Endangered Species

Sometimes science can be amazingly helpful. Unfortunately, like everything else, it also has a dark side that is rarely more evident than in the Endangered Species Act.

Much to the delight of no-growth advocates, wildlife officials want to condemn the Ventura River, Santa Clara River and Calleguas Creek to critical habitat status for the beleaguered steelhead trout. To many this amounts to little more than a means to tie up any water that ever flows within their bounds but this has not stopped every Tom, Dick and Harriet activist from chiming in to back up the latest, best plan to save the fish.

The Naitonal Marine Fisheries Service recently raised the specter of returning to the days of clubbing seals because it thinks they are wreaking havoc on trout and salmon.

Likewise, conservation groups claim the ravenous Sacramento squawfish find trout in the Eel River to be a particular delicacy. So, between the squawfish and seals, who can say with certainty that anything we do to our local rivers would help the trout?

Killing seals and squawfish may bring trout populations back to “past levels” but do we, as good stewards of the land, want that? Conservation groups have linked trout to depleted populations of toads and frogs in the Sierras, and Ventura County has this problem with red-legged frogs and arroyo toads, doesn’t it?

Trying to save one animal often leads to consequences that bite us in the butt later on down the road.

At a time when legislators are mulling over revising the Endangered Species Act, pressures from opposing camps stand to either eliminate a well-intended law altogether or simply leave it exposed to the utter abuses to which some cannot avoid subjecting it.

Depending on how you look at it, the consequences for trying to keep someone from building in someone else’s back yard are awfully steep, aren’t they?

BRUCE ROLAND, Ojai