Our World and Everything in It

This is pretty gruesome to watch but I think it’s necessary to see the unethical, unfair sport of aerial hunting that has been promoted throughout Alaska by Sarah Palin. It is from Defenders of Wildlife.

This policy has basically fueled the wolf hunting program in Idaho. Why Idaho?

Check out this list:

Dirk Kempthorne is former governor of Idaho and rushed into his appointment by Bush as Secy. of the Interior.  The Secy. of Interior is over the USFWS.

Matthew J. Hogan, the former chief lobbyist for Safari Club International, is Acting Director of the USFWS.

Safari Club International, according to sourcewatch.com, consistently lobbies against the intent of the Endangered Species Act.

Butch Otter, governor of Idaho, is known for his desire to be the first person to take a shot at a wolf.

Sarah Palin graduated from the University of Idaho in 1987. She is the biggest catalyst in Alaska, along with SCI, for aerial hunting as a method for predator management—wolves. 

What is it with Idaho and their bloodthirst for wolves? Less wolves more hunting for people? What a totally unfair premise. It’s also a stupid act as it goes against a healthy balanced ecosystem. Wolves take care of the ever growing population of coyotes many people continue to mistake for wolves as one in the same. They are not. Coyotes are scavengers. They are usually killed by wolves for intruding on the wolves’ food. If hunting is used to replace the wolves, there will be little to no carcasses left for coyotes. Coyotes will begin to come into people’s yards as their population grows and wolf populations diminish from overkill. I had a lady comment elsewhere that people in Vermont are sympathetic to wolf hunts, and proceeded to tell me about problem coyotes in her yard. See what I mean?

Also, rangers in Yellowstone Park presented a pro-wolf video for Public TV that I watched. They showed all of the new tree, shrub, and grassy areas that were evolving because the wolves were balancing the overabundance of deer and elk that kept eating particular plant species to the ground. Over a course of time, one area went from a predominantly grassy plain to what appeared to be the beginning of a forest.

Obviously, hunting was unable to control the abundant population of deer, elk, and other vegetarian mammals.

Watch the video if you can. I could not. I do not call this hunting, and neither do real hunters. There is a place for legitimate hunting in America. This is not legitimate, nor is the reason for predator control in the extreme like aerial hunting.  Elk and deer populations in Idaho are beyond their limits based on state’s records. And Palin’s pressure to continue excessive hunting of wolves via plane/helicopter in Alaska as a form of predator management to preserve elk and caribou populations, is a complete contradiction to the detrimental outcome of elk and caribou populations within ANWR if drilling is allowed.

As someone with a daily environmental blog, I’m more than interested in Sarah Palin. Environmentalists have known about Palin for quite some time. And it’s those environmental groups that were targeted first for attempting to protest at the RNC. 

There is much footage out there of the emptied EarthJustice bus of protestors left by the side of the road by the Minneapolis police. It appears to be overkill and ridiculous with at least 10 police cars surrounding the bus as if it carried felons escaping prison. What a display of force to stop protestors for the environment. From many accounts, the Republicans had plants inside of these types of groups to report what, when, and how they would be going about protesting at the convention in order to stop them from reaching their destination. http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/31/raids/.

This is frightening for the U.S.A. More news has shown up on video on websites of outright abuse. One article stated that 3 homes where protestors were staying were entered by police SWAT teams. Citizens banned for peacefully assembling in protest, especially before they do so is a direct hit on our constitutional rights and perpetrated by our own federal government. SWAT teams? Just a tad bit of overkill. Obama’s bigger convention didn’t utilize SWAT teams or infiltrators. When I saw a GOP rep head butt, yes, head butt an ABC reporter, well, how juvenile, not to mention mean.

It’s not right. Without protestors, many citizens are being denied, albeit short term, the facts of Palin’s horrible environmental decisions and her ruthless record of predator management, which is the aerial killing of wolves.  Besides that, the state of Alaska under Palin sued the USFWS to keep the polar bear off the endangered list stating that their numbers have increased and they are a stable population.

I’ve already given the definition of endangered in another blog. The meaning should resonate with Palin since she has a BA in journalism and knows well that it means: “exposed to danger.” If anything could be more exposed to danger it would be the wildlife of Alaska under Palin and her buddies (SCI) Safari Club International who believe it’s their right to hunt any animal, endangered or not. SCI still pushes to allow hunting polar bears.

Palin stands strong against lobbyists, maybe, but only the lobbyists of her choice, because on the other hand she sought millions in earmarks for Wasilla, Alaska. Environmentalists have known that she’s bad news for our environmental future with a script right out of the mouths of big oil—drill more.

  http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2008/09/01/Palin_making_use_of_hated_earmarks/UPI-34181220275668/.

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/world/story.html?id=6c588f46-da6e-4816-a4be-789a4836b478

As a Democrat, I couldn’t be happier with this pick. I had to laugh when it was said her campaign for governor was run on “ethics.” OMG!

Wait until the large environmental groups disclose her ethics.  For example Rodger Schlickeisen of Defenders of Wildlife issued this statement already about Palin’s destructive environmental policies:

“Sarah Palin, whose husband works for BP (formerly British Petroleum), has repeatedly put special interests first when it comes to the environment. In her scant two years as governor, she has lobbied aggressively to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, pushed for more drilling off of Alaska’s coasts, and put special interests above science. Ms. Palin has made it clear through her actions that she is unwilling to do even as much as the Bush administration to address the impacts of global warming. Her most recent effort has been to sue the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the polar bear from the endangered species list, putting Big Oil before sound science. As unbelievable as this may sound, this actually puts her to the right of the Bush administration.”

To be to the right of the Bush/Cheney regime is a scary thought. That’s pretty far out there. Sarah Palin is a scary thought for wildlife. Alaska’s predatory management program is barbaric. I recently blogged about 14 wolf cubs shot in the head on the spot after an illegal stakeout by Alaskan Wildlife Agency employees? Bears have been added to the predatory list now. Funny how wolves and bears have always been a part of the Alaskan landscape, but now they are intolerable. Animals in Alaska do not have a friend at the governor’s house.

I don’t think Sarah likes living things as much as money. That will come out sooner or later. Cruelty is not a nice trait to see in a woman. 

I’ve been wondering how long it would take for religious communities to recognize the cruelty of animal farming; how extremely opposite it is from the idea of kosher where animals are tended with kindness and the ” method of slaughter is a quick, deep stroke across the throat with a perfectly sharp blade with no nicks or unevenness. This method is painless, causes unconsciousness within two seconds, and is widely recognized as the most humane method of slaughter possible.” A condition under which the meat is further processed is supposed to be extremely sanitary.

This is hardly the definition of a CAFO, where animals are so depressed and frustrated, they chew on the metal bars of their confinement. I’ve written so many blogs about CAFO’s and animal farms. That’s why I was so happy to read an article in the Summer publication of All Animals, by the Humane Society of the U.S., about America’s churches stepping forward to start a grassroots endeavor to restore humane farming.

Methodists support totally natural systems of farming. Jewish rabbis recommend that humans strive to prevent animal suffering. While many other denominations condemn factory farms altogether.

HSUS’s “All Creatures Great and Small” campaign plans to call on the religious, I like to say spiritual, individuals to only purchase cage-free eggs. The article says that “participants can make an on line pledge to do so and pass it along to friends as a form of networking. It also said, “They can then download materials to use in youth groups, Sunday schools, sermons, and bulletins.” There is also a documentary from “people whose religion inspired them to make dietary changes.” This particular campaign will be this October during the monthlong feast of St. Francis of Assisi, saint to all animals.

This one small pledge is designed to spread grassroots style and hopefully bring awareness to the spiritually minded about the guidelines in the bible as to what and how we eat. People can argue that the guidelines are in the Old Testament that we’re living the New Testament now. Yet we cannot simply disregard the entire part of the bible that tells us where we came from can we? Without it, we would have no heritage.

At very least, in America, where spiritualism seems to abound these days, it might make us pay better attention to not only what we eat but how it was raised. It could make a big difference in our health and diminish the amount of pollution we unleash into the environment from factory farms. Not bad by-products for a little extra awareness about what we eat.   

There was a reason Bush reluctantly put the polar bears on the endangered list but then curiously omitted protection for their habitat. Not so curious anymore. It seems in the latest round of attacks on the environment by the Bush administration and more than likely in support of oil, coal, and the natural gas industries, the president doesn’t find habitat protection necessary. To quote an article on NRDC’s website, the president will argue, “that studying and protecting the places that are essential to species survival is unnecessary. Specifically, the Department of Interior is planning to insert language into all future critical habitat designations that argues that these protections have no value in species protection.” Ah and Dirk Kempthorne, Secy. of Interior is at it again.

