CWRA* and Hunting & Fishing

*The proposed Oberatar/Feingold Clean Water Restoration Act of 2007 (now
before Congress).

Twenty-four hours ago I wrote a condemnation of the proposed CWRA.  It was
my answer to a reader concerning five questions he had about the proposed
bill's effect on farmers, landowners, wetlands, state government, and local
government.  In that piece I condemned, as I often do, the short sighted and
misguided support of hunters and fishermen for such government programs and
power grabs that their (hunters and fishermen) organizations tout with all
the enthusiasm of a Russian AARP (I make this up) for a return to communism.

I am in receipt of a sarcastic communiqué accusing me of lying.  The gist is
that ONLY if "the government" gets more authority over private property
(marshes, flooded woodlands, floodplains, newly wetted areas, rivers,
creeks, brooks, bogs, fens, swamps, ditches, deltas, springs, impoundments,
drainages, watersheds, sheetwater, seeps, etc., etc.) is there any "hope" of
maintaining the hunting (waterfowl, small game, upland game, big game, etc.)
and trapping (furbearers, predators, etc.) and fishing (nurseries for fish,
spawning grounds, cover, etc.) that depends on "water areas".

Like the joke about "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you" and
the facts all around us about how if, for instance, we let government teach
about sex in the schools (and then push radical agendas and then assert
control over kids WITHOUT need for parental notification or permission and
then to take the kids for abortions and now give birth control to 11
year-olds sans parents while all the while promiscuity and violence surges
in the schools and academic achievement tanks) or how if we just pay gas
taxes the government will only spend it on road (and bridge) construction
and maintenance: placing any confidence in the Federal government to
maintain HUNTING and FISHING (and certainly TRAPPING) by giving them more
land acquisition or money to take and subsidize easements or certainly to
expand their authority (at the expense of private property owners' rights
and local and state government authority) is wrong-headed and flies in the
face of the facts. Think about it and be honest.

If you give the Federal government authority over all water areas it will be
EXACTLY like when our forefathers let the Federal government establish
National Forests for "multiple use" and "public recreation" and "the health
of rural communities" and the "needs of rural economies".  Today these units
have closed down rural economies, impoverished rural communities (into
roadside "art" stalls much like third world serfs), killed off hunting with
protected wolves and bears, eliminated grazing and ranches and logging while
wasting immense renewable natural resources, closed access and campgrounds
with road closures and Wilderness and Critical Habitat and all manner of
specious "Native" this and "Invasive" that claims while the inaccessible and
unmanaged public lands burn more and more each year.  The Forest Service law
enforcement is trained and equipped (to raise pay and retirement) to fight
drug cartels and terrorists while being focused on some local guy gathering
firewood or entering an area without a "permit" (shades of "man-traps" on
medieval European Estates).  Today we shrug about claims by the Federal
government that they are immune from state regulations regarding wildlife on
"Federal" lands and that Federal land doesn't have to pay taxes so local
roads and schools can shrivel while Urban school cesspools get more and more
money to turn out less and less educated graduates.

National Wildlife Refuges?  Same deal.  Let's be frank here, OK?  Under the
Clinton appointees there was a move (unmentioned by "our" esteemed and
respected hunting and fishing organizations and "our" state fish and
wildlife agencies) to reorient the Refuges, the overwhelming majority of
which were AUTHORIZED in legislation to be bought FOR WATERFOWL, into
"Native Ecosystem" Preserves where water management equipment and management
is verboten.  Hello, is anybody out there?  For those of you that are always
mad at me - that meant REDUCED or ELIMINATED waterfowl production, migration
and wintering habitat, AND HUNTING, FISHING AND TRAPPING.  If anything these
agencies are even more loaded today with personnel that oppose (deep in
their bones) hunting, fishing, trapping, grazing, logging, roads, access,
public uses, and yes - humans living in rural areas.

