[beerandt]

The Ivory Billed Woodpecker hasn't had a confirmed sighting since 1944.

Lots of these species have been long gone. But the landowner of that 1944 sighting probably couldn't turn over a rock on his property without fines and lawsuits coming at him, at least until now.

ETA: If I'm remembering the stories right, either the last or one of the very last IBW sightings was doubted by officials, because the guy was a farmer or something and "not a scientist or expert".

Not getting them to pay him any attention, he went home, shot the breeding pair, and returned to the officials office with proof.

[Johnny555]

Lots of these species have been long gone. But the landowner of that 1944 sighting probably couldn't turn over a rock on his property without fines and lawsuits coming at him, at least until now.

The endangered species act wasn't enacted until 1973, so I think that landowner had plenty of opportunity to do what he wanted with his property.

[beerandt]

That's not really a fair comparison/ justification.

I don't know how much "warning" was given for the endangered species act, or if that even matters, since land that's about to be worthless is already worthless.

Also, I have no idea what actually happened in this case. But to speculate/generalize:

IBW were already (obviously) extremely rare in 1944, so there would have been an intense amount of pressure preventing him from "doing" anything with the land, and in a rural, wooded area, there probably weren't many options at the time besides farming it, anyway.

If the guy would have known in 1944 that the endangered species act would be passed in 1973, you'd maybe have a point. But he wouldn't have known.

If the government suddenly told you tomorrow you couldn't sell your house, then claiming it's fair because you could have sold it all the way up to yesterday doesn't do you any good if you had no advanced knowledge of it. And if it were public knowledge, who would want to buy it anyway?

[Johnny555]

Also, I have no idea what actually happened in this case. But to speculate/generalize:

Your argument would have more weight if you'd give facts instead of speculating what could have happened.

What actually did happen?

[Johnny555]

I was curious what actually happened so looked it up -- looks like conservancy groups tried (and failed) to purchase the land to preserve it, and the land was logged despite the presence of the known endangered bird: "Eckelberry also saw the logging that cut down the trees used by the last Ivory-billed woodpecker"

40 years later a NWR was established on the land.

https://www.fws.gov/ivorybill/pdf/IBW%20Singer%20Tract%20Fac...

[akerl_]

So, just to confirm: he did what he wanted with the land, and other than attempting to purchase the land from him and being declined, nobody interfered with his use of his land?

[Johnny555]

I only know what's in the PDF I linked to, but as far as I can tell, that's exactly what happened. The company (Chicago Mill) that owned the land turned down the attempt to purchase the land, conservationists tried to get the government to condemn the land, but the government declined. Then they watched them log the trees that were home to the bird.

[beerandt]

If it became a NWR, then the government eventually took/ acquired it from him (or his successor).

The details of how that happened, whether it was their choice, and how they were compensated for it are what matter.

But it sounds like he at least got to harvest his timber first, as far as not being interfered with.

[beerandt]

I only speculated/generalized because that situation has happened, thousands of times, just not with the interesting backstory.

Landowner discovers he has an endangered species, reports it, gets rewarded by having his property restricted, endangered species moves on (or dies), and restrictions remain indefinitely.

Or landowner doesn't report it, "disappears" the animals, and uses it or sells it while it still has value.

Sounds like in this case, it somehow managed to be a bit of both of those.

[twelvechairs]

Government isnt there to protect every business from ever going out of business. Sorry but I dont see the argument for compensation. By your argument everyone who has planning controls changed in their neighbourhood should be paid out, tobacco companies should be paid for revenue loss due to taxation and government adverts and anyone with a house built next to them should sue their neighbour for overshadowing and traffic noise. Sorry but its unworkable. Its simply the risks of doing business.

[AnthonyMouse]

The purpose of taxing tobacco is to discourage consumption. The tax is directly the mechanism for achieving the desired purpose rather than a hardship imposed on some otherwise innocent people only incidentally. It's not a taking, it's a penalty.

