Rare Woodpecker Sends Town Running for Chain Saws

[YankeyMCC]

(snip)
Rare Woodpecker Sends Town Running for Chain Saws

BOILING SPRING LAKES, N.C., (Sept. 24) -- Over the past six months, landowners here have been clear-cutting thousands of trees to keep them from becoming homes for the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker.
(snip)

(snip)
The chain saws started in February, when the federal Fish and Wildlife Service put Boiling Spring Lakes on notice that rapid development threatened to squeeze out the woodpecker.

The agency issued a map marking 15 active woodpecker “clusters,” and announced it was working on a new one that could potentially designate whole neighborhoods of this town in southeastern North Carolina as protected habitat, subject to more-stringent building restrictions.

Hoping to beat the mapmakers, landowners swarmed City Hall to apply for lot-clearing permits. Treeless land, after all, would not need to be set aside for woodpeckers. Since February, the city has issued 368 logging permits, a vast majority without accompanying building permits.
(snip)

http://articles.news.aol.com/news/_a/rare-woodpecker-sends-town-running-for/20060924114809990001?ncid=NWS00010000000001

[OwnedByFerrets]

1. OMG

Humans can be such sick motherfuckers! :puke:

[YankeyMCC]

4. I want to say "unbelievable"

but unfortunately it isn't really so unbelievable in terms of the heights of stupidity people are capable of.

[razors edge]

2. stupid pricks.

[Hand]

3. It's the village of Ben Suc all over again...

"It was necessary to destroy the village in order to save it."

Ubi solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant... :grr:

[Hand]

5. At least they're trying to stop these idiots.

The results can be seen all over town. Along the roadsides, scattered brown bark is all that is left of pine stands. Mayor Joan Kinney has watched with dismay as waterfront lots across from her home on Big Lake have been stripped down to sandy wasteland.

“It’s ruined the beauty of our city,” Ms. Kinney said. To stop the rash of cutting, city commissioners have proposed a one-year moratorium on lot-clearing permits.

[niyad]

6. they sat around from feb until NOW to stop this idiocy? what in

the HELL is the matter with these people?

[Hand]

7. Explanation below...

Bonner Stiller has been holding on to two wooded half-acre lakefront lots for 23 years. He stripped both lots of longleaf pines before the government could issue its new map.

“They have finally developed a value,” said Mr. Stiller, a Republican member of the state General Assembly. “And then to have that taken away from you?”

A bad case of Repuke greed complicated by coprocephaly (shit for brains, loosely translated) :dunce:

[Straight Shooter]

8. There will be consequences.

I don't know how, but you just don't do this sort of thing to a local environment without nature taking a bit of revenge.

Should be interesting. Hope it comes sooner than later. Pricks.

[Dead_Parrot]

9. Aaaarrrgggh!

Fucking retards.

[madrchsod]

10. pictures before the nasty birds ruined the property values

[The Backlash Cometh]

11. I recognized a red cockaded woodpecker in my backyard for the

first time last week. I say, "recognized" because they were probably always present, but I haven't been paying attention before as much as I have this summer. I live in Florida, and I was wondering how powerful is their presence? Could I have stopped the development of the home next to mine if I had paid closer attention last year?

[barbtries]

12. i don't get it

why don't they want to save the woodpeckers?

[PinkyisBlue]

14. Because they're stupid and greedy and only care about money.

That's the Webster's definition of Republican.

If an animal is listed as endangered, the government sets limits on what can be done with the land (in order to preserve the habitat of the animal, bird, plant, whatever). But if the people (usually Republicans) change the environment before the animal is classified as endangered, thereby driving the animal from the area, there are no limits set on the use of the land, as the animal will no longer be there. So the Republican landowners can do whatever they want to the land, with no consideration as to what is best for the environment, their neighbors, the town, etc. It all comes down to greed and money, and we know where Republicans stand on these issues. Money trumps all.

[Canuckistanian]

13. Of course. Why take a chance?

OMFG, what a perverted, greedy, self-centered, myopic, short-sighted, ignorant, anthropocentric, avaricous, distrustful, destructive, uncaring, inconsiderate and STUPID bunch of asshole redneck money-grubbing FUCKING IGNORAMUSES.

[kitkatrose]

15. Wow.

:wow: Such idiocy. Poor woodpeckers though. :(

[depakid]

16. That sounds like North Carolina alright

I was just there last week and saw and heard similar things that would make any reasonable person's jaws drop.

Also- talk about an unsustainable area. The whole "research traangle" is nothing but 100 square miles of one suburb, business park shopping center after another. ZERO mass transit- there's not even a bus line to the airport!

No community food security to speak of- they're just non-stop paving over everything.

And did I mention the prevalence of fundies?

That part of the country has very poor prospects for the future. I feel sorry for the kids there.

[zonkers]

17. Oh my fucking god. This burns me up.

[Nihil]

18. May they burn in Hell

Greed. Selfish, uncaring greed.

Sickening.

[theHandpuppet]

19. So when is Gaia finally going to kick our parasitic asses?

Here's more on this endangered woodpecker: http://www.fws.gov/rcwrecovery/rcw.htm

(excerpt)

RANGE AND POPULATION LEVEL: Historically, this woodpecker's range extended from Florida to New Jersey and Maryland, as far west as Texas and Oklahoma, and inland to Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee. Today it is estimated that there are about 6,000 groups of red-cockaded woodpeckers, or 15,000 birds from Florida to Virginia and west to southeast Oklahoma and eastern Texas, representing about 1 percent of the woodpecker's original range. They have been extirpated (note: this means EXTERMINATED!) in New Jersey, Maryland, Tennessee, Missouri and Kentucky.