[Coral-List] Regarding Mike Risk's comment

[Gene Shinn]

Dear Jim, I was especially up set about unlisting Mike Risk 
especially since he was responding to the polar bear article I posted 
on the list. Mike is one of my special buddies so I hated to see it 
happen. We can all depend on Mike to give us an honest and accurate 
appraisal of coral issues. I do understand the fish bowl in which you 
operate while at the same time know, as you do, that that is one of 
the most common words in the English language. But I do understand 
that you do what you have to do as a government agency. Ironically 
others responded to my posting and provided abundant information 
about polar bears. I suppose they missed the point I was making which 
was about how different government agencies respond differently to 
petitions from the same outside pressure groups.
      As most readers of the coral list know I questioned the need and 
motives of listing Acropora in an article I published in a 2004 issue 
of the Marine Pollution Bulletin. My point was and still is that no 
one really knows the cause of Acropora demise, (along with many other 
coral species), and therefore no one knows what to protect it from. 
It was interesting to read that the Biological Review Team (BRT) who 
did an excellent review of Acropora did not in fact suggest that it 
be listed. They only concluded that it was threatened, something we 
have known for over 20 years. Hurricanes and possibly warming still 
head the list of threats to Acropora species.
      After reading how Fish and Wild life (Dept of Interior) rejected 
polar bear listing I became a little confused. In the 1970s there was 
a move to list Pillar coral. As I recall it was Fish and Wild life 
that was in charge of the Endangered Species Act and they rejected 
listing that coral. Can anyone enlighten me when and how NOAA (Dept 
of Commerce) took authority to list corals? (Please choose your words 
carefully). Gene

-- 


No Rocks, No Water, No Ecosystem (EAS)
------------------------------------ -----------------------------------
E. A. Shinn, Courtesy Professor
University of South Florida
Marine Science Center (room 204)
140 Seventh Avenue South
St. Petersburg, FL 33701
<eshinn at marine.usf.edu>
Tel 727 553-1158---------------------------------- 
-----------------------------------