Our World and Everything in It

I was reading about the shooter who shot 3 teens and wounded another in a wooded area on the Wisconsin/Michigan border and all I could think about was the Bush administration/NRA push to allow loaded guns in national parks. Just what we need.

http://www.wkowtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=8774082.

We should be more concerned about this issue because with the help of the NRA, the 25-year ban on loaded guns in parks might dissolve before Bush leaves office. We’re not talking big rifles or shotguns but CONCEALED HANDGUNS too.

So guns become a reality in parks and you’re walking along Sleeping Bear Dunes or a portion of the North Country National Scenic Trail and some nut shoots you. You end up buried in the sand dunes or God-knows-where along that trail, at least until a bear or vultures find your carcass. Back at the camp all anyone knows is that you went for a little hike in the morning or before dinner and never came back. The nut with a gun hasn’t a witness in site, and hearing a gunshot has become commonplace in parks.

Of course this can happen with the present ban on loaded guns in parks too. Nefarious people don’t follow rules anyway. But at least the sound of a gun would resonate to someone that something is not right, whether an animal attack or human attack. 

We already have a horrible homicide record as a free country. We’re getting a little too used to guns and killing, don’t you think? We accept guns too readily as our only means of protection. Protectionism has its place, but it appears to me that since 9/11, with the aid of the federal government, we’ve become much too fearful as a people. It encourages extremist actions like carrying concealed weapons everywhere. We’re willing to give up too many of our rights also because we’re afraid. And unfortunately, it seems that we’re unique in our fear.  When England’s subway was bombed by terrorists, I remember many Brits riding the subway again as soon as possible with the retort that, “We can’t let them have the upper hand now can we?” Ditto for other countries. Then again, they’ve weathered more wars on home turf than us. Still I feel we have been targeted for fearmongering as a way of bullying us into thinking we need a loaded gun to get through everyday life, like an outing in a park.

The gun won’t help me if a nut takes aim from somewhere. I won’t know what hit me. I don’t think if I were jogging alone through a park that I could draw my weapon if suddenly ambushed from the side either. More than likely the assailant would get the gun away from me. 

If the attack is from a mountain lion or bear, good luck getting a deadly shot on them, especially with a handgun. They’re on you before you can act. They’ll rip your arm off before the trigger is pulled or the gun even makes it out. I’d probably shoot myself in the foot in a Barney Phife move and assure my doom.

Seems like owning a dog would be as good if not safer to take along on a hike in the park, and boy are there plenty of those in the shelters looking to loyally defend an owner just for a home.

While the present administration and the NRA stoke our fears to add more places to allow more types of guns, studies show that possession of guns is only upping the homicide rate in America. We’re killing each other, not terrorists! Terrorism would have taken a bigger hit long ago by cutting off its funding from oil profits.  

Congress began viewing alternative energy sources at the end of the 90’s and we should have kept in that direction as a way to stop our oil addiction and the money flowing to the Middle East that helped fund terrorism. I’m reading that it is funded more and more by heroin now. Lately big oil profits in the Persian Gulf have produced a model city like Dubai, a huge metropolis and the Arab wish for a huge financial center. Pretty soon major corporations will fund terrorism over there. We missed our chance to nip the terrorist problem in the bud long ago by getting away from oil. It brought power to a region that basically had nothing else going for it. Who is outsmarting whom? The Middle East preys on our addictions to oil and heroin. There is no gun to combat that.

Unfortunately, since 9/11 we’ve lost more rights due to our fears, and are basically headed back to the old west, where everyone walked around with a holster or hid a pistol in their boot.

More info on guns and homicides vs. protection: http://eric.ed.gov/ERICDocs/data/ericdocs2sql/content_storage_01/0000019b/80/13/93/7e.pdf

If you’ve never heard of or viewed the panorama of Utah’s Red Rock Canyon area, do it. It is absolutely beautiful. I saw a travel channel segment on Zion National Park and want to visit there. It looks like a place of God. Our national parks are a real treasure, but the Bush administration doesn’t have much time left, and is trying for land grabs right out of OUR national parks to drill for oil.

