Archive for the ‘USFWS’ Category

« Older Entries

Gray Wolves of Yellowstone Getting a Bad Deal; Hunting Looks to be For Sport

Monday, February 8th, 2010

The gray wolves of Yellowstone Park are being slaughtered for not other reason than sport hunting anymore. Montana originally claimed it was targeting wolves that preyed on livestock. I wrote a blog about a 3 year Dept. of Agriculture study of collared wolves that lived around the perimeter of cattle fields. Those wolves crossed those fields nightly. In 3 years time 8 cattle were found dead. Around 2.5 cows per year for multiple wolf packs is a pretty cheesy argument to be making to annihilate the wolves. As a matter of fact some radio collared wolves being studied by biologists were gunned down recently too.

Montana’s proclamation about purposefully targeting wolves was bull. Montana permitted wolf hunting in backcountry wilderness areas 6 weeks before opening its front ranges for cattle according to the NRDC. So a bunch of wolves that were minding their business staying far away from any cattle were gunned down anyway. And those wolves happened to be Yellowstone’s beloved Cottonwood Creek pack.

The NRDC got national media coverage for what they termed that “debacle.” Of course the gaming officials in those states were “shocked” that too many of the wrong wolves were killed. Wrong wolves? Like the NRDC said, “Wolf hunts should not be taking place at all right now.” Yet it looks like almost 40% of the entire population will be killed. Montana isn’t the only culprit.

I’ve posted the deer and elk populations per Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming via their respective government websites. There is no threat of a shortage. One state was over quota for either elk or deer. I blogged about the fact that Michigan has 4,000 of the critters with little problem. Livestock and wild game populations relative to too many wolves just doesn’t muster argument when we look at the facts. The wolves are being hunted for sport. The states hunting the wolves should just admit it.

If Wyoming doesn’t admit it, it’s going to look pretty bad using the lame excuse about wolves threatening game and cattle because BP and EnCana Oil and Gas in Wyoming displaced thousands of game out of their home/habitat, and cattle grazing ground with one of their largest oil and gas projects of 30,000 acres once known as “The Upper Green River Basin.” Not green anymore.

It wasn’t until after the companies were approached by local gov’t. and environmental groups about displacing wildlife, and ruining habitat, that the oil/gas companies wanted to set up a conservation area 20 MILES AWAY at Cottonwood Ranch. It’s working out well for some of the animals that were already migrating to that area but the jury is still out if what is being replaced in any way can make up for robbing that basin that was home to:

[A] major pronghorn migration corridor, sage grouse, pygmy rabbits, and burrowing owls, and is used by local ranchers for grazing cattle. According to the Wyoming Outdoor Council, it is also the largest publicly-owned winter range for big game. Hundreds of thousands of moose, elk, and mule deer retreat to the valley during the snowy months.

See what I mean about unfair? Wolves are supposedly being hunted in Yellowstone because their numbers are 2.5 times less than the number of gray wolves in Michigan, and because wolves are supposedly indiscriminate killers of cattle and the game that sportsmen like to hunt. Yet we see here that it’s all right for oil and gas companies to abscond acres of “publicly-owned” habitat stressing populations of the very same game animals especially during brutal winter months. We expect them to just go elsewhere? The cattle that used to graze there are you know what out of luck too.

So there you have it, a double standard. The wolf loses now, and we eventually lose as a nation because Ghandi once said: “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” He’s not the only one that got it:

“I am in favor of animal rights as well as human rights. That is the way of a whole human being.”
–Abraham Lincoln

“I care not much for a man’s religion whose dog and cat are not the better for it.”
–Abraham Lincoln

“He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.”
–Immanuel Kant

“Until he extends the circle of compassion to all livings things, Man will not himself find peace.”
–Albert Schweitzer

“If all the beasts were gone, man would die from loneliness of spirit, for whatever happens to the beast, happens to the man.”
–Chief Seattle

These are only a few quotes. Look how old they are and how far we’ve gone in the opposite direction? We aerial hunt wolves and bear, have canned hunts, Internet hunting, horrible road side zoos, haze wild mustang horses and buffalo with helicopters, purposely poison wildlife in our parks, and our shelters are bulging with abandoned companions. “What happens to beast, happens to man…”

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/science/jan-june09/wyoming_03-27.html.

https://secure.nrdconline.org/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1711&s_src=nrdchpa.

