Gnatcatcher’s Natural Enemy: Hybrid Species of Fact-Bulldozer

When Hugh Hewitt wrote his piece on the gnatcatcher controversy, he must not have realized how absurd his rhetoric would seem placed next to fellow attorney Joel Reynolds’ carefully wrought position (Commentaries, “Gnatcatcher: Imperiled Species or Specious No-Growth Ploy?” July 28). Reynolds’ arguments rely heavily on prevailing opinion in the legitimate scientific community.

By contrast, Hewitt relies instead on the incredible claim that the whole scientific community arrayed against him is engaged in a diabolic cabal. In his desperation, Hewitt makes the egregious claim that he’s motivated by a concern for rescuing the prevailing consensus supporting the preservation of “truly” endangered species. Get a life, Hugh.

Hewitt complains that his employers’ apple cart is being upset because the bird was classified as a subspecies distinct from the alleged multitudes in Baja and suggests a sinister plot hatched by extremists. On the other hand, the rest of us suffer embarrassment at the hands of those same taxonomic extremists because they refuse to name the Abominable, Armani-breasted, Bruno-Magli-Toed Developer’s Mouthpiece as a species distinct from Homo sapiens sapiens .

Hewitt professes to be outraged by studies classifying the gnatcatcher as “sedentary,” exclaiming it’s been known to travel “distances greater than 4 miles” searching for a new home after being driven out by the bulldozers. For a small bird, that must be equivalent to a six-hour, Mercedes-borne, client-chasing commute by the aforementioned primate type, yet I would still classify both as sedentary, and thus vulnerable to fragmentation of their habitat/client base.

One suspects Hewitt’s fallback will be that if the little devil doesn’t have the gumption to at least double its house-hunting range, the better to leapfrog his employers’ grading projects, then it doesn’t deserve to be saved from extinction.

DAN EMORY, Fountain Valley