If Bush has his way, oil drills will destroy eleven million acres of national park in Utah’s Red Rock Canyon. I’m hearing about these attempted land grabs happening all over the place. What I want to know is what is the sense? We know we’re short of refineries in the U.S. It’s a well known fact every time the U.S. has an oil crisis, large or small, that right away we want to invade new areas and drill for more oil. But it’s of no use unless it’s refined, and we don’t have enough refineries.

And it’s not likely we’ll be seeing brand new refineries in the future because of global warming. And yes even the Bush/Cheney administration admitted quite a while ago in 2002 that humans do indeed cause global warming. The U.S. EPA submitted a 268-page report to the UN back then admitting to and agreeing with scientists that oil refining, fossil fuel power plants, and car emissions are significant causes of global warming.

It’s 2008. What aren’t they getting? I know what the Bush administration is getting–more neglectful of our rights when they simply try to take over public lands for nothing more than filling the pockets of the rich from oil production. Trashing these beautiful areas of our country will not sit well with a court system that has been standing for the environment in a number of cases so far.

According to an Earthjustice report, just recently another federal court judge ruled that: “After years of court battles, Kane County must halt its illegal efforts to create roadways through Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and other wilderness areas,” which is in another area of Utah’s Red Rock Canyon. A U.S. District Judge “ordered the county to take down its signs inviting vehicles into areas closed to protect sensitive streams, wildlife habitat, archeological treasures, and wilderness values.”

This is good news but Dirk Kempthorne, Secy. of Interior, needs to hear from us again, even though he and the Bush administration know that attempts to drill in Utah’s Red Rock Canyon is going to meet with some mighty big resistance since this judge’s ruling.

http://action.wilderness.org/campaign/utahm00/xwnke5k44xx5mjj?

http://www.earthjustice.org/news/press/2008/utah-county-must-stop-illegal-seizure-of-rights-of-way.html

Bush admits humans cause global warming: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/2023835.stm

http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/does_the_us_lack_sufficient_oil_refining.html

The Bush Administration is at it again. They are still trying to push the carry/use of concealed weapons and loaded firearms in our national forests and state parks. Don’t we have enough gun issues? Everyone other than POACHERS has been happy with the ban for 78 years now. Reagan opened the can of worms that now threatens to open wider to allow people to shoot firearms in our parks and forests. “Firearms were first banned in national parks in the 1930s in a bid to curb poaching. The current rules, implemented under President Ronald Reagan in the early 1980s, allow visitors to national parks and refuges to possess firearms so long as they are ‘rendered temporarily inoperable or are packed, cased or stored in a manner that will prevent their ready use.’” http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/may2008/2008-05-01-10.asp.  This is a ludicrous law that invites illegal use of firearms, because why bother carrying a gun at all?  How would you like to be the first to get shot, or your dog? I have a feeling this ties in with the eradication of wolves somehow, because Dirk Kempthorne, Secy. of the Interior is involved.

Allowing guns and firearms into parks is dangerous and just encourages poaching again. I’ve already read reports of the attacks by poachers on the black bear populations in the U.S.  Much like poachers in Africa, that are desperate, poachers in this country are killing off our black bears for sale of their gall bladders on the black market in Asia. We know better. We’re supposed to be a big moral nation. Somehow that morality disconnects from all things nature, where we take no responsibility for our actions that affect the environment or creatures in it. We treat animals horrendously. Ditto for air, water, and earth then believe God will take care of things.

God is not a puppeteer. To believe so is the relinquish a very important principle, that of free will.  He gave us charge of the earth’s domain and we pollute it, and then claim huge, quick changes are natural or rather supernatural. But we’re over the limit with pollution the effects of which are showing up everywhere. We can clearly see that this administration is pushing us to the point of harm relative to air, water, land, health and safety. Everything seems to be particle per unit to the limit anymore. We push the envelope for how much damage we can do without really getting massively sick. Capping and trading and shifting pollution around, like people I ran into that advocated letting BP dumping excess ammonia into Lake Michigan because the EPA signed off on it, and it created a few jobs.  Now we know that the EPA in our country is in trouble, and Indiana is gaining more jobs by becoming more environmental versus allowing companies like BP to stretch pollution to the limits . 

