Latest Ecological Armageddon 

Snippets:

The "Best Science" that each new environmental law and regulation claims as
a basis today is at best "snippetology science".  A snippet is a "small
piece", a "fragment", or a "scrap" according to Webster.  Adding the suffix
"ology" means "the study of" thus the study of fragments.  These "fragments"
or "snippets" are used as legal justifications and as propaganda in the
media to advance the expansion of government authority and to evangelize the
public with myths and bogeymen for the purposes of radical and hidden
agendas of various factions both within and outside this country.

This morning's propaganda snippet appeared in my paper under the byline,
"Shark decline threatens scallops" "Species balance ocean ecosystem".  The
opening line informs us that, "Overfishing of sharks may endanger bay
scallops by upsetting the balance of the ecosystem, according to a new
report."  We are informed that skate and ray populations are going up along
the East Coast due to "Overfishing of sharks" and that the skates and rays
are "gobbling up shellfish, particularly bay scallops".  The rays and skates
"enter sea grass beds and dig up clams" this "is an important nursery
habitat for shrimp, blue crabs, and fish".  We are then propagandized that
"Ecologists have known that reducing key species on land can affect an
entire ecosystem but his study provides hard evidence of the same thing in
the ocean".   The article goes on to editorialize that, "there is a high
concern that we may now be cascading to habitat destruction".

This snippet of marine biology is full of overstatement and hyperbole.  What
does "Overfishing of sharks" mean?  If you want to harvest X Tons of certain
sharks annually and, using the same methods of harvest in the same areas,
the take or the reproduction is decreasing: "Overfishing" will mean
something.  However, these "scientists" and their "Journal" have no such
human value dimension to hang their "Overfishing" charge on.  In other
words, just like wolves or whales or seals or mountain lions or grizzly
bears or porpoises or coyotes or sharp-shinned hawks or Coopers hawks or
golden eagles or sea otters or any of countless other predators in the
world; there is no level of population that may be determined or agreed to
other than whatever level they are at, at a particular moment when there is
no management.

All of the predators I just mentioned depress and often eradicate
populations of other animals.  Wolves eradicate local populations of species
like moose and bighorn sheep while depressing elk and deer populations to
unhuntable levels and simultaneously driving sheep and cattle growers off
the land and killing canine pets, horses, and exotic stock like emus.
Whales depress commercial fish stocks like cod as well as the fish and plant
food base that feeds other commercial fish populations.  Sea otters depress
abalone, seals and sea lions depress and may eradicate salmon strains and
rock lobsters as well as commercial fish feed.  Sharp-shinned and Coopers
hawks kill adult and young songbirds and endangered species like plovers and
terns.  Grizzly bears depress elk populations and drive cattle and sheep
growers off the land while (like sharks and wolves and mountain lions and
coyotes and leopards and lions and hyenas et al) creating a constant deadly
danger to humans (from the youngest to the oldest) that live or work or play
in proximity to them.

So "who" sets "what" limit or what point when "OVER" harvest or "OVER" use
or "OVER" population kicks in?  The professor who mysteriously refers to
something called (his opinion of) "THE ECOSYSTEM"?  The government
bureaucrat primarily interested in his bonus and retirement and power for
himself and his agency?  The politician looking for whatever it takes to get
reelected?  The radical activist working for an organization committed to
expanding and consolidating government power to stop the use of all natural
resources and hobble the United States in various other ways?  The urban
professional living in an isolated (from nature) environment in search of a
"noble cause" that does not affect him and to which he can donate and
support?  The answer is all of the above and the answer is more money and
power to government; more closure and "protection" of land and resources by
government fiat; less and less resource management and use on both public
and private property; and more fishermen (like loggers and ranchers and
hunters etc.) eliminated as their equipment, traditions, and rural
lifestyles disappear.

Shark numbers and distributions have come into question of late as bathers
have been attacked and killed.  The "usual" protestations (shades of
mountain lion and wolf and grizzly bear attacks) wear thin as the attacks
increase.  You know the stuff about "they never do that", such attacks are
"very rare", "they (the human) shouldn't have been there", or "we are in
THEIR (the sharks') habitat", etc.  So inevitably (as with all these other
predators) we are served "Snippets" about how "important" the
"fill-in-the-blank" is to "the ecosystem".  It is all raw propaganda.

