Jezebel | Florida Tech Bro Wants to Wipe Out a Bird's Endangered Species Protection to Avoid Paying a Fee by Jim Vorel
Did you know that there are apparently only 15 species of birds that are fully endemic (which means only found there) to the United States? It’s an odd statistic, but one that makes sense when you consider both the range that birds can cover, and the fact that they’re not generally known for observing national borders or going through customs. In fact, the birds that are genuinely endemic to our country are often that way because their populations are small and contained in a specific area–endangered, even. The state of Florida has precisely one of these species, the Florida scrub jay, listed as “critically imperiled” by nonprofit conservation organization NatureServe. So naturally, there’s currently a dangerous alliance between a young Florida tech bro and a notorious conservative property rights group backed by ExxonMobil that is seeking to rob the poor scrub jay of any protection its remaining 7,000 or so living specimens possess, all because a homebuilder didn’t want to pay an extra conservation fee.
Granted, it wasn’t a small fee, but it was also part of the cost of building on that property that the man in question should absolutely have been aware of in advance. Now his legal team is dodging questions to that effect while taking aim at protections for the bird species that, if revoked, could establish precedent to also remove protections from more than 1,200 other species around the country–which is probably the true goal here. The attorneys involved have even attempted to summon the attention and support of President Donald Trump, that noted champion of the environment, less than a week after members of Trump’s cabinet approved an exception to the 1973 Endangered Species Act that would allow for new oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico regardless of how many species it drives to extinction. Gee, I wonder which side of the debate Trump would land on?
The tech bro in question, meanwhile, is a guy named Michael Colosi, a “young tech entrepreneur” who recently moved from New Jersey to Florida. He purchased a five-acre plot in the Gulf city of Punta Gorda in 2024, where he planned to build a house. But rather than pay Charlotte County the hefty, $118,000 conservation fee necessary because the land is in an area designated as a Florida scrub jay habitat, he instead decided to bring in lawyers from the dreaded Pacific Legal Foundation to represent him in a lawsuit against the county and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, arguing that the scrub jay does not deserve any protection under the Endangered Species Act.
Read more:
https://www.jezebel.com/florida-scrub-jay-endangered-species-threat-lawsuit-michael-colosi-house-habitat-plan-charlotte-county
#floridascrubjay #pacificlegalfoundation #u.s.fishandwildlifeservice
#endangeredspeciesact #defendersofwildlife
