by Jim Beers
In 1918 the United States ratified a treaty with Great Britain on behalf of
Canada to protect and manage 212 species of birds that migrated annually
between the two countries. The list included all waterfowl, all migratory
game birds (doves, woodcock, snipe, etc.), and nearly all songbirds.
Many
migratory birds were purposely excluded such as cormorants, hawks, owls, and
pelicans. The reason was generally the damage they cause and the need to
control them when and where they cause problems independent of treaty
restrictions. This approach worked fine for 50 years. Jurisdiction
over
birds named on the treaty was thereby transferred from State governments to
the Federal government as provided in Article VI of the Constitution.
The Secretary of the Interior was given the responsibility for implementing
and enforcing the treaty's provisions. Primary Management Authority over
all migratory game birds, control of all depredations by protected migratory
birds, and research related to life histories and management needs was
vested first in the Bureau of Biological Survey and then in it's successor
the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS.) From the 1920's until the 1970's
migratory birds were the primary purpose of FWS refuges, land acquisition,
law enforcement, research, and the second priority (after western stock
protection from predators on public lands) for FWS damage control employees.
In the late 1960's FWS employees worked with UN and IUCN employees to adopt
the IUCN Red Book as the predecessor to the Endangered Species Act that they
drafted and lobbied through Congress in the early 1970's along with the Marine
Mammal Protection Act. The early interactions between these Federal
bureaucrats and their UN counterparts focused on the "lack" of
Federal protection (even though they were doing just fine under State
government authorities) for cormorants, hawks, owls, and pelicans. They
contrived to show a "need" for new bird treaties with Japan and the
Soviet Union since we also "shared" birds with them in the North
Pacific. The treaties sailed through (it was the sunrise of
environmental awareness and concern) with the hawks and owls and cormorants
and pelicans listed even though only a few of those species were
"shared" with the Japanese or the Russians. The other two
treaties (Mexico and Canada) were subsequently adjusted to cover all the same
species.
In the 1970's FWS began to sense a new role with great power and funding
potential. As public evidence of it's new role "saving"
"Endangered
Species" and "Marine Mammals" FWS began shedding it's
reputation as a
manager of birds "for the gun." An early move in this
direction was
"restoring the Giant Canada Goose in the upper Midwest. This was
not for
"the gun" but for the environment and urban and semi-urban nature
lovers
that were known to be supportive of the new FWS role. Permits for towns
like Rochester, Minnesota were issued to breed and release Canada Geese (a
protected migratory bird.) Other cities and golf courses and parks soon
wanted the "beautiful birds" for their area. Permits were
issued and what were mostly medium to large (Canada geese, like humans, have a
wide variety of sizes) Canada geese began popping up all over the Midwest and
the East.
FWS no more knew what they were getting into than they do about wolf
introductions or waterfowl contamination of heavily used marshes.
Studies
about wild Canada geese like studies of wild wolves are no more a gauge to
their behavior or food habits in urban areas than observations of killer
whales in the Aleutians are to a killer whale from Seattle living in a tank
in Florida. So the rest is, as they say, history.
Overpopulating and non-migratory (resident) Canada geese for the first
decade were trucked from Dulles airport or Connecticut golf courses to Georgia
and West Virginia. Sometimes they beat the FWS employees back to their home
and sometimes they stayed on a reservoir or an industrial park pond or on a
local creek or even in swimming pools. By the 1980's FWS had to abandon
moving all of the overpopulating Canada geese (wolf-lovers and rural residents
and suburban dog owners take note) because of costs and the sheer magnitude of
the problem. Permits were no longer even considered. Concurrent
with this debacle, uncontrolled cormorant populations ballooned in the
Mississippi watershed and on the Great Lakes. Catfish farmers, hatchery
operators, sport fishermen, and commercial fishermen all began to howl.
Like the similarly unmanaged North Atlantic seals the cormorants obvious
impact on sport fish, commercial fish, hatcheries, and human health around
colonies was denied and urban residents came to believe that any reduction in
their record numbers was tantamount to endangering the birds with
"extinction."
In the midst of this witches brew FWS encouraged and obtained a remarkably
stupid change. In order to further their "new" image they
proposed transferring ALL OF THE DAMAGE CONTROL program (employees and
funding, but not permit or management authority) to the Department of
Agriculture. This migratory bird (and other) Damage Control work became
part of an Agriculture unit known as APHIS. However when APHIS wanted to
control birds at airports or around fish hatcheries or in farm fields or
wherever, they had to obtain FWS permission (i.e. a permit.) As with
FWS, APHIS steadily accumulated employees opposed to lethal controls (the only
real solution to many depredation problems and most health or safety problems)
and increasingly reluctant to kill anything or allow others to kill anything
while they searched for elusive "integrated pest management" and
"eco-friendly non-lethal" silver bullets.