When your neighbor builds a house next to yours, that's not a taking because it's not the government doing it. If you wanted to control what got built on a piece of property that isn't yours, you should have bought it yourself, or entered into a contract with the property owner where they agree not to do that for a particular period of years and you compensate them for the restriction.

Governments should have to compensate property owners for zoning restrictions and the like. That makes perfect sense, for the same reason they have to compensate for any other takings -- because you're imposing a hardship on a specific innocent third party for a collective benefit, which is unreasonable. If there is to be a collective benefit then it should be paid for out of the collective fund and not disproportionately imposed on unconsenting innocent people at random. And if it turns out that the cost of compensating the property owners for the restriction you want to impose exceeds the value you hope to achieve by imposing it, that's some pretty good evidence that you shouldn't be doing it -- which is exactly why it should have to be paid out.

The fact that courts decided not to do that with zoning is the whole reason we have a housing shortage -- because now we've over-produced zoning restrictions since they can be imposed without accounting for their cost.

[jen20]

> because you're imposing a hardship on a specific innocent third party for a collective benefit, which is unreasonable.

This sums up the American attitude to life better than anyone has ever done for me before.

[wiz21c]

I don't know if it is for Americans only but reading that makes me, once again, very nervous for the next century climate...

[twelvechairs]

> The purpose of taxing tobacco is to discourage consumption. The tax is directly the mechanism for achieving the desired purpose rather than a hardship imposed on some otherwise innocent people only incidentally. It's not a taking, it's a penalty.

And the purpose for environmental regulation is to discourage extinction in the same way. You are arguing black with one and white with the other...

> When your neighbor builds a house next to yours, that's not a taking because it's not the government doing it.

So when I'm overshadowed, my view is blocked, added noise etc. thats not 'taking'? Only governments can take not private citizens? I don't understand this view at all.

I agree zoning has been completely overdone but its definitely necessary unless you want your neighbour to be a 24-hour chemical plant.

> If there is to be a collective benefit then it should be paid for out of the collective fund and not disproportionately imposed on unconsenting innocent people at random.

Its going to have to be a huge fund to pay for all of this. Where's all this taxation going to come from to compensate me for not being able to build my chemical plant? or skyscraper?

> The fact that courts decided not to do that with zoning

I think you need to look deeper into the history of zoning. For me the new york zoning of 1916 is a good start in the United States - it was obviously needed and lobbied for by all the boroughs, as well as huge numbers of residents and landowners. Nobody could have had the money to pay for the compensation you ask for. The Euclid case I would tend to agree wasn't a proven good and has started a downhill trend.

You should also understand that land has historically always had a communal quality and this is growing more important in the 21st century as a scarce resort. Land use regulation of some kind has always co-existed with land ownership through history.

[AnthonyMouse]

> And the purpose for environmental regulation is to discourage extinction in the same way. You are arguing black with one and white with the other...

The difference is the proportionality of the hardship.

If you smoke cigarettes and there is a cigarette tax, you might pay an extra $5/pack, but so does everybody else. It's uniform. That amount might convince you to quit or smoke less, which is the whole idea.

With zoning or environmental rules, they're not uniform. It's not the case that anybody who cuts down a tree has to pay a tree tax. It's that one unlucky soul can't cut down any trees on his property, and the trees there are worth a million dollars, but somebody else is free to log their trees without constraint.

Notice that in the first case, compensating the target for the tax would make it totally ineffective. If you paid $5 in cigarette tax but then that was a taking and you got your $5 back, that wouldn't cause anybody to quit smoking.

Whereas if government had to pay the one guy with the land where the woodpecker lives a million dollars to not cut down his trees, that works fine. All it does is spread the million dollar cost of saving the woodpecker onto the whole tax base instead of unjustly imposing it on only that one guy.

And it forces you to do the accounting. So that if it turns out to cost a trillion dollars to save that one woodpecker, maybe it's not worth that much.

