The story of how the Endangered Species Act (ESA) was betrayed on San Bruno Mountain is not a story of "right versus right," as the film, Butterflies and Bulldozers, would have us believe. Rather, it is a story of right versus wrong. The Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP) sham was created by monied interests their government allies, and their hired biologists. Those who took control over the Committee to Save San Bruno Mountain chose to ally themselves with such power out of a belief—however incorrect—that compromise in favor of private property interests was necessary to prevent the complete undoing of the ESA. Those who fought the HCP saw that the proposed compromise would kill endangered species. The HCP opponents included the scientists and other people who were most knowledgable about the mountain and who decried the grave deficiencies in the plan—deficiencies that have predictably failed to recover the species to the point where they no longer need the protection the ESA affords. 

Recovery is the heart—the focal intent as established by congress and the Nixon administration—of the ESA, and that's why HCPs across the nation fundamentally constitute an ongoing betrayal of the ESA's core mission. A more honest name for them would be "Profit Conservation Plans."