National Parks?  BLM lands? Army Corps of Engineers lands? Bureau of
Reclamation lands? DOD bases?  If you see any push to "stock" or "increase"
or "increase access" or indeed "benefit" hunting and fishing and trapping on
any of these areas please let me know. Forget about the recent (and six
years tardy) Presidential EO: that is merely end-of-administration window
dressing that will still be wobbling when the next President ignores or
"poop-cans" it. Fact is that all Federal lands are less and less managed for
"harvestable surpluses" of fish and game and public use and more and more
"preserved" and "saved" for "Endangered Species", "Threatened Species",
"Species in Peril", "Species Approaching Endangered Status", Native
Ecosystems, Invasive Species mischief, "wildlands", "corridors",
"sanctuaries", "non-game", "watching", "non-consumptive recreation",
"wilderness", "buffer areas", "interpretation", "study areas", "Wetlands of
International Importance", "UN Designated Areas of this or that", etc.,
etc., etc., etc.  Add in the use of predators (Federally introduced and
protected) to decimate hunting (and fishing and trapping by endangering the
would-be participants) by increasing attacks on hunters as well as killing
game and dogs and threatening rural children and rural livelihoods and one
is forced to ask "who are you 'gonna' trust?"

In the beginning, as in all of these tales, there was a germ of need.  Sixty
years ago USDA money and personnel were being used to drain wetlands that
raised and wintered ducks.  So efforts to minimize this conflicting use of
Federal tax dollars led first to buying wetlands and then to easing wetlands
(those perpetual easements that I worked to get were a scam every bit as big
as the variable rate mortgages of today - the return to the landowner for
turning over so much to the Feds was and is not a bargain but a disgrace.
(Those that expect benefits from private property should pay the owner or be
prepared to do without.) Then it led to reduction of Federal payments
in-lieu-of-taxes to Counties and then to Federal road controls and water
claims when drainages shifted due an abundance of reasons and now to Federal
law enforcement of Ninja-type officers with drawn guns in family farm yards
with children present.  The legitimate need morphed into a government
nightmare.

So what is harmful about more Federal water area control?  Think politics.
Most of the hunters and fishermen are going to get mad but so be it.  In all
candor and honesty - If any of the Democrats get elected to the White House
or if they maintain control of the Congress the environmental groups and
animal rights groups will rightly believe that they are in the drivers seat.
The same can be said for the Republicans so far.  If the D's get "in" they
are beholden to and will support appointments and legislation for the
radical groups I refer to.  If any of these "metro" R's get in they will
immediately try to "reach out to the middle": how?  By the time tested scam
of supporting loony appointees and loony regulations on the environment and
animal rights agendas that tickle lots of city folks and importune small
groups of inconsequential and relatively powerless rural bumpkins.  Nixon
did it in spades (ESA, AWA, MMPA, WHBA, etc.).

So picture the President of HSUS as Secretary of the Interior or the PETA
"lady" as Director of US Fish and Wildlife Service or the head priest of the
Wilderness Society as Chief of the Forest Service or an ambulance chaser
from the NRDC as Secretary of Agriculture.  Picture Federal Invasive Species
Authority legislation and a mandate (Executive Order or new law) for all
Federal agencies to "Restore the Native Ecosystem of the United States ".
Then think about all those "new" wetlands we just placed under the CWRA.  So
what?

First you just get a law passed (in the new and more "sensitive" Congress
and White House) that says all aquatic ecosystems "under Federal control"
are to be "restored" to their "native" ecosystem (which means anything you
want it to mean).  If you don't get that: start wording regulations under
the Refuge Admin Act or Park Service authorizations or Forest Service
Management acts that say the same thing.  Or if that doesn't work, burn up
the phone lines with radical lobbyists and lawyers to set up a lawsuit that
gets a court to proclaim that undoubtedly the (-------) Act mandates that
ALL WATERS under Federal authority MUST be restored to Pre-Columbian
conditions.  And last but certainly not least, there is always the UN TREATY
SCAM that worked so well to "save" the cormorants and hawks and owls that
are coming out our collective "tusch" today.  You negotiate a UN Treaty or
some non-descript Treaty with Korea or Russia to "protect and manage"
aquatic species or aquatic ecosystems.  You deny any hidden motives and
vilify any detractors and then in paragraph 3, section J, line four you
cleverly (by half) insert the key phrase "pristine conditions" which you
swear only means "clean" but a lawsuit a year later evokes from a court that
it means "before settlement" and therefore "Native" per some
"scientist-of-the-evening".  So what?

