If we are to learn anything from this matter it is that nothing is too
illegal for our Federal bureaucrats; nothing is out of bounds when votes are
to be bought; PT Barnum was correct about the American public; and the
continued use of "best science" and "University experts"
as references or as
a basis for public policy ranks right up there with fortune tellers and
Mafia enforcers.
I have written seven articles and much personal correspondence on the
Ivory-billed Woodpecker scandal over the past nine months. The articles
can
be read on my website and blog noted at the end of this article. In
short,
the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, and
Cornell University and several environmental profiteer-insiders like The
Nature Conservancy and the National Wildlife Federation secretly told
Congress that they had discovered a heretofore thought to be extinct
woodpecker. They did this about 3 years ago and Congress secretly gave
them ($10?) ($15?) (?) million dollars to set about buying easements and
buying land and creating new positions and whatever else was
"needed" to "save" the Woodpecker.
This was kept secret for two years while land was purchased and easements
purchased on woodlands in southern Arkansas. After it became public
almost a year ago, the rural folks were told they were going to get rich from
tourism and that "experts" were in the process of determining what
would be done to "save" the woodpecker. Environmental
organizations began to warble about "needing to protect 5.5 million acres
throughout the south". Everyone was told hunting for ducks and
turkeys and deer in the woodlands would not be impaired (this in spite of the
fact that the Ivory-billed woodpecker is described in old literature as
appearing like a "pintail duck in flight").
During this secret period, land easements were purchased from uninformed
landowners by tax-supported organizations. During the secret period,
plans
were laid by government and a select few "partners about how they would
buy land, publicize and fund future needs, and who would be allies and
opponents and what to do about them. In other words it was like what
these same actors did on the west coast when they used the spotted owl to
close down logging and forest use and management and rural communities.
When I applied under The Freedom of Information Act for all documents,
correspondence, phone calls, meeting notes, etc. from this secret two-year
period the "honorable" solicitors in the Department of the Interior
denied my request because I wouldn't understand all of the technical nuances.
Fast forward to March 2006. After almost a year of battalions of
"researchers", "graduate students", bureaucrats, and
amateur "birders" saturating southern woodlands with every technical
device known to man no one has found said woodpeckers anywhere in the southern
United States. Envy (like puppies watching others feed) has generated
competing claims of more needed woodpecker research and inventories in Texas
and the Carolinas and even in Florida. But alas, this has all generated
only a few more ignoramuses like me and even a few esteemed professors saying
that there may not be any Ivory-billed Woodpeckers flitting about the southern
woodlands. Imagine that!
The question is not (in spite of what the newspapers and journals and public
affairs flacks for the US Fish & Wildlife Service and their environmental
crony organizations say) whether the bird exists or whether it was mistaken
for a Pileated Woodpecker amongst the thick southern forest tree trunks or
honest men having made an honest mistake. NO, no, no. The questions that
should be asked are:
- On what basis can the US
Fish and Wildlife Service and the Department of the Interior and the Arkansas
Game and Fish Commission ("public" agencies all) keep
"secret" a two-year collusion with select non-government
organizations?
- How can Congress dole out
Millions of dollars of our tax money for a bird that does NOT exist?
- Who is responsible in the
Federal bureaucracy for this travesty? Who will be disciplined (i.e.
fired)?
- How can Congress maintain
tax breaks and a business relationship (buying back land,
"partnering" in purchase and easing of private property, etc.) with
organizations that participate in a scam (for profit) of this magnitude?
- What assurance do we have
that this will NOT be repeated? If enforceable legislation that makes
this illegal is not in place, when will it be in place?
- Since the premiere
ornithology University in the nation (Cornell) is involved in this misuse of
Federal funds and the appropriation of land rights from private owners based
on their "science", why should "best science" and
testimony from "University experts" be anything more than it ever
should be - namely advisory information and NOT the basis for raiding the
Treasury, lining Bureaucrat pockets, pandering to rich non-government
organizations, or justifying the vote-getting needs or politicians constantly
assuring their re-electability?
- (I could go on for pages
here but my time and your patience are limited.)
The real question is how did this happen and how do we prevent it from ever
happening again?
After spending the last six years of my career getting beat up by these
environmentalists and animal rights outfits and then writing about them for
the past six years in retirement, the chance that this was all a mistake and
that any of these bureaucrats, professors, and environmental
"executives"
believed any of this or were working with pure motives is about as great as
asserting that Pol Pot was about to open refugee centers just before he was
overthrown.
I won't be taking any bets either that anyone will ever be held accountable.
Remember this the next time you read about the US Fish and Wildlife Service
and The Nature Conservancy and Cornell and the Wildlife Federation or listen
to one of their presentations or discover them in your backyard.
Remember and ask yourself how these increasingly egregious affairs got worse
and worse. Like bullies in class or thugs on the street,
unaccountability breeds worsening conditions for everyone.
Jim Beers
17 March 2006
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- This article and other recent articles by Jim Beers can be found at
http://jimbeers.blogster.com (Jim Beers Common Sense) or at
http://www.jimbeers.net/