We’ve had far too much faith in the decisions of our government in lieu of following the faith of our spirit where we have a conscience about all we do and how it affects our brother, not just in this nation, but on other continents. Instead, we just sit back and let the current administration push the environmental envelope toward disaster for the love of money, an earthly commodity with finite use. And now there this push to add loaded firearms to the list of disservices perpetrated against our forests/parks, and animals/habitats? Just what we need.

To allow more guns in public areas to a population that isn’t getting the idea of brotherly love, let alone extending that love to all living things by sustaining a clean, healthy environment for all , is out right dangerous and only invites more evil not good.

A report about the Colorado River and benzene was on BBC and I caught some of it, but the articles I found about it are extensive. BBC previewed a citizen singing a country song about poisoning his water with benzene. I guess people are just giving up the fight against big corporations taking over areas and punching holes in the ground for natural gas.

The article explains the process to obtain natural gas. I had no idea how toxic it is. “Each hydraulic fracturing attempt on a gas well uses about 1 million gal of fluid and most wells are “frac’ed” about 10 times, said hearing witness Theo Colborn, president of the Endocrine Disruption Exchange, a nonprofit group that focuses on health problems from low-dose chemical exposures. Many different chemicals—including surfactants, lubricants, foamers, plastics, biocides, antioxidants, acids, and alkalis—are employed for fracturing operations, she said. These chemicals are added to alter the underground strata to allow methane to escape up the well pipe, she said. Her group has identified 171 products used in Colorado containing altogether 245 different chemicals, 92% of which have adverse health effects, she explained. She went on to say the chemicals have multiple health effects as developmental toxicants and endocrine disruptors that have adverse affects on hormones in the body.

There are lots of side affects. “More than half the volatile chemicals on the list Colborn’s group has identified irritate the skin, eyes, nose, lungs, and stomach. Some affect the nervous system, causing headaches, blackouts, and memory loss, she explained. ‘About 55% can cause cardiovascular and kidney damage, and 35 are carcinogens,’ she noted.”

Meanwhile, another article discloses how badly this particular natural gas exploration is beating up an entire area as well as leaching dangerous chemicals into the Colorado River. The implications are bad considering the Colorado is the only water supply to the four fasting growing states in the southwest. All that population explosion is dependent on this river, which is bad enough, let alone contaminating it too.  “Green activists blame the Bush administration for opening the door too widely for energy companies, a charge backed up by a trail of executive orders and administrative actions, as well as the 2005 Energy Policy Act approved by a then-Republican-led Congress — all geared toward deriving more energy from public lands.”

 http://pubs.acs.org/cen/government/86/8606gov1.html

http://www.saveroanplateau.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=68&Itemid=36

I’ve already blogged that Idaho and Wyoming’s own state statistics show elk and deer populations are far over the limit for their species. The proper scientific limit for wolves to be secure from extinction should be near 3000, yet the number 1500 seems to be the norm for these states to begin to eradicate wolves because they pose a threat to deer and elk populations???

The hunt has already begun. Defenders of Wildlife states: “Locals have organized weekend eradication “wolf hunts” to kill any wolf that they find. One group tracked a wolf for 35 miles on snowmobiles before shooting it dead.” Now that’s real sporting. You know we’ve had a war going on for how long, isn’t that enough blood thirst for most Americans, or has it heightened the sense of the kill for some so much that they can’t turn it off? On the other hand, has it desensitized us to pain, suffering, and death that we just bury our heads anymore? To look forward to killing animals that are clearly being eradicated for no viable reason except for the sport is an indication of a nation’s decline in my book.

