SPECIES is a political term. 

Prior to the late 1960’s, “Species” was a biological term used for centuries to describe animals (plants are a very different and more complex “ball of wax”) with similar characteristics that could reproduce those characteristics consistently in their offspring.  Scientists focused on how best to describe each Species and their closest relatives in larger groupings like Genus (a grouping of similar Species), Family (a grouping of similar Genuses), and Order (a grouping of similar Families) as a way to categorize and understand them and OUR environment.  Academic discourse and quibbling in laboratory offices usually centered on whether certain similar group of animals were “subspecies” or separate species; or if there were any differences at all between isolated “populations” of identified species.  Biological opponents in these academic discussions were labeled “lumpers” and “splitters”.  Terms like “distinct” population and population “segment” existed only in isolated laboratories in esoteric conversations between professors with tenure often searching for a new “gig” to attract new funding to please University administrators and thereby cement tenure and increase pay.  All of this changed in the early 1960’s when Environmentalism and associated radicalisms (Animal Rights equating animals and humans; Sex Boundaries’ Termination trumpeting that same-sex sex, multiple sex, sex with animals, same sex “marriage” and adoption by same sex couples were simply “rights”; Abortion becoming a “right” to terminate a human life – ironically while simultaneously advocating the end of hunting, trapping, fishing, and animal ownership and use as “cruel to animals”) exploded onto the American scene.  Words like Species, Fetus, Gay and Sex took on public meanings and expressions unimaginable and indeed opposite to accepted definitions up until that time. 

In the headlong rush by federal politicians during the late 1960’s and 1970’s to garner votes from these mostly urban and unaffected (by the new laws) voters; federal bureaucracies (always seeking power, budget increases and more personnel), federal courts bursting with environmental “awareness” and “concern”, and the newly powerful and rich environmental/animal rights movement invading the federal lobbying world with others like Women’s Liberation, Gun Control, Gay Rights, and Federal-Discrimination-Laws advocates began changing the USA into a reflection of their personal and composite wants and desires.   

Americans witnessed an eruption of federal “animal” laws. The Marine Mammal Protection Act, Wild Horse and Burro Act, Animal Welfare Act, Black Bass Act, Bald Eagle Protection Act, Fur Seal Act, and The Endangered SPECIES Act; each of which created new and specific (is it archaic here to note that the word “specific” has the same language root as “species” and once inferred the same concept?) FEDERAL AUTHORITIES over NAMED SPECIES.  This explosion of federal funding available to federal bureaucracies with portions to share with appropriate “strings” with compliant state bureaucracies, scientists and universities.  This eagerly-sought funding to CREATE POLITICAL AND LEGAL JUSTIFICATIONS DISGUISED AS “SCIENCE (else you didn’t get any more money or support) was merely “steroids” for federal bureaucratic purposes like growth and power.  This spelled the death knell for the biological legitimacy of the term “SPECIES” since that word was now a political term powerful forces bent on “changing” America for their own benefit. 

During the headlong rush to judgment and passage of The Endangered Species Act, there were glimmerings of what was about to take place but no one paid attention. Public programs and media releases said only that unless new federal laws were passed immediately (shades of “Global Warming” & “Climate Change”) the Bald Eagle, Kirtland’s Warbler, Whooping Crane, Gray Whale, African Elephant, Rhinoceros, American Alligator, Gray Wolf, Florida Key Deer, etc. would disappear forever.*   

*Note the classic concept of species here.  The first 3 birds mentioned above had been under federal Treaty authority for decades by the time they were Listed so why was new Federal authority being sought?  The Gray Whale likewise was under federal authority for 30+ years by this time and likewise was already under federal authority so what was to be gained?  The next 2 African SPECIES were the epitome of what came to be known as “charismatic megaSPECIES” and while the threat to rhinos was Muslim Knife aficionados with money and there were 200 or more THOUSAND elephants in Africa (think of how much they eat and what that does to the wild plant “environment” as they trample crops and kids): so what was to be done with a new federal law (stop hunting comes to mind)?  The American alligator was doing just fine under state authority in Florida and Louisiana and had been historically sparse in surrounding states for decades since they lacked the extensive wetlands of those two states.  “Gray” Wolves really meant all N. American wolves in those pre-red/mexican/eastern/timber/etc. wolf days when wolves were over-abundant in Canada and Alaska and were about as “endangered” internationally as cottontail rabbits in Kentucky.  “Florida” Key Deer (why “Florida”? were there “Key” Deer elsewhere?) are a “Poster-Child” example of the political kidnapping of a biological meaning of “species”.   

Whitetail deer, exactly like other mammals (wolves, cougars, and bears come to mind) that occur from or close to the equator to the Far North (or South in South America) show great variability in size, color, population densities, and behavior.  Large specimens occur in the North where size is an advantage and smaller specimens occur in the South where higher temperatures disadvantage larger bodies.  Larger and larger specimens emerge over time when long periods of abundant and easily-obtained food is available and  smaller specimens become more common as food availability dwindles over time.  Dark-colored animals survive better in dark habitats like woodlands or mountains and light-colored animals survive better in light-colored habitats like deserts and grasslands.  Long time periods in certain habitats (like deer in The Keys or wolves on the Taiga or Tundra) generate distinct behaviors and diets: just it would be unlikely that a Montana deer could be dumped in The Keys and survive, so too are wolves from the Canadian North dumped in the Lower 48 States bringing behavioral and dietary habits that we would judge to be inimical to more settled areas where livestock, loosed dogs, and unarmed humans, unused to wolves, wander in profusion. 

