Farmer in Rat Habitat

* I am writing in response to “Immigrant Farmer’s Woes Galvanize Conservatives,” June 10. In this case, a Taiwanese immigrant is accused of violating the Endangered Species Act. His tractor allegedly ran over five Tipton kangaroo rats in the Kern County area.

Quoted is Arthur Unger, local Sierra Club president, saying, “How can we sit here and play God and say, ‘This species we’ll let go?’ ”

This form of environmental engineering is a form of “playing God,” too. I wonder how many tax dollars were spent on the surveillance, raid and arrest, including over two dozen officers and helicopters, and how much will be spent in court? This is another example of the overweight bureaucracy of land-grabbing environmentalism that has become this generation’s greatest ruse for making a “guiltless” buck.

The real endangered species is common sense.

VICKI TALBOT

Malibu

* I am totally unsympathetic toward Taung Ming-Lin. What Taung needs is a lesson in how free-market capitalism works.

Taung was a former importer in Taiwan and a bookbinder here in California. He had no experience in either real estate or in farming. This is a business that he had no business being in. He did not familiarize himself with the laws governing his farming profession. This is a tragic mistake in any business.

This lack of familiarity with the farming business was not the fault of either the federal government or of the Endangered Species Act. Sadly, Taung Ming-Lin paid upward of $2 million for his education in capitalism.

KEVIN B. POWELL

Torrance