Well remember who is now in charge of USDA and USDI and USFWS and USFS and
NPS et al.  While you think about Invasive killer bees and kudzu, THEY think
about all the Invasive Species that are hunted and trapped and hooked.  They
know what sort of plant communities support them and what species will
replace them or cause them to decline with the proper tweaking of habitats.
They are homed in on rainbow and brown trout and pheasants and chukars and
Hungarian partridge.  They know that bass were "transplanted" (just like
"their" wolves but that won't be mentioned) out west and that muskies don't
belong in Tennessee etc., etc.  They know that "cleansing" wetlands of
certain species will decrease waterfowl production ("back to Pre-Columbian
levels, don't you know") and use (i.e. hunting for all you sensitive types).
They know that many (there are literally infinite combinations) "native"
plant community mixes will eliminate trapping and fishery support.  They
will use your tax money to buy lots of "scientists-of-the-evening" to wax
poetic and they will hire a bevy of "analysts" to tell us how people will
flock to these "native ecosystems" and increase the economies of rural
America nine-fold and it will all be lies and your hunting, fishing, and
trapping will fade and you will be told it is "progressive" and "natural"
and "enlightened" that such barbaric practices are becoming extinct.

How long will you not react to Trout Unlimited telling you that Invasive
Species authority at the Federal level (at the expense of State authority
that YOU can control) is good when it will result in the elimination of
brown trout and rainbow trout fisheries and western bass fisheries and Great
lakes salmon and trout fisheries?  How long will you send money to a Rocky
Mountain Elk Foundation that tells you how romantic it is to hear wolves
howling while those wolves are decimating elk herds?  How long will you
listen to Ducks Unlimited lobbying for socialistic and anti-American
legislation like CWRA?  When fishing goes under the TU guys figure they will
still be rich enough to fish "pristine" waters: the RMEF guys will get jobs
as office managers with some government agency when "their" party gets "in":
and DU will sell even more beadspreads and shirts at high markups as such
memorabilia of bygone days takes on the aura of old wooden hunting decoys on
E-bay today.

So smart guy. What is "the answer"?  The answer is what got America to where
it is today: private property and protected rights.  I just hunted deer for
a week in South Carolina .  I hunted as a guest at my son-in-law and
daughters deer club and on a farm my son-in-law and daughter own.  Private
property and 4 month season and daily deer limits - no Federal government or
their tentacles there.  I jump shoot ducks out of my canoe on Virginia
streams that are public thanks to State laws that go back to the founding of
the State.  I hunt ducks and geese on picked corn and soybean fields that
kind farmers allow free.  One of the spots we used to hunt was leased by a
guy quoted in a recent National Geographic article but that is life.  Those
nasty boys and girls I mentioned under the nest Administration have NO
foothold in these places: WHY OH WHY would I want to give them such
authority over Virginia waters or South Carolina swamps?

The federal government does a few important and vital things like defend the
country and conduct our foreign policy and minimize unfair competition
between states and assist states to track and apprehend interstate and
international crime and criminals.  Anyone using the excuse that since they
do these things they should be given "more" should be watched carefully for
signs of insanity or duplicity.  Insanity means doing the same thing over
and over and expecting a different result and the environmental/animal
rights record of the past 35 years speaks for itself.  Duplicity is best
displayed by those internet letters from the guy whose Dad has gazillions in
a bank in Nigeria and if you help him get it you will be rewarded beyond
your wildest dreams.  Either way, supporters of things like CWRA are NOT
friends of hunters, fishermen, or trappers as well as a lot of other folks.

Jim Beers
20 October 2007

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- 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 Centreville ,
Virginia with his wife of many decades