- Ryan T. Hicks
- Mazama Pocket Gopher—cute and threatened
Environmental protections for the Mazama pocket gopher would be overturned by new legislation introduced last week by state senator Dan Swecker (R-20), representing Thurston and Lewis Counties. The bill would repeal county and city critical area ordinances until the Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) conducts a biological status update on the Mazama pocket gopher. Why? Some speculate the bill is really intended to open up protected prairie areas of Thurston County—the pocket gopher’s habitat—to development.
Bill Robinson, State Government Relations Director for the Nature Conservancy of Washington, says the bill would “tilt the balance of power toward developers and away from environmentalists.”
Robinson also suggests a specific motivation for this bill. In April 2011 the Port of Tacoma presented plans to develop a $17 million parcel of land in Thurston County for a gravel mining operation. The current critical area ordinances stand in the way of the Port’s special use permit for the gravel mine. Protections on the adorable little pocket gopher would have to be repealed for development to move forward.
As of a 2005 WDFW report only three percent of the gophers’ original prairie habitat remains in South Puget Sound. They are listed as a threatened species in Washington State and protected under the federal Endangered Species Act.
Senator Swecker refutes this assertion. In his estimation, pocket gopher population numbers were grossly under reported in the WDFW’s report. He says the 2005 report is not just out of date, but fundamentally flawed. His proposed outcome of this bill is a new study with an accurate pocket gopher count and recommendations for restoring populations, which the old report lacks. As for the accusation this legislation was influenced by the Port of Tacoma’s gravel mine, he says that’s not true, but rather inspired by conversations with individual land owners who “shouldn’t have to bear the brunt of laws based on inaccurate information.”
But removing the state environmental protections may backfire on developers, Robinson says. If the state protections were eliminated, WSDFW would have only one option—suing developers under the federal Endangered Species Act, which he says would preclude mediation. Robinson says, “there would be no resolution except to use the heavy hand of this bill—it will have huge repercussions.”
In his own defense, Senator Swecker describes himself as a one-time environmental studies student at Evergreen and a former board member of the Nature Conservancy. He doesn’t oppose environmental regulations as a whole, but the current pocket gopher protections are a “failure of public policy based on inaccurate data.” Bill Robinson at the Nature Conservancy remains unconvinced, this bill is “part of a larger issue that the state is trying to avoid its obligations to the environment.”
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You’ll take my pocket gopher from me over my cold dead body.
Frankly, with a budget deficit this large, finding money to fund a WDFW biological status update seems like the epitome of fiscal responsibility.
Actually, it is, @2.
Money spent in country on research creates local jobs. Most scientific research teams aren’t rolling in dough, and they tend to buy supplies here too.
How’s those foreign Republican wars of adventure in Iraq and Afghanistan working for ya? Most of that money (bribes, etc) is spent overseas and doesn’t help America’s economy.
@3
Not to mention the billions that just disappeared. Certainly not a subject the teabagging rightwing cultists will ever bring up. Enough money to bring balance to the budget and prosperity for all Americans? Nope, don’t know a thing about it. Let’s just ignore those reports, they don’t blame liberals.
Where is Swecker getting his “estimation?” I can’t imagine he’s walked the prairies, counting gophers. Is it just a hunch?
At least he’s not tagging them like the penguins. Tagged penguins have a 40 percent decrease in offspring.
@3 “Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”
I was actually thinking, every wildlife study repeated early in the hopes of allowing some environmentally dubious project to proceed, but…
You know, if your head every makes it through to the other side it might be worth studying you for ideas on the deep bore tunnel.
I work for The Nature Conservancy here in Washington, and I got to go take video of a Mazama pocket gopher at Wolf Haven, where we’ve helped restore prairie habitat for the little guys. A pocket gopher can move a ton of soil to the surface in a year!
here’s video:
http://www.nature.org/wherewework/northa…
Pocket Gophers are clearly a gay sex toy therefore part of gay lesbian plot to undermine True American Family Values. We have a responsibility to our protect our children from these Pocket Gophers and the evil schemes of the Godless Gay Lesbian cabal. Think of the children.
This guy wants to repeal environmental laws for a gravel mine?
Fuck him.
When pocket gophers are outlawed, only outlaws will have gophers in their pockets … in contrast to development lobbyists, who have GOPers in their pockets.
@9 Can we get them to dig the deep bore tunnel? Seems like we’re getting it. Let’s kill two birds with one stone! It would save the gophers. Cut the cost of the DBT. AND be the cutest construction crew ever. Wins all around.
That should be referencing #8.
STOP GHOSTWOOD! SAVE THE PINE WEASEL!