US Fish and Wildlife service once again proves that it is more concerned with bureaucratic power than protecting species. By using the Endangered Species act to “take” private property, FWS is causing landowners to “Shoot, Shovel, and Shut up.”  In this case, landowners are cutting down their trees before the FWS finds a nest of the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker.  If FWS finds a nest, development is restricted on 75 acres around the nest.  Therefore, landowners are clear-cutting their land as quickly as possible.  As Bonner Stiller, a member of the GA from Brunswick County, stated: “You had to get in line to get somebody with a chair saw.”  See front-page article in the N&O here.