Toad Pride

This just in from San Diego (North Baja or South California, depending):
A federal appeals court has rejected a developer’s plans to build a large housing development in inland North County because it would likely jeopardize a small, endangered toad.
Well, kinda. More like there is already a “housing development” there but nobody sees it – except the toads. Who live in it. The toad community, famously, opts for rocky sandscape instead of lawns that must be watered and mowed, and prefers cool underground burrows to expensive air conditioning. They think they have some of the best toad schools in the country – more Harvard graduates than trendy La Jolla.
Rancho Viejo sued Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton three months later, saying the federal government’s application of the Endangered Species Act was unconstitutional under an interstate commerce clause.
Neither a ranch nor old, the limited-liability corporation sued the government under the mistaken assumption that the toads were crossing state lines on illicit business (toadying, they claimed). Not true. The Arroyo Southwestern Toad, notoriously inbred, never leaves home. “We can’t survive anywhere else,” said a spokestoad.
An elder for the Arroyo community said, “the Long Toads cannot ignore us any longer. We are taking a stand for our tadpoles and our tadpoles’ tadpoles.”