The Editorial Staff at the NYT certainly show the lack of any credible research and expose themselves as being completely lacking in any knowledge of wildlife management by publishing a piece concerning gray wolves, hunting of those wolves and the processes that have taken place over at least the past 15 years. It honestly appears as though they copied the evangelical tripe of the environmental groups and published it to their own pages believing, as it appears they must, that their readers are complete dimwits.

If I were to pick out the fatal flaws of what the Times staff published, I would have to republish the entire editorial. It reeks of not only lies but pure unsubstantiated and non-scientific drivel that anyone can read on fringe animal rights groups’ web pages. The staff would have done better to have simply stated, “We love wolves and don’t want anybody doing anything to them regardless of the consequences of such actions”, than to expose themselves to their own lazy ignorance.

So, ridiculous is the whole thing that Dr. Valerius Geist, professor emeritus of environmental science at the University of Calgary, made the decision to pen a rebuttal piece to it. For me, it was like taking a step back to my days in the eighth grade and having my science teacher attempt to tell me that my effort and information I put into a homework assignment was lazy and lacked anything of a factual basis. Here’s what Geist wrote:

Dear Sir,

The author of this editorial has fallen victim to clever advocacy that is void of science, let alone scholarship. The presentation to the public by a leading newspaper of a complex issue so hopelessly compromised by inaccuracies and lack of understanding, is hardly a public service. Humanity has a very long and tragic history with wolves, as this predator is widespread and often abundant across Asia, Europe and North America. The introduction of wolves in the U.S. West is evolving in a predictable pattern, as one is bound to re-live the history one ignores. And that, me thinks, might be the real story.

Sincerely,

Valerius Geist

To further a rebuttal by Dr. Geist would be the equivalent of “casting pearls before swine”, as the swine continues its daily wallowing in muck, while the real gems of truth and knowledge remain dangling just above their heads and yet the Times staff refuses to take a moment from enjoying their own swill to look up and see what’s there.

The Times editorial says that decisions being used in wolf management in the West are based on outdated information from 1987. This, of course, is a lie. But the Times is contributing to the blocking of advanced science and knowledge by reprinting garbage like this. It is difficult to educate those not willing to learn or better yet, those who have an agenda in which truth is not part of the propagation of the rhetoric to advance that program.

The Times reveals its agenda and lacks good editorial practice by allowing the publication of such inept work.

Tom Remington

Call for Voluntary Return of Gifts Spurred by Reports that BP Could Go Bankrupt

Washington, D.C. – In light of recent reports that BP may go bankrupt paying claims for damages and cleanup of the Gulf oil spill, The National Center for Public Policy Research today called on organizations and individuals that have received contributions from BP or its affiliated foundation in recent years to return these donations, or to contribute them to a reputable, independent Gulf cleanup fund.

“It is now well-established that when politicians and others find themselves in receipt of donations of dubious or inappropriate origin, they return those donations,” said David A. Ridenour, vice president of the National Center for Public Policy Research. “Donations were returned to Goldman Sachs after that firm was charged with civil fraud. Numerous Florida politicians returned donations from a law firm charged with operating a Ponzi scheme. President Obama returned donations from his aunt, an illegal alien, and from a man charged with murder before the latter’s conviction, and very many donations were returned to Enron, among others.”

“The argument for returning the money in this situation is even more compelling than most, in light of the fact that the full cleanup effort may not occur if BP goes bankrupt. Nobody thought that Goldman Sachs was going to go belly up. Returning BP’s money to assist cleanup efforts and help those harmed by the leak would respect both the moral imperative and the environmental imperative,” added David Ridenour.

According to published reports, major environmental advocacy organizations in receipt of major gifts from BP in recent years include the Nature Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund, the World Resources Institute, various branches of the Audubon Society, the Wildlife Habitat Council and others. Very many politicians from both political parties also have received contributions.

