The snail darter was supposedly an endangered species of fish — so endangered that in 1978, the Supreme Court blocked the construction of a billion-dollar dam in Tennessee to save it.
But the New York Times reports that this was a case of “mistaken identity” — the “snail darter” is a “genetic match” of a common fish. It is not a distinct species, much less an endangered one! So there was no need to delay construction of the dam for years to save it.
There may be a great many fake endangered species.
As journalist David Mastio adds:
This one weird little fish — a beigeish critter found on sandy river bottoms in Tennessee and fond of munching on snails and water bugs — just upset 50 years of environmental efforts aimed at protecting endangered species. The famous snail darter — immortalized in its own 1978 Supreme Court case that brought construction of a billion-dollar dam to a halt — turns out not to exist, say fish experts in a new peer-reviewed scientific paper….it turns out the “snail darter” was actually just a common perch, as rare as mosquitoes at the lakeside in summer.
Apparently, environmental activists misclassify common creatures as endangered species to block dams and other construction and transportation projects. Due to this discovery that a famous endangered species (the snail darter) doesn’t even exist,
Protected species at the center of development disputes around the country will be under new scrutiny…The case brings new skepticism to the process that led to the designation of thousands of species around the country as endangered under federal law….There are at least 600 endangered species in Florida alone….
The possibility that many endangered species are fake
has been a poorly-kept secret among environmental science nerds for decades….In Michigan, there was a development dispute that involved plain belly water snakes….Local wildlife experts told me that you could tell the difference [between common and endangered snakes] by which side of a highway you caught them on. North side: endangered. South side: Not so much. It never made much sense to me that one of them could squiggle its way over a yellow dotted line and find itself without federal legal protection, so when I started asking more questions, the scientists admitted nobody had ever tested the little buggers’ DNA. Turns out this was quite common.
In some places in the U.S. deer were endangered, while in others the creatures were so common state and local officials were pleading with hunters to kill more of them. Turns out plenty of the endangered deer were identical to the ones due for slaughter….How many of the nearly 300 endangered species that died out over the last 50 years weren’t extinctions after all?