From the Orange County Register:

Friday, November 1, 2002

A VERY FISHY PRACTICE

Nov. 1, 2002 Orange County Register California Focus

by M. David Stirling

Stirling is vice president of Pacific Legal Foundation and a lawyer involved in NMFS litigation.

Are grizzlies born in zoos real grizzlies? Not if you follow the logic of federal bureaucrats who insist that fish in the wild that were spawned in hatcheries shouldn't be tabulated in official counts of fish species. The practice has become a major issue in California and the Pacific Northwest. The federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) provides a process for conservation of fish, wildlife and plant species whose survival is endangered. Fearing that politically driven definitions of species would come back to haunt them, congressional authors of the legislation specified that different populations of the same species would be treated the same.

But despite this precaution, the National Marine Fisheries Service

(NMFS) routinely resorts to politicized science to adulterate the term "species," exaggerating how endangered certain fish are - and, not so incidentally, maximizing the power of bureaucrats. In Oregon, after 60 years of as many as 20 million hatchery-spawned coho salmon being released annually into coastal rivers, nearly all Oregon coho are descendants of hatchery-spawned fish. Yet NMFS counts only the fewer naturally spawned Oregon coastal coho and says their numbers are so small they qualify for federal protection. Fisheries officials assert behavioral characteristics of hatchery-spawned coho threaten the survival of naturally impregnated coho. This is like asserting that because grizzly bears born and raised in zoos behave differently than grizzlies in the wild, they are not legitimate members of the grizzly bear species. Because hatchery-spawned coho and naturally spawned coho are genetically identical, sound science dictates they are the same species of fish, and the Endangered Species Act mandates that they not be treated differently.

There is also no genetic difference between hatchery-inseminated and naturally impregnated rainbow or steelhead trout. In California, however, NMFS listed for protection the fewer naturally spawned Central Valley rainbow trout, while ignoring the numerous hatchery fish. In Washington, since 1950, over 2 billion Puget Sound chinook salmon have been released from hatcheries into the Sound's tributaries. NMFS biologists acknowledge that nearly all Puget Sound chinook are descendants of hatchery fish. Yet the fisheries service protects the fewer naturally spawned Puget Sound chinook salmon, while disregarding thousands of hatchery-spawned fish. So why does NMFS distinguish fish of the same species based on their means of impregnation? The answer is land-use control. Agency biologists

- and especially their environmental supporters - are seeking land-use control over as much privately owned land as possible. Their larger objective is to render such land impervious to development in any form. The presence of a protected species provides that control over the full geographic range of the species' movements. If the plentiful hatchery-spawned fish were counted, none of the mentioned species would meet the ESA's numbers-criteria for "endangered" status. But by counting only the meager numbers of so-called wild fish within the species' particular population segment, meeting that criteria is assured. Once the fish is listed for protection, NMFS staff, and the environmental activists who influence them, are empowered with immense control over how, if at all, private property owners may use their land

- even those many miles away from the rivers and streams of California, Washington and Oregon.

Thankfully, this blatant use of politicized science may be about to end. A federal judge in Oregon has ruled that the fisheries service can no longer distinguish between genetically identical coho salmon, declaring the agency must either list the species' entire population - both natural and hatchery- spawned - or neither type. If this scientifically sound ruling is upheld on appeal, at least one disingenuous method of federal intrusion on private property will have been eliminated.

So by their own logic, invetro fertilized babies are not HUMAN!

quote:

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environmental supporters - are seeking land-use control over as much privately owned land as possible. Their larger objective is to render such land impervious to development in any form.

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That is what I have said all along, it's not about "species" it's about power and control!

LIVE FREE OR DIE!