by Jim Beers

A well-informed reader believes I have been inconsistent in my description
of State and Federal management of fish and wildlife.  In a recent
communiqué it was pointed out that I am always touting the wisdom of the
founding fathers making State governments responsible for fish and wildlife
and then I turn around and oppose the recent law passed by Congress that
authorizes the Federal bureaucrats to compose a list of Non-Native birds
currently protected by Federal law (under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act)
that will then be EXCLUDED from current Federal protection because they are
not Native Species (i.e. Invasive Species).  This, the reader pointed out,
is a good thing (giving jurisdiction to the States in which such species
occur by default) and I should support it.

While I was taken aback by this point, some fair consideration of the reader's
observation was helpful to clarify my own thinking.  These are complex
issues I write about and I can assure you that my #1 objective is to make
them understandable to the layman and, in so far as possible, to provide a
simple answer that supports a clear recommendation for concerned persons to
follow.  While this sounds good, quite often those who are familiar with the
issues view my attempts as over-simplifications that merely excite those who
are unfamiliar with, and therefore unable to resolve, issues of such complex
natures.  So let me amplify on why I maintain the recent law passed by
Congress that directs the US Fish and Wildlife Service to make up a list of
Non-Native birds currently protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act in
order that Congress may dismiss such birds from Federal authority under that
Act, thereby making them species either protected by State laws or
unprotected entirely as the case may be, is a bad piece of legislation.

Some background is in order.  The 1917 Treaty with Canada (via Great Britain
who then ruled Canada) protected 200+ species of migratory birds, named in
some cases as all the ducks, geese, and swans occurring in North America.
Some groups were purposely excluded such as hawks and owls and cormorants
and pelicans that were recognized as causing extensive economic harm.  The
Treaty regulated things such as when certain game birds could be hunted and
how controls of species might be effected.  This worked well for 50 years as
hunting prospered, National Wildlife Refuges were justified and purchased,
and Federal and State conservation prospered on the fruits of migratory bird
users.

In the late 1960's Federal bureaucrats and UN bureaucrats began working
together to "save" the environment.  UN bureaucrats saw this as a golden
opportunity for a Treaty (Convention on International Trade in Endangered
Species) that would give them authority and funding to "regulate" and
oversee international trade, hunting, an endless list of plants and animals,
and governments everywhere. US Federal bureaucrats saw this as their own
golden opportunity (dare I say a "golden egg"?) to assume State fish and
wildlife and plant jurisdiction, control of an endless list of citizen
activities from ranching and logging to hunting and fishing, increasingly
powerful authority over private property owners, and the future development
of the national economy and way of life.  In this heady mix of passing an
Endangered Species Act, the Marine Mammal Protection Act, the Wilderness
Act, the Animal Welfare Act, and the Wilderness Act the bureaucrats
conceived of the perfectly wonderful sounding proposal to negotiate
Migratory Bird Treaties with Russia and Japan like the treaties with Canada
and Mexico (the latter in 1936).  Who could oppose such a "good" thing?  How
many of us swooned as our Senator and Congressman expressed their support in
government mailings to our homes?

The new Treaties with Japan and Russia were merely vehicles to include the
cormorants and pelicans and hawks and owls (that were added to the already
Federally listed species) under Federal protection.  Almost immediately
cormorants control around hatcheries and catfish farms and in the midst of
fisheries became problematic and populations began to rise.  Likewise,
farmers found it more difficult to let chickens or small animals run around
farmyards because hawks and owls were no longer readily controllable.

Fast forward to the "environmentally-sensitive" 21st century.  Mute swans
(here during the Revolutionary War and possibly "Native" but declared by
Federal and State biologists as "Invasive") are blamed for the failure of
the State of Maryland's Chesapeake Bay submergent plant restoration project
to restore dwindling blue crab harvests.  The swans pull up the plants and
then attain effective refuge on the many estates surrounding the Bay.  Do I
need mention that at the slightest mention of killing a number of mute swans
each year a chorus of howls arises (largely from the well-to-do estate
owners and urban schoolchildren) such that it goes unmentioned (like
cormorant control or hawk and owl management) by Federal overseers?  The
State of Maryland believes they can get on the private property (really?)
and kill swans (sure) and thereby get plant growth and save the blue crab
fishery.  Well maybe and maybe not.  Maryland isn't Wyoming and the same
"howlers" will target the Sate agency too.

The Feds tried to get out of their management responsibility by saying the
mute swans were "Invasive" and (THEREFORE?) NOT covered under the Migratory
Bird Treaty Act.  A Federal judge took a New York second to say there was
NOTHING in any of the Treaties about Native or Non-Native or INVASIVE.  So
the Federal bureaucrats had a friendly Maryland Congressman introduce a bill
to say ONLY NATIVE birds are covered under the Treaties and the US Fish and
Wildlife Service should (even as we speak) compose a list of Non-Native or
Invasive birds (cattle egrets, European widgeons, mute swans, plus 30? 60?
100? other species) to be excluded from Federal protection.  Just for
starters what about birds not where they are today (West, East, farms,
woodlands, etc.) in 1776 or 1492, or whenever?