“It is not appropriate to on the one hand to criticize BP for taking what appear to have been shortcuts with safety and environmental needs while at the same time profiting from BP’s business model,” said Amy Ridenour, president of the National Center for Public Policy Research. “And it’s not as if returning the BP grants would cause these institutions to close their doors. The Nature Conservancy reported nearly $1.4 billion in revenue in 07-08, against about $900 million in expenses, with net assets of nearly $5 billion. The World Wildlife Fund raised $10 million more in FYE 2008 than it spent, and had nearly $300 million in net assets. The World Resources Institute had over $50 million in net assets.”

“These environmental organizations are to the non-profit community what the Fortune 100 is to the business community,” Amy Ridenour continued. “Even the least known of these groups, the Wildlife Habitat Council, reported revenue of $2.9 million for FYE 2009, with the publicly-reported BP monies they received totaling far less than their net assets.”

The memorandum, which can be downloaded in its entirety with this link, shares data that readily explains how the Endangered Species Act isn’t about saving species. Instead it has been manipulated, which most honest people have come to realize, in order to use taxpayer money to make some environmental groups and individuals quite wealthy.

Looking at the data supplied by Budd-Falen, she claims that as of May 17, 2010 there are a total of 1,374 species in the United States listed as either “threatened” or “endangered”. To get a grip on how this translates into the cost for taxpayers, she also states that it costs, on average, $85,000 per species simply to add to the Endangered Species list. In addition, $515,000 per species to designate critical habitat.

If you add that all up, taxpayers are staring down the barrel of a loaded gun that is costing them $707,610,000. And all this only for listing and designating critical habitat in what is supposed to save 1,374 species of plants and/or animals.

Add to this cost the attorney fees paid out to mostly environmental groups of around $12 million and us taxpayers are forking over some $720 million dollars and with that have “recovered” 21 species. That’s something in the order of $34 million per saved species. Good investment?

None of this accounts for what’s happened to businesses and private lands and land ownership and the costs associated with those.

For some of us who actually care about conservation, saving species and protecting habitat, this leaves us with a question. How much of this money or any money for that matter that these “conservation” and “environmental” groups is used to actually save species and protect habitat? According to Budd-Falen there is no evidence to suggest one dime of their money is used for that purpose. If the majority of these groups are only sucking the coffers dry and doing nothing to save species, doesn’t rational thinking tell us something has to change?

With an extended strong arm of the government and a money-making con job from environmental groups, this seriously limits the ability of state fish and game departments to properly manage their wildlife……doesn’t it? Let me cite one small example of this.

In Maine, many of these same environmental groups successfully petitioned the USFWS to name the Canada lynx a threatened species and along with it designated critical habitat. As a result effective means of trapping large predators were eliminated which resulted in an overgrown population of coyotes. The whitetail deer herd, in much of the same areas as where the lynx critical habitat was designated, has dropped below sustainable levels. Because of ESA manipulation, an Act that needs rewriting and countless, unchecked lawsuits, the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife has been partially handcuffed, having been stripped of management tools to do their job. Is preserving species about ruining one or more to save another?

In the email, David Allen asks: “The question begs to be asked, where are we going with our wildlife system in this country and what is the anticipated end result? The issue with the “wolf recovery” program in MT, ID & WY is the tip of the iceberg in this entire issue, however it is a prime example of the results of using the ESA far beyond what it was intended. Those who cherish the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation need to become acutely aware of what & how the Endangered Species Act is being utilized today and where it is heading.”

In order to “anticipate” the “end result”, I think it first imperative to get over some hurdles that far too many refuse to even consider. Attorney Budd-Falen spells it out very clearly and I concur. None of this is about saving species. It’s about making money and promoting an agenda. I think many will agree that making money through these lawsuits is obvious. What they don’t want to admit is that these groups have an agenda that’s not about saving species. What that specific agenda is varies, however the “end result” is the same – stop hunting, fishing and trapping. There’s also no better way to do this than to take people’s land away from them and strip them of their rights.

As Allen pointed out the wolf litigation is but the tip of the iceberg as is the Canada lynx, the spotted owl, the desert tortoise, the delta smelt, etc., etc. If outdoor sportsmen and our state fish and game departments think we can stop this by arguing about one specific species in one specific area of one specific state, we’re woefully wrong.

