study by Dean Lueck and Jeffery A. Michael found that landowners accelerated timber harvesting in areas occupied by the red-cockaded woodpecker. To protect individual birds and habitat, the federal government limits timber harvesting in areas occupied by the species. However, red-cockaded woodpeckers prefer old-growth pine forests. Landowners who harvest their trees early can avoid creating these conditions and, therefore, avoid the federal regulations that accompany the bird’s presence. The…
View original post 367 more words
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
Recent Comments