The NYT reports that Cook Inlet Beluga Whales were listed as "endangered" under the Endangered Species Act yesterday.
The relatively small, whitish whales, sometimes visible from downtown Anchorage, declined by almost 50 percent in the late 1990s, and federal scientists say they have not rebounded despite a series of protections, including a halt to subsistence hunting by Alaska Natives. About 375 whales have been counted in Cook Inlet each of the last two years, according to scientists with the National Marine Fisheries Service.
This listing is likely to get some attention because, as the NYT notes, it was opposed by Alaska Governor Sarah Palin.
As with the polar bear, Ms. Palin’s administration opposed the beluga listing in part because of its potential to restrict coastal and offshore oil and gas development. The beluga listing could also affect other projects, including the expansion of the Port of Anchorage and a proposed bridge over Knik Arm that would connect Anchorage to the Matanuska-Susitna Valley and Ms. Palin’s hometown, Wasilla.
“I am especially concerned,” the governor said in a written statement in August 2007, when her administration submitted documents to fight the listing, “that an unnecessary federal listing and designation of critical habitat would do serious long-term damage to the vibrant economy of the Cook Inlet area.”
On Friday, Ms. Palin said the state had had “serious concerns about the low population of belugas in Cook Inlet for many years,” but she called the listing “premature.” Her administration challenged the federal government’s data, as it did with the polar bear decision.
The official NOAA Fisheries announcement of the listing is here.
Pouts? That's certainly not a fair characterization of her objection to the listing, which objection is shared by the Democrat running for Senate.
What a horrible mixup in priorities for a sitting governor of a state...
Let's face it, it's perfectly acceptable to be a sexist against Palin, because she's a know-nothing conservative from Wasilla, Alaska. People with fancy law degrees are entitled to feel superior and use any type of sexism they wish. We've seen this kind of sexist remark over and over here at the Volokh Conspiracy, although not heretofore from Prof Adler.
I'm not surprised or disappointed. Nothing surprises me about the opposition anymore.
In any case, I have a lot of family in Alaska, and as with the wolf-control efforts, it's worth remembering something: the Alaskan Native Peoples are trying desperately to preserve something like their ancestral ways, as well as needing to continue their subsistence hunting and fishing because there's not much else to do: it's continue to hunt and fish, or hope the Federal Government will fly in MREs.
As my Inuit cousin Erin — who is otherwise about as liberal as they come — puts it, "Are they nuts? The people in the villages will starve!"
"Protection of habitat" under the ESA has always been a tool used by extreme environmentalists to block common sense development even absent compelling evidence that such development would cause serious harm to endangered species.
Also, all the media coverage I have seen has specifically referred to the endangered species as the Cook Inlet Beluga Whales. To make a reasonable judgment on this topic it would be helpful to know how this specific sub-population relates to the greater Beluga Whale population. What makes the Cook Inlet population unique and what are some possible reasons the population is not growing even with past protections.
It is possible that after assessing all this information listing the whales is the correct action, but the environmental lobby and even Bush's EPA don't have a great track record on this.
Jesus Christ.
Sad.
Yeah... that is sexist. Why not just "opposes"?
That's not to say that I think the characterization is fair, but I don't want to be accusing everyone on the other side of using "sexist code language" while the Obama camp accuses Republicans of being racists.
I mean, come on, be a little more cautious about throwing around sexism charges.
pout:
Is there any evidence of her actually doing any of this, or is Jim just a sexist pig who looks down on women politicians / left wing jerk who attacks anyone who disagrees with his Messiah / environmental fruitcake who doesn't believe that anyone could ever legitimately object to any "environmental ruling"?
or maybe i'm just feeding the trolls.
What the state has done about these "concerns?"
you can see the japanese eat them from alaska.
Cotes de Rhone.
Watching the death gasps of the McCain campaign and its supporters is painful. At this point, you're merely rearranging the plumbing on the Titanic.
Great job, Jonathan.
And, I'm led to understand, quite tasty.
Quite lot, actually. As I mentioned, small whales are a major issue for the Eskimos. And Eskimos are an issue if you want to get elected in Alaska.
Not to mention Palin being married to a Yup'ik.
BTW, I thought Adler's "pouts" was ironic.
Then the protections didn't work, did they? Whatever it is the belugas need, the empirical evidence now proves that it's not being listed as endangered under the ESA.
