Private Property Rights Collide With Invisible Frog

By Chris Bennett, Farm Journal Technology and Issues Editor

Edward Poitevent is at the mercy of an invisible frog. In September 2011, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) published a proposed critical habitat rule (76 Fed. Reg. 59774) for the dusky gopher frog with a bull's-eye on 1,500 acres of Poitevent’s tree farm land in St. Tammany Parish, located toward the tip of the Louisiana boot.