Tag Archives: Endangered species

A Utah district court has ruled that the Endangered Species Act has exceeded Congress’ authority to regulate private landowners. In a case involving the Utah prairie dog, which was listed as a threatened species in 1973, the court said that since prairie dogs were involved in interstate commerce, the federal government had no Constitutional authority to regulate them.

Ironically, the main threat to the Utah prairie dog before it was listed was none other than the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, which had the dual job of protecting endangered species and endangered pestiferous species. For decades, the Fish & Wildlife Service had poisoned prairie dogs throughout the West, saying they were bad for farmers and ranchers.

This poisoning continued even after the agency declared the black-footed ferret to be “the most endangered mammal in North America.” As it happens, black-footed ferrets get 99 percent of their food by eating prairie dogs, as well as make their homes in former prairie dog dens, but this didn’t stop the agency from poisoning prairie dogs.

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A recent issue of the New York Times Magazine suggests that the technology for recreating species that have gone extinct in the last few thousand years will soon be available if it is not already. Scientists have already attempted to clone an extinct European wild goat known as a bucardo, and while the results were not successful they were clearly moving in the right direction.

Passenger pigeons in their native habitat, an Iowa woodland, from a diorama in the Denver Museum of Science and Nature. The background to this diorama was painted by Charles Waldo Love. The Flickr photo is by Jessica Lamirand; click image for a larger view.

Species that have been extinct for millions of years, such as dinosaurs, are beyond our reach. But the Times argues that recovery of such species as the passenger pigeon, which once numbered in the billions, and the woolly mammoth should both be possible in the very near future.

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