Tags:
Posted in Animals and Extinction, Animals in Peril, Endangered Species, Environmentalism, Morality, National Forest, Public Lands, Sport Hunting, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, USFWS, Wolves, Wyoming, Yellowstone Park | 1 Comment »

2010, International Year of Biodiversity

Tuesday, December 29th, 2009

The UN’s declaration that 2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity coincides nicely with it also being the “Year of the Tiger” according to the oriental calendar. Big cats are a good example of biodiversity that is in danger of extinction due to loss of habitat, man, and climate change. As the International Year of Biodiversity, 2010 is supposed to be the culmination of a decade’s worth of achievements toward an overall conservation target aiming to save biodiversity worldwide.
http://www.cbd.int/2010/welcome/.

In the U.S. the Center for Biological Diversity identified 1000 plants and animals that need protection immediately to avoid extinction. This month the center filed a notice to sue the USFWS for waiting far too long in granting federal protection to 144 species in this country including the plains buffalo. It seems there has been a lot of delays in Washington even though scientific petitions have been filed to protect these species. Besides the 144 there are also 249 that have been officially “recognized as deserving protection but have been ‘precluded’ from receiving it.” Some of these species have already become extinct waiting on the candidate list for as long as 30 years. This is comparable to dying while waiting for a reprieve while on death row because you are innocent.
http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/biodiversity/1000_species/index.html.

Hopefully with a concentrated effort by all nations to step up their reaction time to save the biodiversity within their borders by thwarting attempts by poachers, as well as, stronger laws and prosecution of same, stopping international trade of exotic animals and/or their body parts, and educating local populations that it is more profitable to conserve and protect native species in the long term than continue to use them to extinction at which time the profits stop altogether. Then what?

Without a restoration process, overuse of anything finite leads to extinction. Native American ancestory believed in giving back to the earth at all times and only taking what was absolutely necessary to live. That was a valuable belief system we somehow tossed to the point we now struggle to preserve our national parks and forests.

Tags:
Posted in Animals in Peril, Conservation, Countries/Continents, Endangered Species, Environmentalism, Insects, Marine Life, Nature, Plants, USFWS, Wetlands, Wildlife | No Comments »

Reason for Wolf Hunts in Rockies Doesn’t Hold Water to Michigan Wolf Study

Tuesday, October 27th, 2009

Michigan has a lot of wolves—the most in the lower 48 states! Over 4,000 wolves live in the western Great Lakes region. Livestock owners in this area want to share the landscape with wolves. Their losses to wolves are rare only 1%. So who’s lying about livestock losses? Michigan or Idaho? Surely Idaho has as many deer, elk, and moose as Michigan, and livestock ranches and wolf packs share the area just the same. Heck Idaho has Yellowstone Park for the wolves to roam. So what’s wrong with this picture? Because from what I’ve read, the wolves of the Rockies are being hunted because of livestock losses and because as wolf numbers grow they supposedly pose a threat to deer and elk populations.

Michigan has a lot of deer! Cars hit them. They enter buildings. I recently watched a video where a deer waltzed through a diner, in the front door and out the back. So why aren’t 4,000 wolves wiping out our deer population?

The answer lies on Michigan’s Isle Royale, a 45-mile long island off the UP (Copper Harbor) in the western part of Lake Superior. According to an article by Heidi Ridgley of Defenders of Wildlife, “Isle Royale is the least visited National Park in the country.” But it is the lab where the longest ongoing wolf study is being conducted by biologists from Michigan Tech. The co-director of the wolf program at Michigan Tech, Rolf Peterson continues the work pioneered by Durward Allen in 1958, as an “uninterrupted study of a predator and its prey.” There is 51 years of expertise here involving the gray wolf and the moose of Isle Royale. This study produced facts that are inconsistent with the reason for hunting the Great Rockies’ wolves. Wolves prey predominantly on old and/or debilitated animals. And when the prey declines the wolf population also declines. It’s nature’s balance.

So if the Great Rockies’ wolves are as prolific as we’re lead to believe than Idaho’s deer and elk populations should be thriving—and are. That’s what I found to be true when I looked at the state stats of deer and elk populations in Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming. It simply is not true that the wolves threaten deer and elk populations at this point at all. So that leaves the rancher’s losses and we have to wonder about that reporting because it’s the same type of wolves, same ole cattle, just different states reporting very different loss statistics.