Do I mean they are lying?  No.  They may be (I have seen that often enough
over the past 35 years) but I have no indication that such is the case here.
What I do mean is this:

- Society (the lower the level the better because accountability of local
officials is always greater) should determine if ANY or how many of these
predators are to be tolerated in the county or state or off certain beach
areas, etc.  Likewise they would be determining harvests or
commercialization or methods of controls to be employed.

- Certainly interstate stocks of marine fishes or migratory birds or high
seas activities require Federal actions that should be of a
management-oriented and use-oriented nature.  For instance if skate and ray
populations are depressing scallops, why not encourage a skate and ray
fishery (commercial fishermen in the past were arrested for "punching out
ray fin meat and peddling it as 'scallops'").  This article quoted above is
of the last 35 years-genre to wit, "Oh my gosh, look at this catastrophe;
quick stop the human activity and give the central government more power and
either quit complaining or stay out of the water".   This is ala wolves,
whales, and all the other predators being utilized for these hidden agendas.

- When articles are quoting a "science Journal" and say things like
"Ecologists have known that reducing key species on land can affect an
entire ecosystem but his study provides hard evidence of the same thing in
the ocean" and "there is a high concern that we may now be cascading to
habitat destruction" do not be intimidated by either "scientists" or some
"Journal" or a "bureaucrat".  People lived very happy and productive lives
in the Rocky Mountains for 50 years after wolves were eradicated and
grizzlies were few and far between.  Africans would be able to develop their
nations and improved their economic lives (like ours) if there were fewer
crocodiles, leopards, etc.  High seas fishermen would see commercial fishery
rebounds quicker if marine mammals were managed to reasonable levels than
they ever will with "Sanctuary Declarations" and management program
eliminations that will never be reversed.

- There is NO particular mix of plants and animals that is proper in any
area save the one that people agree to as compatible with human life,
commerce, and daily activities.  Ecosystem is a legitimate concept for
studying, predicting, explaining, and managing the interplay between plants
and animals be they in a back yard, throughout a mountain range, or over an
entire continent.  "Native Ecosystem" is a valuable baseline from which to
gage changes and how they have modified things and as a predictor of likely
management options. Terms like "Invasive" and "Non-native" are valuable
identifiers as we seek to understand change and manage toward a productive
future.  All of these terms are simply study terms that have been improperly
utilized as ends unto themselves for the hidden agendas mentioned above.
When certain species are "harmful" or "destructive", be they "Native" or
"Non-native" they should be controlled or eradicated.

- We should be managing our lands and waters and high seas responsibilities
in line with the sustainable utilization of renewable natural resources.
There is no more difference between considering the reduction of minke
whales to levels and distributions compatible with desired commercial
fishery recovery and harvest levels and deciding that one half of current
wolf levels in Alaska are all that will be tolerated THROUGHOUT THE UNITED
STATES.  Setting an acceptable level of take of porpoises in tuna nets is no
different than reducing sea otter levels to increase abalone harvests or
clam populations (despite how "cute" both species are).  Grizzly bear levels
and distributions that endanger rural residents, depress rural economies and
public land uses and revenues should not be maintained.  NOTE: None of the
species "set" their own levels nor am I suggesting that we kill them all.

So relax, we are not "cascading to habitat destruction" and "reducing 'key'
(whatever that means) species" does NOT "affect entire ecosystems" it merely
changes our environment.  Making such changes advantageous (like defending
Liberty ) is a constant job for everyone.  Ecosystems like nations and
cultures always exist and the fact that they change should always be managed
to accentuate positive things and minimize negative things.  Sadly such
"snippets" (the earth is warming, the earth is cooling, the earth is turning
into a desert, the earth is being over-populated, the earth is running out
of food and minerals, polar bears may become endangered, the skates are
eating all the scallops, and on and on) are used to stampede us to the
latest excuse for more government authority at our expense instead of simply
being a fact for determining how to maintain and strengthen a Constitutional
Republic while accentuating positive things and minimizing negative things
all around us.

Snippets may sell papers and provide info-bursts to teachers, bureaucrats,
and politicians but those of us who elect them and pay them need to be sure
they separate facts from selected "fragments" of reality.

Jim Beer
30 March 2007

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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.