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Wolves -
Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
A talk given in Boise, Idaho and Enterprise, Oregon on 16
February and 19
February 2011 respectively.-
February 2011 respectively.-
Historical Presence –
For thousands of years wolves have been vilified worldwide and depicted as
dangerous, deadly, and sinister. Myths, legends, and literature from Little
Riding Hood to modern movies and novels caution readers and listeners to be
wary of wolves. This depiction would have never persisted had there not
been a widespread awareness and recognition of wolves as dangerous and
destructive animals.
According to Stanley Young in his Wolves of North America, Pliny the Elder
(23-79 AD), a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher “suggested
the use of a wolf’s tooth as an aid to infant teething”. Paulus Aegineta, a
Greek doctor in the mid 7th century “prescribed for arthritis, a bath,
prepared by boiling whole wolves in oil”. I mention this not as some useful
folk medicine, rather it indicates the presence of wolves not only in
ancient Europe but even within the precincts of the most “developed” nations
as “Western” civilization emerged and urban areas appeared.
In North America, Aztecs of present-day central Mexico were reported in the
1552 Badianus manuscript to recommend “wolf’s liver as an ingredient in
medicine to cure ‘black blood’ or melancholia” as well as “pricking of the
breast with ‘the sharpened bone of a wolf’”. Montezuma’s garden that
“provided animals and plants for the use of court physicians” “contained
wolves.” When Europeans arrived, wolves were found from Mexico to the
Arctic Ocean and from the Pacific to the Atlantic.
Wolves had been killing Native Americans, their dogs and the wild animals
that fed them both for centuries. When Europeans arrived they joined the
Native Americans in this situation, especially when they were unarmed.
Wolves killed the European’s domestic animals and dogs with abandon thereby
forcing small farms to stay small (like Asia) in order to protect domestic
animals. The next time you look at an old photo or drawing of Early
American homesteads note the closeness of corrals and outbuildings with
their smells and disease potential so close to homes: it wasn’t only
rustlers that forced ranchers and farmers to live like that.
Wolves spread diseases that killed and debilitated humans, domestic animals,
and wildlife. Wolf abundance varied with food availability. Population
fluctuations in buffalo, caribou, elk, moose and other grazing animals due
to fires, weather, and plant changes from over-use or lack of use by such
grazing animals caused population booms and busts that affected the
predators as well as the large grazing animals on which they fed. European
settlers’ livestock offered a steadier availability of food as Europeans
expanded their range and diminished former wolf food like wild grazing
animals.
Wolves, coyotes, and dogs are the same species. They can and do interbreed
and produce viable offspring. Wolves, like coyotes and dogs are omnivorous
and, though they prefer meat, they can and do adapt their diet to whatever
is available. They are proven and clever adapters. They are unpredictable
and may go for periods when they avoid humans to suddenly causing widespread
outbreaks where they attack, injure, and kill humans and human groups in
ways and with intensities not seen for long periods. They have been known to
spread all manner of diseases for centuries. I have written about 30+ such
infections and diseases spread by wolves, none of which was considered when
the wolf introductions were being formulated in “Impact” Statements or
Justification documents.
Wolves were purposely and with forethought extirpated from much of North
America by both immigrant Europeans and established families that had been
here for generations from the 1600’s to the mid-20th century as the
continent was settled. Posses, poisons, trapping, shooting, denning
(killing pups in dens), “Wolf Boards”, and other effective means were
employed as the continent was settled and as rural communities were
“civilized” and made hospitable to modern society. Ask yourself if such
time and effort would have ever taken place based on “myths” or on a blood
lust based on fables by men working 24/7 on the edge of existence?
A similar but total extirpation of wolves was concluded after centuries of
effort by the 19th century in Northern Europe as well as England, Scotland
and Ireland where the large Irish and English Wolfhounds were bred and used
to kill wolves that persistently killed and maimed humans while savaging
rural precincts in many ways. Dalmatians, originally from Croatia and to
this day still aggressive with other dogs, were used to accompany and warn
travelers about the presence of wolves. Large dog collars with spikes were
used in Europe and the British Isles to hopefully delay a wolf’s attempt to
tear open a dog’s throat in a fight until a man could arrive to save the dog
and kill the wolf. “Spittals” or small huts were built in the Scottish
highlands along isolated roads and trails “to guard the overnight traveler
from wolf attacks.” Again, does anyone believe that all this was because of
unfounded vilification of wolves?
