Useful Fools

Save the snakehead!

The northern snakehead is an endangered species of fish living in and near the Potomac River. This unusual species can also crawl across land, a trait that could indicate genes useful for medical research.

The snakehead habitat is 68 million acres in 11 Eastern States and Washington, D.C.

The Endangered Species Act, already in widespread use in the West, requires strict restrictions on building, transportation and recreation in the habitat area in order to protect the fish. Currently, the snakehead is listed as an injurious species, denying it the listing it deserves. Injurious means that the government has determined it to be harmful to resources, other wildlife, forests or agriculture. However, the gray wolf (Canis Lupus) and red wolf (Canis rufus) are injurious by that definition and yet carry the “endangered” protection. The snakehead, far less damaging or dangerous than the wolf, is at least as deserving of protection. Furthermore, it must be protected under treaties signed by the United States including the Convention on Nature Protection and Wildlife Preservation in the Western Hemisphere.

Protections should include restrictions on the use of motorized craft on habitat waterways; review of all building projects to assure they will not block the over-land travel of the fish; restrictions on or prevention of commercial and amateur fishing in the habitat waterways; restriction on agricultural practices which may block movement of, or kill individual members of this species; creation of fish walkways under all roads and highways in the affected area; research funding to assure the efficacy of these measures, as there has been little evidence of success in conservation methods ordered under the Act for other species, as indicated by the failure to remove any species from the list in the last 30 years.

Westerners love our land and nature, and so a Colorado county government officials are leading the way in protecting the fish on the east coast. This provides the vast experience of the west with this law to assist the east coast in meeting it’s needs and obligation to protect endangered species.

See this Washington Times Article for how you can help.