[Home]  [Headlines]  [Latest Articles]  [Latest Comments]  [Post]  [Sign-in]  [Mail]  [Setup]  [Help] 

Status: Not Logged In; Sign In

TikToker admits to being paid $150 a day to protest Trump’s deportation policies in LA

A GREAT update on the Trump fraud case ($454.2 million judgment) at the appellate court.

Mexican Senate President Revives Territorial Claims Amid Los Angeles Civil Unrest

Rooftop Korean' issues chilling threat about LA's future 30 years after Rodney King riots

Bystanders jump in front of ICE vehicles with arrested migrants inside

Israeli companies struggling to find customers amid Gaza genocide:

Farmers are being pressured to sell their land to this. Not good!

Palantir EXPOSED: The New Deep State

Military Overview: Ukrainian Fronts Crumble Under Multi-Axis Assault

ICE prepares full assault on five Democrat cities as LA goes into lockdown amid immigration riots

Invisible Missile Triggers MILITARY PANIC! (This is the Russian Zircon)

Mass arrests as defiant immigration protesters ignore lockdown orders in LA

Visit California: It's America's Future

FBI Director Kash Patel sues MSNBC columnist Frank Figliuzzi

The Ukraine war did not "bleed out" Russia. It bled US taxpayers

America Is Full. Time To Close The Door.

Golden Dome Idiocy

Israeli Media: Trump Told Netanyahu To Permanently End War in Gaza

21 days left till BASEL III is implemented. VIDEO EXPLANATION

China’s bottom half holds twice the wealth of America’s.

China’s extreme weather is leaving devastation across multiple provinces

Salton Sea is emitting foul-smelling hydrogen sulfide gas

Will Treasury Secretary Bessent's Past (Soros) Come Back To Haunt Him Today?

BBC Under Fire for CENSORING Gaza Medic Documentary

US is Agreement Incapable

Blow to Israeli Intelligence. taping Israelis in bathrooms

“They have 500 mRNA shots in the pipeline.”

A US federal judge has DENIED Gavin Newsom's request to stop Trump from using the National Guard in Los Angeles.

Have You Noticed That Seismic Activity Has Been Going Nuts All Over The Globe

The Vax was meant to CAUSE cancer.... listen to this - this clip from RFK Jr's site


Science/Tech
See other Science/Tech Articles

Title: A Big Drilling Company Was Ready to Set up a Mine in This Arizona Town. Then an Endangered Owl Showed Up.
Source: [None]
URL Source: https://www.motherjones.com/environ ... n-an-endangered-owl-showed-up/
Published: Jun 23, 2018
Author: Elizabeth Miller
Post Date: 2018-06-23 10:07:04 by BTP Holdings
Keywords: None
Views: 157
Comments: 2

A Big Drilling Company Was Ready to Set up a Mine in This Arizona Town. Then an Endangered Owl Showed Up.

The Mexican Spotted Owl is making wildlife managers think twice.

Elizabeth Miller

Jun. 23, 2018 6:00 AM

Eric Brekke/BLM

This story was originally published by High Country News and appears here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Last October, two field researchers were surveying waterways in southern Arizona’s Patagonia Mountains, when one of them glanced into a tree and said, “Uh-oh.” They saw a Mexican spotted owl, a federally threatened species, near the property where Arizona Mining Inc. has had as many as 15 drilling rigs running since 2007, chasing silver, lead, zinc and manganese. “That’s not what we were supposed to find,” says Karina Hilliard, one of the contractors, “because that’s more red tape.”

In Patagonia…the owl has become a flashpoint in a town already divided over whether to try to resurrect the mining industry, or embrace a new identity as an outdoor recreation and bird-watching destination.

The Mexican spotted owls were in a gulch less than a mile north of the company’s drilling rigs and tailings piles. The owls, which roost in mature trees in mountains and canyons in the Four Corners region, are considered an indicator species for overall forest health. In Patagonia, home to a biodiversity unparalleled in the Lower 48, the owl has become a flashpoint in a town already divided over whether to try to resurrect the mining industry, or embrace a new identity as an outdoor recreation and bird-watching destination.

Arizona Mining, Fish and Wildlife and local birders have known for decades that Mexican spotted owls roosted in the Patagonia canyons. Two years ago, however, the agency determined that exploratory drilling posed no danger to threatened and endangered species, partly because it had no evidence that owls were nesting near the site. The mine’s contractor reported breeding in proximity in 2016, and the service confirms they received documentation of a juvenile in the area months later.

Don Taylor, Arizona Mining’s chief operating officer, says the company will be a responsible neighbor. The property was mined from the 1880s until the 1960s, and exploratory drilling has gone on since the 1970s. A 2018 technical report from Arizona Mining lists half a dozen endangered, threatened or sensitive species, including the owl, ocelot, jaguar, Sonoran tiger salamander, and yellow-billed cuckoo, living adjacent to or in portions of the mining operation.

In 2016, Defenders of Wildlife asked the Fish and Wildlife Service to protect the Mexican spotted owls and yellow-billed cuckoos from the disturbance and habitat loss the mine could cause. At the time, Fish and Wildlife Arizona field supervisor Steven Spangle said the agency would not investigate the operation because it lacked sufficient evidence that owls and cuckoos would be harmed by exploratory drilling. Two years ago, however, the company was merely drilling alongside roads, says Jason Douglas, an agency biologist. Since then, its operation has grown. Recent images from its website show massive tailings storage facilities that dwarf the dump trucks and backhoes used to fill them. And October’s sighting has given Defenders new leverage to assert “longstanding concerns” with the lights, noise and human activity’s effects on owls. The group recently wrote a letter urging Fish and Wildlife to ask the company to cease activities that could harm owls until it obtains a permit.

The mine operates on private, patented claims. If Fish and Wildlife determines its operations do indeed threaten owls and other endangered species, Arizona Mining would be invited to complete voluntary applications that could include measures to reduce harm to the species. The company plans to expand its tailings piles, potentially reaching onto national forest lands in about a decade. That move would necessitate a federal environmental review and further consideration of possible impacts on endangered species.

Mexican spotted owl numbers decline alongside the loss of mature pine forests to clear-cutting and wildfires. Only a couple breeding areas remain in the Patagonia Mountains, says Nick Beauregard, who has worked for the nonprofit Bird Conservancy of the Rockies as an owl watcher, and one of them is within half a mile of Arizona Mining’s property.

“If you destroy habitat for one pair of spotted owls in the Patagonias, you’ve basically destroyed habitat for half of the spotted owls in the Patagonias,” Beauregard says. Three years ago, he recalls seeing one drill pad. “Since then, it’s become full-on industrial. … To think how that might be for a neighboring owl to have lights and noise in the drainage next door — it’s hard to think that wouldn’t be some disturbance.”


Poster Comment:

Drat those Mexican Spotted owls.

Post Comment   Private Reply   Ignore Thread  


TopPage UpFull ThreadPage DownBottom/Latest

#1. To: BTP Holdings (#0)

Deport those illegal alien owls.

“The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out... without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane, intolerable.” ~ H. L. Mencken

Lod  posted on  2018-06-23   10:19:50 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


#2. To: Lod (#1)

LOL

"When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one." Edmund Burke

BTP Holdings  posted on  2018-06-23   10:28:49 ET  Reply   Trace   Private Reply  


TopPage UpFull ThreadPage DownBottom/Latest


[Home]  [Headlines]  [Latest Articles]  [Latest Comments]  [Post]  [Sign-in]  [Mail]  [Setup]  [Help]