Consider further an historical comparison between societies that eradicated
these deadly and destructive predators like Europe and North America and
those that simply lived with such dangerous animals like India, Kazakhstan,
Russia, Uzbekistan, and Africa. Contrasting those societies that have
entertained the continued presence of these deadly predators with those
nations where rural safety was assured by the extirpation of wolves:
stagnation, tyranny, and backwardness were more often the hallmarks of
societies where deadly predators were allowed to persist and rural safety
remained problematic; progress, freedom, strong economies, and participatory
government are hallmarks of nations that assured rural safety for rural
families by extirpating wolves.
By the 1950’s the only place where wolves were acknowledged to still exist
in the Contiguous 48 US states was northern Minnesota. Wolves in Canada and
Alaska were still common despite widespread wolf controls like shooting and
trapping in all three locations to protect rural residents and rural
economies. This control was periodically increased by rural residents and
government control officers when large-scale livestock predation, wildlife
predation, human attacks, or other such situations occurred.
YESTERDAY (Late 1960’s to Mid 1990’s)
In the late 1960’s, the United States was gripped by social turbulence and
an expansion of federal claims of authorities taken from State government
over wild animals, domestic animals, and every imaginable segment of “the
environment” by an explosion of new federal legislation. Private property,
states’ rights, animals as property, ranching, logging, energy development,
irrigation, hunting, fishing, farming, trapping, wild animal management and
use, and public land management and use were all vilified and marked for
extinction by emerging Non-Government-Organizations like The Wilderness
Society, The Defenders of Wildlife, The Sierra Club, The Nature Conservancy,
Humane Society of the United States, and The Animal Welfare Institute.
These environmental and animal rights forces were joined by Gun Control
groups interested in eliminating the presence of guns and 2nd Amendment
support by stopping recruitment of young hunters and reducing wild game
availability. Both of these groups depended on eliminating the strict
interpretation of the Constitution that they challenged as they lobbied for
new federal laws and new federal authorities. Additionally, established
pro-hunting and pro-natural resource management organizations like The
Wildlife Federation displayed a knack for self-preservation and shifted
surreptitiously to support these “new” groups that many of them believed
were inevitable creators of a “new” federal government that would implement
their agendas. Terms like “environmental activist”, “animal rights
radical”, “extremist”, “liberal”, “Rino”, “preservationist”, “tinker bell”,
“eco-wing nut” and “tree hugger” became common slang to identify the new
factions and policies emanating from Washington, DC.
By the early 1970’s federal politicians began reaping votes and popularity
by passing The Endangered Species Act, The Marine Mammal Protection Act, The
Animal Welfare Act, and The Wilderness Act . Who could be opposed to such
high-toned and admirable things? Who could have imagined what they have
wrought today?
United Nations bureaucrats and US bureaucrats discovered mutual benefit
through cooperation by signing UN “Conventions” that could be claimed to be
“treaties” under the Constitution (thereby becoming “the Law of the Land”)
and thus granting US bureaucrats regulatory authority over more American
rights and traditions. Old treaties like the Migratory Bird Treaties with
Mexico and new bird treaties with Russia and Japan were “amended” or
re-negotiated to include, and thereby protect from any management, birds
like hawks, owls, and cormorants that were formerly and purposely managed
and controlled by state governments for the benefit of fisheries,
hatcheries, game animals, non-game wildlife, and domestic animals.
In the 1970’s, the social unrest of the 1960’s was answered by new Civil
Rights Laws that created federal Equal Employment Opportunity regulations
and the Civil Service Reform Act. These laws created sex and race quotas
and preferences throughout the federal government. They created federal
agency top managers that were not from the agencies’ ranks or backgrounds
but from outside selections made by political appointees based on political
criteria. These managers were paid annual bonuses of 10’s of thousands of
dollars based largely on “hiring, promoting, and transferring women and
minorities”. When this proved practically impossible due to long-standing
hiring and promotion “requirements” (like so-many-hours of certain academic
pursuits such as wildlife management or like the need for any promoted
employee to have worked in so-many states or so many stations or in a
Regional Office or Washington, DC) those requirements were abolished. The
natural result of all this was the CSRA became an engine to eventually
eliminate the commonly required Civil Service Entrance Exam as “biased” so
therefore hiring off-the-street became common based on “whatever” or
expected favors for hiring a powerful politicians kin. Whether viewed as an
“unintended consequence” or as some sort of “Manchurian Candidate” plot, the
results were particularly devastating to the land and natural resource
agencies like US Fish and Wildlife, Forest Service, and Bureau of Land
Management.