In the meantime, the latest wolf hunts will have detrimental affects on the gray wolf farther down the line than just this hunting season. Oh, the wolves will rebound eventually but fractured wolf pack families, and packs that are disjointed from other wolf packs do not survive well. The study on Isle Royale confirms that wolves will interbreed for survival. The biologists in this study have already found spine and hip deformities in the carcasses of dead wolves from interbreeding on Isle Royale where populations of wolves are endangered as global warming has had a horribly detrimental affect on their main prey, the moose.

The biologists have tracked the summer seasons on this island national park. There have been shorter winters almost every year since 1998 and it shows in the decline of moose populations on Isle Royale. In Minnesota where there is a lot of prairie and scattered trees that does not offer enough shade, “moose numbers have dropped from several thousand to 100 in recent years.” Moose need frigid climates. Frigid climates kill fleas and ticks, another horrible parasitic problem plaguing Isle Royale’s moose that I blogged about.

All I know is that the wolf hunts are political in origin. It’s got little to do with the poor wolf. Big hunting lobbyists were anxious for the wolf hunts and the NRA is never far behind them. They won for now. However, as stated in the Los Angeles Times and quoted in an article in discovermagazine.com ‘Judge Donald Molloy also wrote that the Fish and Wildlife Service, in continuing to list Wyoming wolves under the Endangered Species Act while delisting them in the two neighboring states, “has distinguished a natural population of wolves based on a political line, not the best available science.’

What I’m concerned with is man’s interference with natural balance. Suppose the wolves do interbreed more and more. Can there, will there eventually be wolves mentally impaired and unpredictable as interbred dogs? It gives a whole new meaning to the “Big Bad Wolf.”

Read the whole story about what’s happening up north in Isle Royale:
http://www.defenders.org/newsroom/defenders_magazine/fall_2009/royale_challenge.php.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2009/09/10/wolf-hunt-in-the-rockies-can-continue-judge-rules/comment-page-1/#comment-62547.

Posted in Animals and Extinction, Animals in Peril, Conservation, Dept. of the Interior, Endangered Species, Environmentalism, Forest Service, Global Warming, Michigan/Great Lakes, National Parks and Forests, Nature, Science, Sport Hunting, USFWS, Wolves, Yellowstone Park | No Comments »

Safari Club International Behind Policies That Interfere with Science and the Endangered Species Act

Monday, June 29th, 2009

Most of us know by now that decisions in congress have little to do with our will and much to do with powerful deep pocket lobbyists. Safari Club International a U.S. organization of trophy hunters is one such group that contributes primarily to the Republican Party and ingratiated itself with the Bush Administration and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services at that time. I’ve written before that it was a travesty of justice for animals when the second Bush Administration elected Matthew Hogan as the acting director of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services when he was formerly a SCI lobbyist. That was indeed the fox tending the henhouse.

But the SCI is nothing more than rich trophy hunters that seek the heads and skins of any type of animal whether endangered or not. If they had their way they would be hunting polar bears. According to Michael Satchell, a consultant to the Humane Society of the U.S., “With the help of friendly members of Congress and officials in USFWS, SCI has consistently attempted to navigate around the intent of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA) and import once-banned trophies of endangered and threatened wildlife. Sometimes, the club has succeeded, sometimes not.”

It’s apparent SCI believes its hunting rights are above the law and works to make sure the law goes its way. And it did when the law to allow guns in our national parks was passed. This lovely little edict I wrote about was tucked inside a totally unrelated bill. I kept asking what good guns were inside a national park except to kill the animals that are supposed to be protected there, specifically wolves.

SCI saw it the same way. SCI just announced it will throw its money and power against any type of wolf protection in the courts, and help with planned wolf hunts in the Northern Rockies according to Defenders of Wildlife. Why is this not a surprise? SCI is behind Sarah Palin’s brutal attack on wolves and bears in Alaska. My guess is the plane she did not sell on Ebay, is now employed for some of these hunting ventures. SCI is still fighting for the right to kill the imperiled polar bears! Nice bunch of guys huh? You kinda want to float them out on a piece of ice and take pot shots at em and see how they like it.

