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Bald Eagle to Be Taken Off Endangered List
Edmund Contoski of Minneapolis filed the lawsuit that prompted the delisting of bald eagles. A nest on property he owns meant he could not follow through with plans to subdivide the land.
(By Peter Slevin -- The Washington Post)
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For attorney and client, the case was more about principle than principal.
Contoski, 69, is not a prosperous man, although he owns his comfortable Minneapolis home free and clear. He lives with his black cat, Victor, and reads a lot. A table is piled high with such volumes as "Global Warming and Other Eco-Myths" and "The Skeptical Environmentalist."
A former city planner, published author and founder three decades ago of Minnesota's Libertarian Party, Contoski is not enthusiastic about government rules. During a recent ride to a restaurant, he declined to wear his seatbelt despite an insistent dashboard beep.
He would not mind wearing a seatbelt in a world without such laws, he explained, "but I'll be [expletive] if I'll wear it if the government insists."
When he studies his Constitution, he sees a guarantee of inalienable rights.
"It doesn't say, 'unless eagles need a home.' It's unfair that we pay taxes all these years and now we can't recoup that. If it's public benefit, let the federal government or the state pay us for it."
Contoski's family bought 23 acres in 1939. The lakefront land provides gorgeous views to the far shore, about a mile away, but he sees no justification for paying taxes on property they will not use.
"I'm 69 years old and I have a heart condition. How long am I going to live?" asked Contoski, who likes to say he pays taxes and eagles don't. "It's not as though I'm against the eagles. If the eagles lose this tree, they'll go to their other nests."
Hence the lawsuit, which Contoski filed in 2005 and won in August.
A key issue was why the government had not acted. After all, it was a dramatic moment in July 1999 when President Bill Clinton stood beside a bald eagle at a White House ceremony and hailed "the rebirth of our proudest living symbol."
Despite Benjamin Franklin's dismissal of the national icon as "a bird of bad moral character" -- he preferred the humble turkey -- extraordinary efforts were made to keep it from disappearing from the lower 48 states.
The greatest threat to a creature with few natural enemies came from humankind, particularly with the widespread use of the pesticide DDT, which weakened eagle eggs. In time, DDT was banned, and the eagle, whose population once numbered as few as 417 nesting pairs in the contiguous United States, was added to the endangered list.
