10/20/14

Thune, Noem donors resisting Black Hills habitat protection

The US Fish and Wildlife Service is considering habitat protection for the northern long-eared bat endangered by human encroachment in the Black Hills.

Donors for South Dakota's junior senator and the sitting At-large member of the US House of Representatives are having a cow. Earth hater and longtime lobbyist for land rapers, Larry Mann, works for the Black Hills Forest Resource Association, the GOP-owned cabal mentioned in this piece:
A possible restriction would be no harvesting of trees over three inches in diameter from April through October, when the bats are leaving the caves and mines in which they hibernate for the winter and moving to nests in trees. The Fish and Wildlife Service is expected to make a decision next spring. Officials are concerned about being able to manage the forest, but they also want to do what's best for the bat if it truly is endangered, said Kerry Burns, a U.S. Forest Service forest wildlife biologist in the Black Hills. "We want to incorporate conservation measures that are truly going to make a difference," he said. "The first and foremost threat is white-nose syndrome." [Rapid City Journal]
If history is any guide, locals will just kill the offending bats like they do with elk, cougars and their kittens.

And of course: the fake bark beetle war is just a subsidy for Republican donors.

$20 bucks says black bears, wolves, and moose sighted in the Black Hills coming from the Bighorn Mountains are migrating up the Little Missouri from the Tongue via the Yellowstone River.

How would their presence in the Black Hills not automatically make them candidates for endangered species protection?


No comments: