Comment from Carrie Gragg

The public input will be heavily biased by the minority of people who are most directly affected. The people who believe in setting aside critical habitat won't be the squeaky wheel. But, just because the silent majority isn't making public comment doesn't relieve public agencies of the responsibility to make wise long-term decisions to benefit the resource and the wider public. This kind of looks like a power grab by the people who are taking (in the environmental sense of taking a publicly held resource, like wildlife) from the public. Many public input processes are a bit of a farse, so this all may be a tempest in a teakettle. But, decisions about my / our / the public's wildlife (and of course publicly held habitat) should be made not to benefit the few, but based on science--real science, not the science that is edited by politicians--to benefit the maintenance of the resource. If the folks who believe everything comes down to money (and old-school habits) are given even more power, the wider public won't have much left in the end.