Introduction by Sparticus Maximus the Great
Sure, he's landbound with arguably lackluster plumage, but get past those superficial shortcomings and Chris Mooney is alright... eh, for a human at least. It was with great interest I read his thought-provoking piece last October on the plight of the marbeled murrelet. Aside from the obvious urgency of the situation, his article brings us one step closer to breaking down avian bias in the blogosphere. So today I introduce Sheril's post in order to highlight her co-blogger's brave leadership in taking on mammalism at it's worst. Despite his concurrent inexplicable interest in pachyderms (ugly, ridiculous, bumbling creatures that they are), Chris clearly recognizes his feathered fans deserve lots of attention--and lots of land. Yes readers, as Sheril writes below, yesterday the heroic murrelet was victorious!
_______________ According to E&ENews PM, the Fish and Wildlife Service has decided not to move forward with plans to shrink the threatened marbled murrelet's habitat. Instead, they'll continue protecting 3.9 million acres for the Pacific shorebird explaining 'it is not appropriate at this time' to revise the designation.
Why the change of heart? It's possible agency folks simply wanted to protect an extremely cute shorebird... or pressure from publicized disputes over logging and old-growth forests had influence... or conflicts in court over controversial land plans were irreconcilable... We may never know, but regardless of the motivation, don't you just love a happy ending? Then again, Ren Lohoefener, director of the FWS's Pacific Region added 'the service may decide to revisit the current critical habitat designation at a later time.' Still, at least for now, the marbled murrelet will live to dive another day.
