Here's some food for thought for those contemplating paddling on Boulder
Creek east of 75th St. in Boulder, CO through the private property of
Windhover Ranch LLLP.

Please take note that the creek passes within 50 YARDS of the eagle nest,
and that floating through the property is now not only illegal under
Colorado law, but under federal law as well. Specifically, the Bald Eagle
Protection Act, 16 USC §§ 668-668d.

A high-resolution digital video surveillance and recording system that will
allow law-enforcement agents to identify individual trespassers, which
includes a motion-detecting system and time-coded nest surveillance camera
is being installed. Violators will be referred to the US Fish and Wildlife
Service for prosecution should they harass, molest or disturb the eagles.

Your best plan of action is not to trespass through the property.

Altnews

Uncle Sam Stole My Land

By Scott Weiser

In an editorial in The Denver Post on November 6, 2005, former chief of the
U.S. Forest Service Mike Dombeck and Berkely Conservation Institute director
Jim Martin object to a rewrite of the Endangered Species Act that¹s working
it¹s way through Congress. While they make some valid points, their hyperbolic
argument against compensating landowners when ESA regulations diminish (or
more usually extinguish) their property rights flies in the face of
fundamental fairness and the Constitution. They falsely claim that requiring
government to pay for preserving critical habitat will lead to ³landowners who
want to pollute our air or water demand[ing] to be compensated by the
taxpayers if regulations stop them.² This is nonsensical fear mongering, and
they know it.

There is a significant difference between a landowner asking to be paid when
the government seizes his property for use as public habitat for endangered
species and a polluter exporting harm to the public.

The call for just compensation for forcible habitat seizure by government
regulation is firmly based in the constitutional principle that a private
individual should not be forced to bear the entire economic burden for a
regulation of property rights that in all fairness ought to be borne by the
public as a whole. But that is precisely what the ESA as done since it was
enacted. The entire burden of protecting privately-owned endangered species
habitat has been dumped on those who are the least responsible for the plight
of endangered species‹rural landowners who have voluntarily preserved habitat.
At the same time, the ESA absolves those who are truly responsible for the
loss of habitat‹the seething public masses who demand more suburban homes and
shopping malls‹of any financial or legal responsibility. That amounts to
nothing more than the political and economic enslavement of the few for the
comfort and convenience of the many.

I happen to be one of those oppressed few.

For more than four decades my family has protected and preserved unique
habitat outside of Boulder, Colo. As a result, we host several protected rare
and endangered species on our property. One of the protected species we host
is the American bald eagle. The eagles have been nesting here for more than a
decade. They were welcome here, and our ordinary ranching operations never
disturbed them enough to cause them to leave. Arguably they came here because
of those activities. As a result of our stewardship, many generations of young
eagles have grown up here. Of the vast majority of people, particularly
including city-dwellers and suburban-sprawlites, all of whom presently live on
what was once ³critical habitat² for some creature, I am one of the remaining
few who are not responsible for the plight of endangered species, because we
have preserved what others have not, and I¹ve done so willingly and
joyfully‹until now.

Last spring things changed when an employee of the City of Boulder Open Space
and Mountain Parks department who runs their eagle surveillance program
notified me that one of their eagle spotters, who regularly monitor eagle
nests in Boulder County during nesting season, saw some tire tracks in the
snow under the ³eagle tree.² These tracks were the result of our routine
ranching and livestock management activities we¹ve been doing for more than 40
years. While the ranger was very polite, her message was crystal clear: If I,
or anyone working for me, gets caught harassing the nesting eagles, which she
correctly says the law defines as any activity that causes an eagle to ³flush
from the nest,² we could be arrested, jailed, and fined tens of thousands of
dollars under the federal Eagle Protection Act. Given the fact that they ³spy²
on us regularly, this threat is particularly real. To connect my experience
directly to the ESA, although the eagles have been de-listed, precisely the
same kind of restrictions applies to endangered species and their habitat.

This instantly turned the eagles from welcome guests into legal and financial
liabilities. It had the practical effect of seizing and turning over to the
government a 500 yard diameter circle centered on the nest. That amounts to
about 41 acres I cannot enter without risking arrest and prosecution, not even
to fix fences, fight fires, chase trespassers or tend livestock. I have been
ejected from my land by the government, which is putting it to use as habitat
for a species protected at the behest of and for the benefit of the public.
It¹s not a seizure for a fire station or a public park, which always requires
compensation, but the effect is exactly the same. The public gets total
dominion and control over my land when the eagles are nesting, and I am
forbidden from using or enjoying it, even to the extent of walking through it,
which is my constitutional right. Neither can I simply cut down the trees or
destroy the nest when the eagles aren¹t actively nesting to relieve myself of
this burden, because that too is a crime, as is destroying endangered species
habitat to make the species unwelcome. How does this not equate to a physical,
government-initiated seizure and occupation of my land on a par with building
a highway or putting in an MX missile silo?

How then would I be engaged in a ³greedy scheme,² as Martin and Dombeck
falsely claim, by demanding that the public pay for the land they¹ve taken
dominion and control of? Why shouldn¹t the public have to share in the
economic burden of protecting the eagles or other endangered species?
Obviously, the public should, but current federal laws, including the ESA,
don¹t force them to, and Dombeck and Martin like it that way. So as it stands
we, the ³Habitat Slaves of the ESA² are forced to both sacrifice our
constitutional rights and maintain the habitat at our own expense, under the
threat of fines and imprisonment. How can anyone think that¹s fair?

This precise scenario has been played out many thousands of times throughout
the country since the ESA was enacted in 1973, with many thousands of
blameless rural landowners as the victims. Landowners have been prosecuted for
simple things like plowing their farmland or cutting brush around their houses
to help prevent devastating wildfires. And it¹s done in the name of protecting
species the public places enormous value upon, but without the public as a
whole supporting that preservation.

That¹s the grievance that Rep. Pombo¹s bill seeks to redress. It simply, and
fairly, calls upon the public accept the financial burden of preserving
endangered species and their habitat, and to spread the cost of doing so among
all the people, not place an unfair, ruinous and unconstitutional economic
burden on individuals who happen to own something the public covets‹critical
wildlife habitat.

© 2005
Altnews

This is a copyrighted article from Altnews, and is available for republishing
on a one-time, non-exclusive basis for a fee of $20.00 U.S. Please remit the
publishing fee to:

Altnews
P.O. Box 20507
Boulder, CO 80308

Direct questions or comments to:

Altnews is a division of Windhover Creative Partners LLC.


All the best and happy paddling...somewhere else.
--
Regards,
Scott Weiser

"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM

© 2005 Scott Weiser