My big problem with them is the smug little air of superiority they
have. They buy up land, much of which isn't critical habitat but only
financial investment property, and they keep us from using it. They do
it in the name of saving species, but then they don't do much to
actually save anything. Then they use the plight of the troubled species
as a tool to raise more cash so that they can buy up more land which as
often as not isn't land they'll do anything with but sell again in the
future. I know that they ultimately do some good, which is more than
can be said for other groups of that ilk , but it still irks me.
Now they are targeting "my" welaka pond. It's THE best source of welakas
in the whole state, and the only welaka POND I know of outside of
Florida. Once they have it, they won't do one thing to boost welaka
populations in the area and we all know it. They'll either sell that
milelong pond to some developer for the waterfront property value, or
they'll knock the dam down, possibly dooming the fish more than saving
them. In the meantime, I won't be able to continue my efforts to perfect
the methods for spawning them, and I won't be able to send fish to
others who likewise want to work with them. If these guys are going to
keep me from mass-producing them, then they'd bloody well better
mass-produce them themselves.
They want to keep some hunter off a piece of land because it has a rare
flower growing on it? That's fine, but they'd better justify their
tax-exempt status by mass-cultivating that flower they claim to care
about so much. Otherwise, methinks their motives are insincere, to put
it mildly. They have the power to buy up pretty much anything they want,
thanks to teeming throngs of suckers sending them money, and I for one
would just like to see some accountability and results.
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