THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, February 17, 1995 TAG: 9502160138
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Editorial
LENGTH: Short : 48 lines
The dispute in the General Assembly and elsewhere over a state snake - timber rattlesnake or canebrake rattlesnake - seemed to skip some essential questions. Why must the commonwealth have a snake? Why must it be a venomous snake? Why would it be a scarce snake? The House of Delegates chose the timber rattler, which is abundant in western Virginia and in other states, over the canebrake. It resides only in southeast Virginia and is so scarce around here that it's on the state's endangered species list.
The implications of that so scared some rural landowners that they got a local canebrake study stopped. They feared that the effort to save the canebrake in its local habitat would infringe their property rights. They've been whomped by environmentalists for overreacting. Getting on the state list doesn't give the state power to condemn land or restrict its use. Stopping the study may actually get the dwindling canebrake on the federal endangered species list, which has awesome implications for property rights and land use.
But what's the point of trying to make an endangered snake the state snake except to give added impetus to protecting it? State law now can outlaw selling an endangered species, moving it or killing it. Tell farmers that can't be a problem.
And tell the residents of places like Pine Ridge that a sparse species not on anybody's endangered list can't affect property uses: A sorely needed and long-sought drainage project in that Beach neighborhood was delayed because thousands of tiny rare lilies grew in the path of the drainage pipes. So small they're hardly noticeable except during the couple of weeks in the year when they bloom, the lilies were dug up and moved last spring. Easier lilies than snakes.
It does seem that some accommodation between landowners and snake researchers should have been possible. It would help if environmentalists would not just pooh-pooh landowners' fears but acknowledge or allay them, and clarify their own agenda.
Meantime, the snakes state leaders ought most to be concerned with have two legs and sell oil (and junk cars, unnecessary insurance and campaign promises) to the gullible. And they're all too abundant. by CNB