Senator John Kennedy, a well-known animal rights activist, inadvertently proved why the Endangered Species Act (ESA) is a miserable failure and needs reforming or eliminated.
“I know the bureaucrats at the Department of the Interior (DOI). I realize this: They’re smarter and more virtuous than you and I are. I get that. But who appointed them God,” Senator Kennedy humorously stated during his explanation of S.J.Res. 69, attempting to block DOI’s plan to kill 453,000 barred owls. The measure failed 25-72.
His reasoning is spot on and explains why the ESA is man’s creation, not God’s plan for His creation. The purpose for killing 453,000 barred owls is that they threaten the existence of the spotted owl because they are better hunters than the spotted owl.
As most will remember, the spotted owl, a nearly identical owl species, was listed as a threatened species in northern California, Oregon and Washington by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on June 23, 1990. Loss of “old-growth” habitat was their reason for listing, which then led to a court order in 1991, stopping all logging in national forests containing spotted owls.
Kennedy said: “Barred owls are expanding their habitat because … of adaptive range expansion.” “Whether you believe in God or nature…, that happens every single day in our ecosystem. It’s a naturally occurring ecological phenomenon.”
“They’re just doing what nature (God) teaches them to do,” Kennedy continued. “They will kill 453,000 of them, dead as Jimmy Hoffa.”
What Kennedy is actually confirming is that Congress created an Act to allegedly save species by giving the federal government the power to play God and determine which species lives and dies. Kennedy’s arguments confirm the ESA does not work.
The real reason the spotted owl was listed was to give the federal government power and overreaching control on federal and private lands that restricted logging and the extraction of natural resources. And, if the spotted owl’s population has actually diminished, it’s because our forests have been so mismanaged by our federal government causing wildfires that destroy the owl’s habitat and all the other wildlife that live there.
Whether you agree with Senator Kennedy or not, his efforts to save the barred owl from destruction is another example that government interference does not “save” species from extinction. Instead, they make it worse for man and nature.
