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| Great egret, courtesy Audubon Society |
is its decision to withdraw enforcement of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, one of the nation's oldest environmental protection laws. The 100-year-old treaty originally codified an agreement between the United States and Canada to help ensure the preservation and protection of migratory birds from both intentional and incidental mortality caused by human activities. Over the years, the Act has broadened to include similar agreements with Mexico, Japan, and Russia. It protects migratory birds, included the nation's symbol, the bald eagle, from human depredation that had nearly wiped out populations of wild migratory birds such as ducks, geese, swans and egrets when it was enacted in 1918.
Subsequent administrations of both camps have interpreted the Act to protect birds from human installations such as wind farms, power lines, and oil waste pits that are responsible for high bird mortality. The current regime proposes to rewrite the law to eliminate those protections. In December of last year, it issued a legal opinion stating that Act would not be enforced for the killing of birds that occurred during otherwise lawful activities such as oil drilling. California recently joined New York and the National Resources Defense Counsel and Audubon Society in law suits maintaining the reinterpretation is arbitrary, capricious, and an abuse of discretion. The rollback of protections are all part of the regime's "bad for business" mantra.
California went a necessary step further last month when the state's Fish & Wildlife Department announced it would continue to protect birds under the state's laws and would include prohibiting so-called "incidental" killings. Its legal advisory states, “California law contains a number of provisions prohibiting the 'take' of migratory birds.” It also includes an extensive listing of California law allowing state officials to protect migratory birds in the absence of federal involvement. Protecting wildlife is not "out of bounds" but good for sustainable business and the very survival of our own species.