I don’t necessarily disagree that we should protect certain swathes of land from development, but I think that is the function of government. I’m not going to fault a homeowner for doing something he’s legally entitled to do, that’s simply not my place in society nor do I want it to be. It should be the job of experts in the field of conservation to try and get lands that they think are important protected status.
Another question that hasn’t been asked.
Do you know for a fact that this species of amphipod ONLY lives in this cave?
As far as anyone knows, yes. It has been found ONLY in this cave, and in fact was named after the place.
Wow, you’re a trespasser and a dumbass, double trouble there. Trees grow back you insolent, moronic liberal.
Trollz. I haz one.
Read the thread.
So from what I gather you’re someone who would be considered an expert in this field; why didn’t you speak with the landowner and explain that he was dealing with a unique exosystem on his property?
Are there any laws that protect such ecosystems? I know that there are environmental regulations that can prohibit landowners from doing certain things. The last building I developed for example required an archaeological survey to insure there were no valuable archaeological sites on the property (there wasn’t.)
If there are such laws you should have been proactive in bringing this ecosystem to the attention of the local authorities. Or you should have advocated for some sort of protection.
Blame shift beginning…NOW!
I’m still curious as to the approx size of this piece of property, in acres. The terrain (steep/mountainous, rolling hills, kind of flat, etc), and what the adjoining property is like on each side and across the road (forest, swamp, farmland?)
I guess the snail darter case in Tennessee has forever made me a skeptic of such claims. Not saying you’re not correct, but how many experts lined up swearing that the snail darter only lived in this one stream and their habitat would be ruined by TVA’s Tellico Dam? How many of them came back to say oops when it was found thriving in a stream 80 miles away. How many millions of $$ were flushed down the crapper in legal fees and studies over that case.
Hmmm…several hundred at minimum. Steeply mountainous. Each side? Farmland at the base of the mountain, wooded mountainside for miles in every other direction, a couple of houses up top. Oh, and an ill-maintained, very dusty road.
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There is very little comparison between a surface stream and an isolated cave habitat.
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Oh, so the TVA only destroyed half of the entire habitat for a species. That’s heaps better.
In other words a relatively small parcel surrounded by miles of forest.
The correlation is that at the time many “experts” were swearing that the Little Tennessee River was the sole habitat for the snail darter, a species which is no longer even listed as endangered.
Funny how science works. They were acting on the best possible information at the time. Considering what a giant boondoggle Tellico turned out to be (zero electricity ever generated), they made the exact right call, and it should have stood without the exception made to the ESA.
And this cave system is the type locality for this species. Even if they exist in other cave systems, it is an extremely rare, fragile habitat, and they will not occur in very great numbers. For another, related example, consider the Alabama cave fish, located in protected Key Cave. Only nine have ever been seen, and it is suspected that less that 100 exist. Cave organisms do not generally reproduce prolifically, especially those which are fully troglobitic, as these amphipods are. In fact, now that I think about it, I believe only a few of them have ever been seen as well.
:dubious: I’m not blaming anyone, a landowner did something on his own property for his own reasons. But considering your apparent status as an educator and an expert I’m just wondering why you never tried to have a conversation with this landowner.
You’re obviously not interested in having a real discussion it seems, I guess you just want to use the pit as a LiveJournal since you seem unwilling to engage in any greater discourse than “this sucks boo hoo.”
The thing is I think most of the people who really count in society (property owners, legislators et cetera) don’t care too much about a species that exists in such limited number and in such an obscure area so far out of 99.95% of humanity’s general exposure. They are fascinating to biologists sure, and maybe there is an intrinsic value in protecting such species. But someone has to be out there making that argument, property owners and legislators aren’t going to come to this conclusion themselves.
If you want a property owner to refrain from an action that is in their self-interest then you need to give them a convincing argument. I own a good bit of property and if some biologist came to me and told me to hold up a project that was going to make me money, I’d need to be very persuasively reasoned with. I’m not unreasonable, but unless you had very good reasons I wouldn’t be concerned at all about causing the extinction of an animal species that only exists in one very small place in the world. To my layman’s brain that means it probably isn’t very vital to the overall health of the Earth’s animal population; but maybe an expert like you would be able to persuade me as a property owner that this is not the case.
If you want to force a property owner’s hand then you need to take the legislative route.
If something is important to you then you should fight to protect it. To reiterate I’m not blaming anyone, but considering how your OP seemed to regard this sort of action as “typical” maybe that should have clued you in that most people don’t give a shit about meaningless animals that live in the sludge of some obscure cave system that could probably be filled in with cement tomorrow and not cost anyone outside of a handful of people to lose a moment’s ease over it.
In point of fact, I DID converse with the landowner. Shortly after he bought the land, a group of us spoke to him, and told him about the cave systems, etc. He made all the right noises, about how this was the most beautiful place, etc., and how he was committed to preserving and keeping it beautiful.
Then he wrote a rather generous check to the cave clean-up fund, which turned out to be hush money, apparently.
What in the world gave you the idea that I’d never tried to have a conversation with him, Captain Poor Assumption?
Save your “I’m not an unreasonable man” bullshit. You already have your mind made up, and like most people, you’re arrogant and stupid.
hmmm I find it odd that you never mentioned this until now even though others asked why you didn’t approach the landowner early on in this string.
Yawn. If you want to call me a liar, just go ahead and pull the trigger, huh?
I can’t prove that I spoke with the guy, but I did. So I guess you’ll just have to trust me. Tell me, is there any reason, besides that you just want me to be wrong, wrong, wrong, that you think I would lie to you?
No? Thought not.
Added after I reread the thread: nobody asked me that, unless I missed it.
Maybe in your rush to paint the private landowner an ass, you just neglected to mention.
Seems to me that he went above and beyond what most would have. After all, despite liability, he still grants you access to his land and the cave PLUS he made a sizable donation to a fund to support the cave. What has been done with that money? Could some of it be used to prevent runoff from entering the cave?
Maybe you should try working with him instead of getting your knickers in a wad and stomping your feet.
Y’know, I’m pretty green. I’m on the mailing list of all kinda environmental groups. I give. I volunteer.
And people like Ogre make me wanna cut down redwoods and put up a strip mall, just to piss him off.