Marwee asked me to post this for her.

 
 California Condor in Flight showing off its 9+ foot wing-span.
Photo: Noel Snyder, USFWS 

LOS ANGELES, Jan. 23, 2009 – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released a draft plan today that would allow the Tejon Ranch Company to harm and harass the iconic and extremely endangered California condor. The condor’s last bastion of wild habitat is threatened by mega-developments in northern Los Angeles and southern Kern counties, planned by the Tejon Ranch Company, a publicly traded company heavily invested in by New York-based funds. Twenty-six other rare species are also included in the proposed plan. This Habitat Conservation Plan, as it is called, is sought by Tejon Ranch to exempt Tejon from its otherwise illegal “taking” of the covered endangered and threatened species.

“The countdown has begun on Tejon’s plan to destroy the condor’s ‘Garden of Eden’-the core of its existence,” said Adam Keats, director of the Urban Wildlands Program of the Center for Biological Diversity. “Contrary to Tejon’s assertions, this is not a conservation plan. This is a permit to harm, displace, disturb, and in some cases, kill 27 endangered, threatened, or rare species that call Tejon home. Don’t be fooled: Each of these species would be far better off if this permit is never issued.

“The Center has a better plan for Tejon Ranch: preserving it as a new national or state park. See http://www.savetejonranch.org.

PLEASE read the entire article here at Yuba Net