Remember the spotted owl? Its "threatened extinction" was the reason that the environmentalist used to reduce drastically the cutting of timber in the northwest United States. How about the snail darter? Again a creature that was the poster child for shutting off water to the farmers of the Central Valley of California. And the peregrine falcon? Rachael Carson used this bird as a way of outlawing DDT (and in the process killing millions of humans with malaria, etc.) And the salmon ... goodbye to any new hydroelectric dams ... and even a sizable parcel of older ones.
Enter stage left the manatee ... which now it is believed relies on the warm water exiting from coal-fired power plants in Florida to ease the rigors of cold weather there ... see: Miami Herald Article. But wait! This can't be! If the tree-huggers were to be consistent, they would fight our fearless leader's war on such "environmental hazards" as the use of coal to produce electricity.
But are they? [... crickets ....] One can only assume that these other animals were really incidental to the real hidden agendas of those who knew that they knew what was best for the rest of us.