Until the Endangered Species Act is rewritten and modernized nothing will change. It will be more of the same and the end result will not be pretty. If we employ the old adage that for those who fail to learn history, they will repeat it, we see that the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation is being dismantled piece by piece. This is being done by systematically taking away one tool of management at a time. This management system will then fail. This is when the environmentalists move in declaring the failure and the end result will be the further implementation of their agendas of which I have spoken.

My prediction is not one of encouragement. I believe there are not enough people who care enough or are willing to accept the bigger picture, resulting in more of the same. I don’t need to spell out what more of the same is going to look like in 5, 10, 15 or more years. All too often what it takes to get people involved is when it hits directly home. By then it’s too late.

The only hope, is to figure out a way to convince enough people to fight back against this indoctrination that runs counter to everything that is right.

Tom Remington

Brandon Middleton, lawyer for Pacific Legal Foundation, a property rights advocate, had this to say about Judge Wanger’s ruling.

“Judge Wanger recognized that federal regulators had not taken account of how water cutoffs could damage the human environment, and they did not use the best available science,” said PLF attorney Brandon Middleton.

“This is a powerful, excellent ruling,” said Middleton. “The judge is telling the feds that they can’t ignore the harsh human and environmental impacts of cutting off water to farms, workers, businesses, and communities. The judge is also saying the feds can’t get away with using slippery science to justify environmental restrictions that rob communities of their lifeblood – water.”

An article yesterday in the Jackson Hole News and Guide quotes Bangs as now saying 45 breeding pairs and 450 wolves will “never be threatened”. I guess Bangs doesn’t learn from his first mistake. In 1987, 30 pairs and 300 wolves would easily do the trick, why should anybody believe for one second that his statement today is any more honest than the ones he made 25 years ago?

It’s clear the feds set the rules, we play by their rules and when the rules don’t fit the game they are playing, they change the rules. Bangs admits that the first day on the job for wolf recovery he knew 30 pairs of wolves wouldn’t be enough and we should trust him now when he tells us 45 will never be threatened?

This kind of political manipulation has to end now.

Such is the case in the Northern Rockies area where the people are fighting back and now the environmentalists are using the media to demonize those pushing back, painting them as liars, polarizing the issue, misguiding the citizens, etc. Don’t be caught up in this giant media deception.

Photo from fOTOGLIF

By Jim Beers

Jim Beers is a retired US Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife Biologist, Special Agent, Refuge Manager, Wetlands Biologist, and Congressional Fellow. He was stationed in North Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York City, and Washington DC. He also served as a US Navy Line Officer in the western Pacific and on Adak, Alaska in the Aleutian Islands. He has worked for the Utah Fish & Game, Minneapolis Police Department, and as a Security Supervisor in Washington, DC. He testified three times before Congress; twice regarding the theft by the US Fish & Wildlife Service of $45 to 60 Million from State fish and wildlife funds and once in opposition to expanding Federal Invasive Species authority. He resides in Eagan, Minnesota with his wife of many decades.

Yesterday, I wrote a piece titled Confessions of a Treatyphobe. In it I discussed the abuse of the Treaty Power in our Constitution and in so doing I mentioned how I would be glad to debate why the Migratory Bird Treaties with Canada, Mexico, Japan, and Russia were in need of modification and how they might be changed. The result is that, thus far, I have been removed from at least four Christmas card lists and have made formerly sound communications with two other readers, tenuous at best in the future.

The following is a hastily drawn explanation of why and how US federal authority over migratory birds is in need of change. I say “hastily” because I was on an Oregon radio show last night and I just completed a Missouri radio show this morning and I feel I must respond to any questions in a timely manner or be thought unable to defend what I write.

The US federal authority over named species of migratory birds is based entirely on the Treaties named above. This federal authority and jurisdiction has many flaws at this time. This is not to say that it does not still fulfill many of the original purposes for the original Treaty (i.e. managing and fairly dividing the annual harvest of game birds by hunters between states and the subsistence food source harvest by Native people). It has likewise accounted for the preservation and management of wetlands necessary for water birds of all stripes and for wide-ranging habitat and survival improvements for songbirds and other birds highly valued by birdwatchers and those living near significant insect concentrations.