As this pot boiled, Secretary Babbitt in the mid 1990's transferred
practically all the FWS research to the US GEOLOGICAL SURVEY??? The
damage control transfer 10 years earlier had included a damage control
research lab in Denver but this transfer to USGS was mostly employees and
dollars that were largely justified for migratory bird responsibilities.
The transferred researchers were immediately assigned to
"environmental" window dressing and effectively cut off from FWS
managers and APHIS workers. The USGS employees have slowly disappeared
into a geological tar pit and they are seen less and less often at management
meetings or State fish and wildlife conferences.
Enter the mute swan. Mute Swans have been on this continent since
colonial times. They have been and continue to thrive in both domestic
and "wild" circumstances. They were migrating over a century
ago in California and were considered on of our wild swans by bird folks and
hunters in the 19th century. They are reported to thin Eurasian milfoil
stands in mid Atlantic
streams thereby enabling canoe passage. Their numbers have increased in
recent years during fall and winter on the Chesapeake Bay. Several
thousand from as far away as Connecticut winter on the Bay. They eat
(actually tear up) submergent plants being reestablished by the State of
Maryland to renew Bay resources like blue crabs and waterfowl. Other
waterfowl such as Canada geese also tear up these plants.
FWS one day just proclaimed that mute swans were not "covered by the Treaty" so they could be killed on sight whenever possible. (Take note all of you threatened by or harmed by Endangered Species or Marine Mammals or Animal Welfare Act provisions - just ask the government to say it isn't so!)
This fits in well with all the other attempts to sell the American public
and the Congress that government has a responsibility to conduct a
never-ending jihad against all the thousands of plants and animals that have
arrived here since 1492. In the case of this bill, any bird arriving
"before 1918" or brought here by other than natural means will be
slated for having existing Federal
protection terminated. The precedent for expansion of this
scientifically,
ethically, socially, and morally baseless concept will be breathtaking as it
is used to break Treaties that citizens have been prosecuted under for
nearly 100 years. FWS will show the court and al the rest of you
smarty-pants that if they don't want to do something, no one can make them
do it. What was it Leona Helmsley said about "little people?"
So fellow citizens, migratory birds responsibilities are divided between
three unrelated Federal agencies. Useful birds like piping plovers that
while "Endangered" are used to stop public access and human
activities from Atlantic and Great Lakes beaches to Nebraska streams will stay
under Federal "protection." Problem birds like mute swans and
sparrows can be dropped from Federal protection to face whatever fate befalls
them. Cormorants were seized (by conspiring Federal bureaucrats) from
State regulation where they thrived with minimal conflicts and are allowed to
become a catastrophe under Federal "control." Resident Canada
geese break office workers' arms and ribs as they drive lunch hour workers
from park ponds. Golf courses and parks where kids play are covered with
goose feces. (Take Note - There is practically no documentation on the
makeup and danger from feces in wild geese and ducks, especially in large and
persistent concentrations. Contrast that with reams of research on domestic
ducks "controlled" by EPA with draconian regulations because of
staphylococcus, streptococcus, orthophosphorus, nitrates, etc. in their feces
that are a confirmed threat to human health, groundwater, surface water, and
soil.)
There is no Federal responsibility anywhere for this situation. There is
no
data to justify any control or management of cormorants or resident Canada
geese, or mute swans, or even the human health and contamination impacts of
large waterfowl concentrations. Impacts of birds are suppositions and
subjects for bar arguments. The FWS migratory bird program boasts a $4.5
M per year shortfall and cancels bird surveys older than FWS. State fish
and
game funds due from earmarked excise taxes are diverted by FWS from State
agencies with shortfalls of their own to prop up a Federal program that has
been run into the ground. Swan backers think it is hunters running the
program. Hunters think their organizations are looking out for them.
There are 94 species of "Invasive" migratory birds that will lose
Federal
protection under "Invasive Species" legislation according to an FWS
Federal register Notice from a few years back.
What is the answer? Why dropping "Non-Native" and
"Invasive Species" from Federal protection. Federal
performance gets worse in this area each year just as it gets more dangerous
to citizens in the "Endangered Species" area each year and we are
asked to believe that separating plants and animals based on their arrival
date is "progress."
The time to put the migratory bird pieces back together and have Congress
(the bureaucrats and their political bosses have proven to be incapable)
give them a comprehensive mandate. Failing that, breaking the Treaties
and turning management back to the States can be no worse than this train
looking for it's next and biggest train wreck risking both birds and citizen
rights.
Between the Endangered Species track record, the Migratory Bird record, and
these constant attempts to develop "Invasive Species" authority; it
might be worth considering contracting all this out to offshore contractors
like the
Indians who work for computer customer service offices. I am beginning
to
think they couldn't do any worse than what is going on in this whole area
today.
PS. All of you "Invasive Species" fans save the mantras about
the ecosystem and all the unknown effects of "unnatural" plants and
animals for somebody in Manhattan that falls for that stuff.
Jim Beers
1 July 2004
This article and other recent articles by Jim Beers can be found at
http://www.allianceforamerica.org/bb/viewforum.php?f=91