> So when I'm overshadowed, my view is blocked, added noise etc. thats not 'taking'? Only governments can take not private citizens? I don't understand this view at all.

Your view goes through the neighbor's property. So there are two ways to handle this.

One is, you have a right to the view. Then the person who wants to build a skyscraper first has to pay you for the right. But this works very poorly because you can see a skyscraper for miles and if any one person can stop it then everybody has the incentive to demand a million dollars. It becomes impossible to build anything anywhere.

The other is that it's the property owner's view and they just hadn't been charging you for it. If the neighbors don't want a skyscraper there then they can get together and buy the property and not build a skyscraper on it.

Mostly that still causes the skyscraper to be built, because in general the value of a skyscraper is greater than the value of the view, so people aren't willing to pay that much to preserve the view. But that's things working as intended. You want the thing that produces the most value. If people really want to preserve the view that bad, they have to pay the money.

> Its going to have to be a huge fund to pay for all of this. Where's all this taxation going to come from to compensate me for not being able to build my chemical plant? or skyscraper?

It only has to be a huge fund if you're over-using zoning restrictions so that it costs a lot to build certain things.

Suppose you say that 20% of the town is restricted to single family housing. Well, that's fine, if you want a single family house which isn't next to a chemical plant then you buy one there, and if you want to build a chemical plant then you can do it in the other 80% of the town. Since there are still plenty of places to build a chemical plant, the value of the properties where it's allowed is only negligibly higher than the value of the properties where it isn't, and that's the amount you have to compensate for the restriction.

But if you want to zone 90% of the town for single family housing and there is almost nowhere to build chemical plants and skyscrapers then the value of the land where you are allowed to build those things will be really high and so will the amount you have to compensate everyone else for the restrictions.

That would be completely unaffordable, but the solution isn't to pay out the money, it's to increase the number of locations where it's permissible to build chemical plants and skyscrapers so that you don't have to.

> it was obviously needed and lobbied for by all the boroughs, as well as huge numbers of residents and landowners.

Existing landowners like for zoning restrictions to exist on everybody else's property, because it increases scarcity. If you have a single family home and it's illegal to build high density condos anywhere in the city, the value of your home goes up, because you don't have to compete for home buyers with the condos.

Zoning restrictions on your land reduce the relative value of your land and increase the relative value of everyone else's land. So the profit maximizing strategy for a land owner is to have none on your own land and heavy restrictions on everyone else's. The next best, especially if you weren't planning to further develop your land anyway, is to have heavy restrictions on yours and everyone else's, because the increase in artificial scarcity is more than the value lost to the restrictions on your own property.

The cost of this is paid by anyone who wasn't already a property owner when the zoning restrictions were put into place, e.g. people who don't yet live in the city. This is one of the reasons they spread so rapidly -- the victims don't have a vote at the time when they pass, and to get a vote in order to remove them, you have to buy property at the artificially raised price, at which point you have the incentive to retain the restrictions and not lose the money you paid.

> You should also understand that land has historically always had a communal quality and this is growing more important in the 21st century as a scarce resort.

It's growing more scarce because of zoning restrictions. If it was easier to build skyscrapers then the supply of real estate in terms of available square footage would increase and ease the scarcity.

[KorematsuFredt]

Imagine you are a farmer and you actually see an endangered species. What do you do ? Kill it and hide it so that no one finds it. If you by mistake report it, boom, your land is not your land anymore.

Check this report by John Stossel here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubIvbtzVoZM

[bluejekyll]

Not the same species at all, but you just reminded me of the family of three Pileated Woodpeckers that I saw with my parents this summer in rural NY. They are really amazing looking (and bigger than I thought) birds. Hopefully more people will recognize the importance of saving our natural habitats and preserving species like these:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pileated_woodpecker

btw, I'm not saying this particular bread is at risk, it is not, but for how long before they are in a similar situation?

