OPINION/COMMENTARY

Migratory Birds & Invasive Species

News Item: “The Fish and Wildlife Service has drawn up a list of 113 birds it is proposing to exclude from protection under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. As required by the 2004 Migratory Bird Treaty Reform Act passed by Congress in the Omnibus Appropriations Bill, FWS will exclude non-native birds from protection under the law.” Translation: Federal bureaucrats and appointees in the Departments of the Interior and Agriculture want what the environmental radicals want. That is Federal authority to embark on a Federal program of mammoth proportions that will dwarf the Endangered Species Act in so far as growing the Federal bureaucracy. They want to transfer the remaining State jurisdiction over plants and animals to Federal agencies, and in the name of Native Ecosystem restoration (which is synonymous with Invasive Species eradication) generate unimagined new Federal authority over citizens and property owners. The abuses and results of this will be the harms of the Endangered Species Act times 10. Every time the subject of Federal Invasive Species or Native Ecosystem legislation comes up, it is rejected on the facts. United Nations bureaucrats are involved in such efforts as they look for an opening to convene a UN meeting to discuss a Treaty or Convention to give the UN bureaucracy and US Bureaucrats who would implement such a Treaty the same sort of Constitution-trumping Federal authority as was done with the Endangered Species Act....