Frank wrote on Jan 21
st, 2025 at 8:10am:
As Los Angeles burned, California Governor, Gavin Newsom’s administration plotted an elaborate rescue mission – for a supposed endangered form of trout. “One of our biggest concerns,” a state Department of Fish and Wildlife manager told a newspaper last week, is “losing that last population of fish”.
California progressives don’t believe in leaving any fish or wildlife species behind. Homo sapiens, meantime, are on their own. The state employs about 5300 workers in conservation and wildlife protection as opposed to 570 in the fire agency’s wildland management. Every species needs a public advocate, even if it is a common nuisance.
Weeks before the fires, the iconic 110-year-old Santa Cruz Wharf collapsed into the ocean. The reason: The California Coastal Commission had delayed repairs so they wouldn’t coincide with seagulls’ mating season. The commission noted that the birds were “sensitive during their reproductive life history phases” and repairs might “disturb nesting seabirds”.
The anecdote is illustrative of the daffy-duck environmental policies that have fuelled the deadly fires. Many environmentalists don’t care about wildlife – they merely use species to restrict human activity. Take the 7.5cm delta smelt, which has been at the centre of the state’s water wars. Runoff from mountains in Northern California feeds into the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, which is connected to the San Francisco Bay. Pumps at the south push water to farms in California’s Central Valley and Southern California cities, but because smelt sometimes get trapped in the pumps, federal and state governments have restricted how hard they can run. Billions of gallons of water flow each year into the Pacific as result. Yet the smelt population has continued to decline owing to non-native predator fish and other delta denizens that outcompete it for food.
...
California hasn’t built a major water project in more than 45 years because of environmental permit impediments, but the state will spend $58m ($94m) and bulldoze regulatory barriers to help a cougar cross a road so it can prey on other animals and people.
Last September a cougar mauled a five-year-old boy picnicking with his family in the mountains. He survived, but before killing the cougar a parks ranger had to consult with the state Department of Fish and Wildlife to determine that it posed a “threat to public safety”.
At least 27 people have been killed by the Los Angeles fires. Environmentalists will doubtless be happy to hear that a cougar and two cubs in the Palisades appear to have made it out alive.
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
Aha. The Wall Street Journal have moved into
not-satire, have they?
How diabolically cunning of them. In other news, here's what's proven to be fake, false, mendacious, tendentious and
lies.
University of Balogney, eh?