But the biggest testament to a nation’s decline is knowing full well we’re being lied to about many, many things, and doing nothing about it, even something that could be championed like this wolf slaughter issue. A study by the Dept. of Agriculture proved wolves are not attacking cattle in huge numbers either. And this N.Y. Times article just 2 years ago shows how badly the wolf populations were suffering from the parvo disease. It shows a pack of new wolf cubs that died shortly after the picture was taken. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/15/national/15wolf.html So in 2006, the gray wolf population declined from disease, yet two years later wolves are out of control?  What a pack of lies, and the liars head up departments in our U.S. government.

A lot of people think no big deal. But it was a big deal when the first gray wolves were reintroduced into Yellowstone not very long ago. The rangers there have good things to say about the balance the wolves restored to the forest. As part of this reintroduction and study, many wolves are numbered, their packs have names, and some of the wolves have been viewed so much they gained notoriety and names, like Limpy, number 253M. Defenders says: “Limpy was many things to many people – to wolf-watchers, he was the hobbling member of Yellowstone’s famous Druid Peak Pack. To Utahans, he was the first wolf to be seen in the state for more than 70 years.”

For wolf novices the Druid Peak Pack was the second pack introduced to Yellowstone from Canada, and one of the most observed. Check out one girls sighting at her visit to Yellowstone and her video of the Druid pack on You Tube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNeFetdSHrQ. We’re talking tourism and educational fodder here.

I don’t know if the girl saw Limpy with hind legs that were crippled in a fight. No matter now, Limpy was shot dead in Wyoming on elk feeding grounds the first day wolves were taken off the endangered list. Remember elk numbers are beyond where they should be in these states. The wolves were out doing their job. Limpy obviously wasn’t speedy enough as a cripple. Two other wolves were shot with him.

So what we have here is the beginning of a slaughter perpetrated by lies from U.S. officials to practically eradicate a species that have only reached half their peak. Meanwhile, people have posted pictures on You Tube and commented on their trips to Yellowstone and the opportunity to see the notorious wolves.

You know what this reminds me of? Natives in Africa, deprived of an education, with very little means of sustenance for survival that kill endangered species in order to take the habitat over for farming, as well as, eat the bushmeat. Once the natives are taught that protecting the animals brings tourism to the area to view the animals, and all types of new income opportunity is opened to them, they embrace it wholeheartedly and the animals begin to flourish under the native’s good stewardship.

What’s the excuse for the states of Idaho, and Wyoming? They are neither stupid nor starving, but appear to be shooting themselves in the foot relative to tourism by killing the wolves, or there are ulterior motives worth a heck of a lot more money. It can’t be the hunting industry. It will only flourish from wolf hunts for so long. A few hunting seasons and the wolves will be gone, and then what’s to shoot? Oh yeah, all those excessive deer and elk populations.

My best guess for ulterior motives still lies with Bush’s plan to reverse the Roadless Rule, where Idaho might find themselves stripped of a heck of a lot more than the wolf population. If that happens, the second largest forest in America will slowly disappear from mining, drilling, and logging. Wolf hunters could face eminent domain issues in the future and it couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch.

Click on Defenders at the right to sign a petition to stop this senseless slaughter.

As for Limpy, he’s famous.  Just search “Limpy the Wolf” on the internet. There are pages of urls for him.

I just wrote about Colorado’s forests being decimated by beetles whose populations are out of control due to global warming. They are killing lodge pole pines with other evergreen trees at risk also, while the Bush administration pushes to end the Roadless Rule that will decimate one of the largest forested areas in the country, which is in Idaho to the mining, oil, and lumber industry.  The big picture for the wolf kill, buffalo kill, and mustang roundups is getting clearer isn’t it? Alaska, Wyoming, and Idaho are some of the states with huge forests at risk without this rule, and the same states that are home to the slaughter of these animals. If these animals remained protected, their habitat couldn’t be touched. They must be removed for the next phase of this unethical, and unscrupulous plan to take place! So now we should see clearly we’ve been lied to again about the reasons for the slaughter.

