EDITORIAL PAGE — Property rights and the Choctawahatchee beech mouse

In 1992, American taxpayers shelled out about US$16 million to “save” the endangered Choctawahatchee beech mouse.

But that is a pittance, compared with the $73.4 million spent that year to “save” the red-cockaded woodpecker. This is likely not the same species that threw a wrench in NASA’s latest space mission by pecking holes in some high-priced shuttle equipment.

In the U.S., efforts to conserve animals and plants fall under the guidelines of the Endangered Species Act, passed by the federal government two decades ago. Today, the list of officially endangered species includes 985 plants and animals, and a further 3,941 species are candidates for future listing. In 1992, about US$300 million was spent on efforts to conserve just the top 10 species.

The Endangered Species Act is now a controversial issue in the U.S., for a variety of reasons. The costs of implementing the program are high, and growing higher. Plants and animals have been listed on the basis of scant data, and then found not to be endangered at all. The pine barrens tree frog, tumamoc globeberry, Indian flapshell turtle and Mexican duck were all bureaucratic mistakes of this type, costing taxpayers about $100,000 each to list and delist.

But increasing costs are only part of the problem. In recent years, government officials enforcing the Act have come into conflict with property owners. And this is giving rise to the view that property rights, as defined in the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment, have become endangered.

Increasingly, farmers are finding that they cannot operate their farms as they might like to, as a result of regulations designed to protect endangered species, even those as lowly as a bug or a beetle.

And who can forget the plight of the California home owners who had to watch their homes burn down a few years ago because they were not allowed to remove nearby brush that was the habitat of some endangered mouse. On national television, government bureaucrats warned citizens of the penalties that could be imposed if they took steps to preserve their homes by removing the habitat of the rodent in question. It was a horrific example of the “God Squad” run amok.

Some property owners whose activities conflict with endangered species have taken their cases to court, only to find that legal recourse is expensive, time-consuming and complex. Others have found that to comply with the Act is prohibitively expensive, as it involves complex bureaucratic processes, such as the filing of habitat conservation plans.

Most American citizens agree with the concept of preserving habitat for endangered species. Few, however, believe the Act should supersede property rights. A debate on this issue is coming to the forefront of public attention, and the hope is that government and society will re-examine how best to go about the business of conserving endangered species.

In order for the endangered species program to have the support of the general public, it should be improved and made more flexible, and address the issue of property rights.