But consider the following:

- Airplane/migratory bird strikes are far more extensive and frequent than generally known. This includes but is not limited to geese, gulls, blackbirds, starlings, sparrows, etc.

- Cormorants are seriously decimating sport fish, fish hatcheries, fish farms, and private property.

- “Resident” Canada geese (introduced and spread by federal programs just like wolves) spreading disease on golf courses, schoolyards, and parks while causing auto accidents, and chasing lunch-breaking employees and walkers near ponds.

- Hawk and owl predation creating unpublicized negative impacts on songbirds and other birds and animals.

- The federal migratory bird authority justified and was the Congressionally-stated purpose (production, migration, and wintering needs of waterfowl – i.e. geese and ducks that are hunted) for the majority, number and acres of National Wildlife Refuges acquired in the lower 48 states (Alaska’s Native Claims Settlement Act refuges distorts these numbers if included). It was likewise the basic authorization for required federal Duck Stamps that financed much of these acquisitions. Yet today, Refuge water management is slowly being changed to dry land “Native Ecosystems”, waterfowl nesting habitat is being changed into “Invasive Species” (often simply post-1492 AD game birds and sport fish) eradication projects less friendly to waterfowl needs. In other words, federal lands purchased with hunter “fees” and authorized by Congress for Waterfowl are being converted into lands less hospitable to and supportive of waterfowl and hunters.

Let us further consider what could be done about these issues remembering this is being “hastily” done and there are other issues that could appear on the list above and below:

- Authority over airplane/bird safety should be given to Airport authorities.

- Authority and jurisdiction over “resident” Canada geese in the US between 15 March and 1 September should be given to State governments.

- Cormorants, hawks, and owls should be placed under State government jurisdiction and authority.

NOTE: For all of those readers now writhing in pain on the floor moaning about this would be a prelude to Armageddon – The Endangered Species Act was designed and is being implemented as a preventive to stop all those local yokels electing all those narrow state politicians from making all those critters extinct. Local managers, responsive voters, would do far better at protecting air travelers, fish farmers, urban health (human by the way), hunters, fishermen, sport fish and desirable wildlife, songbirds and other associated values of value to those living in those areas.

- Management conversion of federally-owned wetlands and associated uplands to any habitat less supportive of waterfowl management outputs should be replaced with NEW and equally waterfowl-supportive habitat of equal waterfowl productivity and benefits.

NOTE: If the federal government is to fulfill this primary and original justification for Treaties that grant the federal government power and authority that formerly resided in state governments, they should do no less with ALL lands they control.

The foregoing is a thumbnail sketch of what could be done, but that is not why I am taking the time to write this. I am writing this because it might well be a “teachable moment” regarding Treaties.

Let’s pretend I am lauded and cheered about the foregoing proposals and “everyone” wants to implement them: how might this be done?

1. We could just write agreements with these entities to do these things. Sure, just like “delisting” wolves. The state or airport must do A, B, and C or the feds intervene: PLUS, the lawsuits about how this is illegal and not based on “science” and a plot by those wanting to kill everything, etc., etc. would be thicker than a spring blizzard. Just like “state management of wolves”, state authorities under such agreements are little more than paid “Charlie McCarthies” for federal bureaucrats in service of anti-management and use organizations.
2. We could just write “new” federal regulations doing the above. Such regulations would be found to be not possible (illegal) under The Migratory Bird Treaty Act that implements the Treaties with Canada et al. A lawsuit now or in the future would make any such regulations illegal in short order.
3. Why not change (amend) The Migratory Bird Treaty Act? Even if we had a President Sarah Palin, a Senate under Jim Inhofe, and a Secretary of the Interior Michelle Bachmann and could do this, it would likewise be found to conflict with the (interlocking on purpose) Treaties and therefore illegal. Furthermore, what my “dream team” could accomplish, the next President Barbara Boxer, Senate Leader Barney Frank, and Secretary of the Interior Charles “Charlie” Rangel could simply undo. This leaves us with the Treaties…
4. The Treaties need to be “reopened” and Amendment proposed but how is this possible? Set aside for now how environmental/animal rights organizations fight this tooth, lawyer, and nail as a threat to their federal control of an exclusively powerful federal government and as a precedent for further dispersal of the power they worked so hard to consolidate across the board. While the Canadian Treaty doesn’t mention cormorants (that’s a whole other story) and there is no provision in any of the Treaties to give authority to something like an airport authority or even a state, why would any of the 4 nations REMOVE species? Why would any of the 4 Treaty nations encumber their government-owned lands with such a requirement about maintaining waterfowl capacities? Where is the “carrot”? Thus do we hear so often that such and such is “required” by the Treaty or that it is “prohibited” by the Treaty, and then in a generally laughing tone “man you’d have to change ‘the’ or ‘all’ those Treaties, are you ‘nuts’?”

