by Jim Beers
seems like it will be a blitzkrieg like cockfighting was smashed, sometimes
it seems like an ingenious grand strategy is in play like a chess game or
our WW II strategy in the Pacific. Yesterday's 6 May 2005 news item from
the Associated press seems like a single play out of the latter "grand
strategy" theory. All the players are here; the hunter, the dead
dogs, the
dismissive Federal expert, the lady animal rights soldier masquerading as
some sort of wizened "biologist", the phantom wolves, and the media
propaganda report all made up in "wolf's clothing".
"BOISE, Idaho - Wolves from a north Idaho pack have killed three bear
hounds".
"Travis Reggear, a professional hunter in Orofino, Idaho, said he and nine
Walker hounds were with clients Tuesday on the third day of the black bear
season north of the Dworshak Reservoir."
"All nine dogs set off after a bear but only six re-emerged from a steep,
heavily wooded slope on land managed by the Idaho Department of Lands,
Reggear said Wednesday. "The signal on the three dogs' tracking collars
hadn't changed in 15 minutes, so I knew they were dead," he said,
describing
finding the hounds he said were worth thousands of dollars. "They were bit
all over, from head to toe. Their ribs were broken, and one dog's neck was
busted."
"They speculated the dogs encountered the wolves, some of which wear radio
tracking collars, near what was probably a den full of this season's pups."
"They made short work of three of the dogs," said Carter Niemeyer, the
Idaho
wolf recovery coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "If you
run a pack of dogs on top of a pack of wolves with pups, they're going to be
deadly."
NOTE: No one knows if there were pups present (running with a pack in early
May?) but the expert makes us all feel good that "baby" wolves weren't
harmed. So the government is hereby cautioning all hunters using dogs
(everywhere?) that if they run into the government-introduced,
government-protected wolves they deserve whatever happens to their dogs.
Maybe the dog breed that these hunters use aren't the same breed as Indian
dogs when Lewis and Clark despoiled the "west" and are therefore
considered
"INVASIVE SPECIES" - yet another unforeseen benefit from the
benevolent
government wolf program.
The news release goes on: "If my livestock or animals get off of my
property and endanger anybody, hurt anybody, or destroy any private
property, I'm liable for it," Reggear said. "I'd like them (state and
federal officials) to be responsible for their animals' actions."
NOTE: Just who does this hunter/dog owner think he is anyway?
Government
doesn't have to abide by the rules citizens must respect. One need look no
further than the continued dumping of toxic waste by the US Army Corps of
Engineers from the DC water system through a National Park under an EPA
permit approved by the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine
Fisheries Service into the Potomac River onto the sole spawning grounds of
the Endangered Shortnose Sturgeon for decades with the full knowledge of the
District of Columbia and State of Maryland government. Just who does this
fellow thinks "enforces" the same standards on the Federal government
that
citizens must live by, the UN?
The news release concludes: "Anyone taking hunting dogs out on public lands
should be aware that wolves are very territorial and will protect their
young this time of year," said Suzanne Stone, the Northern Rockies Field
Representative for Defenders of Wildlife in Boise. "They are especially
aggressive toward strange dogs because they view them as a threat to their
pups."
NOTE: Why does this animal rights organization masquerading as some sort
of
quasi-governmental experts get quoted as other than a non-governmental
organization using the wolf as a surrogate to eliminate hunting? How were
they ever made a Federal "partner" in the whole forced wolf
introduction
scenario? That all began with a US Fish and Wildlife Director that oversaw
the wolf imposition on the West and now has a top job with the
"Defenders".
Actually, the same protection of wolves killing dogs applies on private
property as well as public property but it sounds better to infer that the
government enforcers and the nice environmentalists only protect wolves on
"public" lands where wolves "are very territorial and will
protect their
young this time of year," and are "aggressive toward strange
dogs"? Strange
dogs"? Wolves kill dogs in yards, on walks, in the act of hunting,
while
protecting stock, while herding sheep; indeed they kill dogs just let out
the back door to piddle before coming back in to go to bed with a child or
on the porch. They kill dogs whether they are strange or familiar.
The
only thing that will save a dog or a coyote for that matter is if a female
is in heat and there are no female wolves around. It has been like this
for
millennia.
If the increasing incidence of these wolf clashes with society and the
government/animal rights' NGO responses doesn't show how wolves are now
shutting down hunting and rural outdoor recreation, nothing does. What
about the infeasibility and cost of "managing" (i.e. collaring.
tracking,
trapping, moving, removing, generating propaganda about why property
destruction and human harm is exaggerated or just something citizens
"must"
put up with, counting to prevent any claims of too many, protecting from
"hunters" and "ranchers" and people who "just like to
kill" wildlife, etc.,
and generating all manner of concoctions why every nook and cranny of the US
"must" have wolves) twice as many wolves or 10 times as many?
How long
before populations reach those levels and wild prey (wolves don't eat
grass - we are talking elk, deer, moose, bighorn sheep, etc. here) decrease
proportionately? If wolves don't increase the percent of their diet
consisting of domestic cattle, sheep, goats, horses, etc.; what do you think
they will eat, Domino's Pizza? What happens when they infest suburbs (one
just ran through Wausau, Wisconsin in broad daylight)? Who other than
parents will be responsible when a child or old family member is harmed or
killed?
All the nonsense about wolves "only do this" or "only eat
that" is just
that, nonsense. Government experts and University professors never
predicted the explosion of resident Canada geese when they began issuing
permits 30 years ago to stock parks and golf courses and the same
"experts"
told us the Ivory-billed Woodpecker was extinct for 60 years until they
needed a surrogate to prevent Congress from reforming the Endangered Species
Act, to stop Corps Projects, to get more money for The Nature Conservancy
and US Fish and Wildlife Service, and further restrict logging (and hunting)
in the southern US.
But not to worry. Soon enough the dog hunters will be but memories.
Soon
enough the big game and much of the small game will be but remnants due to
both the wolves' depredations and the increasing numbers of anti-hunters and
anti-hunting policies employed by State and Federal agencies. The public
apologists and animal rights dissemblers will continue to do their job and
get "more resources" (i.e. pay, bonuses, people, control, etc.) while
the
wolves continue to spread and increase and the inevitable demise of hunting
will finally appear like a blitzkrieg. For a long time though it has
merely
been an island-hopping strategy by self-serving bureaucrats and scheming
radicals and pandering politicians that all have bumper stickers
proclaiming, "We Do It For The Environment".
Jim Beers
7 May 2005
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