Coyotes & Bears 

Two + Two 

Two news stories have crossed my desk this morning that say mountains about
what they don't say.  One article from the New York Daily News goes under
the banner:

"Save tot from coyote's jaws"

"Beast tries to drag baby into N.J. woods but is chased off by gutsy
11-yr.-old boy"

The second article, from the Idaho Statesman, runs under the banner:

"Grizzly bear recovery presents new challenge"

While each is informative, these two articles together say a great deal
about the unsaid.  So let's examine each one and then add them up.

The 11-year-old New Jersey boy was playing in the back yard when "A coyote
got ugly as it snatched a baby from a New Jersey home, biting into its neck
and trying to drag it into woodland in only the second recorded attack in
the state."  He reports that, ""I heard some rustling in the shrubs, but
thought it was a deer. Then all of a sudden, it came out and jumped on Liam
and was biting him. I started beating it, kicking and screaming. I thought
it was going to kill him. I didn't even think about what I was doing."

The 11-year-old's Dad said, "When I was a kid, the worst thing you were
going to find in those woods was a skunk."  When he ran out to save the
child, "It (the coyote) turned round and it was running at me. It was the
size of a German shepherd, skinny and mangy-looking, with tufty fur. I
shouted at it, waving my arms, and it stopped, but it didn't leave. It
stayed at the edge of the lawn, watching us. It seemed to have no fear."

The coyote escaped but "Liam (sic the 2-year-old) was treated for deep
scratches and was given rabies shots but was not seriously injured".

To cap off this ugly incident, "Darlene Yuhas of the Division of Fish and
Wildlife said a woman was bitten in Morris County in 1999 in the only known
previous attack" and "Investigators had set traps but had not caught the
animal as of last night".

COMMENT:  Coyotes are increasing all over the Eastern US .  In the
urban/suburban habitats of Naivous americanus (those are naïve Americans)
they are treated like Disney characters.  Earlier this week my wife listened
to ladies at Curves talk about how "cute" the coyote was that had walked
into a Chicago Quiznos recently.  When they become familiar with humans and
their habitations they get bold and begin to behave unpredictably and
dangerously.  We will believe that Dobermans or pit bulls or rottweillers
are dangerous when loose but we believe the twaddle from radicals and
bureaucrats that coyotes and wolves and mountain lions and grizzly bears
"always do" thus and so and "never" do that.

So the coyote lady from the New Jersey "Fish and Wildlife" (?) says there
was only one previous attack?  I'm sorry to be nasty but who takes reports
of attacks?  The same fish and wildlife people in all these states that tell
the Minnesotan that "it couldn't have been a mountain lion" and tell the
Wyoming sheep rancher "we can't be sure it was a wolf" or the New Mexican
living in a trailer that "it was your fault for leaving the dog outside".

These are the same state people that look to getting more money and people
for doing what hunters and trappers used to do before hunting, like New
Jersey trapping, is outlawed.  Note the use of "traps" by "investigators"
since trapping, indeed even the possession of traps (I have some old
historic ones myself) is illegal in New Jersey .  This episode is the sort of
thing that will actually get Federal funding to hire more (union?) state
employees as the Federal takeover of state fish and wildlife agencies
(through Federal Appropriated funding with "strings) proceeds.

The second article about grizzlies is likewise full of word games and hidden
facts.

"Today, biologists estimate the bear population in and around Yellowstone
has risen to more than 600."  One rural Idahoan reports, "living in a
subdivision with dogs, neighbors and lots of activity, he never dreamed he'd
stare down through his picture window at a bear standing erect on his deck.

I figured you'd have to go into the wilderness to see one," Peterson said.
"The bear ignored his garbage on its regular jaunts through his yard. But
the young bear had found dog food and bird seed his neighbors left out and
kept coming back for more. As the bear became bolder, Peterson began to fear
for the safety of his 3-year-old daughter, Maggie. He wasn't alone. The bear
was sleeping in the doorways of other homes and going inside other garages.

By November, the bear should have hibernated. But apparently well-fed and
confused, she kept coming into the aspen-covered community on the edge of
the national forest until she was trapped and released in the wilderness
east of Yellowstone ."  The ubiquitous lady biologist countered, "Some people
like to have them around," said Laurie Hanauska-Brown, Idaho Department of
Fish and Game wildlife biologist in Idaho Falls . She goes on to give us the
solution, "The key to keeping bear-people problems to a minimum is keeping
human food and garbage away from bears", said Hanauska-Brown.

Reportedly on the bright side, a guest ranch owner says, "They don't bother
me near as bad as wolves," Hossner said. "The bears haven't done more than
get into our garbage cans. The wolves ate some of my neighbor's animals."

The answer?  "The federal government organized the Interagency Grizzly Bear
Committee that included the federal land management agencies, the states of
Montana , Idaho and Wyoming , and other federal agencies to develop the plan
to recover the bear population. Sheep grazing was phased out of the national
forests surrounding the parks. In addition to the sanitation programs,
enforcement efforts reduced grizzly killings by hunters and sheepherders."

Additionally, "Perhaps the toughest issue was the need to reduce road
densities in the national forests. Decades of extensive logging had left a
vast network of roads and trails deep into the heart of grizzly habitat.

Biologists learned that too much human activity kept bears from using even
good habitat. Roads also brought poachers."