Thus is big government solidified and imposition of ephemeral national values and agendas solidified. Thus are local controls and community cultural identities once lost, seldom regained. Thus are incremental steps toward tyranny and helplessness dressed in good intentions as they help attain bad agendas and create precedents. Thus is my Christmas card response list reduced incrementally.

Jim Beers

19 March 2010

Photo from fOTOGLIF

By Jim Beers

“My name is Jim Beers and I am a treatyphobe.”

I grew up in the period of wildlife abundance in the 1940’s and 50’s. From the first time I hunted with my Dad, the dream of spending my life managing and preserving the use and cultural heritage provided by US fish and wildlife was always in my mind.

When I studied wildlife management in college and when I worked for the Utah Fish and Game and then the US Fish and Wildlife Service after a stint in the Navy; fish and wildlife management and use, like American freedoms and the American way of life were still intact. Today, fish and wildlife management and use, like American government, American freedoms, American culture and traditions, and American society are in tatters and on the verge of disappearance.

I lay much of the blame for this decline on the sordid manipulation of the Treaty powers contained in the US Constitution by persons with hidden agendas. That is not to say that this power is wrongly described therein, it is to say that this power as it has evolved in the past century has eroded the strong foundation of Constitutional government and fish and wildlife use and management as we knew it.

I am “taking pen to paper” here because yesterday I wrote about the potential for the current Administration (Obama et al) and the current US Senate (Reid et al) to cynically craft and line up a few nations to sign a UN Treaty “On Small Arms and Ammunition” that, when signed by the President (of the US) and ratified by 2/3 of the Senators “present” whenever old Harry (Reid) deigns to ask for a vote, automatically becomes “the Law of the land” per the Constitution. I further speculated that it would mean the inevitable demise of our 2nd Amendment rights.

A lawyer that I respect essentially responded that such a scenario was unlikely because such a treaty would not and could not change the Constitution and therefore would be challenged and found to be unable to change our rights. I was crestfallen but I accept that lawyerly advice.

Therefore I have joined Treatyphobics Anonymous and as my first step in overcoming my phobia about Treaties will try to explain my formerly inexplicable fear of Treaties so that I might return to societal confidence in the Treaty-making authority of federal leaders.

When I went to work for the US Fish and Wildlife Service in the late 1960’s I unknowingly entered into an era of societal turbulence and change that was not only reflected in fish and wildlife programs but indeed hijacked those programs and the powers they contained. I can only say this now, because while I was immersed in it until fired in 1999, it was truly like the old saw of not being able “to see the forest for the trees”. Allow me to explain.

US fish and wildlife were unmanaged and freely used until the late 1800’s. In 1896, new state laws about wildlife were upheld by the Supreme Court in GEER v. Connecticut wherein it was held that states “owned” all the fish and wildlife within their borders. This was the cornerstone that began the increased management and sustainable use of fish and wildlife by accountable (to state resident voters) State, not federal, politicians and managers.