Think about it. Think about the US Fish & Wildlife Service, the US Forest
Service, and the Bureau of Land Management. Think about the
environmental/animal rights’ organizations and their agendas. Think about
rewarding federal managers for hiring people based on NOTHING more than
their philosophy and politics. Anti-hunting and anti-ranching federal
wildlife “managers” hire who? Anti-logging and pro-wilderness federal
forestry “managers” promote who? Anti-grazing and pro-public land closure
“managers” transfer who? “Managers” are then rewarded and given big bonuses
based almost entirely on the percentages (measured to the 10th’s of
percentage points) for women and minorities.
Consider the impact of this on federal policies over time. Consider if the
government made note of the lack of Quakers in the Department of Defense and
passed a quota/hire/promote/transfer/bonus-rewards system for managers to
increase Quaker representation. If such a system was in place for 40 years
would you be foolish to look to see what the impact of preferential
“non-violent” employee hiring, etc. had on Defense policies?
The USFWS, FS, and BLM workforce changes have been dramatic and should be
carefully considered whenever you deal with them or are asked to believe
that they are telling the truth or that they will keep their word about
predators, grazing, forestry, hunting, fishing, pubic land management or
public land use. To those that see this as “too confrontational”, remember
that the agendas these folks represent (anti-logging, anti-ranching,
anti-hunting, anti—energy development, anti-fishing, anti-trapping, etc.)
mean to eliminate these things; while we that see our livelihoods,
traditions, culture, freedoms, livelihoods and way-of-life being destroyed
ARE NOT trying to make vegans eat meat or birdwatchers shoot animals or
releasing rattlesnakes near urban schools because we believe everyone else
should do and be what we dictate. They are on a mission, while we are
defending our rights and freedoms.
Wolves were placed under Federal authority as “Endangered” in the late
1960’s based solely on claims and assertions emanating from philosophical
preferences (i.e. “Minnesota is still shooting and trapping wolves and soon
they will be extinct”, etc.) and not any “science”. This meant that
Minnesota (the only Lower 48 state acknowledged to have had wolves at the
time) could no longer do anything with or about Minnesota wolves unless
authorized or permitted by federal bureaucrats. While this initially caused
great consternation in Minnesota, state government resistance was muted by
offers of federal funding and a certain new national attitude about the
futility of standing up to the national environmental / animal rights /
federal juggernaut and the inevitability of an all-powerful federal
government representing these factions. The fact that there were 100’s of
thousands or millions of wolves in Asia plus wolves in Europe, Africa,
Canada, and Alaska made no difference.
In about 10 years federal wolf “experts” claimed a need to distinguish “red”
wolves and “Mexican” wolves from “gray” wolves and “timber” wolves. Soon
“red” wolves were grown in government kennels and released on Cape Romaine
National Wildlife Refuge in South Carolina and Alligator River NWR in North
Carolina. Then “Mexican” wolves were bred in government kennels and
released on federal lands in Arizona and New Mexico. In truth, this
government wolf-breeding brings to mind dog breeders that “breed” bigger
Labrador retrievers or “thinner” Irish Setters for customers that will pay,
and pay it did.
Federal and state “experts” gave cover to radical propaganda by studiously
ignoring the “big lie” that there has never been a documented attack on a
human by a wolf in North America” when there have been hundreds of such
incidents and many more undocumented attacks. Government agencies put the
fear of God (or should I say Gaia?) in people concerning defending
themselves or their family or their property such as a dog from threatening
wolves by establishing drastic penalties, large fines, felony charges,
jail-time, prison-time, loss of voting rights, and loss of gun rights for
anyone harming or harassing, much less killing, any wolf for any reason.
Ask yourself how my neighbors or a court would treat me if I told all the
families in my neighborhood that my Dobermans were harmless and that if they
get loose just stand still and they will leave you alone: and then they got
loose and killed your child or your wife? Our government acts as if they
have the ancient “Divine” Right of Kings and Roman Emperors and we are but
peasants created only to serve them.
