When property Rights Clash with an Endangered Specie

October 5, 2006

The small North Carolina town of Boiling Spring Lakes has a very rare woodpecker as one of it’s residents. This is not good news if you’re a property owner and plan any type of development on the land.

The red-cockaded woodpecker has found its habitat in trees around Boiling Spring Lakes. The rare bird is an endangered species, therefore residents are not allowed to build around or cut the trees where the woodpecker has built a nest, unless they have received permission from the government.

Some residents have obtained permits to clear the land of trees, before the birds could build nests.

Link

Some have suggested that property owners acted quickly and fired up chainsaws and cut down a lot of trees prior to the federal government being able to act to protect the land. In this day and age when property owners have less rights and we have seen the government seizing private property to turn over to another private individual to develop. It comes as no big surprise that some property owners would take the chain saw approach.

Well the local newspaper has an article that a lot of this has been blown out of proportion.

Tree clearing in Boiling Spring Lakes has placed the city in an international media spotlight, prompting scrutiny and ridicule by people from as far as Ontario, Canada, and across the United States.

E-mails bombarded city hall last week in response to an Associated Press report about property owners clearing trees from their lots before the federal government imposed restrictions on land identified as being actively used by the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker.

The story was published in The New York Times and other newspapers across North Carolina and beyond.

I’m not sure where the truth lies in this story but in all these cases some type of compromise needs o be worked out. Property owners deserve to be treated fairly with the cost of their property if they are willing to sell. Organizations and groups who are concerned about the species should put their money towards purchasing as much of the habitat as possible. I’m not opposed to trying to preserve an endangered Species but I think we also need to weigh out the impact on humans and decide a reasonable course of action.