Some stuff on the concept of endangered species:

In Klamath, we are not talking about the extinction of sucker fish. We are talking about the special "Lost River" sucker fish. Few people realize exactly what a "species" is. When an environmentalist screams about a species of sparrow going extinct, he is not talking about sparrows in general. He is talking about a sparrow that has a white spot on it's head in a slightly different place than a sparrow that lives on the other side of the state. The fact is, any differentiation of environment, separating members of a single species, soon results in a slight difference in the offspring. At some point (I don't know the exact rules of the biologist) a new species is declared. This happens a LOT.

A reference.

Another one.

The Coho Salmon is almost declared a separate species for EACH RIVER that it uses. For a mind-numbing amount of detail on this subject, see <a href=http://www.dfw.state.or.us/ODFWhtml/Research&Reports/WildFish/CHAPTER2.html<here. Note that hatchery salmon don't "count" as "real salmon." This insanity is how the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, as just one example of a bureaucracy, regulates fish.

For God's sake, these rivers have been changing, running dry, shifting courses, flooding, and being blocked by various things for the last ten million years. If a river running dry for a season could kill off these fish, they would have been gone long ago. In point of fact, they probably just go spawn somewhere else.

The vast number of "species" is the mightiest weapon in the hands of the radical environmentalist. There are damn few places on Earth that cannot boast of at least one highly localized version of some insect, plant, fish, bird, or other living thing. This is all he needs to unleash the government Juggernaut upon the farmer, the builder, the homeowner, the industrialist, the developer, the miner, or whatever loathed human activity happens to be on the top of his hit list that day.

I live in California. Don't even ask me about the goddam red-legged frog. Check this out. Never mind the pages of brain-rotting text. The rough translation of the whole thing is basically, "All your base are belong to us." Check out the map on page 36. The dark areas are now ruled by frogs. Environmentalist, and flocks of lawyers that darken the skies like passenger pigeons (ironic reference), are already descending on us.

Of course, I don't advocate paving over every river on Earth, but I really think a little more balance is called for. The cost of saving a particular variety of animal or plant has to be taken into account before assuming that the humans are the expendable ones.