What started as “saving” Minnesota’s wolves evolved into “introducing”
wolves on federal lands under the “special” federal authority of federal
ownership despite State laws. By prohibiting any controls, burgeoning
populations as in Minnesota soon began “spilling” into Wisconsin, then
Michigan, Then the Dakotas, Illinois, Iowa, and even Missouri. “Saving”
“Endangered” animals changed without notice into “introducing” deadly and
harmful animals back into rural communities from which they had been
purposely extirpated. Suddenly and without any legal justification the fact
that wolves had once (?) been here or there meant that government could put
them anywhere it pleased. Could I, for instance, have “introduced” cougars
or rattlesnakes or whatever on my purchased property in defiance of state
laws and regulations? Would I be held responsible for any death, injury, or
damage they perpetrated? Could I have put such animals near bus stops or
schools despite the objections of the members of my community? Hardly.
I will hereafter refer to all of the wolves currently in the Lower 48 states
and their future offspring (with the exception of those wolves in northern
Minnesota where they occurred before the federal wolf introduction and
protection began in the 1960’s) as “GI” Wolves. The “GI” stands for
“Government-Introduced”. This term cuts through all the faux “science” like
“red” and “Mexican” and all the legalese-fairy tale terms like
“experimental”, “distinct population segment”, and “genetic connectivity”.
The use of the term “GI” identifies who is responsible for the wolf that
kills a child, dog, livestock or elk herd, as in “Jim Beers’ Dobermans”.
The use of this term covers ALL the wolves and their offspring both
introduced directly and those encouraged to spread throughout neighboring
jurisdictions by government fiat and government coercion.
As the GI wolves spread out onto private property from federal ownerships
like “Parks” and “Refuges” they killed livestock, hunting dogs and wildlife.
Both federal AND state wildlife employees downplayed what was pictured as
“certain rural bumpkins” were hysterically claiming was happening.
Newspapers and electronic media under-reported or blocked any publicity of
dogs, wintering game animals, and calving game animals dragged down and
eaten alive in backyards in towns where all animals were in danger more and
more of the time. Children often witnessed these spectacles and parents
worried about trips to and from school bus stops or to mailboxes or to take
out the garbage. The fact that government perpetrated this growing
situation was unbelievable to more and more Americans as the wolves
increased in numbers and spread into new areas. Today, Wisconsin even has
an 800# to get wolf warnings about where wolves are most active in order to
protect your dogs (and??).
State fish and wildlife agencies increasingly were seen as supporters of
wolves, grizzly bears, cougars, and coyotes as benign creatures that
“belonged” on the land because they were “native” and “balanced” things.
Wolf impacts were downplayed. Cougar sightings were denied or identified as
“escaped animals” by state employees; even as they burned and replanted
state hunting areas to eliminate pheasants under the auspices of “restoring
the native ecosystem”.. Bear attacks were blamed on human mistakes and low
berry crops. Coyote attacks on children were downplayed by state employees
describing them as very “unusual”. All in all, the symptoms of state
agencies becoming de facto federal subcontractors for federal agendas,
federal money, and national environmental agendas started to become apparent
to more and more state residents that, ostensibly, employed them.
Minnesota wolves began popping up in Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula as
some began wandering south into Illinois and Indiana.. Mexican wolves hadn’t
started hanging around bus stops yet but they looked like they were going to
“take-off” at any time. Wolves in the SE were showing up throughout the
Carolinas and surrounding states killing some dogs and breeding with others:
so the stage was set by these precedents for the next phase of wolf
introductions – “The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem”.
TODAY (MID 1990’S TO THE PRESENT)
The early 1990’s was a period of secrecy about future federal wolf plans.
Federal action had already backed down Minnesota’s jurisdiction claims and
established the legal precedent that federal demands trumped state
objections. Federal claims of “red” wolves and “Mexican” wolf “population
segments” as separate from other wolves were found to be justified based on
federally purchased “science” that satisfied the courts. Unchallenged use
of new terms like “experimental”, “population”, “distinct population”, and
“distinct population segment” as the basis for federal actions under the ESA
became common. Assertions about “only so many wolves” or “only so many
packs” were calculated and purposeful lies meant to put underway the
situation we are facing today wherein wolf numbers are at best questionable
and census techniques, especially with limited budgets, are merely lies
calculated to win legal arguments in unchallengeable ways. Wolf destruction
of dogs was found by courts to be the dogs’ fault. Rural residents were
warned about harassing any wolf and the most advanced enforcement
techniques, entrapment and extreme punishments were upheld and tolerated by
certain courts. States and rural Americans were cowed, so what was next?
