by Jim Beers
In the midst of the current barrage of Orwellian terms about the Endangered
Species Act ("improve", "strengthen", "strip",
"rape", "throw out", etc.),
an article on page A3 of the 13 February Washington Times should jar us all
back to reality. The title of the article is "Deer Threaten Ginseng Crop,
Biologist Says". The picture shows a West Virginia University
professor
holding a ginseng root. The scientist tells us in the journal Science that
"ginseng could be extinct within 100 years if deer keep grazing at current
rates." "One solution that he believes will ensure the herb's
survival is
to reintroduce mountain lions, wolves, or other natural predators in the
Appalachian Mountains." "Nature is out of balance here because we've
killed
off the top predators; so the obvious solution is to restore them."
I am sure that this revelation caused light bulbs to go on everywhere from
Washington, DC to the North Shore of Chicago. Imagine, a widely
distributed
plant that grows in forests is believed to be "healthful" and is
becoming
extinct BECAUSE of deer plus a "scientist" puts forth a preferred
solution
of reintroducing wolves and mountain lions. Wow, this one has it all.
What
is "all"? Why "all" is everything the Endangered
Species has been expanded
to cover as of this date and an unlimited potential for unimagined future
Federal power expansion. Keeping in mind the wording of the Endangered
Species Act and all of the Federal power expansions it has generated, let's
consider how the ginseng plant can, like the spotted owl on the west coast,
cause more havoc to more people than anyone can imagine until it is too
late.
If ginseng is approaching extinction, no matter the time, Listing under the
Endangered Species Act whether under this Administration or the next green
bunch in the fringes of ginseng's range is a sure thing. One need only see
how the ubiquitous rocky mountain bighorn sheep in the Sierras are Listed as
a "distinct population segment" while they thrive throughout the
western
states.
A plant, as opposed an animal, is much more "plastic" when it comes to
listing it in all or parts of it's range. By "plastic" I mean that
unlike
animals where you can list subspecies, races, populations, distinct
populations, and distinct population segments (anything above a pair),
plants also have varieties and that makes Listing anything a snap. The
scientists can no doubt identify Western Appalachian ginseng, or Great Lakes
ginseng, or lowland ginseng, or mountain ginseng, or glacial till ginseng or
on and on. Listing will be easier than almost anything to date.
Ginseng is widely distributed in woodlands. It will be easy to show that
logging or home building or clearing or mining or any disturbance will
jeopardize it. Critical Habitat designations will dwarf western
designations of woods needed for spotted owls. Most Federal Forests and
private woodlands can be designated "Critical" (at NO COST, since the
Endangered Species Act destroyed the part of the Constitution that required
"no taking without compensation"). Logging, home building,
roads, and any
manner of forest disturbance will require a "permit". Even
clearing a half
acre next to grandmas so you can tear down her place and move her in with
you will require a bureaucrats permission. But this isn't the half of it.
Deer can come under Federal jurisdiction over most of the country. Since
the deer are what is making the ginseng "extinct", just like
California's
mountain lions (that are making the bighorn sheep in the Sierras extinct)
the Federal government will take over deer control programs to "save"
the
Listed ginseng. The only reason they don't take over full jurisdiction on
California's cougars is that the cougars kill people and the Federal
government doesn't see any profit in handling that sort of thing. There is
no such problem with taking over deer management, since they don't kill
people and most Federal bureaucrats want to hasten the day that hunting is
no longer allowed. But I have saved the best for last.
The scientist says (why do I always hear a drum roll when I write that?)
that wolves and mountain lions "should" be reintroduced in the
Appalachians.
That is like the hokey 10 years ago about "reintroducing wolves in
Yellowstone Park". The wolves soon inhabited the Upper Rocky Mountain
States and have wreaked havoc on big game, livestock, dogs (hunting,
watchdogs, and pets) for hundreds of miles in every direction from
Yellowstone in less than a decade. The Appalachian Mountains is merely a
seed area for the Eastern half of the country to be stocked with mountain
lions and wolves.
The mountain lions and wolves will kill deer. They will also kill dogs and
livestock and foals and mares and cattle (when driven off soon enough they
may only eat 20 or 30 lbs. of meat off the hind quarters of the still living
steer) oh, and kids and old people. In my visits to West Virginia I have
noticed lots of kids and old people walking in rural areas. They will of
course have to educated about "puffing up" and "rolling in a
ball" and not
being in a "predator's habitat", you know all the absurd government
propaganda that convinces urban Americans that there is no problem "out
there".
Then there is the danger to hunters. In thick Eastern woodlands mountain
lions and even wolves will blunder into and occasionally attack hunters like
the increasing grizzly bear attacks on western hunters. Aside from
injuring
and killing some hunters, the predators will discourage other hunters from
risking attack, especially for ever rarer chances to see a deer. Those not
so discouraged will not last long after a hunter or landowner kills a wolf
or a Federal (because they kill deer that eat Listed ginseng) mountain lion
because it was threatening him or his family and because the bullet entered
behind the cougar's shoulder the man is sent to prison and his family is
forced to go on welfare.