Getting back to the reader, I must admit the point.  As our lengthy
discussion affirmed, it would be "easier" for States to manage problem birds
like mute swans although if the Federal bureaucrats were as enthusiastic
about bird control (which they transferred to USDA 20 years ago because they
thought it clashed with their emerging "new" image) as they are today about
killing hunting (Florida Panther NWR) or prohibiting windmills "a mile and a
half" away as they are at Horicon NWR in Wisconsin controlling swans would
be a snap.

I noted in all the perfectly true justifications for giving authority to
State government over introduced doves and swans, never once was their
mention of why "Invasive" or "Non-Native" had anything to do with anything.
Like Invasive Species advocates that always mumble "what about kudzu or
killer bees", advocates of "purging the protected Migratory Bird Lists" on
the basis of arrival dates as opposed harm offer no rationale for the
Invasive or Non-native terminology. Take it from on old biologist, you don't
need to have a biology degree to understand what is going on here.

If the Federal government cannot control the mute swans around the
Chesapeake Bay for whatever reason, let them say so. Let us then consider
what to do with cormorants or certain hawks and owls that HARM things.  Let
us not maintain the fiction (best exemplified by the kamikaze protection
philosophy of the marine Mammal Protection Act) that no matter the numbers,
no matter the HARM, or no matter the radical philosophies of the moment - no
matter what, Federal "protection" means no management and no uses forever.
Have our Federal employees become so sclerotic and beholden to
environmentalists that they are totally incapable of being anything but
concentration camp guards for natural resources?

All of this aside though, let me say why I strongly oppose this purge of the
Federal Migratory bird Treaties as it is being done.  Just like the
clandestine language in the Transportation Bill giving the Federal Highway
Administration authority to purge "Invasive" roadside plants and only use
"Native" plants, this Migratory bird list is a very bad PRECEDENT at a
crucial time.

Once again, Federal and UN bureaucrats are scheming about (this time) a UN
Convention on Invasive Species or Native Ecosystems (the flip sides of the
same coin).  May I bet that if you read newspapers or listen to the news, it
has been less than 48 hours since you heard about some (previously unknown)
environmental catastrophe looming on the horizon because of some "Invasive
Species"?  The same bureaucrats and professors and journalists that whipped
up the Endangered Species frenzy to ratify the UN Treaty and pass the
Endangered Species Act are at it again.  The same fuzzy exaggerations and
the same expected long term payoffs to these folks are fed by the same (but
now all grown-up) environmental extremist and animal rights radical
organizations who will reap a proportionate payoff in (they believe)
perpetuity.

So, because the purge of Non-Native birds from the Migratory Bird List
simply allows Invasive advocates to say things like, "the US Federal
government doesn't protect any migratory birds they don't consider 'Native'"
or "the Federal Highway Administration won't use Non-Native species and it
prohibits State highway departments from using them" IT IS WRONG.  Let
control of harmful birds stand on it's own legs just like any fair cost
comparisons between "Invasive" and "Native" groundcovers along roads would
in nearly every case support plants specifically developed for that purpose
in that State for those weather and road use conditions.

One further note is in order.  I am constantly amazed at the people who
criticize me as "against" conservation or historic preservation or the
Federal government or the US Fish and Wildlife Service.  Other's buttonhole
me as "that guy that is so extreme he supports the rights of cockfighters to
have a place where they can legally do what their families have done for
generations and millennia".  That is all bunk.  The cockfighter's right to
fight his cocks is no different than my right to shoot a duck and I
recognize the importance of conservation and preservation as much or more
than anybody.  Saying that looking out for your neighbor's rights or
questioning a runaway Federal government makes you a radical is as
transparent as a sandwich bag.  It is merely a verbal smokescreen to avoid
having to either consider or answer what I am saying.

These are not issues like abortion or same-sex marriage or sex education in
schools where the lines are drawn and the areas of compromise are
practically non-existent (and therefore the major basis of the Red/Blue
politics today).  Issues like I write about are complex and they require
your informed opinion in the context of other such issues.  The only
either/or factions in these environmental/animal rights issues are the
organizations committed to the elimination of hunting, trapping, fishing,
public land access and management, ranching, logging, animal ownership and
use, private property, and your Constitutional rights to a responsive
government and your parent's way of life.  None of us that believe in the
traditions and freedoms I write about are trying to ram them down anyone
else's throat.  Others can reject fur, eat vegetables only and live in a
condominium as they will.  It is their commitment to force all these things
on the rest of us that we all need to be aware of and resist.  Understanding
complex issues and considering simple answers put forth by folks like me can
a big part of passing along to your kids what your folks passed along to
you.

Jim Beers
12 May 2005

If you found this worthwhile, please share it with others.  Thanks.

This article and other recent articles by Jim Beers can be found at
http://www.allianceforamerica.org/bb/viewforum.php?f=91

Jim Beers is available for consulting or to speak.  Contact:
JimBeers7@earthlink.net