As early as this fall hundreds of wolves are on the line. Pups as young as 5 months old can be targeted in hunts approved in Idaho. Of course SCI will be there with bells on.

The hunting and killing of animals, the Endangered Species Act, and the USFWS, should be lead by science and based on scientific approaches to wildlife management, not at the whim of wealthy trophy hunters contributing to members of congress. It appears our Dept. of Interior, and USFWS is continuing to follow the lead of the Bush Administration and its all out assault on our national treasures, the animals. Wolves are meant to live and thrive and maintain a natural balance within all sorts of our ecosystems. Because they do their job well, wolves are continuously the target of hunters who claim there won’t be enough to hunt. Taking out the wolves in our national parks will cause many of the ecosystems that began to return because of the wolves’ presence to diminish once again.

We’re so busy being a superior group in the animal chain that our arrogance overlooks the great ability of nature to do a better job on many fronts. I’m sickened by those that would hunt animals that are already suffering because of mankind. What kind of soul do they, can they have? We’d be a better country if we followed the ideas of Dr. Albert Schweitzer instead of the likes of the NRA or SCI. In the aftermath of WWII many looked to Schweitzer’s philosophy for “the restoration of hope and sanity,” according to Ann Cottrell Free’s book, Animals, Nature & Albert Schweitzer.

And in 1952 Dr. Schweitzer was awarded the Nobel Prize for Humanitarianism. He said in his acceptance speech: “There could be no peace, no harmony among men and nations unless prejudice and nationalism were laid aside, and all human kind recognized and embraced the universality of life—specifically, ‘all living creatures.’”

To quote Schweitzer:

“The human spirit is not dead. It lives on in secret….It has come to believe that compassion, in which all ethics must take root, can only attain its full breadth and depth if it embraces all living creatures and does not limit itself to mankind.”

I started to write so much for congress, the USFWS, the military, our health/research agencies, but the list was just too long. Our ethics are in the tank in this country if they are supposed to be rooted in compassion, because the last time I read my mail it was an ever-growing barrage of animal rights groups screaming for help from every direction.

Michael Satchell, “A View to a Kill: How Safari Club Int’l Works to Weaken ESA Protections”, Humane Society US, undated, accessed August 2005.

Cottrell Free, Ann, Animals, Nature & Albert Schweitzer, Washington, D.C: The Flying Fox Press, 1990.

http://www.defenders.org/

Posted in Animals and Extinction, Animals in Peril, Conservation, Defenders of Wildlife, Dept. of the Interior, Endangered Species, Environmentalism, Federal Government, Governor Otter, Guns/Firearms, Idaho, Legislators, Morality, NRA, Science, Sport Hunting, USFWS, Wolves | No Comments »

Slaughtering Wildlife

Tuesday, June 2nd, 2009

I truly believe our democracy is broken at the hands of special interest groups. If we do not get rid of lobbying forever, the good with the bad lobbyists, all of them unfortunately, we will no longer be a nation of the people by the people with resolute honest representation in congress. I say this because I have petitioned, written, called, and donated so much money to efforts to protect our wildlife that I could probably own my own wolf pack, polar bear family, whale, dolphin, etc., yet nothing much happens on their behalf, or the going is so slow as to be baby steps. And in the interim, we lose more wildlife. I know I am not alone. I’ve read more than one place for example that 70% of Alaskans are against the wolf aerial hunting program depicted in my blog today, and that Governor Palin has plans to not only continue the program but to escalate it beyond normal hunting seasons, and to include bears now.

It takes so much activism by citizens of this country to stop atrocities against wildlife and for the preservation of all we hold dear in this country like our peaceful forests and parks against the likes of the NRA and big time hunting consortiums, that I’m beginning to believe America has lost its way. We simply do not present ourselves as a decent, Christian nation any longer. Our talk is cheap. We’re known for our deeds and the picture is not pretty when it comes to wildlife and habitat.

Do we as this supposed Godly nation realize the Lord specifically mentions the word wolf/wolves 13 times in the bible? In every instance He makes it perfectly known that wolves are to exist as predators. They have a purpose and in no way are they to be extinct in the world to come. They will indeed lay down with the lamb.

