Assault On Science At Wildlife Agency

If Julie MacDonald had a farm, it wouldn't have any Arroyo toads, no Preble's meadow jumping mice, no Canada lynx. Here a Hawaiian picture-wing fly, there a white-tailed prairie dog, nowhere an endangered species.

That was McDonald's M.O. during her tenure as an assistant secretary of the Interior, according to the U.S. Fish And Wildlife Service, which is reconsidering a number of the political appointee's decisions.

Preservation of endangered species isn't the most sexy of environmental issues, but consider that the erosion of the world's biodiversity is as important as global warming to the world's top biologists. Consider that there's no telling what species -- each with its each unique evolutionary niche -- might yield the next important drug. Consider that, for an increasingly large flock, protecting the creation is form of devotion to the creator.

If the agency's reconsideration is successful, a host of names -- those of endangered species -- will be remembered long after Julie MacDonald's is buried in the dustbin of history.

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