The intelligence and ethics level of this administration has hit an all time low by destroying the very trees that help remove CO2 from the air and protect us from baking at a time when many of our trees have been destroyed already by fires and floods over the past two years, and on the heels of the Colorado lodge pole blight. We need more trees, not less. Do we see Europe attacking their landscapes as we do? http://www.15years.gov.si/backround-information/biodiversity/.

We cannot afford to let this happen in the interest of big money because once our forests are gone, they are gone forever. And don’t think that once oil, lumber, and mining interests move in they will simply stop with a new president in office. This is the march of the wealthy destroying our country in their last ditch effort to get a stronghold before this administration is through. The sad thing is we haven’t even begun to practice conservation. We haven’t unleashed the alternative energy innovation we already have. This is the same type of unintelligent, quick-triggered decision-making that ignored any and all alternatives that got us into a war, which is costing us dearly. We must unite to keep this type of movement from advancing until we see this administration exit. 

The Heritage Forest Campaign explains:

Spanning 58.5 million acres in 38 states, America’s national forest roadless areas contain some of our nation’s last pristine forests. From the expansive wilds of the American Southwest and Northern Rockies to the colorful deciduous woods of New England and the Appalachians, these last tracts of unspoiled backcountry provide habitat for wildlife, headwaters to rivers, and unparalleled recreational opportunities for millions of Americans.

The state of Idaho contains over 9.3 million acres of National Forest roadless areas - the most of any state outside of Alaska.  Idaho’s roadless backcountry makes up the core of the last intact forest ecosystem in the lower 48 states - the last place where all of the native plants, fish and wildlife - from the smallest plant to the largest predator - can still be found.

In 2001, the U.S. Forest Service issued the Roadless Area Conservation Rule, which protects Idaho’s and all of the country’s national forest roadless areas from most logging and new roads being built for mining, coal, gas, logging and other development. The rule was the result of almost three years of deliberation that included 600 public hearings and more than 1.5 million written comments submitted with the overwhelming majority supporting the complete protection of all remaining roadless areas.

The American public has continued to support this policy, and has repeatedly opposed proposals to reverse or weaken it.

Please join forces for OUR heritage, OUR land, OUR wildlife, and OUR vision for the future not the powerful big money interests that seek to take every last pristine piece of God’s country we have left.

Sign a petition to Chief Gail Kimble to save our forests. There is an April 7th deadline so please sign on for a unified voice: http://actionnetwork.org/campaign/idaho_roadless/i3u8iui227b7jnew?
 

Many of us had lovely ash trees in our yard once upon a time, and there are many parks around Michigan that have yet to clear out all of the ash trees that died from the ash borer, a simple bug.
Well, there are a lot more bugs to come and we can thank global warming for it.

Colorado is bearing the brunt of an increase in bark beetle bugs that have killed millions of acres of lodge pole pines. These pines are exactly what their name describes, tall, tall trees pine trees whose needled branches are disproportionately at the top third of the entire trunk, think Q-tip. The bottom portion of the trunk is a straight shot of wood, used to build log lodges.

An article on abcnews.com stated 1.5 million acres are already wiped out and all of the lodge pole pines may be gone in 3 to 5 years. It said the infestation was first noticed in 1996. What the heck takes so long for our agencies to act on anything? I lost my ash tree, and the whole time Bayer brand systemic spray would have worked. By time I applied anything to my tree, it was already too late. I know what I found for news before that. Our state officials said nothing worked against the ash borer…so people failed to act. State officials were wrong!

Colorado officials said, “the infestation was concentrated in five northern Colorado counties straddling the Continental Divide and has reached southern Wyoming.” The amount of trees taken by the beetles increased 1500 percent last year and “forest officials attributed the spread of the beetle to warm winters and drought. Susan Gray, group leader for forest health management with the U.S. Forest Service Rocky Mountain Region, said only 20-below-zero temperatures for a sustained period can kill the beetles.” Keep an eye on your spruce trees! Spruce and aspen pines are susceptible to the beetle also.

