Red herrings of the wise use movement.

• Author: Helvarg, David
• Position: Endangered Species Act - Cover Story

Have you heard about the spotted owls seen breeding on the roof of a Kmart? The man who was fined for shooting a grizzly bear that was about to eat him? The farmer who lost his tractor and was jailed because he accidentally ran over a rat? The people burned out of their homes because of that same rat? The lizard that caused the flooding of a fertile farm valley?

In the debate over gutting the Endangered Species Act, the one species that seems in no need of protection is the red herring. Industry lobbyists and members of the anti-environmental Wise Use movement are hand-feeding horror stories to Rush Limbaugh, his radio clones, and the editorial-page writers at The Wall Street Journal. The stories then get passed on to the wire services and TV, often with little or no fact-checking along the way.

Take the rat. In October of 1993 a wildfire swept through Riverside County, California, burning 25,000 acres and destroying twenty-nine homes. Later, ABC reporter John Stossel aired a 20/20 segment on how Endangerd Species Act protection for the brushy habitat of Stephen's kangaroo rats prevented owners from "disking" firebreaks around their homes, resulting in the tragic loss of their property. It was a great TV story, an example of government regulation gone mad, with strong visuals thrown in. Unfortunately, the spoilsports at the Government Accounting Office investigated the story and found it to be untrue. Some cleared properties were consumed by flames, while a number of brush-heavy homes were spared, all depending on the winds.

On February 20, 1994, state and federal agents raided the Bakersfield, California, fields of Taiwanese businessman and farmer Tang Ming-Lin, seized his tractor, and charged him with three violations of the Endangered Species Act, including the killing of kangaroo rats his farm manager had run over.

"When a man's tractor is taken away and he faces jail for killing a rat, that's when we feel the law has gone awry," said Bob Devereux, an organizer of local protests that followed the raid. Lin's case quickly became a cause celebre among "property-rights" advocates ranging from Rush Limbaugh to the California Farm Bureau to pro-business nonprofit law firms like the Pacific Legal Foundation and Washington Legal Foundation, which called to offer free legal support.

State and federal agents (who later dropped all criminal charges) claimed Lin had been repeatedly informed that he was illegally tilling protected habitat and needed to apply for an "incidental-take" permit, but continued his plowing.

The real rat in the case, however, may turn out to be the Tenneco land company. Lin is now suing Tenneco, claiming that when he purchased his 723...