Protecting animals but allowing their habitat to go unprotected is so straight out of the dogma of big oil and other fossil fuel industries that we don’t even have to wonder why this underhanded push is happening. I say underhanded because the same article on Defender’s website stated that: “The first attack, contained in a rider on the House version of the Defense Department appropriations bill, would have arguably given the Secretary of the Interior sole discretion regarding where and when-and whether-to designate critical habitat for endangered species. Although the appropriations bill still contains a damaging ESA exemption for the Department of Defense, the more radical rider was defeated by the House on May 21.” Sneaky.

The Bush administration may not get their way the second time around either but there are other rotten ways of doing things.  The administration appears to be overly restricting funds for species protection by the USFWS. Bush only requested a measly $9 million dollars for it this year even though the agency knows it would take $153 million or more because there is a backlog. Congress even requested more money for the agency in the past to no avail. So no one is actually keeping track of or properly protecting our wildlife habitats because there is no money.

This is a “frightful” disregard for living things. If this administration can so ruthlessly overlook one natural resource for another, oil vs. animal habitat, than it’s not a stretch to think humanity is not being overlooked in the process either. We’re not suffering all that different a scenario from the animals on the endangered species list really. By continuing with the quest for oil and possibly more fossil fuels, our habitat won’t be around much longer either. What is it people don’t get? The earth is a closed system. If we put too much pollution into it, it will eventually break down. If we go on the way we are, we are no better than a cancer to our environment.  Yet this administration is destroying our habitat right under our noses while we go on believing someone is looking out for our best interests.

I hope that someone isn’t specifically Dick Cheney. Because when I watch what’s happening all I keep remembering is an article I read back in 2004 about Cheney. John Perry Barlow, a former Cheney supporter, said, “He has the least interest in human beings of anyone I have ever met.” That explains a lot.

http://www.nrdc.org/media/pressreleases/030528.asp.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/6450422/the_curse_of_dick_cheney/.

I just did a blog about our becoming accumstomed to violence, killing, and guns. Then I read my e-mail that STATE WILDLIFE AGENCY PERSONNEL in Alaska illegally staked out a breeding den/area for wolves, and aerial shot and killed 14 of them. The wolves were parents to 14 little pups. They shot all the pups in the head at close range.

View this video of 4 week old wolf pups and imagine plugging the cute little things in the head. It takes a heartless person to do this.

http://www.everythingwolf.com/sitewide/videolib/p1020310.wmv  

On the same website as the video, I read about people adopting wolf cubs, and even potty training wolf cubs. This is counter to the image of wolves as blood thirsty, indiscriminate killers.  

http://www.everythingwolf.com/forum/threadview.aspx?thread=1340p1.   

The big execution in Alaska was to boost caribou populations. There are approximately 950,000 caribou in Alaska. How many caribou do we need? What’s the target, a million?

 http://www.adfg.state.ak.us/pubs/notebook/biggame/caribou.php.

Alaskans are outraged over this aerial killing movement and are moving to “end the Board of Game’s barbaric aerial hunting of wolves through a ballot measure,” according to Defenders of Wildlife. Defenders website has a drive that ends today to help this ballot initiative with new ads. It also said that: “On August 26th voters can pass this ballot measure and band this awful practice before another deadly season begins.”

Defenders of Wildlife is “helping Alaskans for Wildlife, a coalition of local grassroots activists, hunters, and citizens who secured the 55,000 signatures to put this measure on the ballot. Already, they have reached thousands of voters across the state with their hard-hitting mailings.”

Collecting 55,000 signatures is a daunting task in the heart of hunting territory like Alaska, but everyone involved is close to meeting their goal of collecting $80,000 and running ads that will get voters out to vote for this ballot measure. The ads essentially say, “Real hunters don’t shoot wildlife from airplanes.”