So do these things mean there are many “species” of whitetail deer?  Do they indicate there are many species of wolves?  AAAhhh you say doesn’t the vaunted “DNA” tell us the answer here?  “Sorry Charlie”, DNA only tells us what we want to hear when it comes to such things.  While it is true that they can tell my DNA or the DNA of a bear that just ate some camper, that is totally different from answering “how many species of black bears or wolves are there”?  The fact that my DNA is close to my Mother’s or my Grandfather’s tells us nothing.  If the DNA chart says “Irish” are a different species and the same is true for all other nationalities and “tribes” why there are so many human “species” as to make the term “species” meaningless.  If the DNA chart says white people and black people and yellow people are each different “species” do we have three human species?  As silly as this is, that is exactly what we are doing with wolves (and many other “Endangered” and potentially “Endangered SPECIES” like “NORTHERN” Spotted Owls or “FLORIDA” Black Bears for instance) as we declare “Red”, “Mexican”, “Timber”, “Gray”, Eastern” and other such nonsense names for wolves that, like other widely-occurring mammals display varieties of size, color, and behavior as they wander and adapt to a variety of habitats.  If you doubt any of this, note the next news release about some “unidentified” (wolf/dog/coyote/whatever?) that has to be killed and how they will say that (like “Red” wolves) they have “some dog” DNA and/or “some coyote” DNA as well as “wolf DNA” thereby inferring that “real” wolves of “real” coyotes would “never” do what created all the turmoil or injury or loss of life.  So much for all that “species” definition stuff when the cards are down! 

What about that “species reproduce their characteristics consistently” stuff?  Here is where it gets really interesting.  Just like breeding a Doberman with a cocker spaniel can give you some pups mid-size to Mom and Dad and some pups with curly hair and some with straight hair and some with kinky hair and some pups colored like the Dobe and some colored like the spaniel and some a heretofore unseen blend of the two: so too will breeding a little Mexican wolf with a big Northern Alaskan wolf give you genetic (size, color, physical characteristics, etc.) expressions that are compromises and variations to an almost unimaginable degree.  Does this mean Dobes are a different “species” than cocker spaniels?  Does it mean that crossing an Alaskan wolf with a Mexican wolf creates a “new species” (Alaxican?) of wolf?  Of course not, but wait a minute, don’t wolves breed successfully with coyotes so are they one or two “species”?  But hey, wolves and coyotes breed successfully with domestic dos and even dingoes in Australia passing on the parent’s characteristics just as consistently as a Montana wolf mating with an Idaho wolf bitch in heat as he wanders about midnight pastures: so are they all one species or are they 4, 5, or whatever “species”? 

The real answer to the above lies in the eye of the beholder and other than academic biology pursuits is meaningless.  How, you ask, can I say this when I said that species is a political term and the focal point of so many new federal laws and environmental appeals?  The answer is, “easy, since once the initial law is passed or the ‘species’ is ‘Listed’  the politicians (who then look the other way), the bureaucrats that pass out the money, the radical groups that oversee the process, and the ‘scientists’ that get the money and want more have opened up the federal authority to cover ‘subspecies’, ‘races’, ‘populations’, ‘distinct populations’, and even ‘distinct population SEGMENTS’ meaning ‘distinct populations’ divided by a legal boundary like a County Line or even your place and my place”.  That is the kind of “killer politics” using an innocuous word that even Boss Tweed or “Big Jim Thompson” or even V.I. Lenin couldn’t imagine.                                                                                                                                                            

So I don’t get excited about this or that “species” discussions anymore, than I get into discussions about whether the federal government has Constitutional authority over manatees and sea otters (they really do not); or whether federal declarations of Critical Habitat for endangered species on private property are a “taking” as prohibited by the 5^th Amendment; or whether such seizure of private property rights is for a public “USE” as mandated in the 5^th Amendment; or whether such taking entitles the owner to “just compensation” again as specified in that pesky 5th Amendment.  Like the word “species”, the Constitutional specifications more and more mean whatever those in power want or need them to be, and the rest of you, be damned! 

“Species” is a government steroid that bureaucrats and politicians should have to get a prescription to obtain.  Their propaganda use of the term and the way it has been morphed into a lethal tool of government oppression is shameful.  The biological use of the term is irrelevant though the political term is always disguised as “science”.   

For the record, since all those Canids (wolves, dogs, coyotes, dingoes) can and do be breed successfully this old biologist thinks of them as one “Species” with the division between them (coyote/dog, etc.) being best described as “Subspecies” and then all those regional variations (N-S, Cold to Hot, Dark to Light, and Behavioral like attitude toward humans and fondness for big game or livestock or dog meat) simply being “Populations” as in “Alberta wolves” or “New England coyotes”.  If anyone uses this as an example of my ignorance or my intransigence, just laugh at him or her.  Because, they are simply trying for whatever reason to confuse you and make you think that the Government-Generated definition of “Species” is real and must be believed like 1930’s German politicians defining the “Aryan” super-race and everyone else as “Untermenschen” or “sub-humans”.  There wasn’t any biology there either and like here, the government definition hid an evil agenda all dressed up as “science”.   

“Saving” “Louisiana” black bears, just like “eradicating” “Invasives” like pheasants or brown trout, or “restoring” “Native” species or ecosystems are all federal red herrings.  They are no more about these things than they are about space travel.  They were, are, and will remain simply ploys by those in power and their sponsors to destroy this nation and remake it as a tyranny ruled by them.  And the term “Species” has been playing a major role in this subversion for quite a while now. 

Jim Beers

4 July 2011

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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