Federal bureaucrats requested funding to release wolves during this period
in the “mother-lode” of US wolf introduction sites in the Contiguous 48
states - “The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem”, otherwise known as the Upper
Rocky Mountain/Pacific Northwest/Intermountain Western States where
livestock and big game hunting were slated for elimination by the radicals
in and those controlling the federal “environmental” agenda. However,
Congress was getting wary of what was happening and rejected the request.
Consider the vast federal land holdings surrounding Yellowstone (itself a
100+year-old sacred federal icon of “untouched” and unmanaged “wilderness”
where hunting was specifically prohibited to “save” the animals.. Consider
the expanding AZ/NM – NC/SC – Great Lakes wolf locations. Consider the fact
that the federal politicians were beginning to worry about being blamed if
and when someone was attacked or killed. Consider the fact that complaints
about wolves harassing children and killing dogs, livestock, and wildlife
were increasing even as government and NGO “experts” pooh-poohed them.
In 1994, the Republicans, to everyone’s complete surprise (including the
federal workforce and especially the wolf “experts” and USFWS managers of
the day), took control of the US House of Representatives and thereby the
federal budget “purse-strings”. That same year USFWS began secretly
diverting or stealing millions of dollars from federal excise taxes that by
law could ONLY go to state fish and wildlife agencies for “Sport Fisheries
and Wildlife Restoration”. The money was used, among other federal things
to capture Canadian wolves quietly, import them surreptitiously, and with
the shortest “acclimatization” period in history to release them in
Yellowstone National Park. The rest, as they say, is history.
In 1999 The General Accounting Office was asked by the US House of
Representatives to audit the Excise Taxes collected for Sport Fish and
Wildlife Restoration. Such thorough audits never occur unless the Congress
directs the GAO to do so. The published findings were issued to the Natural
Resources Committee and covered the fiscal years 1995 and 1996. It was
found that the USFWS had diverted for its own use and in violation of the
authorizing Law $45 to 60 Million and used most of it to introduce wolves
into Yellowstone, pay bonuses to USFWS employees that had no connection with
that activity, and to open an environmental liaison office in California
that Congress had refused to authorize or fund.
Setting aside the fact that the USFWS had hired a US Senator’s close
relation that soon administered that California office: no one was ever held
responsible for the “diversion” and any follow-up by Congress disappeared
into the 2000 Presidential Election activities. Most astounding however was
the fact that the state fish and wildlife agencies, from whom the money had
been stolen, NEVER ASKED FOR IT TO BE REPLACED! After overcoming my
astonishment at this once inexplicable development, it took me several years
to piece together why and how this happened. It is useful as we contemplate
the future to be aware of these reasons in order to choose a path and know
who to trust and who to be careful about.
There were many reasons that the state fish and wildlife agencies never
requested that the federal government (either Congress or USFWS) replace the
stolen money and that there was no federal follow-up and resolution, for
instance:
1. The state fish and wildlife agencies could not risk angering their
newfound federal “partners” (USFWS) that were becoming the source of more
and more of their operating money for everything from endangered species and
native ecosystem restoration to Invasive Species eradication and
environmental education projects. Angering federal bureaucrats with
anti-hunting and fishing values that you would rely on for your fair “share”
of future funds did not make sense.
3. The USFWS is required by law to audit each state fish and wildlife agency
every 5 years to verify the legal use of the hunting and fishing excise
taxes. Reasonable audits had not been conducted for decades. Illegal uses
(wildlife lands given to prisons, purchase of vehicles for state motor
pools, paying salaries of state parks employees, stocking fish on private
lands for the influential, timber sales profits put into general funds
instead of fish and game accounts, etc.) of the funds by state agencies had
become common to curry favor with state politicians so any real audits were
feared by state employees and the federal employees charged with overseeing
the funds (some of which the4y had recently stolen). Right after the
discovery of the stolen money used to introduce wolves, USFWS hired an audit
firm to do a 5-yr. Cycle of state agency’s use of the funds and then USFWS
fired them after 2 years since they had already documented over $125 Million
in misused funds and had indications of far more as the auditors began
understanding the often quirky state fish and wildlife funding intricacies.
USFWS then “hired” the US Department of the Interior Inspector General (the
Office responsible for “auditing” USFWS – think about that!) to complete the
audits. Since then the original findings were forgotten or “adjusted” and
subsequent audits have found everything “hunky dory”. The state fish and
wildlife Directors saved their jobs and the USFWS’ “favor” made both state
and federal bureaucrats look honest and “concerned”. That Inspector General
(the one that “saw no evil, heard no evil” etc.) went on to become President
Obama’s Stimulus “Sheriff” (IG) to make sure all the Stimulus money goes to
the right place!
