Our World and Everything in It

The three countries of Rwanda, Uganda, and the Republic of the Congo have come together to beef up the security of Virunga National Park home to half of the world’s population of mountain gorillas, which is down to a dismal 700 in number. The parks habitat is being destroyed looking for coal, lumber, and even things like bee keeping.

These countries are impoverished and war torn, which doesn’t help the matter any. Educating the people about extinction when they look to stay alive themselves is troubling. The African nations near the park suffer from political turmoil also, making matters worse for those that seek to preserve the gorillas. An article at BBC.com said that “rebel forces loyal to the dissident Congolese general Laurent Nkunda, took over large areas of the park, forcing out the rangers and leaving the gorillas vulnerable to poachers.” And poachers will move in quickly. Just last summer 5 gorillas were shot dead like the article said: “execution style.” What would possess someone to look at something that majestic and shoot it dead? But then again humans suffering in those countries don’t fare much better. 

The article went on to say that the “10-year conservation project, which was launched in the Ugandan capital, Kampala, is to focus on greater security and ways of discouraging local communities from destroying the region’s forests.” It also said that the Dutch government is funding the first 4 years at a cost of 6 million dollars.

I think it’s smart to get other governments involved since there is so much unrest in African nations, and many times so little value for life.  The moral issues are great. Save people, or save the animals. This is a choice that we’re going to have to make more and more in the future if we don’t stop human sprawl and the resulting pollution, and don’t do something about ignorance and poverty in nations with some of the world’s most diverse wildlife.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7254357.stm
  

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.
 

This is a very good documentary about wolves by researcher Shaun Ellis and also a good tribute to “Wolf Moon” month of January. Find out more about wolves and why we should stop the eradication of this species once and for all. A majority of people have spoken, but legislators, especially in Alaska, continue the sportless killing by helicopter and plane.

 Shaun Ellis doesn’t recite a documentary at you, he lives with the wolves. It’s good. Watch it. Learn.

Peace

In honor of this being Wolf Moon month and that the fate of wolves in our national parks, in Idaho, and in Wyoming hangs in balance with a Secretary of Interior that is oblivious to thousands of voices to spare the wolf, I thought I’d do a piece on dogs and wolves. I ran into this interesting page along the way.

The website page is: http://www.idir.net/~wolf2dog/genetic1.htm. There is a list of References for Wolf-Dog Genetic History. I started to read the summaries of a variety of books written about the genealogy of the dog. Dogs are direct descendants of wolves, all dogs, little bitty pocket dogs, hairy dogs, smooth dogs, hunting dogs, even Pekinese dogs. The DNA of dog and wolf is almost identical. The dog is not the descendant of the combo wolf/jackal as many used to believe. Our dogs are tame wolves basically.

So I kept reading the short synopsis of each entry, there must be 15 of them on this page, and one after the other: “Scientists believe that wolves are the direct ancestors of today’s domestic dogs,” and “…on the basis of a large number of skull measurements and examinations of the size and structure of the brain, blood factors, and numbers of chromosomes that all dogs, whether Pekingese, bulldogs or Alsatians, were descended solely from the wolf…[t]he domesticated wolf is the dog,” and “Although the subject continues to be controversial, most authorities now agree that all dogs, from Chihuahuas to Dobermans are descended from wolves which were tamed in the Near East ten or twelve thousand years ago.” There were some summaries more genetically oriented, but all of them concurred the dog, man’s best friend is really a wolf in pedigree skin. That is except for one entry

That one entry is odd because it’s about proving whether the canine carries wolf blood. They have the same DNA for Pete’s sake. Trying to ascertain whether the dog carries actual wolf blood, when their DNA is identical, looks like a technical way around relating man’s best friend to the wolf. And look from whom and where the study comes. The Wyoming Game and Fish Dept. contracted a New York lab to do this study and look whose questioning the ties between wolf and dog, the Idaho Fish and Game Dept. back when the Wolf Conservation and Management Plan was instituted there. It was stated “There is not presently a valid test that will guarantee analysis of whether a particular canine carries wolf blood. Certain DNA studies have been conducted by a New York laboratory under contract by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, but a much larger population study of wolf and dog breeds would have to be done before conclusive results can be obtained.” Jerry M. Conley, Director, Idaho Fish and Game Dept. From letter to Gov. Cecil D. Andrus, March 19, 1992.

