ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, February 13, 1997 TAG: 9702130009
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-10 EDITION: METRO
SEEN ANY owls in the back yard lately? Didn't see any spots in front of your eyes, did you?
You'd better hope not, or the endangered-species police will be overrunning the place, setting up sanctuaries, chaining themselves to trees, maybe driving your family into the street.
Or maybe you think property rights should lose all meaning where the Endangered Species Act comes into play.
Somewhere between the heated rhetoric of the property-rights movement and urgent warnings about accelerated extinction rates, science has weighed in with evidence that species can be saved in the United States without interfering with human activities in more than a few places.
Appalachia is one those, specifically Scott County, Va., and Hancock and Claiborne counties in Tennessee, where mollusks are endangered. Hawaii, California and Florida have the greatest number of species threatened with extinction, researchers at Princeton University and the Environmental Defense Fund found. And there are endangered-species "hot spots" in Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Mississippi and Georgia.
While the research hardly found a protected plant or animal in every back yard - far from it, in fact - the task of saving these species still is daunting. Most live on private land, some of it quite expensive. Obviously, the conflict between protecting property rights and wildlife habitats is greatest where booming populations are pacing development pressures.
Can common ground be found? Perhaps.
A full public-relations assault on the Endangered Species Act during the Republican Revolution put the act itself on the endangered list. It has survived thus far, however, because Americans remain committed to environmental protection. Building another strip mall loses appeal if the price includes obliterating a species of life forever.
Revolution has given way to reconciliation these days - meaning there may be give on both sides. Rather than relying solely on regulations, an Environmental Defense Fund researcher suggested recently in The Christian Science Monitor, the government should offer tax incentives to landowners to restore and enhance habitats of endangered species.
Which might also enhance the act's chances of survival.
LENGTH: Short : 46 linesby CNB