What’s a slimy, slippery miniscule critter with stripes or dots and beady little eyes that’s also considered an endangered species in two California counties? No, it’s not the red-legged frog—stripes and dots, people! Oh, and they scurry; they don’t hop along.
Yup, it’s that other species doggedly plaguing development projects in Santa Barbara County, the California tiger salamander. Well, they do that for a reason. They’re endangered, and they’ve been endangered in this county and in Sonoma County for a while now. It was listed under the Endangered Species Act in 2000, and biologists don’t really know how many are left in Santa Barbara County.
Apparently, tiger salamanders are hard to find because the amphibian likes to burrow underground, hiding its human-eye-sensitive skin from the sun and prying, peeping neighbors.
Those neighbors, they certainly like to look through windows, at least in my experience. A red robin comes to the Sun window sometimes, pecking and peeping on the glass like an idiot. But, I know, his motives are more sinister than his birdbrain gives away. I swear, he was ogling me the other day while I was in the midst of taking a private birdbath. Ooooh, it gave me the creeps. But then again, my feathers are looking a particularly pretty shade of yellow these days.
But, I digress. Back to salamanders. The California tiger salamander’s been listed as endangered in the county for 15 years and is just now getting a draft—not final—plan from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to help the species make a comeback. In fact, the Center for Biological Diversity had to sue the agency and win to get the plan in place. The plan is a result of a December 2012 settlement agreement.
Too bad endangered species can’t sue for their own protection. Plant and animal species big and small would be lined up outside the courthouse Andrea Adams from Fish and Wildlife told a Sun reporter that the plan doesn’t ensure habitat will be protected, and it doesn’t ensure the species will make a comeback; it’s more of a roadmap than anything.
It calls for the purchase of up to 34,000 acres of land in the county—most of which is private. The plan’s price tag is hefty, more than $46 million. It just seems like an unrealistic goal, and obviously landowners, agricultural producers, and the like are going to oppose it. Ken Miller with the county Farm Bureau said it would take a lot of agricultural land out of production.
“It is not in my view a well-thought-out solution,” he said.
Yes, Ken, I—and everybody else—knew you were going to say that.
Inevitably, there’s going to be a fight over this plan. Inevitably, there will be appeals and appeals. Inevitably, no one will be protecting salamander habitat in the meantime. And those salamanders will have to continue surviving on their own in an ever-encroaching human-dominated landscape that basically can’t help but push every other species off the cliff of economic development.
I guess, what I’m trying to say is this is the kind of thing that needs compromise. All sides need to come to the draft plan table and come up with a workable solution, not rail against each other like enemies, or even like frenemies. Not just say no. Not just say it’s a roadmap. Not just sue willy-nilly. Not just only listen to your own tired arguments for and against.
Because the reality is that without a protection plan for salamanders, they could go extinct and so could hundreds of other species. Without developers and agricultural producers, the economy would suffer terribly, and humans wouldn’t have easy access to food. Without federal agencies, the human condition would have this world running roughshod over everything without a second thought.
You could compare it to what’s going on with the whole California drought situation. Humans have used up a ton of water they should maybe have banked away for the future. It hasn’t rained. Now, regulators are coming to the table and everyone else is crying foul. But, if we’re going to survive, we still need to have water in the future.
Just like we still need salamanders, bald eagles, and oak trees.
The Canary thinks we still need canaries, too. Send comments and tips to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in May 7-14, 2015.