Environmentalists have been stopping this development with every weapon at their disposal:

The snakes have won another one - for now.

A Superior Court judge yesterday dismissed a lawsuit by Signature Homes that would have required the New Jersey Pinelands Commission and Evesham Township to allow it to begin building homes on the remaining 22 lots it owns in the Sanctuary.

The 663-acre development has been a battleground between developers and environmental groups for years.

The Pinelands Commission in October stopped construction in the Sanctuary, which borders Wharton State Forest, after Signature Homes had built 38 of its 60 planned houses.

That decision came a few months after a nest of Northern pine snakes, a threatened species, had been discovered. It also came almost two years after a settlement had been reached between developers and the commission to protect the Pinelands timber rattlesnake, an endangered species that was discovered living in the Sanctuary.

It started with the Timber Rattler and now it's the Northern Pine. Endangered species, be they plants or animals. can probably be found in every square acre in the country. Where's this going to stop?