Has google even had a preserved fetal pig delivered to anyone?
If you are referring to this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snail_darter_controversy
It says:
This accusation ignores the fact that the formal species description (Etnier, 1976) was thoroughly peer-reviewed before publication and has withstood decades of scrutiny—-even from biologists employed by TVA. Etnier himself acknowledged that genetic affinities between snail darters and stargazing darters would be instrumental in fully understanding their degree of relatedness and divergence (Etnier, 1976:487).
Regardless of whether snail darters are genetically distinct from stargazing darters based on current scientific data, the Little Tennessee River population in the 1970s would have nevertheless represented a population separated from the core population of stargazing darters by over 700 river miles of habitat highly modified by nearly 100 years of impoundment projects. As such, the Little Tennessee River population may still very well have qualified for protection under ESA as a sub-species or as a distinct population segment, as the ESA is applied today.
At the same time I cannot not to notice that only environmentalists, activists and watchdogs are quoted in the article. One (bark) got even quotes from 2 different people.
Not a single scientific entity, like university etc was presented.
(it’s a nice things you got here. It would be a shame if some rare species of a frog would be found here. A small donation for the great cause/good, of course, would help us to work on ensuring that nobody gets in harms way).
As it turns out "greenmailing" is a thing, but not from environmental groups. Here's what claude found for me:
<ai> The concern isn't baseless—there are documented cases of parties using environmental law as leverage, particularly California's CEQA. But empirical studies show only ~13% of such lawsuits actually come from environmental groups; the majority come from labor unions, business competitors, and NIMBYs hijacking environmental review for unrelated purposes. In this specific case, WaterWatch has a 40-year track record on Oregon water issues and the concerns about fish habitat are supported by the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs—so the 'thinly veiled shakedown' framing doesn't really fit </ai>
I hope doing that research didn't spend too much water!