10/10/06 Ala Spotted Owl

Just look what we have done in the name of the spotted owl. Après the spotted owl fiasco nobody and I mean nobody wants to stumble upon a endangered species on their private property, we have seen what happens. Spotted Owl paranoia has set North Carolina chain saws a buzzing as wary landowners have been clear cutting hundreds of acres simply because some cute little red-cockaded woodpecker with declining numbers decided to pick their trees to peck. The Federal Fish and Wildlife had the grand idea of mapping this woodpeckers habitat, and this mapping will designate critical woodpecker nesting clusters that happen to include subdivisions and land earmarked for new construction. So in what has become a race between landowners and mapmakers, landowners are rushing to clear cut all the trees of their property for fear Mr. Woody would make their land unbuildable. It is a sad irony and a harsh lesson that harkens back to the spotted owl saga that woodlands are being destroyed basically because environmental intolerance has created such a climate of fear