Human interests belong at top of environmental chain

The Aug. 23 article about the completion of the Route 33 bypass mentioned that the obscenely expensive $30 million 2.2-mile link included a number of bridges. One paragraph read: "As part of efforts to protect a preferred bog turtle habitat, the project calls for the construction of a bridge over Burkes Creek in Howell. … Although no bog turtles have been located in the area, the bypass project has been configured to leave the habitat intact."

Here’s a disgraceful example right in our back yards on how envirolunacy is wasting tax dollars and delaying projects. Who really knows what the "preferred habitat" is?

Will this "preferred habitat" still be one when the bridge, with its resulting traffic sounds and vibrations, is built? And since there are no bog turtles in the area, who’s to say they ever will happen to stroll into the area and choose to settle in it?

Even if they are in the area, why should we waste money protecting their habitat or, for that matter, the turtles themselves? All this nonsense about elevating lower life forms above man and protecting endangered species is sheer stupidity.

The September 2000 issue of National Geographic has a major article stating that 90 percent of all species, animal and vegetable, vanished in a mysterious mass extinction 250 million years ago. Yet the world survived very nicely — maybe even better — without them. Since this was before humans came into being, this article must be very disturbing to the blame-man-first loonies, who are responsible for so many of today’s draconian environmental and species-protection laws.

New species are coming into existence all the time. We should stop thinking that the loss of any of the existing ones would be catastrophic. There are millions left, many of which will become naturally extinct through predators, disease, changing weather, floods, earthquakes, volcanoes, etc.

Likewise we should stop the absurdity of being concerned about the few dolphins that are inadvertently captured by tuna fishermen while not giving a damn about the fate of the tuna themselves. What makes dolphins so special? Disney’s portraying them as cute, intelligent, human-like? Ridiculous reasons.

I urge all News Transcript readers to write to their state and federal elected politicians and urge them to put an end to the various draconian laws that waste so much of our tax money, delay our lives, and put man at the bottom of the species pecking order, instead of at the top where we belong.

Raymond Kostanty

Manalapan