Academic

BEAVERS: From vanishing to nuisance. Around the nation, decades of environmental regulation, con?

By Glenn Reynolds

BEAVERS: From vanishing to nuisance.

Around the nation, decades of environmental regulation, conservation efforts and changing land use have brought many species, like beavers, so far back from the brink that they are viewed as nuisances. As Stuart Pimm, a conservation ecologist at Duke University, put it, ?We are finding they are inconvenient.?

In Florida, alligators were once nearly wiped out by hunters; today the state maintains a roster of trappers who remove thousands of nuisance gators each year. The pesticide DDT once left the Pelican State, Louisiana, bereft of the birds; today wildlife organizations say fishermen must guard their bait and catches from the birds. In California, warnings about marauding mountain lions are posted on hiking trails.

Was David Baron ahead of the curve, or what?

Full post as published by Instapundit.com on June 09, 2009 (boomark / email).