CNN/AP: Twain's frog jumps to center of endangered-species debate

[DeepModem Mom]

Twain's frog jumps to center of debate
Monday, May 1, 2006


The government has designated just 450,000 acres of critical habitat for the threatened red-legged frog, 11% of the original proposal.

LIVERMORE, California (AP) -- The national debate over protecting fragile species comes to life here, where upscale housing developments push ever deeper into the rumpled blanket of grassy hills at the eastern edge of the San Francisco Bay area

The threatened California red-legged frog breeds in the weedy creeks hidden in the hollows of this landscape, part of more than 4 million acres that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed in 2001 to designate as essential for the frog's recovery.

In mid-April, following years of litigation and debate, the agency announced the designation of just 450,000 acres of critical habitat -- 11 percent of the original proposal.

It did not include a pastoral section of Livermore proposed for a 650-home development, or any part of the county commemorated in Mark Twain's short story "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County," which introduced the red-legged frog to the world.

Federal officials said the final decision was based on research that allowed them to zoom in on frog-friendly areas, sparing private landowners hundreds of millions of dollars in lost development opportunities. But environmentalists are protesting what they see one more example of the nation's weakening will to protect endangered wildlife....

http://www.cnn.com/2006/TECH/science/05/01/twains.frog.ap/index.html

[dusty64]

1. 11%

Why am I NOT surprised.....