[CPEO-MEF] Snowy Plover protections reduced

[lsiegel@cpeo.org]

[This is an issue at a number of military installations in California,
including, I believe, the Coronado Naval Base, Camp Pendleton Marine
Corps Base, and Vandenberg Air Force Base. - LS]

Feds reduce protected bird habitat 
Nesting areas set aside for snowy plover will diminish


By JEFF BARNARD
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
September 27, 2005

GRANTS PASS, Ore. -- The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Monday
announced that West Coast beachfront critical habitat for the threatened
western snowy plover will be cut back by nearly 40 percent, continuing a
Bush administration policy of reducing habitat protections for
threatened and endangered species to reduce economic losses.

The bulk of the cuts came from beaches in California on Monterey Bay,
Morro Bay and the San Diego Bay island city of Coronado, where a report
had estimated that protecting nesting areas from development and human
contact would cost nearly $200 million over the next 20 years primarily
because of limiting recreation.

"The economic analyses are playing an increasingly significant role in
determinations of critical habitat," said Fish and Wildlife spokesman Al
Donner in Sacramento, Calif. "That's triggered by court decisions that
have directed us to do more rigorous economic reviews of proposed
critical habitat and their impacts."

...

For the entire article, see
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/242353_plover27.html

-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org
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