Checkerspot on the news

[Pierre A Plauzoles]

Paul Cherubini wrote:

> > Sally Daniels wrote:
>
> > I heard something on the news this morning about a checkerspot. They said
> > that the Army Corps of Engineers gave a permit to a developer in San Jose,
> > CA to put in a shopping mall. And now they will have to wait a year to start
> > construction because of the checkerspot. What will waiting a year do? Do
> > they plan to move the checkerspot?
>
> Pierre A Plauzoles wrote:
>
> > I haven't heard aboiut this one, I suspect that you are on the right track.
> > Stupid, ignorant move in my opinion.
>
> According to a story in the San Jose [California] Mecury News:
>
> " the developer, William Lyon Homes Inc. has argued the butterfly has
> not been observed on the property for at least five years and that
> 71 acres of the 575-acre property will be preserved for the butterfly, and about
> half of the entire parcel will be turned over to an environmental trust for
> conservation purposes."

Developers down here have a horrific reputation for skewing their EIRs and EISs to
their own wishes.  If developers in the Bay area are anything like those  who ply
their trade here in southern California, it is not good news for the Bay area's
checkerspots.  Applied to WLH, this would mean that they purposely told the people
who did the research on the area's entomologu not to notice the checkerspot.
Whether this actually happened or not is, of course, not within the limits of my
knowledge, and I don't think it would be fair to make such a generalization, but the
fact remains that this may have happened.

As for the idea of setting 71 acres aside, very well and good.  I do have4
reservations about that too, though: 1/ is enough to keep the butterfly's population
viable? 2/ Does the area contain the right plants (and so on)?  I don't mean to
criticize WLH for handling the project like this, but I see so much going on here in
the Los Angeles area (Playa Vista, Bel-Air Crest, developments on Palos Verdes
Paninsula, along Mulholland Highway in the western Santa Monica Mountains, in Santa
Clarita and Antelope Valley, etc) that I do tend to be a tad skeptical where
developers, their methods and intentions where wildlife are concerned (whether the
wildlife be elk, blue butterflies, bats, some flower-loving fly or a rare lizard
makes no difference to me.  They all deserve *some* attention from us before we go
trashing their homes: we should at least make a good faith effort to find out what
is actually "out there" before we trash a place.

Pierre A Plauzoles
sphinxangelorum at bigfoot.com