Today, there is:

1.      An agreement between the US Fish and Wildlife Service and selected radical “environmental”/animal “rights” organizations to appear “reasonable” about “delisting” wolves in selected states and “returning” wolf management to state governments.

NOTE: The USFWS and these radicals are scared stiff that the ongoing and growing budget war in Washington, DC will have the Endangered Species Act suddenly mentioned in the same breath and sentence as “NPR Funding” and “Planned Parenthood Funding”.  Also, “delisting” and “returned” management to states will both remain subject to USFWS oversight (numbers, areas, methods of control, etc.) driven by radical lawsuits and federal bureaucratic self-interest.

2.      State laws being considered in western states to prohibit state expenditures and support for wolf work as long as federal control remains in place while considering state defiance of federal wolf mandates.

3.      Federal legislation in the form of a budget amendment to “delist” wolves in a few named western states and a proposed legislative “delisting” of wolves that has languished as federal Senators and Representatives treat “delisting” much like play-dough as they dodge and weave about budgets, debt, taxes, and “cuts” in anticipation of an upcoming election that threatens more of them that at any time in my experience. NOTE:  Anyone not understanding that these same federal legislators and bureaucrats (see #1) will reverse any of this “Band-Aid” (their perception) legislation or budget amendment trickery as soon as the danger of ESA defunding or amendment passes and big game hunters begin watching NBA “games”: well, they don’t understand what they are up against’

4.      An activist judge interjecting himself into all of the above as he plays the part of savior of the environmental extremist legislation of the 1970’s.

5.      Federal predator control activities’ and budgets are being cutback and are probably becoming vulnerable to elimination as wolves expand their range and numbers, cougars are spreading and “worshipped” (the correct term), coyotes have spread throughout the Lower 48 states, and federal anti-gun activists are working to write and ratify a UN Treaty to ban and confiscate all Americans’ guns and ammunition.

6.      State fish and wildlife agencies are “in the pocket” of federal bureaucracies.  For example, when I write about wolf problems in Minnesota I am deluged by local fish and wildlife professionals about how there are no wolf problems here: while last year alone federal trappers killed 192 “problem” wolves (for killing livestock and dogs), Minnesota moose herds are disappearing, and deer hunters in wolf country take fewer and fewer deer.  When cougars show up in Minnesota (as in Iowa) the state reminds us that “they are protected and ‘native species’ that we should appreciate”.  Ditto, Wisconsin where large-wolfpack pictures are held by state agencies for 6 months to be released to the media at the height of the union radicals’ seizure of the state capital; where the state begins an #800 for dog hunters to call about wolf problem areas; and where the deer harvest is down 30% in wolf areas. Yet each state continues to claim fewer wolves than are actually present while assuring the public that “delisting is right around the corner” and everything will be fine as soon as that happens.

In summary, there are positive things underway as public outrage and deadly threats to both human safety and private property grow like a wildfire.  There are also very negative things spreading like a plague from wolf expansions, wolf habituation to human environments, and growing wolf danger to rural children and women to the threat of gun prohibitions and the disappearance of predator management by government and hunters and trappers. 

In this environment, I honestly pray (because of the lives of innocents that are slated to die from this wolf/predator “worship” debacle being perpetrated by a government charged with “domestic Tranquility” and “the general Welfare”), that any of these current attempts to resolve this national calamity are successful.  Under our system of government, the Local government (County and Sheriffs) should be the deciders about whether or not and how many and where wolves, cougars, coyotes, and bears are to be tolerated or allowed in and around the community – No matter who (federal, tycoon, etc.) owns land within the communities’ boundaries.  State governments exist to preserve such lawful exercise of local community desires, community values, and community economic health demand.  The federal government has NO authority or business forcing any of these dangerous predatory animals on any state or local community. 

In my opinion, anything short of either repealing or amending The Endangered Species Act to eliminate: 1. Government taking without compensation, 2. ANY federal government authority to “restore ‘Native Ecosystems’ or ‘Native Species” (for instance wolves worldwide are so abundant and destructive, i.e. Un-endangered worldwide, as to invoke worldwide wonder at the stupidity of Americans allowing wolf introductions, and 3. Any authority for federal bureaucrats to conduct any species restoration activities in any state without state concurrence and specific US Congressional Budget Authority and Authorization.  Anything short of these three things or the simple repeal of the ESA only invites future abuses heaped upon these abuses as political conditions permit. 