In 1917, the federal government ratified a TREATY with Canada to protect about 200 species of birds (nearly all migratory game birds and songbirds) that Migrated between these two nations. The authority for the federal government to subsequently claim ALL authority over all of these named birds was upheld by the Supreme Court in Holland v. Missouri in 1920. Ray Holland was one of my (as a young duck hunter) early heroes and to this day I have a photograph of him standing, cigar in hand, on the Mall in DC in the early 1920’s. Federal authority for years protected and increased those migratory birds for uses from hunting and bird watching to protection of agricultural crops and wetlands. Today I would argue that they no longer do that, if anyone would care to debate the point.

Let’s fast forward to my 32 years with the USFWS. As societal turbulence (anti-war, drugs, “free”-love, etc.) shook the land, federal fish and wildlife management and use was subverted and perverted into something 180 degrees out of synch with American traditions and cultures. Treaty manipulation became a hidden factor in this perversion.

Consider two federal laws that have changed our world dramatically, The Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

1. An Endangered Species Act passed Congress in 1969 but it was found to have “no teeth’. So a UN Convention was concocted and ratified on “International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora” (“Small Arms Treaty” anyone?) in 1973. That same year (wow, did they do that quickly) the federal government enacted the Endangered Species Act we all came to know and (only a few of us) love.

2. The Marine Mammal Protection Act was introduced in 1976 by an Arkansas Senator (funny how those guys and gals keep popping up in these scenarios about subverting US society) who joked that “the best thing about this law (he was fishing for “environmental” votes at the time) was that there wasn’t one of them Marine Mammals within 500 miles of Arkansas”. It followed:

1931/49 – Whaling Convention Act and amendments.

1957 – Fur Seal (Alaska) Act

1958 – Convention on “Living Resources of the High Seas”.

1970 – 8 Species of Whales declared “Endangered”.

1972 – A Treaty on Seals.

1973 – A Treaty on Polar Bears. (As I write this, the paper reports that the US introduced a ban on the international trade by Canadian natives of polar bear skins, teeth, and claws from their own robust and sustainably-managed and hunted polar bear populations. Fortunately, this political trashing of the rural and native people of our strongest ally and neighbor was defeated by a surprisingly erudite UN vote.)

Now remember that I am ignoring a whole bunch of simultaneously nefarious stuff involving other fish and wildlife things during these years. For instance:

- Manipulating a Migratory Bird Treaty with Mexico and new Treaties with Japan and Russia to quietly add new “federally protected” birds that had been specifically excluded like cormorants (that soon overran hatcheries and fish farms) and pelicans (that soon became “Endangered” and now overrun docks) and hawks and owls that, like protected wolves and grizzly bears, soon grew in numbers and destruction impacts on other birds and desired wildlife.

- Closing public lands to access and management (Wilderness Act of 1964).

- Wild Horse and Burro Act (1971) giving federal protection to such destructive and overpopulated animals.

- Gradual reorientation of federal lands into being lands OUTSIDE state and local authority and lands oriented to “Native Ecosystems” instead of the purposes for which they were purchased.

- Closure of public lands to uses (and management tools) like logging and grazing.

- Proliferating designations by Executive Orders and bureaucratic regulations to close public land from energy access and development to closing more access with Roadless Areas, the destruction of trails, nuisance regulations, draconian law enforcement, and entry fees.

Now remember, what I am about to say comes from someone that is not a lawyer. If I had a buck for every time I heard, in my federal career, that “we” had authority over private property and state governments because “we” (us federal guys, not you out there or any of those state “cowboy legislatures” or redneck farmers) had treaties and the laws implementing them on “our” side, well I would be fishing off New Zealand or bird shooting in Argentina (it is early fall there) right now. Government Solicitors and those bureaucrats that were promoted to ever-higher responsibilities (“responsive to management skills and abilities” types) were constantly maneuvering with New Age Lawyers and their environmental/animal rights clients and supporters to “interpret” the laws and treaties in supportive (of government expansion) ways. They also worked hard to identify and “suggest” new laws and regulations to “save” more and to “plug loopholes” that frustrated federal power growth. Writing suggested Treaty language and getting court findings to serve as precedents (the “right” court at the “right” time) and then writing regulations that served the original but mostly unnoticed federal/ “New Age” supporters agendas was what federal employees and their advisors were paid and rewarded to do in those days.

