By Melissa Mayntz in the USA:
More Habitat for Endangered Flycatcher
February 6, 2013
One small bird now has a lot more habitat to enjoy, thanks to protection from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. According to the Deseret News, more than 200,000 acres of riparian land along more than 1,200 miles of rivers in several western states is now guarded against adverse development, and it is hoped that the protective measure can help safeguard the endangered southwestern subspecies of the willow flycatcher.
Parts of Utah, Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico and Colorado are included in the protected zones. While the areas are not automatically designated as preserves, this first step in habitat conservation may lead to better analysis of developments as they could harm the endangered species.
Have you seen the southwestern willow flycatcher? Share your sightings in the comments!
Arizona water pumping decision threatens millions of birds in Globally Important Bird Area: here.
Related articles
- Congratulate Successful Efforts to Save Rare American Bird (forcechange.com)
- Seychelles paradise flycatchers helped by schoolchildren (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
- 1,227 miles of streams in Southwest tapped as prime flycatcher habitat (azstarnet.com)
- Biodiversity: Southwestern willow flycatcher gets critical habitat designation – finally (summitcountyvoice.com)
- Southeast Arizona Guided Birding and Eco-Tour Announced by Naturalist Journeys, a Top Nature Tour Company (prweb.com)
Dear Kitty. Some blog 
Where the landowners of this nearly 209,000 acres payed for the taking of their land?
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“The habitat covers nearly 209,000 acres but doesn’t automatically establish those areas as preserves. It does, however, ban destruction or “adverse modification” of these lands for projects conducted or authorized by the federal government. Adverse modification typically means activity that destroys the lands’ value for the endangered species.”
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/765621834/Endangered-songbird-gets-protected-regional-habitat.html
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That is equal to the “taking of private property.” When the federal government prevents a landowner from using his land as he chooses, but allows others to use it as they choose, it is either Socialism or Avianism (you like that word?).
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Hi Waldo, I doubt whether this measure (mainly about what the federal government allows itself to do) is any more socialism than taking away landowners’ lands (rather than limits in use as in this measure) for building a pipeline or a railroad.
Take the example of two landowners next door to each other. One of them is a beekeeper, using his land as he chooses; for the bees. Next door, the owner is also using his land as he chooses: with bee-killing insecticides. Not on his beekeeping neighbour’s land; on his own land. Still, his neighbour’s bees die.
In the habitat of this rare bird, some landowners don’t overgraze their land, don’t use insecticides which kill birds, and don’t cut so many bushes and trees that the birds cannot nest anymore (these trees and bushes are important for shade for cattle as well, by the way). However, next door there may be a landowner overgrazing, using bird-killing insectides, and clearing all bushes and trees. The birds will become extinct on this land. And on his neighbour’s land eventually as well, as the habitat for the bird species becomes too small and fragmented.
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Private land is private land.
******
pri·vate
/ˈprīvit/
Adjective
Belonging to or for the use of one particular person or group of people only.
*****
People who own private land payed for it with their own funds.
People who own private land pay taxes to the government (in perpetuity)
No one should take any use of those lands away from the owner UNLESS the owner is paid compensation for the loss of use of all or part of the land.
When someone builds a pipeline, railroad or any other infrastructure through the use of emminent domain (or other legal taking) then the owner is compensated.
And so I go back to my original quesion; were the owners compensated for the taking of this 209,000 acres?
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Yes, with pipelines etc., owners are compensated. But what if they don’t want to sell at all (as leaking pipelines might pollute the rest of their land etc.)? Then, the private property of small landowners suddenly is not private property any more, compared to Big Oil etc.
Not all of those 209,000 flycatcher acres are privately owned. Big parts of it are owned by the federal government, states or local authorities.
Eg, the city of Los Angeles.
See on the flycatcher on Los Angeles lands:
Click to access RPT_Consv_Strategy_for_the_SW_Willow_Flycatcher_LADWP_101106.pdf
Eg, in a flycatcher area in Arizona, only 22% of the land is “privately/corporate owned”. Including mining giant BHP Biliton, leaving little space for small landowners:
Click to access wflfeaFULL.pdf
That document mentions purchasing private lands. So yes, there would be compensation.
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As to pipelines; then it is taken through legal processes AND THE LANDOWNER IS PAID FOR THE TAKING.
The question still stands; did the private landowners get compensated for the taking of their land?
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There are laws for compensating private landowners in cases like this, and I did not find anything about these laws not being applied in this case.
As I mentioned, the overwhelming majority of the land in the flycatcher case is not privately owned.
There is a conflict between the Center for Biological Diversity (which put the federal government on trial for insufficiently preventing extinction of the flycatchers; leading to this decision) on the one hand, and the Arizona Cattlegrowers Association on the other hand. However, that conflict is not about ranchers’ private lands, but about grazing on federal lands. See
http://azstarnet.com/news/science/environment/miles-of-streams-in-southwest-tapped-as-prime-flycatcher-habitat/article_4e979261-915f-5751-a6ea-0910d98056fa.html
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