EDITORIAL: 'Progress' is no longer an excuse

Dec. 27—Once upon a time, in our corner of the world, there used to a brilliant bird.

"Its colors are green, yellow and red, all bright colors," Henry Rowe Schoolcraft wrote in 1819, after seeing the birds in Missouri. "Their gaudy colours are reflected in the sun with the brilliance of a rainbow."

Early settlers described these birds as "ornaments," "gems" and "jewels."

About the size of the common turtledove, the birds were often observed in sycamores in winter, their vivid colors a stark contrast with the tree's bone-white limbs.

In fact, one of the most striking accounts was left by a German immigrant to Missouri, Gert Goebel, who wrote that their orange-yellow heads "looked like so many candles" suspended in the trees.

Once upon a time ... might as well be a fairy tale, of course ... because no one alive has ever seen these birds, called the Carolina parakeet. And no one alive ever will.

By 1870, the Carolina parakeet was largely gone west of the Mississippi River, although sporadic sightings carried over into the early 20th century. One of the last sightings in Missouri was reported at the rural Notch post office near Branson around 1905.

This is a good day to think about that. It was on this day — Dec. 28, 1973 — that President Richard Nixon signed the Endangered Species Act.

The act was not perfect. From the early battles over the snail darter to the current fight to save an old Ozarks' inhabitant, the red wolf, it remains controversial, and problematic.

Too often, though, rather than trying to improve it, work with it, fix it, politicians have tried to kill it, to gut it ... as dead as the dodo, but we don't think that's what either side in the debate really wants.

The goal must remain finding that balance between preserving species, and private property, between protection and progress.

But would it really be progress if we charged into the future without the California condor, the Ozark hellbender, the bald eagle, and a host of species that have been around a lot longer than we have?

At the Globe, we've watched these debates play out, reporting on the local recovery efforts of endangered mussels, birds, bats, insects and more that are home in the prairies to our north and west, and the forests to our south and east.

And we have learned two things:

—We have yet to meet a property owner who, while worried about the costs and restrictions imposed by the Endangered Species Act, is indifferent to the fate of endangered species. We have never met anyone who wants to see a single animal or plant eliminated. These landowners are not the enemy.

—Scientists and regulatory agencies are not indifferent to those affected by an endangered or threatened designation of a plant or animal and work had to make reasonable accommodations. These scientists and agencies are not the enemy, either, but simply carrying out the law of the land — a law that is turning 50 years old.

As we've written before, maybe that's a place we can build on — assuming the good will of both sides — if we can just get politicians out of the way.

We also think we have an obligation to our children and grandchildren to pass on a better, healthier, richer world. They'll never see a Carolina parakeet in the wild, or a passenger pigeon, or a number of other species, but they can see bald eagles over Shoal Creek today, thanks to the Endangered Species Act.

One more thing we've learned, summed by noted conservationist Aldo Leopold. It has to do with the definition of progress.

"Progress is no longer an excuse for the destruction of our native mammals and birds," he wrote, "but on the contrary not only implies an obligation but an opportunity for their preservation."