[beerandt]

It's funny, because the number of people who regularly claim to have seen an IBW is really high. And 9 out of 10 times you can show them a picture of a pileated, and they instantly realize their mistake.

Idk why people who can't ID fairly common birds get so certain in thinking they've ID'd a really really uncommon one, but they do.

[beerandt]

There's also the perverse incentives of developers and farmers not wanting endangered species to be "discovered" on their property because of the restrictions that will incur.

But what gets really interesting is re-introduction of endangered species, like with sandhill cranes being re-introduced to Louisiana (transplants from other surviving populations).

Is government introduction of an endangered species on/near private land, in a way that will certainly incur restrictions on that land (to protect said species), considered a "taking" under the constitution, or should it be?

More practically, as was the case with the sandhill crane, the government had to make concessions to land owners to get them on board and make the project politically viable.

Now they're protected, but it's a "special/experimental program" where farmers and other land owners aren't restricted in the ways they would be if they were still naturally occurring in that location.

(Of course it's still illegal to shoot them, but every few years someone manages to misidentify a 6 foot tall bird as a goose or something else legal to hunt.)

[Johnny555]

There's also the perverse incentives of developers and farmers not wanting endangered species to be "discovered" on their property because of the restrictions that will incur.

I'm not sure that's really a "perverse incentive".

By hiding, destroying, or not reporting the endangered species, they're going to develop the land and harm the species.

But if there were no endangered species act making them afraid of the endangered species being discovered, they'd have just developed the land anyway, so the end result is the same. But at least with the endangered species act, they face some legal repercussion if they are caught harming an endangered species.

[LanceH]

The "perverse incentive" is that people who might otherwise be hospitable to a reintroduced animal will likely lose control of their property if they do anything to help. They could put out feeders, cull predators or provide habitat. Instead they are encouraged (if they want to keep control of their property) to be as uninviting to these animals as possible.

[beerandt]

The incentive is to kill/not-kill the animals, not necessarily protect the habitat.

The only fix I can see is making it a worthwhile rational decision: incentives for reporting endangered animals that are worth more than the value in developing the property. But that has it's own pitfalls and potentials for abuse.

[bumby]

>The incentive is…not necessarily to protect the habit

Except many of the incentives explicitly state the goal is to protect habitat.

“How does a CCA or CCAA help species? These voluntary agreements reduce or remove identified threats to a species. Examples of beneficial activities include measures for restoring or enhancing habitat, expanding or establishing habitat…”

https://www.fws.gov/endangered/esa-library/pdf/CCAs.pdf

[beerandt]

The land owner's incentive to be a bad vs good actor.

There aren't maps of some universal truth as to what habitat is protected for what species.

Many habitats aren't "known" and made protected until the endangered animal is actually discovered, on-site.

The land owner has incentive to prevent that discovery from happening, and therefore has incentive to kill the animals before they can be discovered on his property.

[xxpor]

>considered a "taking" under the constitution, or should it be?

Perhaps, but you'd also have to consider Euclidian zoning to be a taking. And that'll never happen.

[beerandt]

Not especially- because generally whenever zoning is enacted, the current land owner gets to decide the initial zone of their property.

And land that is already zoned can't be rezoned without the current property owners consent.

So the only thing restricted / "taken" here, is if the property owner wants a re-zoning and is denied.

Yeah, being forced into the system at all is arguably a violation of rights, but I don't think requiring the land to be used in a consistent way (of the owners initial choosing) is at all comparable to not being allowed to use the land.

The owner never consents to endangered species restrictions. For zoning they do.

[xxpor]

Even if that's generally true (which I doubt), it has nothing to do with the legal theory in which Euclidian zoning operates.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Village_of_Euclid_v._Ambler_....

"The court ruled that speculation was not a valid basis for a claim of takings."

[ceph_]

> Lots of these species have been long gone. But the landowner of that 1944 sighting probably couldn't turn over a rock on his property without fines and lawsuits coming at him, at least until now.

Citation? Oh I see further down the chain you just made this up.