So, "In the 1990s, under several court orders, the Caribou Targhee National
Forest closed more than 400 miles of roads and trails in grizzly habitat
over the loud objections of hunters and other outdoor enthusiasts. Officials
cut the road density to six-tenths of a mile of road per square mile, the
level federal biologists say is necessary for grizzly habitat."  "But a new
report written by the Greater Yellowstone Coalition suggests there are still
too many roads. They looked at one area of the forest adjacent to
Yellowstone National Park where they found 181 miles of roads getting
regular traffic -- 117 more than allowed under federal rules. The same area
had 193 miles of motorized trails open -- 104 miles more than allowed."

Thus, "By the end of 2004, all six national forests surrounding the parks
will have approved new grizzly bear habitat protection rules similar to
those on the Caribou-Targhee, Reese said. That will ensure that the 9,200
acres of core habitat -- an area larger than Connecticut -- is secure."

I hesitate to quote any of the government "droppings" about "delisting" and
"making the Idaho (or Montana or Wyoming ) fish and wildlife "responsible"
for the grizzlies.  Any "delisting can and will be voided in a New York
second by a lawsuit before the "right" (or "left" as the case may be) judge.

The state agencies are less and less answerable to state government and
state residents anyway as Federal funding transfers through Federal agencies
grow and employees jump back and forth and Federal takeovers of everything
seem inevitable as opponents of resource management and use gain more and
more control of the levers of power.  Finally, any "assurance" from a US
Fish and Wildlife Service or US Department of the Interior "official" is
suitable only for paper purposes in the home.  Whether they are sincere or
honest or not, whatever they may or may not do today, the employee or
appointee placed there under the next Administration (from PETA or HSUS or
Sierra or World Wildlife Fund, et al?) can be undone quicker than the New
York second cited above.  The problem is the law passed by Congress and it's
pernicious use and expansion by bureaucrats and radical organizations
tolerated by corrupt politicians.

COMMENT:  The grizzly has been used to stop logging, close down sheep
ranching, restrict cattle ranching, decrease elk herds (they are real good calf killers), kill rural dogs, shut down the majority of access and use of (formerly) public lands, and generally discourage more and more Americans from living on greater swaths of private property. "Trapping and release" is foolish since the places where they exist are already crowded (so they will kill or be kill by other grizzlies) and the places where they aren't, should not get them.  Federal bureaucrats (like the Forest Supervisor) restrict
uses and access and revenue generation on "public" lands while being
rewarded not only professionally but by more and more funding from the
National Treasury.  People are told they "don't belong here" (i.e. their
home or work site or place of recereation, etc.) by government employees
(that reputedly work for them).  They are told to keep their pets and
children inside.  They are arrested and prosecuted many time more thoroughly
than illegal aliens by enforcers trained and equipped to levels comparable
to what we have in Afghanistan and Iraq .  The West is being vacated and
American citizens are being persecuted by their own government and central
government power is not only usurping state authority, it is expanding to
permanently deny and eliminate the Constitutional rights of citizens.  All
because "someone?" says grizzlies (or wolves or mountain lions or coyotes)
"belong here" in whatever numbers and densities government decrees?  This is
not "Nuts" it is an evil agenda being perpetrated on a nation of sheep.

SUMMARY:

I have no doubt that the real consequences of wildlife worship in the East
and wildlife used as a radical tool in the West are far more than is
publicly known or acknowledged.  The attack on the New Jersey boy, like the
attack on a similar Cape Cod child is avoidable by reducing and KEEPING
reduced populations of such animals in urban/suburban environments.  They
will only get worse as the animals are more familiar and comfortable with
humans.  My own County in Virginia is hiring a "biologist" to explain to us
"how to live with wildlife" while ignoring the politically incorrect,
controversial, and only real solution - control.  Rabies shots are bad
enough. Coyotes, like mountain lions and wolves and grizzly bears are fully
capable of snatching a child or older person and consuming them.  This, in
my opinion, allows our friendly government employee to pawn it off on a
child molester or Alzheimer's because of some "law of biology" and a
reluctance to focus public ire where it belongs.

The people being directly affected in the West know these things but they
are powerless before unjust Federal laws, the raw power of government
bureaucracies, and the legal machinations of truly evil environmental and
animal rights agendas.  They know coyotes stay away from human places where
they are shot or trapped.  They know that the grizzlies and wolves are
killing their dogs, destroying their hunting, making them consider moving to
a city, destroying rural economies, and leading to even more powerful
central government and radical forces in this country.  They know the depth
of the lies about "they never" and "they always" and "you are living in
their habitat".  Yet they remain hostage to the values and ignorance of New
Jerseyites, Bostonians, Chicagoans, and Los Angelinos that soon enough will
experience the growing attacks and harms that have always far outweighed and
environmental claims or romance in a howl and have heretofore been the
burden of bumpkins and people that you disagree with politically anyway.

So supporting politicians that let you take away other's rights from
property and guns to fighting roosters and pets is OK until they start to do
the same to YOUR right to a free press, or speech, or religion.  Just as the
Western wildlife experience is heading East, our loss of freedoms is sure to
expand.  Like rust, once it starts it can prove impossible to stop.

Putting this genie back in the bottle, as our far wiser forefathers knew and
did, will be costly and it will take time and determination.  Whether we
still have the intestinal fortitude for prolonged confrontation and victory
is being tested not only in the Middle East but in New Jersey and Idaho as
well.  Much is riding on each conflict.

Jim Beers
12 April 2005

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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.