To add insult to injury relative to our trees and forests, the Bush administration looks to weaken the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. This rule protects millions of acres of trees in Idaho against the oil, natural gas, timer, and mining industries. According to Earthjustice, Idaho contains more unspoiled wild forest than any state outside Alaska, providing the last intact forest habitat for countless fish, wildlife, and plant species. These areas are enjoyed by hunters, anglers, hikers, and all who treasure the backcountry. Earthjustice disclosed why Bush is pushing the Roadless Rule aside:

The administration’s proposal will open the door to logging millions of pristine acres, risk dangerous toxic contamination from mining, degrade clean fish-bearing streams and important wildlife habitat, and fail to live up to the public’s overwhelming desire to protect all of these areas for future generations.

This forest giveaway could lead to 545 million tons of phosphate being mined on nearly 8,000 unspoiled acres near Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Parks. Any increase in phosphate mining would worsen the already serious problem of selenium poisoning in local streams and aquifers. Selenium is an extremely dangerous contaminant known to cause birth defects, which bio-accumulates in the food web — persisting for centuries after entering the environment.

Read more about this and sign a petition to stop President Bush before he weakens the Roadless Rule even more. We’re already losing trees and a lot of our landscape from extreme weather, i.e., floods, fires, tornadoes, and now bugs. Does the Bush administration have a clue about conservation? Do they even care? Trees protect us from the sun, and take CO2 out of the air for Pete’s sake, and the powers that be want to give them away to big money.

About the pine beetle infestation:
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=4133205

More about Bush sidestepping the Roadless Rule: http://www.earthjustice.org/our_work/campaigns/roadless_rule.html
Sign the petition to save our national forests: http://action.earthjustice.org/campaign/roadless_ID_0308
 

Currently, I’m getting all kinds of e-mail about slaughtering animals our country took careful issue to propagate not long ago. First wolves, now buffalo/bison. USFWS wants to kill off buffalo because of a bison disease that could spread to cattle. Here we have the cattle issue again. Except there are no cattle nearby. What is with all the slaughter lately?  I don’t recall such an unleashed fury to kill wildlife like we’re seeing lately. We’re moving so slowly on environmental issues relative to animals that we’re soon to kill them off anyway.

Then I saw this comment that is well worth printing here about wolves from Dr. Dr D. Vreugdenhil . He says: “Wolves most certainly are not dangerous and finally they are on the increase again worldwide, expanding their territories in Europe and in some countries in the middle east. However, to fully integrate them into society, we must deal with the most pressing issue in nature conservation:
The most limiting factor in conservation world wide is the shortage of rangers: estimated at over 100,000 in developing countries. Currently no government or conservation organization in the world addresses this problem. That is why the Adopt A Ranger Foundation has been created:  http://www.adopt-a-ranger.org/.

I didn’t know there was a shortage of rangers anywhere but Asia or Africa? Adopt-a-ranger website says there is a need for 140,000 rangers worldwide, but evidently not enough funding. You know this looks like one of those places where funding is also cut to the bone.  It is also a very good lead as to why all the slaughter of wildlife is taking place, at least in this country. With no one to watch over our parks, it’s economical to just get rid of the critters.

I’m looking into adopting a ranger. Now I know the reason the mountain gorillas are disappearing, there is a large bushmeat trade, and all types of illegal use of animals is happening. It’s due to this shortage. Even elephants are being shot out of their sanctuary over coffee plants because no one watches over them. 

If you like nature websites, Dr. Vreugdenhil offered this one with a very dire outlook that says with a good scenario only 40% of all species on earth will disappear in this century, worst scenario we will see 70% of all species DIE.   http://naturalplaces.blogspot.com/2007/02/earths-largest-upcoming-species.html#links.  Yet we’re aerial hunting wolves, killing bison, cyanide poisoning coyotes, and fox in this most civilized country. There’s something horribly wrong with this picture.

To quote from “Sunday Morning,” a poem by Wallace Stevens: “Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her, alone, shall come fulfillment to our dreams.”  It means death enhances the beauty of life.  We’ll cherish it all when it’s gone.

