Before the Industrial Revolution and the resultant world population boom, animal species didn't go extinct. People lived in harmony with the environment. Yes, the exploitation of animals was ubiquitous, as grimly depicted in the harrowing Flintstones television series. However, even in subjugation, at least dinosaurs, woolly mammoths, and little green floaty alien guys survived. Mother Nature eschewed such brutal, inhumane tactics as setting species to compete against one another for scarce resources, with those more fit for survival passing their genetic advantage to succeeding generations.
Then human 'progress' screwed up this balance, and all of a sudden, animal species started to vanish. Animals whose ancestors had crawled out of the ocean in search of a better life for their families couldn't cope with a little acid rain and the occasional strip-mine. For the most 
part, we collectively ignored this. After all, we asked, why shouldn't animals be expected to adapt, learn a few new survival skills, and keep up with the ever-changing economy, like the rest of us? Zoologists derided that mindset as "close-minded" and "Lamarckian", and demanded the Endangered Species Act, which coincidentally provided the first-ever jobs for zoologists. Of course, they never told us that for every photogenic bald eagle the program saves, four dozen worthless species of beetles and leeches come along for the ride.
As the act is enforced by government bureaucrats, it has certain unintended consequences. A property owner is not allowed to develop land on (or near) which these feeble species are known to live. This renders the land essentially unsellable, so owners tend to get all bent out of shape over this. The endangered red-cockaded woodpecker, native to North Carolina, has inspired land owners to come up with a novel, and apparently legal, solution. They're cutting down all the trees. Tobacco-Chewin' Deliverance Hicks 1, Tree-Huggin' Global Citizens 0!
Apparently you can cut down a tree before woodpeckers are in it, which prevents woodpeckers from living in it thereafter, which is kind of like a pre-emptive foreign policy, except that it seems to 
work. Not exactly what the ESA intended. If this continues, the red-cockamamie woodpecker will go extinct, which will really open things up for possible development, with all those trees out of the way. The area could be transformed, simply by enforcement (such as it is) of the ESA, from a wooded little cabin-y area to a Wal-Mart. And before you say, "yeah, so, whatever," consider the vital importance of the woodpecker in that little thing known as the food chain. You see, the diet of ocean plankton consists of woodpeckers, spotted owls, and panda bears. Plankton in turn is the main food staple for whales and hippies. Without plankton to eat, and hippies to whine about Japanese and Norwegian whaling, whales will go extinct. And in a few hundred years, aliens will destroy Earth because there are no more whales with whom to speak.
In all slightly greater seriousness, I'm kind of split on what to do about this. One solution I initially leaned toward is to pay property owners for estimated lost development and resale costs using federal tax dollars. After all, if society has collectively decided to save the red-cockadoodle woodpecker, society ought to collectively pay for it. Then I read the article again, and it turns out that a lot of people are buying property in this area as an investment, not as a place to build a house. Now, I already am pretty negative on the whole 'build houses close to nature' thing. If you want to build a house in the woods, I don't want firefighters risking their lives to save you and your damn house from a wildfire; and if you get eaten by a bear, that's just natural selection at work, as far as I'm concerned. But this investment crap is ten times worse. You're rich enough to buy some wooded land just because it might appreciate? Screw you. Invest in something normal next time.
So if we're not going to compensate these people, and if the status quo is no good, there's only really one solution left. Genetically modify the woodpecker to become more aggressive toward humans, so it will fight back and start poking people's eyes out. That oughtta solve the problem.
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