???? Actually, saving what very little is left of the old growth
forests in the PNW is hardly an "anti-logger" effort! This is/was a
one of the top conservation priorities of the National Audubon Society
and the Washington State Audubon, and this effort, which has met only
mixed success, was designed to preserve an entire ecosystem, including
numerous rare species of animals and plants, including the Marbled
Murrelet, as well as the Spotted Owl. As to this having "destroyed
entire communities," I would contend that any town whose economy is
based primarily on logging old growth timber is a doomed town in any
case. Old growth logging is a dead-end prospect no matter how you cut
it. (sorry for the pun). If they don't choose to diversify, as many
such towns have, they will go under soon, Spotted Owl or no Spotted
Owl. I worked in the woods cutting fire trails, cleaning creeks, and
planting trees for almost a decade, so I know what I'm talking about
here. I saw first-hand the devastation of clear-cut logging, the
window-dressing that the logging companies use to excuse their
rapacious behavior, and the mono-culture desert they plant to replace
what was a diverse natural ecosystem. At some point you have to say,
enough -- what's left of the old growth should be protected not just
for owls but for watershed conservation and for the entire community
of organisms for which the Spotted Owl is an indicator species.

As to Mt. Graham, I actually agree with you, and I think the F.S. made
a good-faith effort to mitigate the habitat damage. But I see that
example as WAY different from either the owl or the gnatcatcher. Also,
I think most people who are aware of wildlife conservation issues at
all are probably just as well-informed about the plight of the native
Hawaiian avifauna as they are about the gnatcatcher or the squirrel,
and there have been substantial efforts over years to both educate
folks and to solve the problems. But there's little that can be done
about mosquito-borne diseases, food plants that are now extinct, and
other problems these species face.

Bottom line, I agree with you completely that every effort should be
made to try to stop the collapse of the honeycreeper declines, but I
disagree with you that this implies that our efforts to save other
species are misguided or not equally as important.

Mark





On Aug 29, 2010, at 4:04 PM, rccarl at pacbell.net wrote:

> My point is that our priorities for saving species are completely
> cockeyed. Trying to accomplish everything usually gets you
> nothing. If you spend 90% of your effort on 10% of the problem
> you'll lose 90% of the time. Saving Hawaiian birds should be our
> top priority, but they are the bottom.
>
> We have 14 critically endangered species in the US (IUCN Redlist not
> counting the ones already extinct). 13 of these critical species
> are in Hawaii, but 90% of the effort has been elsewhere. Next to
> nothing is happening to save all those unique Hawaiian species while
> we let various political activists use the Endangered Species Act
> for other purposes at huge economic and political cost. Anti-
> loggers used the Spotted Owl to stop logging here in the NW: that
> cost 100's of million of dollars and destroyed entire communities.
> Anti-growth activists used the California Gnatcatcher (yes, it's
> cute, but far from critically endangered and very similar to other
> gnatcatchers). That effort probably cost a billion dollars.
> Finally, in Arizona, anti-science Luddites used the newly
> "discovered" Mt. Graham sub-species of the red squirrel to try to
> stop one of the great astronomy projects on the planet.
>
> While we were in the midst of all these other headline and resource
> grabbing controversies, most birders and nearly all the rest of the
> nation, had no idea that Hawaiian bird populations were collapsing.
>
>
>
> Richard Carlson
> Full-time Birder, Biker and Rotarian
> Part-time Economist
> Tucson, AZ, Lake Tahoe, CA, & Kirkland, WA
> rccarl at pacbell.net
> Tucson 520-760-4935
> Tahoe 530-581-0624
> Kirkland 425-828-3819
> Cell 650-280-2965
>
> --- On Fri, 8/27/10, m.egger at comcast.net <m.egger at comcast.net> wrote:
>
> From: m.egger at comcast.net <m.egger at comcast.net>
> Subject: [Tweeters] re Kauai birding and California Gnatcatcher
> To: tweeters at u.washington.edu
> Date: Friday, August 27, 2010, 4:06 PM
>
>
>
> Secondly, I couldn't let Richard Carlson's statement from the
> message below go unanswered: "While we've spent enourmous efforts to
> "save" barely ID'able sub-species -- Mt. Graham squirrels, Cal
> Gnatcatcher etc., we've let an entire Hawiian avifauna collapse".
> While I agree that the Hawaiin endemic are wonderful & need more
> conservation efforts to same them, I completely disagree with the
> implication that the Mt. Graham Squirrel and the California
> Gnatcatcher are "barely ID'able sub-species" apparently not worthy
> of conservation efforts. First, the California Gnatcatcher is a full
> and well-marked species, not a subspecies (and it's a very cool
> little bird!), easily distinguished from the other gnatcatchers when
> one knows what to look for. Moreover, it is easily conserved, IF we
> choose to save what's left of its habitat. Sadly, the situation with
> the Hawaiian forest endemics is more complex & they face a whole set
> of serious threats to their existence: habitat destruction, disease,
> introduced predators, loss of native food plants, climate change,
> etc. Anyway, my point is that both the Hawaiian endemics AND the
> endangered species on the mainland of North America deserve out
> strongest efforts to protect their habitats and help them survive.
>
> Mark
>
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