This week the senate will vote whether to allow guns in national parks. Now I don’t know about anyone else, but that by itself ruins the idea of a “park” to me. So I’m strolling through the park enjoying the peace and tranquility but hear gunshots instead. Was it a misfire; did someone get shot; is someone poaching? So much for the organic feel I get from the word “park” knowing that in the deepest areas of the woods a real nut gets to carry a gun, shoot someone that happens by, and bury them all in one neat tidy place. OK, a little dramatic, but it still doesn’t seem right. 

Gun legislation points to the NRA and sure enough they are pushing this Coburn amendment. Senator Tom Coburn, an Oklahoma Republican wants to allow state law rather than federal law to govern the carrying and transportation of firearms in national parks and wildlife refuges, according to (ENS) Environmental News Service today. Already I see 50 different gun laws. Even people that want to carry a gun to a park will be confused. I realize Republicans favor states authority and less federal rule, but too many different rules are a reason this is not feasible. And why carry a gun at all? I don’t get it? This looks suspiciously like illegal hunting where you’re only guilty if you’re caught. And the only thing raising a ruckus relative to illegal hunting right now is wolf hunting. This amendment will obviously encourage opportunistic poaching. Curious.

What’s more peculiar about this amendment is that there is no reason offered as to why carrying a gun in a national park is necessary or relevant to anything since hunting is either controlled or prohibited in the parks. The ENS article went on to say:

On February 1, the Association of National Park Rangers, the Coalition of National Park Service Retirees, and the U.S. Park Rangers Lodge, Fraternal Order of Police wrote a joint letter to U.S. senators urging them to reject the Coburn amendment. ‘Senator Coburn’s amendment could dramatically degrade the experience of park visitors and put their safety at risk if units of the National Park System were compelled to follow state gun laws,’ warned the rangers and retirees.

The ENS article also said that the Coburn amendment actually “forbids the Interior Secretary from enforcing ‘any regulation that prohibits an individual from possessing a firearm in any unit of the National Park System or the National Wildlife Refuge System…,’ and that On December 14, 2007, a group of 39 Republican senators along with eight Democrats wrote to Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne urging repeal of these regulations because they are ‘confusing, burdensome and unnecessary.’” These senators think it’s unnecessary to have laws that prohibit carrying loaded firearms where people hike, bike, and camp? One standardized federal law is confusing as compared to 50 different state laws? And the federal laws are burdensome to whom, the NRA? Hmm.
 
That just about says it all doesn’t it? We have a curious amendment that allows the states to do what they want in national parks like carry loaded guns while the federal government is told to butt out. The people who spend most of their lives in national parks, the rangers, write a letter advising against Coburn’s amendment, that it is not a good thing for the parks. But in the meantime the NRA gets 47 senators to urge the federal government to get rid of its regulations relative to possessing a firearm anyway. Wonder how much this cost the NRA? If this amendment passes it will cost the parks their reputation for tranquility and peace, and a place of REFUGE for wildlife that’s for sure, not to mention campers. It’s probably going to cost something else down the line in the way of natural resources too.

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/feb2008/2008-02-12-091.asp.
 
 

In honor of Native American Wolf Moon Month our Federal Fish and Wildlife Service “made it much easier to kill wolves in the Greater Yellowstone and Northern Rockies region — even while they remain protected under the Endangered Species Act,” according to Defender’s of Wildlife. Nice tribute to our heritage huh?

Defenders went on to say that Secy. Kempthorne changed a rule that makes it easier to kill wolves in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming and allows the slaughter of wolves in the region of Yellowstone and the Northern Rockies. All the states need to do is PROVE that wolves are a MAJOR CAUSE of the inability for elk and deer to meet state management goals. Goals include how elk herds move about or behave. So wolves can be trapped or shot by wildlife officials if elk or deer move about differently. That’s a pretty big weight to hang around a little ole wolf neck and if the officials hang around the perimeter of Yellowstone long enough surely a wolf will stick its neck out and get it shot off.

