In addition to blaming the California wildfires on DEI, WorldNetDaily got a little help to find another scapegoat, as described in a Jan. 12 article it stole from the far-right Gateway Pundit:
The tiny Delta Smelt fish have not been seen in the wild in California in over a decade.
And yet, California Democrats flushed annual water flow into the ocean to save this little fish that they can’t even find in its natural habitat.
Now several cities are burnt to the ground.
They sacrificed entire communities for a fish that doesn’t exist.
A 2021 report by Dan Bacher in the Sacramento News revealed that there have been NO DELTA SMELT seen in the wild since 2012.
They’re extinct.
Yes, the delta smelt is pretty much extinct — but what protection it gets has nothing to do with the wildfires. Vox reported:
The delta smelt is a red herring. What is a legitimate question, however, is why should California and the federal government protect a species that’s essentially extinct?
The fish is still hanging on, Rypel suspects. So improving the health of the estuary can help the existing individuals survive — it could stave off extinction. It also makes ongoing efforts to reintroduce captive-bred smelt more likely to succeed.
Increased freshwater flow benefits other species, too, including the highly valued Chinook salmon and the related longfin smelt, both of which are in decline. In July, the US Fish and Wildlife Service listed the San Francisco delta population of longfin smelt as endangered. And again, outflow from the delta also prevents saltwater from spreading inland and threatening drinking water — and crops.
“In California, 83 percent of our native fishes are at risk of extinction,” [aquatic ecologist Andrew] Rypel said. “All of these native California species are going the way of the delta smelt. It’s just that the smelt is happening faster.”
Vox added: “Ultimately, Trump’s hostility toward this fish is not actually about a fish. It’s about boosting the perspective that regulations are bad for everyday Americans.” That’s a perspective WND and the Gateway Pundit will no tell you about — and it’s more proof that WND (and the Gateway Pundit) care nothing about informative journalism.