Editor:
As a biologist, I feel compelled to comment on the ongoing debate over industrial development on Mt. Graham. The biological controversy over the telescope project is not really about squirrels, it's about heritage and proper use of laws. The isolated mountains of the southwest are our own versions of the Galapagos Islands, creating much of the glorious biological diversity for which this area is famous. In the face of global climate change, intact mountain tops act as irreplaceable refuges for entire plant and animal communities. The top of Mt. Graham is particularly important because it is one of the highest ranges in this part of the country, and harbors life zones which are lost on almost all other mountains. Furthermore, it has an extraordinarily high level of endemism (i.e. species which occur nowhere else in the world).
One criticism of the Endangered Species Act is that the act does not directly protect rare and threatened ecosystems, such as the high elevation life zones of our sky islands. Under this law, however, people often use "umbrella species" to protect these rare ecosystems. Protection of one such species (or subspecies) safeguards habitat that may be essential to the survival of many others, as well as protecting "ecosystem services" which directly benefit humans (such as clean water, clean air, spawning grounds for economically important fishes, reserves of potential medicines, etc.). The Mt. Graham red squirrel has acted as an umbrella species, and for these reasons, its protection is most certainly not contrary to the intent of the Endangered Species Act.
Those who argue that we have done a disservice to conservation by opening this umbrella are manipulating the public with the age-old technique of subdivide and conquer. They would like nothing better than to see us bicker amongst ourselves while they, unnoticed, get free reign to rape the planet. Here's just one example of what we miss seeing when we let them pull squirrel fur over our eyes:
When the UA decided to move Columbus from the site for which it was designed to the new, illegal site, it spread the project's impact into an entirely different watershed. Strange, isn't it, that this project's proponents never mention this crucial fact? Face it: roads, cars, dynamite, bulldozers, diesel generators, snow plows, semi-trucks, power lines, and sewage seep fields at the top of this peak affect the entire watershed in which they lie. This is not a trivial matter, and ought to receive at least the basic environmental impact studies required by law.
Furthermore, the new site is directly above a group of extremely rare high elevation cienegas (wetland springs). The biology of these cienegas has never been thoroughly studied. Being so isolated, they are likely to be very sensitive to disturbance and pollution. For a biologist, there are few things more tragic than seeing a unique area degraded or destroyed before we even get a chance to see what's there.
The stars will be the same a year from now. Pausing to obey the law will not affect what astronomers can see. Let's play it conservative and assess the consequences of our actions before we destroy anything irreplaceable.
Gitanjali Bodner
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Graduate Student