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Show THE ZEPHYRMAY 1995 PAGE 22 Other Views... The Endangered Endangered Species Act By Jasper Carlton ft's warming up. It's shorts weather and iyou're looking at the best pair of legs any ex-- M arine could ever hope to grow. WATCH FOR OUR DAILY SPECIALS AND OUR PASTA SPECIALS. Following three and a half billion years of evolution, what is now called the North American continent was once a grand, vast wilderness. Natural cycles ran their course, species went extinct and new species evolved. If we were fortunate enough to discover such a place today, how would we treat it? With our present day knowledge, how much of it would we preserve to maintain maximum biological diversity and ecological processes? Hindsight, however, cannot change what happened to this rich and diverse continent. About 17,000 years ago, people from Asia traveled across a dry Bering Strait and began the human invasion and ecological degradation of North America. Around the time humans reached North America, the continent lost its lions, cheetahs, horses, mammoths, mastodons, giant ground sloths, and several dozen other large mammals. Most likely, humans played a major role in these extinctions. As early as 10,000 B.C., human beings and wildlife were not in complete harmony on the North American continent. Although our species had no control over previous glaciation-cause- d extinctions, we now do have the potential to set limits on human behavior in our last natural wild areas. Since the arrival of the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock in 1620, over 500 species have become extinct. With accelerating habitat loss and human population growth, scientists now predict that a quarter to a half of the world's remaining species will disappear within the next 100 years or less. The present rate of extinctions exceeds the natural rate by several orders of magnitude. Human we have begun to realize, is tied to the health of the ecological community. With our capacity to reason and make choices, wc have a responsibility to protect other life forms. The passage of the Endangered species Act (ESA) reflects this vital realization. The ESA was intended to provide for the conservation of ecosystems upon which endangered and threatened species depend. It has undergone several key revisions throughout the years, widening its scope and broadening its implications. The original 1966 Endangered Species Preservation Act was directed at preserving the habitats of native vertebrate species. In 1969, this was expanded to include invertebrates such as mollusks and crustaceans. The 1973 version of the ESA was the most comprehensive conservation program ever passed by Congress. It protected plants as well as any members of the animal kingdom threatened with extinction. Today, the ESA stands as the most important law in the world in the protection of natural diversity- -a demonstration of positive human potential. It is one of the few legal obstacles to uncontrolled destruction of wilderness ecosystems of all sizes in North America. And it is under attack as never before. The framers of the ESA intended sound biology, good planning, and effective consultation to protect imperiled species alongside healthy human communities. They did not, however, anticipate the degree to which the swing of the political pendulum would interfere with the Act's goal of saving endangered species and their ecosystems. The current Congress seems intent on completely eviscerating the Act, and it is not clear whether or not President Clinton will veto the various anti-ESbills now sailing House the and Senate. through This is not the first backlash the ESA has faced, though it Since worst. the 1978, hundreds of species potentially facing extinction have appears been denied formal listing as threatened or endangered and have thus been denied to due and economic interference with the biological planning protection political well-bein- g, Genuine Wood Pit Barbeque 36 South 100 West 259-430- 2 A tal SnnMSSMuSi 259-40707jr,259-5- 733 L We offer a fine selection of: ll? and Jewelry Pottery Rugs Special Gifts INDIAN S y ARTSf "W uwmrnmrnmmmmmi JfNl.i' Vr sa gifts uni W.rf i Come in & Browse SMilE ACTION SHOTS SLICKPICS 400 -- NORTH MAIN STREET I r T- i Be nice touslifr We shoot dozens of people everyday. |