From a scientific viewpoint, wolves inhabited the U.S. for 750,000 years; one would think that by now in the 21st century we as “the smartest of the animal chain” would have figured out how to live with them. Stop the carnage as seen in the video below:

Science is not a part of Alaska’s wolf hunting program. There is no official wolf count. Alaska only guesses as to how many wolves it has or has not. To continue to escalate a hunting program like this with no clear figures as to how little or much the wolf populations there are being decimated is criminal.

Read about the history of wolf control in Alaska: http://www.defenders.org/programs_and_policy/wildlife_conservation/imperiled
_species/wolves/wolf_recovery_efforts/alaska_wolves/background/history_of_wolf
_control_in_alaska/index.php?ht=
An excellent read about the history of wolves in the U.S. http://www.ferrum.edu/philosophy/wolfproject.htm

Some people have wolves for pets. Amazing: http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090528075841AAiDs2U.

Posted in Alaska, Animals and Extinction, Animals in Peril, Conservation, Defenders of Wildlife, Endangered Species, Governor Palin, Guns/Firearms, Illegal Hunting, Industry, Legislators, Morality, NRA, Science, USFWS, Wolves | No Comments »

Million Dollar Wolves

Friday, April 10th, 2009

 

 

I watched a very informative documentary about wolves with interviews from ranchers, defenders of wolves, wildlife experts, park rangers, eco-scientists, and even economists. The economist called the wolves in a particular area “Million Dollar Wolves” because that is what they represent as far as extra annual income for Yellowstone Park, and all the businesses that benefit from tourists. 

 

Economists conducted a survey that was pretty productive with a 66% response. The survey revealed that 94,000 of the some 3 million visitors to the tri state area of Yellowstone Park visited there solely for the purpose of viewing the wolves, which have become famous. It was ascertained that each visitor spent an average of $340.00 each during their vacation. The result is an extra $35 million dollars in income. Because there were only 15-20 wolves, they would indeed be worth over a million dollars each.

 

One rancher said why isn’t just 10% of that income put aside to study the wolves and come up with reasonable means to contain them that would be passed on to the ranchers?  Good question.

 

Surely there is a better way. My feelings after watching this documentary remain the same. We have a “kill it” mentality in this country first because it’s the easiest/laziest way of doing things. Eradicate a species because we’ve decided to ranch there. Eradicate a people because we want to build a civilized country. So how civilized have we become?

 

Many ranchers are accomplishing no loss to their herds even moving them miles over different terrain due to more effort and diligence on their part while working smart with wildlife and park personnel. So living with nature can be done. Man just needs to realize the places we decide to settle were settled by other living things first. We are in their territory not vice versa. And every time we tend to upset the original inhabitants of an area, we more or less cause an imbalance in an ecosystem.

 

Watch the video to get a pretty unbiased picture of the dilemma. It’s very well done:

 

 return-to-the-wild-download-flash-player-installation

Posted in Animals and Extinction, Animals in Peril, Conservation, Defenders of Wildlife, Endangered Species, Environmentalism, Farms/Farming, Idaho, Morality, Nature, Science, USFWS, Urban Sprawl, Wildlife, Wolves, Wyoming | No Comments »

Victory! Yellowstone Wolves Will Remain on Endangered List

Friday, September 19th, 2008

 

“The Bush Administration announced it intends to withdraw its plan to strip gray wolves of their endangered species protection in the Northern Rockies,” according to an e-mail from NRDC. The wolves will once again be under federal protection.

 

It seems the Bush Administration erroneously declared the wolf populations fully recovered, nor could it be proven that the wolves were threatening deer and elk populations. Yet when the feds handed off control of wolves to the states of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming 110 wolves were dead in no time.

 

The NRDC also stated: “That means Wyoming, Montana and Idaho will NOT be allowed to begin the extermination of hundreds of wolves this fall as part of a massive public hunt — the first in more than three decades. Instead, those wolves will continue to roam the Rockies — wild and free — as nature and the law intended!”

 

A big nose thumb to Butch Otter, Gov. of Idaho for wanting to be the first one to shoot a wolf. Congratulations to the thousands of people who worked to stop this illegal hunting. The NRDC, Earthjustice, and eleven other conservation groups took it to the courts and won.

