Our World and Everything in It

So is this how we celebrate the wolf in January 2008 America–slaughtering them as a species? President George Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secy. of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne, (former Gov. of Idaho), current Gov. Butch Otter of Idaho, and Gov. Dave Freudenthal of Wyoming, as well as, Gov. Palin of Alaska are advancing their plans to skip the threatened and endangered species list and eradicate wolves by aerial helicopter, plane, snaring, etc., in Idaho and Wyoming. Alaska is already obliterating wolves by aerial hunting there. Gov. Palin just wants to keep the carnage going.  I find it interesting that while Gov. of Idaho Kempthorne pushed to get state control over wolves and now he is in charge of Dept. of the Interior overseeing this latest wolf assault.

http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/ask_astro/answers/970314a.html

While Kempthorne heads the Dept. of Interior, the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture’s (USDA) National Research Center has current reports that wolves have restored much balance in the wild, keeping coyote populations down. Another 3-year study radio collared wolves in packs whose habitats surrounded the perimeter of cattle ranches. The wolves constantly crossed through cattle herds at night. In 3 years, wolves killed only 8 cattle. The National Geographic Channel aired a segment about Yellowstone’s wolves being a great success for the environment there. Why the rush to kill wolves after allowing them to flourish, especially if they are maintaining a balance among other predators?

This concept of wolf slaughter via aerial planes and helicopters is a hideous irony considering the American wolf is a major and honorable component in Native American history. Native Americans like the Cheyenne, Sioux, and Arapahoe admired wolves for the way they “operated in packs, caring for each other and sharing food, as well as the strength, endurance and hunting skills displayed by the Native American wolf. These were the same qualities that would help to ensure the survival of the tribe, qualities worthy of emulating.” http://www.native-languages.org/composition/native-american-wolf.html.

Running an animal to exhaustion from a helicopter or a plane to shoot it with sighted high-powered rifles from above isn’t honorable hunting skills. It’s sacrilegious that our government officials are willing to hunt an animal in such a cowardly manner while Native Americans revere the animal for its hunting skills. Wolves are not rats. Many Native American Tribes believed wolves to be teachers and called their scouts “wolves” that were brave enough to be the first to venture out and bring their experiences back to the tribe as wolves do for their pack. Right now many Christian Americans embrace creationist theory for their origins. Native Americans have their own creationist theory that includes wolves, “… the Medicine Wheel atop Medicine Mountain in the Bighorns, [] the Massaum Ceremony, “the medicine dance of the ancients,” a beautiful and integral part of traditional Cheyenne culture in which the wolf, and the “Wolf’s Lodge,” is essential to creation, to life, and renewal in the spiritual and physical,” http://www.infohub.com/vacation_packages/3367.html.

And so here we are in 2008 allowing an already dubious administration to slaughter an icon of our heritage by cowardly if not sadistic means while we cry to other nations to stop clubbing seals, hooking dolphins, and killing whales for research.  This administration attempts to evoke a sense of patriotism in everything else they do; yet they overlook the wolf. Look at some of the names of the leaders of some of the greatest tribes that once ruled America.

“Little Wolf was the Native American chief of northern Cheyenne. Little Wolf, who led a military society called the Bowstring Soldiers, was a leader in the Northern Plains wars. He and Sioux and Arapaho warriors fought together in the War for the Bozeman Trail, which was also known as Red Cloud’s War, from 1866 to 1868. Little Wolf was a signer of the Fort Laramie Treaty in 1868,” http://student.britannica.com/comptons/article-9312204?

Among the signers of the Laramie Treaty were many native chiefs whose names included wolf: Of the Ogallalah band of Sioux chiefs there was High Wolf and Big Wolf Foot, of the Uncpapa band of Sioux chiefs was Wolf Necklace, and of the Arapahoe chiefs there was Spotted Wolf, Big Wolf, Wolf Mocassin, and Wolf Chief.
http://digital.library.okstate.edu/Kappler/Vol2/treaties/sio0998.htm.

There are many citizens interested in Native American culture that should embrace the seriousness of what is being proposed for wolf populations in these particular states. Out of heritage, patriotism, and humaneness for America’s wildlife, call or contact your congress people to stop this type of eradication process for living things once and for all. Contact the media for more coverage about wolves and their future in America.
 

 I’ve read tht Humanities courses are down compared to Business and Marketing in most colleges and think it’s a shame because things like literature can be reassuring. From literature we learn nothing is new under the sun and we get a good view of mankind’s mistakes: wars, plagues, and even abuse of the environment. Enjoy this translated letter to President Pierce by the Indian Chief, Seattle, back in 1855. It speaks for itself. 

     “We know that the white man does not understand our ways. One portion of the land is the same to him as the next, for he is a stranger who comes in the night and takes from the land whatever he needs. The earth is not his brother, but his enemy, and when he has conquered it, he moves on. He leaves his fathers’ graves, and his children’s birthright is forgotten. The sight of your cities pains the eyes of the red man. But perhaps it is because the red man is a savage and does not understand.
     There is no quiet place in the white man’s cities. No place to hear the leaves of spring or the rustle of insects wings. But perhaps because I am a savage and do not understand, the clatter only seems to insult the ears. The Indian prefers the soft sound of the wind darting over the face of the pond, the smell of the wind itself cleansed by a mid-day rain, or scented with the pinon pine. The air is precious to the red man. For all things share the same breath—the beasts, the trees, the man. Like a man dying for many days, he is numb to the stench.
     What is man without the beasts? If all the beasts were gone, men would die from great loneliness of spirit, for whatever happens to the beasts also happens to man. All things are connected. Whatever befalls the earth befalls the sons of the earth.
     It matters little where we pass the rest of our days; they are not many. A few more hours, a few more winters, and none of the children of the great tribes that once lived on this earth, or that roamed in small bands in the woods, will be left to mourn the graves of a people once as powerful and hopeful as yours.
     The whites, too, shall pass—perhaps sooner than other tribes. Continue to contaminate your bed, and you will one night suffocate in our own waste. When the buffalo are all slaughtered, the wild horses all tamed, the secret corners of the forest heavy with the scent of many men, and the view of the ripe hills blotted by talking wires, where is the thicket? Gone. Where is the eagle? Gone. And what is it to say goodbye to the swift and the hunt, the end of living and the beginning of survival? We might understand if we knew what was that the white man dreams, what he describes to his children on the long winter nights, what visions he burns into their minds, so they will wish for tomorrow. But we are savages. The white man’s dreams are hidden from us.