Idaho and Wyoming have been gunning for wolves for years. It’s coming close to a head now. And it’s not about control of an untamed, voracious animal. It’s certainly not about maintaining balance in our ecosystems of which the wolf plays an important role.  And it’s not about killing livestock.  It’s about exterminating an animal that is the grandfather of our pet dog, so that man can hunt for sport instead. And sport hunting is about money. It always gets back to money.
 

This should be a pretty good show since Jack is bringing some rare and threatened species of animals on the set. And there should be a lot of good information about what is disappearing from the planet due to climate change. Jack is passionate about animals and so am I. I really don’t want to be the generation that remembers animals in the wild like the old Tarzan flicks because the animals no longer exist anywhere.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Just got an e-mail from Defenders of Wildlife. It appears Bush/Cheney spent their holidays plotting with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to just go ahead and start slaughtering hundreds of wolves by helicopters and planes in what should be their sanctuaries, our national parks, particularly Yellowstone.

Wolves haven’t been taken off the federally protected, threatened and endangered list. Threatened by Bush/Cheney that is. Human beings are still the most heartless hunters and some of the decisions out of this administration show lack of empathy for any living thing. What is the difference between a canned hunt, Internet hunting, and the aerial chase and kill that is proposed for wolves especially in Idaho and Wyoming? The animals are trapped. They cannot possibly outrun the planes, helicopters and technology.

We citizens wrote letters, voiced opinion, and literally raised hell over the dog fighting indictment against Michael Vick and we’re going to allow this to happen? Wolves mate for life, raise their young with care, and are not the enemy of man. When are we going to stop listening to the propaganda of this administration?

Wolves are an important part of the entire ecosystem of this country that is systematically being destroyed by a handful of people in power and that power is out of control. Thousands of people have protested the aerial hunting of wolves in Alaska for years. It never stops and is spreading? It’s evident no one in this administration has any regard for the opinion of its people. We are such a poor example to the rest of the world as far as the environment and wildlife, that to ask Japan to quit heartlessly killing dolphins and whales will fall on deaf ears. And our neighbors to the North will keep clubbing innocent baby seals to death as long as we keep setting stellar examples like this.

Between canned hunts, internet hunting, aerial hunting and every other kind of extremely non-sporting and bloodthirsty hunts that have come up since you know who is in office, why do we put up with it? Our world and everything in it, and our reputation as a nation of moral, decent citizens is in jeopardy over whom we’ve elected. While Christians everywhere were given a message to embrace environmentalism over the holidays, a very amoral group in Washington plotted to eradicate an entire species of animal in at least two states without ever taking them off the protected and endangered list.

According to Defenders, “Just last week, Congressman Nick Rahall (D-WV), Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD), George Miller (D-CA), Jim Saxton (R-NJ) and Norm Dicks (D-WA) warned in a letter to Secretary Kempthorne that de-listing wolves in the Northern Rockies now is a mistake.”

Evidently, this administration doesn’t listen to the elected officials that represent us either. I say if they would do this to an innocent animal, they would do as much to us without batting an eye. So much for trust hey? And Bush made the most admired list in a recent gallop poll? If that’s the truth than America’s average IQ of 98 just dropped a notch.