 

This by no means is a sign to let our guard down. If things don’t change drastically in the future there will be another angle to sport hunt these animals down the road, especially if the state’s ever get that power in their hands again.

 

Sadly, this victory will not bring back Limpy, the crippled wolf icon of Yellowstone that was shot dead the moment it limped out of the park.



 

 

Posted in Animals in Peril, Conservation, Earthjustice, Endangered Species, Illegal Hunting, NRDC, USFWS, Wolves, Yellowstone Park | 1 Comment »

Alaska’s Predator Management Video

Saturday, September 6th, 2008

 

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.

 

 

Posted in Alaska, Alternative Energy, Animals and Extinction, Animals in Peril, Arctic Oil Drilling, Defenders of Wildlife, Dept. of the Interior, Endangered Species, Environmentalism, Governor Otter, Governor Palin, Idaho, Illegal Hunting, Industry, Legislators, Morality, Oil Lobby, Politics, Secy. Kempthorne, Sport Hunting, USFWS, Wildlife, Wolves | 1 Comment »

Bush Administration Proposes We Protect Animals But Not Their Habitat

Wednesday, August 13th, 2008

 

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/.

 

 

 

 

 

Posted in Animals in Peril, Bush Administration, Defenders of Wildlife, Dept. of the Interior, Endangered Species, Environmentalism, Federal Government, Morality, NRDC, Nature, Oil Industry, Oil Lobby, Politics, Protecting Wetlands, Secy. Kempthorne, USFWS, Wildlife | 2 Comments »

Hunting Polar Bears/Exotics and Canned Hunts Condoned by Congress?

Monday, June 23rd, 2008

 

Boy, am I slow. I just got around to putting a bunch of e-mail and newsletters together to figure out why wildlife, habitat, and our national parks have been under attack by the Bush administration. Well, at least the how. A group of wealthy hunters that comprise Safari Club International (SCI) are using their funds to permeate congress once again to allow hunting polar bears, and everything else on their exotic big game list of course, whether or not the animals are endangered, and to bring the carcasses back into the U.S. as trophies.

 

People all over the world are outraged about our treatment of polar bears already by not putting them on the endangered species list much sooner and continued threats to the bear’s environment by oil drills. And these guys want to hunt the bears. Is that not adding insult to injury that we civilized humans just dismiss a beautiful species and hundreds of other equally beautiful species already threatened by global warming as trophies? How utterly superficial. We fight the use of ivory, but condone canned hunts. Do we know what we’re doing half the time?

 

I read a little about SCI on Wikipedia, and Source Watch and how they direct their lobby money predominantly toward Republicans as their allies in congress. SCI also advertises that they donates money for the preservation of animal species and that they do not advocate canned hunts–except they do it. And they pretty much are interested in the preservation of species so they can hunt the animals they preserve. Got a crippled exotic, put it in a canned hunt. Got too many exotic offspring put them in a canned hunt. Nice, real sporting.

 

I just read my mail from the Humane Society Legislative Fund about canned hunts. I had no idea that 25 states still advocate them and the trend is growing via lobby money from SCI and others. America is hitting rock bottom on ethics/morals when it comes to money vs. our national parks, animals, and habitat lately. I couldn’t figure out how the wolf slaughter, the buffalo slaughter, the push to put guns in our National Parks and a lot of other abuse was happening with help from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service despite thousands of protests. It seems Dirk Kempthorne, as Secy. of the Interior isn’t the only hunting/gun advocate working too closely with wildlife and habitat.  Director of our U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Matt Hogan, is the former chief lobbyist for Safari Club International, and another Bush appointee. Figures. Talk about conflict of interest. I thought the EPA was bad!

 

Considering the plight of all of animals and humans due to global warming, there really should be a moratorium on big game hunting for trophy’s sake. The people in Gana Africa are eating exotics to just stay alive for Pete’s sake. Complain to you senators and reps about canned hunts and lobbyists like SCI.

 

Posted in Animals in Peril, Bush Administration, Conservation, Dept. of the Interior, Endangered Species, Environmental Legislation, Environmentalism, Global Warming, Guns/Firearms, Humane Society Legislative Fund, Illegal Hunting, Illegal Use of Animals, Legislators, Morality, Politics, Secy. Kempthorne, Sport Hunting, USFWS | 1 Comment »

« Older Entries