Several suburban and urban developments have recently come face to face with a problem they never really considered: wild animals. Residents of the Bronx report seeing packs of coyotes in their parks, alligators hanging out in Florida homeowners’ backyards have become a more common sight with the encroachment on the state’s wetlands, herds of deer are spotted walking through backyards on a regular basis across the United States, posing threats to drivers on highways. Bring in government involvement: on January 28, 2015, a group of Senators proposed amendments to the Endangered Species Act of 1973 to establish procedures for approval of certain settlements. Depending on how the amendments impede or facilitate further development of the United States’ open land, this could have a lasting effect on several animal and plant populations. But the main question is: in the name of habitat protection, should the federal government have such a large role in what has traditionally been decided by local municipalities (land use policy)?
Since the late 1800s, there was a recognized need to protect certain species from extinction, the first among them being the whooping crane, whose habitat originally spanned the large majority of North America and had been narrowed to north central United States due to hunting and unregulated human sprawl (Whooping Crane, International Crane Foundation). The Endangered Species Act (1973) (ESA) limited people’s ability to develop certain areas and hunt certain species. Since then, there has been additional legislation from individual States that further limits human activity for the sake of local flora and fauna (e.g. wetland protection in Massachusetts (Wetlands Protection, Energy and Environmental Affairs), jaguar protected habitats in southern Arizona and New Mexico (Jaguars Gain 1,194 Square Miles of Protected Habitat in Southwest, Center for Biological Diversity)).
There is a parallel to be drawn here. To protect the animals and plants on the endangered species list, which is determined by a petition and review process, the federal government is controlling land use policy, an arena typically left to the individual States to decide. Something to note is comprehensive, federal land use policy was the only major environmental legislation that did not pass in the flurry or environmentally friendly statues in the 1970s. So, if you think about the ESA as a type of federal land use policy, we can talk about how the amendments truly affect the Act.
Turning to the text of the amendment proposed this past January, we see that Senator Cornyn (R-TX) and others submit further regulations on the court procedure for settling disputes of proposed settlements based on environmental concerns (Text of S. 293, GovTrack.us). The amendment shortens the timeline in which complaints can be submitted, which could keep certain environmental concerns from being brought to light. With the current Congress and Senate being majority Republican, I do not see how this amendment will not be passed and the ESA changed, some will say for the bad.
So how would increased development affect the American population? We already encounter issues with habitat encroachment in our rural areas – farmers deal with wolves and other large predators on their lands many times a year. What people seem to find more disturbing is when animals wander into suburban areas for food, water and shelter – take the common white-tailed deer, for example. In Northern Virginia and Southern Maryland, the deer population has exploded to approximately 225,000 – and this while cities hold sanctioned hunting periods (As deer encroach on Washington suburbs, attitudes and kills shift, Washington Post). Some argue that deer are coming into inhabited areas for ease of access to food, while others claim they were there the whole time and humans are only encountering them because of increased development into the deer’s established habitats. Another example is the coyote populations in New York City, specifically the parks in the Bronx. Actual disturbances to resident’s lives have been minimal, but residents typically do not know how to deal with a coyote sighting or encounter because they live in such an urban area (That Howling? Just New York’s Neighborhood Coyotes, The New York Times).
One argument presented by John Mahoney is, since humans largely stopped hunting certain prey animals and are not authorized to shoot at predators, animals have stopped being afraid of humans. They see us a food sources, not threats. Additionally, because of successful conservation efforts, there are more large predators, forcing some of them to move their “hunting grounds” to urban areas, which have also become greener and more hospitable to animals. By this argument, it might be a good time to tap into the animals’ instinctive fear of humans in order to keep them from urban and suburban populations - BB and paintball guns were suggested over live ammunition (Why Wild Animals are Moving into Cities, and What to do About It, Popular Science).
From an environmentalist standpoint, the amendment to the Endangered Species Act proposed by Sen. Cornyn and others impedes habitat and species protection by shortening the petition process on proposed settlements. Pulling in some of the arguments for why we might want to impeded development, suburban and urban populations are increasingly exposed to animals they are not used to, some of which pose very real threats. Does the federal government really want to involve itself in this debate? Local policies do a lot more to control animal populations and habitat encroachment than the federal government does, so how can this amendment really help that process?
Further Reading
Ewing, Reid and Kostyack, John. “Endangered by Sprawl: How Runaway Development Threatens America’s Wildlife.” National Wildlife Federation. 2005. http://www.nwf.org/pdf/Wildlife/EndangeredbySprawl.pdf
Works Cited
- "Whooping Crane." International Crane Foundation. https://www.savingcranes.org/whooping-crane.html
- Robinson, Michael. "Jaguars Gain 1,194 Square Miles of Protected Habitat in Southwest." Center for Biological Diversity. March 4, 2014. http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2014/jaguar-03-04-2014.html
- "Wetlands Protection." Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs. http://www.mass.gov/eea/agencies/massdep/water/watersheds/wetlands-protection.html
- "Text of a Bill to amend the Endangered Species Act of 1973 to establish a procedure for approval of certain settlements." GovTrack.us. January 28, 2015. https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/s293/text
- Morse, Dan, Borden, Jeremy and Williams, Clarence. "As deer encroach on Washington suburbs, attitudes about kills shift." The Washington Post. November 30, 2013. http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/as-deer-encroach-on-washington-suburbs-attitudes-about-kills-shift/2013/11/30/84400bf2-5783-11e3-835d-e7173847c7cc_story.html
- Foderaro, Lisa W. "That Howling? Just New York's Neighborhood Coyotes." The New York Times. March 6, 2015. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/08/nyregion/that-howling-just-new-yorks-neighborhood-coyotes.html
- Mahoney, John. "Why Wild Animals are Moving into Cities, and What to do About It." Popular Science. December 19, 2012. http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2012-12/why-wild-animals-are-moving-cities-and-what-do-about-it