I think aerial hunting is gutless. I also think shooting helpless pups is heartless. And I’m starting to think humans need to be kept in check more than animal populations. We’re starting to show our animalistic tendencies far too much, forgetting about empathy and compassion for all living things in our world.

http://www.defenders.org/newsroom/press_releases_folder/2008/07_23_2008 _statement_regarding_illegal_killing_of_14_wolf_pups_in_alaska.php

We’re finding more and more that the environment may be impacted in unforeseen ways. An article on ABC news website found that virtual reality–television, the internet, and video games are breeding more than couch potatoes. This new generation of videophiles rarely goes outdoors, let alone to run and play. They have no connection to nature.

I recently listened to a comedian talk about when he was a kid. He said entertainment back then could be summed up in one word “outside.” Not so any longer. As a result, children are not only obese and unhealthy; they don’t have a real respect for nature, never having left the a/c of the great indoors. Like they say, “if you don’t use it, you’ll lose it.” If you don’t have experiences with something, you will not likely have empathy for that something either. So involvement in the great outdoors is taking a real hit these days.

Fishing, hiking, and visits to parks are down since the 80’s. The 80’s spawned tons of video games, so the link is not all that hard to see. Our younger generation is disconnected from nature in lieu of video. People in their 20’s don’t actually know there are good bugs and bad bugs. When I asked a clerk in a store for a natural sponge, he didn’t know what I meant. When I explained about sponges on the ocean floor, he looked at me like I was kidding. Many young people don’t know what half the fruits and vegetables at the market are either, what they taste like, or how they nourish the body. I know because young clerks ask me what the items are at the checkout.

I was outside from morning until dark as a kid, making pets out of caterpillars, fireflies, and baby rabbits rescued from farm fields. I learned about good bugs and bad bugs, and reptiles from my parents while in the garden, and about the rest of the furry critters and birds just from being outside.

The realization about these drastic differences between generations and our relationships with nature hit home when I was at a party. A 25-year old ran out of a garage screaming about a huge bug, and to kill it! When I walked into that garage an absolutely huge, beautiful dragonfly made the mistake of flying in. It was one of those with markings on the wings, a white body, and other bright colors. I lifted him off with my fingers and sent him flying from harm’s way. Of course only a few knew about dragonflies and appreciated it, the rest looked at me disgusted from having touched a bug.

This does not bode well for living things in the future. Nature is a very delicate balance that we are just now grasping in the era of global warming. I think science is amazed at how all the pieces of the puzzle fit together between earth, air, and water. Adding life to this mix increases the intricacy of the living machine, which is our planet.

We cannot allow a generation of people to mature that have no affinity for the living things around them. Those living things will have no one to champion their cause. Our young people don’t know what they are missing by remaining indoors on beautiful summer days, but parents do. Get your kids out and involved. Bringing home frogs, snakes, turtles, bugs, and abandoned baby animals to nurture is part of the process of learning life, a well-rounded life that is, one that will include a relationship with nature and all that it holds.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=4241416

First I read one of those quick moving news feeds that the EPA warned it’s enforcement officers not to speak to Congress. That little bit of info just peaked my curiosity–speak up about what?

Now four senators on the Environment and Public Works Committee are urging Steven Johnson, the third EPA administrator under Bush, to resign as it appears he lied to a Senate committee.

Johnson claims he acted alone when he decided California should not regulate CO2 emissions from motor vehicles, but he was originally going to issue a partial waiver to CA. Someone changed his mind. The preceding EPA administrators left just as questionably and quickly as Johnson.

Christine Todd Whitman, 2001-2003, resigned just before reports of the clean up of 9/11 came out and according to SourceWatch,  “Eric Shaeffer, the EPA’s head of regulatory enforcement under Whitman, resigned under protest. He told Flanders that Whitman is ‘a Republican first and an environmentalist way down the list.’”

Michael Leavitt was Bush’s second appointee as EPA Administrator. Twelve states and several NE cities sued the EPA to block the new Clean Air rules during his leadership. The states argued the rules would weaken both environmental and health protection for citizens. Nice real nice. Scientist’s discontent with censorship was surfacing along with altered reports about global warming too. Leavitt left the EPA to head up Health and Human Services. That’s when a memo from Leavitt’s new department suggested its employees should buy hybrid. It suggested the whole federal fleet should go hybrid. This suggestion was via e-mail to 67,000 employees! So was Leavitt environmentally minded or not, altering reports of global warming on the one hand, then telling employees to buy foreign hybrids on the other?

