Red wolves

Later today, Jane and I will be heading to Edenton on a short trip sponsored by the Southern Environmental Law Center. The focus of the trip is to educate people (i.e., donors) about the work of the SELC around the gigantic environmental risk of the US Navy's Outlying Landing Field.

From everything I've read, the US Navy has taken its cues on integrity and honesty from the Bush Sadministration, pushing its agenda without regard to process, facts, or stewardship. There's plenty of organized opposition, and the SELC is right in the center of things.

Most recently, the Navy found its plans to ram through this site flummoxed by a pack of red wolves.

The Southern Environmental Law Center, which is challenging the Navy's plan to build the airfield near a national wildlife refuge, said eight wolves in several packs have moved onto the refuge and surrounding private farmland near the proposed landing field site in the three years since the Navy studied the area.

The presence of red wolves, an endangered species that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been trying to reintroduce in the wild for two decades, could further complicate the Navy's plans to locate an airfield near the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge.

"It's another strong reason backed up by the Endangered Species Act that the Navy should look for an alternative site," said Derb Carter, senior attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center.

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Environmentalists have long argued that the site's proximity to a wildlife refuge, home in winter to more than 100,000 tundra swans and snow geese, conflicts with the mission of the refuge and poses a severe risk of bird-aircraft collisions. The environmental group sued, and federal courts found deficiencies in the Navy's original environmental studies. As a result, the Navy is conducting additional environmental assessments.

Mike Bryant, manager of the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge, where the Red Wolf Recovery Program is housed, confirmed the environmentalists' assertion that red wolves roam the area where the airstrip is planned.

It's a sad day when non-profit organizations that depend on contributions from private citizens are the main way of holding our government itself responsible for operating within the law.

A

PS I'll be gone from this afternoon until tomorrow night. I don't expect to see any red wolves, but the bird watching should be fantastic, even in the rain.