Email Dirk Kempthorne Secy. of Interior formerly governor of Idaho that helped get grizzlies and wolves under jurisdiction of the individual states and in a position for slaughter. Looks like he’s been plotting for quite awhile—almost 2 terms as governor and only a year in this position and he’s on his way. Let him know what you think of his bloodthirsty, unsporting proposal: webteam@ios.doi.gov

I just got through reading some current worldwide environmental news and have to say, we don’t seem to have a clear-cut view of anything. What we profess, what we say, and what we actually do is all contrary.  First, I saw the Pope give his blessing and speak on behalf of peace and the environment over the Christmas season to over one billion Catholics. And the World Council of Churches that represents 560 million Christians worldwide is calling concerns over global warming a matter of faith. The WCC has had a program about climate change since 1992 and books about ecotheology (I’m interested).  Dr. Samuel Kobia the Secy. General of the WCC stipulates that Christians are well aware that dominion over all living things was given to us. He said that meant, “We were entrusted with the care of the rest of God’s creation.” The emphasis is on the word “CARE” here.

Care doesn’t come under savagely taking a machete to an orangutan trying to defend it’s young, or hooking a live dolphin in the side and sending it to be stripped of skin before it’s even dead, while the resulting meat is basically poison from ingesting too many pollutants, or shooting 6 elephants dead for stepping into a coffee field that is supposed to be their sanctuary. We should actively try to get this stopped, but our demands for things like lumber and coffee encourage it.  Oh and don’t forget about native animals and the latest Internet hunting websites that have yet to be banned in over 20 states.

There was the news about a zoo tiger that got loose and killed one man, and maimed two others before it was shot dead. The media wanted to know and put this question out to the public if it is wise to keep caged and wild animals? 145,000,000 people visit zoos every year without incident. If we didn’t have zoos the likelihood of seeing a live polar bear, tiger, elephant, orangutan, gorilla, condor, panda…etc., would more than likely be nil. I have to wonder about the media here. Do they operate with any type of perspective about things, or just pounce on a bit of fantastic news with so much fervor it gets skewed out of proportion and normalcy? People are maimed in cars every day and no one says: “Gee, should we really be driving?”

 

We’ve heard about individual states taking their own course of action for the environment with many implementing their own environmental laws especially since the Supreme Court decided that the EPA is supposed to regulate carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases according to the Clean Air Act but has not done so. So what do I read? The Bush administration: “Thursday announced that it will block efforts by California, Maryland, and 15 other states to cut emissions of global warming gases from cars and trucks.” Now that is an example of talking out of two sides of one’s mouth isn’t it? Aren’t we supposed to be forging ahead with alternative energy anyway?

 

This administration got elected based on a big moral majority. Do we or do we not celebrate animals? I hope we  understand the world is in our care. We simply can’t keep spreading and demanding, taking up room where other things live. We end up killing the very same animals we ooh and ah over at the zoo. We love cartoon movies with animals, little talking pigs, Flipper, the Lion King. We are supposed to teach our children to be kinds to animals. But when animals act out in their normal manner we talk about dispensing with them right away, like the zoo issue. We sacrifice living breathing creatures in our own species chain over things we need for our big houses or our big lifestyle. And we elect our president/vice president based on morality when this latest threat to block states trying to do right by the environment proves the opposite. So where do we stand between what we believe, what we say, and what we actually do about our world and everything in it because I can’t tell?

 

By the way, a current gallop poll has President Bush as the number one pick among the most admired men and women of 2007. Is that not the icing on the cookie for contradictions as far as you’ve read them here?
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/dec2007/2007-12-24-01.asp.

      

  

 On Christmas Eve I think it’s important to remember where the Christ Child was born, AMONG THE ANIMALS in a manger. Every nativity scene is one with animals. A manger in those days was: “a feed trough found in a stable. In Bible times mangers were made from clay mixed with straw or from stones held together with mud; sometimes they were carved in natural outcroppings of rock,” http://www.padfield.com/1999/manger.html. There is an actual picture taken of a manger at Megiddo used in the stables of King Ahab on the linked website.

So the King of Kings was placed in the feed trough of the animals of a stable. This is a quite a statement about the beasts of the earth, that they were worthy of such an event. This Christmas take the time to reflect not only on mankind, but peace for the earth and all of the living things that are in jeopardy of extinction. The “beasts” as in animals of the earth are written about in the old and new testament over 200 times. Their importance is undeniable. We weren’t meant to live in a world without animals, especially those that have been here for centuries that are now in danger.

PEACE