And now Stephen Johnson appears to have succumbed to political pressure from the White House too. Who will be the replacement this time, someone from oil, someone from the NRA and/or hunting industry, or lumber, or coal…? I mean we had Steven Griles as Deputy Secretary of the Interior that oversees the EPA, and USFWS among other things, that resigned and went to work for Conoco Phillips oil as a lobbyist. The Deputy Chief of Staff to the Dept. of Interior, Sue Ellen Wooldridge, denied living with Griles when she still worked for the EPA. And then there was Philip Cooney, former head of the White House Council for Environmental Quality. Cooney was caught editing important data from scientific reports for quite awhile as well as pressuring the EPA to go along, so much so, that in 2002 the EPA removed an entire section on global warming from its annual report about air pollution. Cooney came to his position at the council as a lawyer and former lobbyist  for the American Petroleum Institute.  He left to work for Exxon Mobil. Right now a former lobbyist for an Intl. Hunt Club heads the USFWS. Ethics abound in the Bush administration.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/07/29/AR2008072902020.html 

Alaska’s Ted Stevens, longest serving Republican in the senate, was indicted on seven charges for his connections with VECO, an oil services company, and the renovations done to his home.

Ted is pro-oil, and we see why. VECO CEO Bill Allen pleaded guilty to bribing Alaskan lawmakers. And Ted has been accused of influence peddling. So we have an admitted briber, and a guy who invites it. So now Ted’s been indicted for lying about his dealings with VECO.

Ted has consistently put ANWR (Arctic National Wildlife Refuge) drilling language in defense bills. Remember the recent Senate hearings with oil execs about high gas prices in relation to excessively high profits? We can thank Ted, the Chairman of that committee, for preventing them from having to speak under oath.

Senator Stevens is best remembered for financing two Alaska bridges to nowhere to a tune of over $220 million. A fiasco that had Ted threatening to quit the senate if congress took money away from those bridges. The money  for them would have been redirected for repairs desperately needed in New Orleans afer Katrina. Stevens got his way, but the bridge money was given to Alaska’s transportation fund instead.

But Ted’s mid 80’s age and this haven’t stopped him. He’s put in his bid to run for senate again. This is not the way to top off a long career.

Democrats want Mark Begich, the mayor of Anchorage, in the race. Begich is the favorite. Alaska could use someone environmentally friendly for a change. If they could just get rid of Governor Palin, Alaska might stand a chance at remaining a pristine wilderness.

After this, maybe Senator Waxman, who is investigating everyone, and doing a fine job of doing his job by the way, should direct more attention to the goings-on in Alaska and why so many are protesting.  

Read more of Stevens bio at: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Ted_Stevens

It wasn’t all that long ago I blogged about the bush meat trade. Since apes are our closest DNA relatives this seems not only barbaric, but I wanted to know if cannibalism was next.

While watching BBC news late last night, I heard something worse if there can be such a thing. People are hunting people, but not for food or because of starvation, but because of religious beliefs.

In this country we may denigrate voodoo, shaman, and tribal religions of other countries, but to many these occult beliefs are as legitimate as ours.  This is not about religion vs religion though. This is hunting for wealth and prosperity, like bringing in an exotic animal skin in exchange for prosperity, or so the albino hunter believes.

In Tanzania, Africa there happens to be a disproportionate number of albino citizens. Albino’s have no melanin or dark pigment in their skin so they are white; their hair is white, eyelashes, etc. Witchdoctor’s in Tanzania believe albino body parts will bring wealth to a person.

Twenty-five albino’s have been killed, children included, the latest was a seven month old baby.  One woman watched as three people approached her albino husband sitting outside and hacked at him with a machete.  By time she returned with help, he was dead.

Another albino women pleaded with anybody listening to get her out of the country or to a safer urban area. There is a big denial that this religious belief is being propagated but BBC news is still investigating. Many Tanzanian’s say occult like religious beliefs infiltrate the government also. So everyone is slow to help the albino population.

Protected mountain gorilla’s have been poached for their hands. Their bodies left lying without them. Now people are found lying without body parts, body parts that supposedly bring wealth to someone else.

I don’t even know how to tag this blog. I’ve got categories for blogs for saving animals, marine life, trees, even insects, and habitat, air, water, parks, and human health, but humans as actual prey by other humans is a new one on me.  

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7518049.stm