Source: Defenders of Wildlife
Posted by: Defenders of Wildlife - archive
Posted on: Aug 23, 2005 @ 1:19 pm
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
August 23, 2005
CIRCUIT COURT BLOCKS BUSH ADMINISTRATION END RUN AROUND ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT
"The Bush administration continues to do everything it can to get around
the
Endangered Species Act," said Jamie Rappaport Clark, Executive Vice
President of Defenders of Wildlife, lead plaintiff in the suit that spurred
today's decision. "They continue to turn their back on solid science and
ignore the advice of local biologists, all the while pushing many plants and
animals to the brink of extinction."
Some times you find humor in the darndest places. The Defenders of
Wildlife
are famous for their efforts to eliminate hunting and trapping. While
they
bathe themselves in neutral, touchy-feely rhetoric in public, their
newsletters and fundraisers leave no doubt in their members' minds
concerning what they are about. They are lately the "partner"
of Federal
agency wolf programs to give a patina of responsibility to the depredations
of wolves in the West by claiming to "pay for livestock losses"
while in
reality only paying for a small percentage of the losses ranchers believe
they are enduring. As a consequence, I only note what they are up to as
a
necessary chore to keep myself informed. The above quote from one of
their
news releases is one such nugget.
The Executive Vice President quoted above was Director of the US Fish and
Wildlife Service under President Clinton. She resigned when president
Bush
was elected, spent a short stint with the National Wildlife Federation, and
now directs the Defenders of Wildlife. Her observations about the Bush
administration doing "everything it can to get around the Endangered
Species
Act" and continuing "to turn their back on solid science and ignore
the
advice of local biologists, all the while pushing many plants and animals to
the brink of extinction" is interesting to say the least.
While she directed the US Fish and Wildlife Service $45 to $60 Million was
transferred from excise taxes collected for State fish and wildlife agencies
and spent by the US Fish and Wildlife Service for (among other things):
-Introducing Canadian wolves into Yellowstone after Congress refused to fund
such work.
-Opening a California Office that congress refused to fund.
-Bonuses and other Federal employee benefits.
These funds were never replaced. When requested to appear before a
Congressional Committee about this, she did not show up, the Hearing was
cancelled, and she was directed to appear. No one was ever disciplined
or
punished for this breach of the public trust and the financial loss to the
State fish and wildlife agencies and sportsmen of the Nation.
While she was Director, a public scandal broke in Washington, DC. It was
discovered that for at least two decades the US Army Corps of Engineers had
been dumping tons of very toxic waste from the DC Water Treatment System
twice a month through a National Park (George Washington Parkway) into the
Potomac River at three locations (one of which was the ONLY Potomac River
spawning location of the long-Endangered Shortnose Sturgeon). The rocks
were etched from all the toxic wastes being dumped in the River UNDER
AUTHORITY OF AN EPA PERMIT REVIEWED BY THE US FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE AND
THE NATIONAL MARINE FISHERIES SERVICE. A Conservation organization sued
to stop the dumping (anywhere else in the Nation the toxic waste would have
been trucked to a specified waste dump but the rich and famous
Washingtonians did not want any truck traffic in their precious
neighborhoods) and the government (including the US Fish and Wildlife
Service) looked the other way in public and delayed and delayed and
obfuscated in court so that neither a settlement or cessation was achieved
during the aforementioned Directors administration.
To be honest, I was forced to retire during this period. I testified
about
the disappearance of the funds mentioned above but I also worked long hours
to prevent the European Union from banning all furs from Canada and Russia
and the US. I was an advocate for States continuing to manage furbearers
and for trappers to sell their furs, furriers to make fur products and
customers to buy and wear furs. This Director was very close to and
cooperative with the anti-fur, anti-trap, anti-hunting, anti-management
organizations. This was kept very quiet and there was a reluctance to
dismiss me from my task because the State agencies and the trappers and
hunters would have smelled that they were not being represented but were
being betrayed to those organizations intending to control State agencies
and eliminate natural resource uses and management. When we finally got
the
Europeans and the European counterparts of the US animal
rights/environmental organizations to back down my journey into forced
retirement began.
So take this as a bitter riposte or a vindictive rehash of history, as you
will. I only took the time to recount this because it shows the
hollowness
of the politics and publicity that permeates the whole environmental/animal
rights game. If you can't see the humor in this stuff, you would have to
cry. The next time you hear this sort of thing, just consider the source
and don't believe it no matter where it pops up or which expert says it.
Straight shooters and facts worth considering get more rare each year.
Jim Beers
26 August 2005
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