Those 2 federal laws (ESA & MMPA) created a federal and public mindset, and a whole trail and flow of increasingly un-American laws and regulations. This soon did two things:

1. Established the now-acceptable practice that the federal government could “Take” private property use and value from private owners for whatever reason it contrives, like “Critical Habitat”, WITHOUT PAYING FOR IT. This broke the back as far as federal advocates were concerned of that old, out-dated concept about “nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation” that those old rich guys (Our Founding Fathers) wrote somewhere (the US Constitution, 5th Amendment). Who wouldn’t “take” all they could if there was no cost? Who could afford to “take” all the federal government has “taken” in the past 40 years if they had to pay for it?

2. Established the current belief that states no longer “owned” any fish or wildlife except what the feds have left alone thus far.

Once we accepted these two principles and their future place in our laws, our fate was and is sealed.

When federal bureaucrats and politicians saw that Treaties could give them absolute power over everything from private property to the authority and jurisdiction of states – THEIR FUTURE GROWTH AND MARCH TO ABSOLUTE POWER WAS ASSURED. No court would ever again uphold a citizen defending private property (be it dog, farm, chicken, or home.) No state would ever again be able to stop federal orders that closed public lands in a state or denied gun rights on federal lands in the state or stopped logging or farming or grazing on public and private lands within a state. The rest was academic:

- Federal lands, budgets, regulations, and power have grown dramatically over the past 40 years.

- State rights have all but disappeared.

- State employees have become mere extensions of federal policies, receivers of federal welfare (excuse me grants and assistance) and enemies of state residents.

- Federally protected overpopulations of Seals choke the mouth of the Pacific NW Rivers eating enormous amounts of salmon (thereby sustaining their overpopulation) while the same federal government protecting them tears down dams, shuts down irrigation districts, reduces human water supplies and power generation, and closes vast ocean areas to fishermen; all to “save salmon”.

- Federally protected and federally dispersed wolves spread disease, danger, and carnage in federally-designated states on both public and private property and thereby destroy rural culture, rural economies, and rural communities where federal lands and the destruction of animal (wild and domestic) husbandry and use is being federally driven to make way for ever-growing federal land enclaves.

- Marine Mammals that never leave state waters and were heretofore under state authority like manatee and sea otters are, like growing lists of other wild resident and therefore formerly state-controlled animals like sage grouse, pupfish, suckers, wolves, etc. placed under absolute and never-ending federal jurisdiction (every State move must be “approved by federal authorities” once such jurisdiction is proclaimed). This set the groundwork for the current cry for “federal laws” to “restore native ecosystems” and “eliminate invasive species” (what else is there given the nonsensical definitions of these “rubbery” concepts?)

A century of American Progressive challenges to the “ownership of the commons”, an ancient concept about whether “The King” or “The People” (now where have I heard that last term before?) owned “public” land and the fish and wildlife inhabiting it has become intertwined, like mating snakes with a century of “progressive” beliefs and actions about the “smart” few governing the “ignorant” (scientifically-challenged?) many.

Those 2 results of Treaties (ESA & MMPA) being (rightly or wrongly assumed by federal bureaucrats and their political bosses and an “evolving Supreme Court”) justification for laws demolishing the Constitution and leaving only the power of a majority vote (i.e. no “Rights” just power) have much to do with the state of America today.

As an old bureaucrat I may be way off base about how Treaties are supposed to work but I know what I saw and it is like a B-25 tail gunner walking through Dresden in1946: it ain’t pretty and you wonder how it all happened and how it ever went this far.

I’m sorry, but I don’t think I will come to any more of these meetings. All this baring your soul stuff is too stressful on an old-timer.

Jim Beers

I received an email this morning from someone on the “left” attempting to support his ideas of predator/prey relationships with his science. All was going well until the “left” in him just couldn’t resist adding that last paragraph showing his true colors. It’s quite funny and I share that with you here.