The best analogy here is to think of the ESA as Prohibition.  Do-gooders with high-sounding rhetoric obtained passage of the ESA in 1973 just like similar progressives obtained passage of a Constitutional Amendment prohibiting the “manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors” in 1919.  Just as the ESA has destroyed rural American communities, Prohibition destroyed urban communities.  Just as the ESA corrupted state fish and wildlife agencies, Prohibition corrupted city governments from Police Departments to City Hall.  Just as the ESA seemed to call forth a pack of radical organizations and bureaucrats manipulating the ESA for radical agendas, Prohibition similarly brought forth from the immigrant ghettos the Italian Cosa Nostra families and their death-dealing practices to manipulate Prohibition along with bureaucrats for their own nefarious and deadly interests.  Just as anti-ESA fervor has grown over wolf abuses nationwide, so too did outrage at all the shootings and prostitution and control of once-legitimate businesses created by gangster families spawned by Prohibition seem to defy solution.  Just as the ESA seems immune to being “touched” much less repealed or seriously amended; consider what our parents, grandparents, and great grandparents must have thought about the chances to (Repeal a Constitutional Amendment?).  Consider also, that Prohibition was repealed (1933) as public outrage was mounting AND the nation was in the throes of economic collapse and a new President was just elected.  Remember all this as we cut federal programs, cut spending, and all pontificate about “restoring The Economy” as we approach a Presidential election. 

 If Prohibition had somehow been revoked only in New York and Illinois what would have happened? If anti-booze ladies were able to “agree” with ATF to allow only wine and beer in California and Florida, what would have happened?  If as the Depression continued, ATF was still chasing bootleggers and arresting bar patrons, what would people have done?  Just as we are still investigating, arresting, and imprisoning the Cosa Nostra gangster families spawned 90 years ago in the 1920’s,  so too will we be dealing with these pagan environmental/animal rights radicals years from now.  Giving them a federal law (as would have maintaining all or some of federal Prohibition have meant to the Mafia) to keep manipulating for their own perverse ends would have been stupid. 

Finally, when the rubber hits the road and people begin to be maimed and killed by GI (government-introduced) wolves; the future will be fraught with enormous problems:

1.      Government wolf control programs will be either non-existent or so reduced and so staffed that experience and ability to control problem wolves will be unable to respond.

2.      Methods of control from aircraft use by civilians (Airborne Hunting Act prohibitions); chemicals (EPA regulations and secondary effect fairy-tales); and denning i.e. killing pups using gas, etc. are “inhumane” and possibly conflicting with the Animal Welfare Act (1976) to trapping (vulnerable to prohibition on “federal lands as proposed under Pres. Clinton); forced (by local governments) wolf controls on federal lands and lands held by wolf “lovers” and on the millions of federal acres sealed off to access by Wilderness and Roadless Declarations and other federal land closures and transportation easements will take much work to sort out.

3.      Reduced federal and state budgets are unlikely to have funding to engage in widespread and persistent predator control.  Ranchers are no longer large enough components of rural communities to finance widespread control activities, hunters will be reluctant to finance controls, and urban environmentalists and animal rights advocates will be putting stumbling blocks before control efforts at every opportunity.  Resulting depressed land values and tax base will simply contribute to the downward rural living spiral.

4.      Young men (rural and especially urban) are being “taught” anti-gun, anti-hunting and anti-trapping values in schools and in the media.  “Calling”, shooting, trapping, and otherwise killing predators for sport will be and is becoming non-existent.

5.      State agencies are no longer staffed by employees both knowledgeable of and capable of managing and controlling predators either by government employees or sport hunters.  Additionally, many, if not most of the current state fish and wildlife agency workforce, like their federal counterparts, are diametrically and emotionally committed to protect these predators no matter the cost in human lives, property or political orders.

6.      The average state budget in the US recently passed the 50% mark wherein more than 50% of the state budget comes from the federal government.  Overcoming this sad fact in the milieu of federal/state bureaucracies intertwined with radical agendas (TNC, HSUS, PETA, Wilderness, NRDC, CBD, etc.) and decades of government hiring and promoting anti-management employees is daunting, if not impossible, to say the least.

7.      Hunters, ranchers, and other rural residents directly affected by deadly predators have failed to recognize the threat of anti-fur protests and the decline of the fur market.  When there is no use for wolf fur or coyote hides or bear skins, etc. there is little or no incentive for rural men to trap, shoot, or otherwise spend the time training dogs or developing the necessary skills and techniques, and then hunting, trapping, and processing such animals – where and when community values dictate to meet community needs.  When such men no longer exist in rural communities, either government or private control programs entail costs too high to do any more than localized and intermittent controls that actually could prove to be worse than no control (by creating islands of few predators that simply serve to attract surrounding and over-populated predators to areas with less competition). 

No one knows the future.  I see both good news and bad news ahead but I have hope that honesty and truth will win out.  Working together, making new allies, and understanding what our goal is and what stands in our way is what will bring victory if we build on the momentum we see growing all around.  The real work lies ahead. 

Jim Beers

14 April 2011

*My computer has been off line for 2 weeks and I have had to buy a new computer and I was unable to download all the data from the old computer.  If you wrote me in the past 2 to 3 weeks and I have not acknowledged you, please resend.  Thank you. 

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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 Eagan, Minnesota with his wife of many decades. 

Jim Beers is available to speak or for consulting at   jimbeers7@comcast.net