The list of advocates for all this is endless. Federal bureaucrats can get
millions and lots of new positions to "manage" ginseng and the
"natural
predators". They will need more positions to "oversee"
State deer harvests
and regulations in deer/ginseng areas (nearly all of the majority of
States.) When they go to buy up a place like Upper Darby in Ohio for a
refuge, the next time they will claim it is "necessary" for the
preservation
of the "Upper Scioto Floodplain Ginseng" and maybe that will push them
over
the top. The professor and a few of his counterparts in say Kentucky and
perhaps Wisconsin will get grants for research about Listing, and then for
"Monitoring", and soon more professors will get into the lucrative
predator/deer/ginseng business and determine the need for more enforcement
(Federal) and the regulations will be written and modified and adjusted.
The Non-Governmental Organizations will raise tons of donations. Defenders
of Wildlife will again assume the role of "paying for losses" (except
dogs
and people and things not 100% provable and things like sheep where
Defenders doesn't think they should be, etc.). The chardonnay will flow
and
the brie and caviar will sell good on the North Shore of Chicago at
gatherings to "raise money" to save woodlands by reintroducing
"top"
predators. The Sierra Club and Wilderness Society will jump on the
"need" to
for the Federal government to buy and close more woodlands and to force
private landowners to stop uses on their own land unless a "permit" is
granted and permits won't be "granted". Lawsuits before
"friendly" courts
will be more numerous than killer whales in the Bering Sea. Radicals from
the Ruckus Society and ALF and ELF and the Wildlands Project to the National
Wildlife Federation and the Humane Society of the US and the Animal Welfare
Institute will symphonically publish articles and create mayhem to
"save"
ginseng and restore the predators.
The State fish and wildlife agencies will work hard to see that they get
every Federal dime available to or due them. Bonuses will be granted for
the most Federal dollars obtained. The State politicians will merely shrug
and say there is nothing they can do.
What of hunters? Well deer and bear (there is only so much to eat in the
woods) hunting will go "extinct" eventually. Hunters will see
and hear dogs
killed. Hunters and farmers and rural resident will be more cautious about
going anywhere alone. Dogs will have to be kept close and inside at night
everywhere outside cities of 50,000 or more. Livestock will be killed,
often in large numbers from individual flocks or herds. Humans will be
maimed and killed. And best of all neither the Federal or State governments
will be liable or responsible. When citizens complain to State officials
they will be directed to the "responsible" Federal bureaucrats.
Those
Federal bureaucrats will direct you to the Endangered Species Act and their
regulations and want to know what your name is.
All to "save" ginseng! This is no exaggeration. The
precedents and court
rulings make all this not only possible but likely. There have been no
successful heroes to date. As long as the Endangered Species Act remains
as
the growing lab specimen it has become, abuses such as I have described here
will both proliferate and grow in totalitarian harm. The government
bureaucrats and the professors and the Non-Government Organizations are,
like the predators they advocate, merely behaving in preordained ways.
The "top predator" throughout the world for thousands of years has
always
been MAN. MAN determines what plants and what animals in what amounts
exist
at what locations. When we allow the Federal bureaucrats to arrest people
for shooting a grizzly bear in their yard or a wolf in their pasture while
other countries that signed the UN CITES (the treaty the Endangered Species
Act implements) kill wolves on sight and grizzly bears at the drop of a hat
if they are threatening; we make a mockery of the US Constitution. There
is
NO "best" or "predetermined" mix of plants and animals
anywhere. The lower
48 were and would be still just fine if there was only the few wolves in
Northern Minnesota and a handful of grizzly bears on the Montana/Canada
border country. To have allowed this unchecked growth of Federal authority
over plants and animals at the expense of State Constitutional authority is
bad government and bad environmental management and a violation of
"domestic
Tranquility" that is one of the first and basic charges "We" gave
to
government in the Constitution.
The Endangered Species Act can only be changed by Federal politicians. No,
correct that, Federal politicians with integrity and guts. The Republican
administration of Nixon loosely managed and sympathized with the Federal
bureaucrats that drafted (with their UN counterparts) CITES and the
Endangered Species Act. Thirty-five years later we have seen what it is
doing and how and why it must be amended. Thirty-five years later there is
a Republican White House, House, and Senate. If it (positive change that
protects our government and our people and our rights while providing for
plants and animals) is not achievable now, will it ever be?
Amendments should confirm the Constitutional guarantee of "no taking
without
compensation". They should not grant permanent Federal jurisdiction
over
any plant or animal other than those named in duly ratified treaties with
sovereign nations and not "Conventions" brokered by the UN. The
Federal
role should consist of providing funding for research and Listing. Listed
species should be identified to State governments and incentives offered to
States and private property owners should be temporary in nature and
voluntarily acceptable by States and private landowners. State authority
over plants and animals should be preserved, not systematically destroyed.
Perhaps a "requirement" that any US delegations to UN meetings should
first
and foremost protect all provisions of the US Constitution would be
advisable and productive.
One more little thing, that might go a long way toward checking this Federal
environmental growth would be to forbid any public land or environmental
project or any part thereof from being named after any Federal elected
official or employed bureaucrat until say 25 years after their passing. In
the case of new refuges and parks and additions and etceteras, the decrease
of incentives to add or expand the Federal presence would be a good thing.
Jim Beers
14 February 2005