I’m interested in the part that says PROVE. Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming should have a really hard time proving wolves have lowered the numbers of elk in those states since Idaho’s Fish and Game reported elk populations at all time highs, 20% above management objectives for 2006. Wyoming’s elk numbers were 9000 over the state’s objective in 2006. In 2004, Montana had an elk population of over 100,000. So if herds are down, who’s the culprit?

On Ralph Maughn’s Wildlife News website, Bob Hoskins commented Sept. 4, 2006: “The Wyoming Game and Fish Department has been making a concerted effort to reduce elk numbers through late season, cow-calf hunts over the last decade to bring the herds down to objective. In most herds in western Wyoming, these targeted hunts have been successful. When you hear in the press that wolves are killing Wyoming elk by the score, recognize that the claim is absolutely false. Worse, Wyoming G&F knows that it’s false. The fact is Wyoming’s hunters have been killing elk by the score in these late season hunts, by design. Many late season hunts will continue this coming hunting season.

He went on to say there is nothing wrong with the reduction program but quit blaming disappearing elk on the wolves. It’s a lie! This story is repeated in a USA article where biologist John Vucetich of Michigan Tech University in Houghton says wolves have been wrongfully blamed for a decline elk populations around Yellowstone in Montana. They studied weather, hunting, and wolves as factors.  Yellowstone has seen 7 years of drought and 1997 winter that killed many elk. They found the weather and hunting to blame for elk decline. Another biologist, Canadian Mark Boyce of the University of Alberta, and colleagues reached the same conclusion. They have an upcoming paper reporting that: “Montana increased the ‘hunter harvest’ quota on elk that leave Yellowstone grounds, issuing a higher-than-ever 2,882 hunting permits in 2000. A decline in the elk herd was thus guaranteed, Boyce says, even if wolves were not present.

So the poor wolves play the fall guy in all of this. Government officials and hunting lobby groups are the real menace. And all of it is unnecessary. Local ranchers partnering with Defenders of Wildlife to “expand their use of non-lethal wolf control measures” experienced no wolf-related livestock losses at all this grazing season. They believe “practical, inexpensive and non-lethal methods help reduce losses and conflicts while promoting better cooperation between ranchers, state and federal land managers and wildlife conservationists.”

According to Friends of Animals, Idaho’s Fish and Game Service “based the plan for the aerial gunning of wolves on a “trend count” in the Clearwater region, relying on astonishingly unscientific data in which eight cows were reportedly killed by wolves in the area.” The Dept. of Agriculture’s very scientific study of “collared” wolves living on the perimeter of cattle fields resulted in only 8 cattle kills total over 3 years time. Hmm?

Government officials are officially caught in lies again. None of the state’s involved have proof that wolves are lowering their elk populations drastically. They’ve been caught over-hunting and blaming the wolves. Ranchers have non-lethal alternatives that are affective and have been reimbursed for their losses by charitable organizations anyway. So there is no reason whatsoever for these wolf hunts especially aerial killing. You know with a war going on I’ve got to wonder the waste of energy for aerial hunters just looking to kill something. They need redirection. Know what I mean?

Check out the latest video of a disgusting wolf aerial hunt at: http://www.defenders.org/newsroom/ads_and_psas/tv_ad_to_stop_aerial_hunting.php.

As for changing the laws making it easier to kill wolves, tell Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne that the rule change for hunting wolves is unacceptable. I personally would tell him more than that, and have.

https://secure.defenders.org/site/Advocacy?pagename=homepage&page=UserAction&id=943&autologin=true&s_einterest=C3C4&s_Affiliate=savewolves_&JServSessionIdr004=4gy70ytnm2.app26a

About Idaho’s elk population and hunters: http://www.friendsofanimals.org/news/2007/july/help-stop-the-bush-a.html.

About Wyoming’s hunting laws and elk decline due to hunters: http://wolves.wordpress.com/2006/04/08/wyoming-elk-numbers-are-9000-over-states-objective/.

About the USA Today article and Canadian biologist’s report that hunters are to blame for elk population decline: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/discoveries/2005-11-21-elk-yellowstone-mystery_x.htm.