So Governor Palin was right to oppose the listing. She averred it was costly but would not benefit the whales, and the evidence now says that she was correct.
Of course, like the well-trained ivory-tower theorists they are, contemptuous of the mere evidence of one's own eyes, that won't stop journalists and politicians from claiming there's nothing wrong with the theory here, despite the evidence. It just hasn't been implemented right, you see.
It's true the hole is getting deeper, but that just means we need to dig even faster.
More evidence for Prof. Kerr.
That's not an answer.
2) Don't know if this particular group of Belugas is a subspecies or not. If not, it'd have to qualify as a separate population, essentially separated from other populations ("species" under ESA includes species, subspecies, and separate populations).
3) When designating critical habitat under ESA, economic impacts are a valid issue. (They are not when making the decision to list).
4) You don't drink wine with Beluga. You drink engine degreaser. The serious gourmets keep a spray can of brake cleaner at the table, and cleanse their palate with a shot between bites.
DTH
Former GS-14
Dept of Interior Office of Solicitor
Fish and Wildlife Branch
fucking moronlawyer. Nearly every post of his is some version of a slightly watered-down Daily Kos item. What a disgustingshitlawyer...It works better and is more polite if you use synonyms.
4) You don't drink wine with Beluga. You drink engine degreaser. The serious gourmets keep a spray can of brake cleaner at the table, and cleanse their palate with a shot between bites.
Really? I've always use fine Kentucky gulping whiskey myself, but I wouldn't consider myself a gourmet. If you're just eating the blubber instead of the steak, it's vodka all the way, I favour MiG Pilot vodka myself (distilled in Vermont, world renowned for it's lack of decent distilleries) which also doubles as a engine degreaser so I'm not certain we are talking about different things. If you must go for a European wine I recommend a retsina or a tokay, nothing which would run more than 4E/liter, although the US these days has a variety of fine wines which are just as good as the European ones such as Thunderbird or Richard's Wild Irish Rose, and one should not overlook the fine Australian table wines ("this is not a wine for drinking, this is a wine for lying down and avoiding").
"BTW, I thought Adler's "pouts" was ironic."
As was Obvious' post.
Thanks. I'm glad to find your ear is more attuned to irony than AVI's...
Holy Shit! -- There's gonna be an explosion over at National Review Online when they find out about this. It'll make the Christopher Buckley purge look like a slap fight at the dancing academy.
Thus, according to NOAA's own estimates, the Cook Inlet population of Belugas (one of 5 populations of the same species in American Waters; there are several other populations in waters outside of U.S. jurisdiction, including Canadian, Greenland, Norway, and Eastern Russia in the Bering Straight) increased from 278 in 2005 to 375 for both 2007 and 2008 -- this apears to be a rebound of almost 35% in two years. So just why are they making the "endangered" listing now? Is it because if they wait and the population rebounds, they know the chance will be lost, while they know that it is almost impossible to delist a species once it makes the list?
That being said, even were I interested in their preservation, it is impossible to imagine a plausible scenario where a pipeline would lead to the death of a bunch of polar bears. Yet this will be used as an excuse for banning everything from oil drilling to the internal combustion engine. Politicians and regulators are simply not rational or responsible enough to be given this sort of power.
At least 1/8th of one.
And yet it doesn't seem to have done the Yup'ik much good.
Why isn't it even more sexist for Palin supporters to refer to her as "hot"?
"Thanks. I'm glad to find your ear is more attuned to irony than AVI's..."
His is attuned to several other useful matters. Irony is famously difficult to convey or detect in this media.
Because males can be hot too, just ask my wife.
Asking such a question assumes coherence, cogency and an appreciation of responsible concerns on all sides of the issue are sought - but beyond that I do not see how "pouting" is involved in Palin's articulation in the least, not even remotely so.
I guess they won't starve once the whales are extinct?
Splunge: "Then the protections didn't work, did they? Whatever it is the belugas need, the empirical evidence now proves that it's not being listed as endangered under the ESA. "
Um, I think the whole point of putting any creature on the endangered list is to protect it from extinction. If the protections haven't worked, then you have two option: Provide more protection to save the species, or give up and just let it go extinct. And in case you haven't noticed, eliminating protections isn't going to make their numbers come back either.
By letting the species go extinct, I don't see how that benefits the Inuit at all.