4. The USFWS offered to give the State Agencies’ Washington LOBBY Group (a
LOBBY group mind you) $4 to 6 Million per year from the future excise taxes
to distribute to state agencies and others for “interstate activities”. Of
course the usual “administrative nick” and discretion was allowed the
International (soon renamed “National”) Association of Fish and Wildlife
Agencies for “all the administrative work” involved. This allowed this LOBBY
group to hire more staff and increase salaries. So federal tax money went
to the 50 States’ Washington LOBBY group to LOBBY the federal government!
5. The President of the IAFWA at that time was a retired Chief of the US
Forest Service. That gentleman never took on federal agencies and always
brokered a “deal” that would make everyone happy. Fighting with former
friends and federal coworkers is not in the DNA of such persons that too
often attain high federal positions based on pleasing whoever is in power at
the time. This phenomenon is repeated endlessly even today at other
“conservation” organizations like The Wildlife Federation, Ducks Unlimited,
Trout Unlimited and others that hire retired “top” federal bureaucrats for
their “connections” and “influence”. Never delude yourself that such
persons will defend you or your interests against other bureaucrats, federal
programs, or the agendas of whoever THEY think is or will be in charge today
or tomorrow.
6. The state fish and wildlife agencies had become such true mistresses to
federal and extremist agendas that the thought of holding the feds
accountable, even for stealing millions from the state hunting and fishing
programs, was inconceivable. Many state employees looked forward to future
opportunities to get federal jobs or appointments where the pay and benefits
were generally better. This became even more profitable when 401K’s, IRA’s,
and “Roth’s” became transferrable.
7. The USFWS Director at that time resigned when the White House changed
parties in 2000. The law required a 3-year wait until she could work for
organizations she had dealt with directly while Director. Among other
“achievements” she had made Defenders of Wildlife in charge of depredations
payments for wolf depredations (most often found to be ineligible and once
even denied because “sheep don’t belong there in ‘grizzly habitat’”). So,
after her resignation, The Wildlife Federation hired her at a top salary for
two years and then dismissed her with a payment and when the three years
were up, she was hired by The Defenders of Wildlife in a top slot. Today
she is reportedly waiting to succeed the top “Defender of Wildlife”
executive as he waits to become US Senator Baucus’ Chief of Staff.
8. The Democrat staff person hired by USFWS after losing his job on Capitol
Hill was put in charge of the stolen excise taxes has succeeded as well.
During the Bush Presidency he was (since he was a “career” employee) given a
non-job. Today he awaits, for two months now, a US Senate confirmation
hearing to be Director of the USFWS.
9. After the bitter 2000 Presidential election (Gore, Florida “chads”, and
a Supreme Court resolution) the Republican victors were more interested in
quieting things down than in resurrecting old accusations and thereby
appearing vindictive.
All of this was and continues to be covered up by a biased media, state fish
and wildlife bureaucrats concerned about their reputations back home, and
the fact that no powerful person (“Conservation” organizations?, Sporting
Goods businesses?, Hunters?, Fishermen?, President?, New Republican
appointees? Politicians? etc.) took up the cudgel to punish those
responsible, to replace the funds, and to assure that it would not happen
again. The Chairman of the House Committee that uncovered the theft went to
another House Committee.
What can I tell this audience about has happened in the last 15 years?
-That GI wolves are now in at least 21 states?
-That wolves have killed and consumed unarmed human pedestrians in
Saskatchewan, and Alaska recently? For the record, note that a coyote or
coyotes killed a “20-something” woman in a New Brunswick Park recently so
the lies about a wild dog (wolf) three times the size of a coyote running in
packs is what Nazi propagandists called a “big” lie that when repeated often
enough gradually becomes a fact to sheep-like citizens.
-That those that introduced and protect GI wolves have no responsibility for
the dogs they kill, the game they eradicate, the people they attack, they
rural communities they devastate, the rural lifestyles they destroy, the
rural land values they depress, or the loss of state revenue and joblessness
that they create?
-That the “Yellowstone” GI wolves are now in Oregon, Washington, Utah,
Nevada, the Dakotas, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Colorado?
-That the experts can no longer count or accurately estimate the GI wolf
numbers but make lowball population claims anyway?
-That elk, moose, and deer have declined, some precipitously?
-That state hunting revenues are declining due to a lack of game and safety
concerns for both hunters and dogs?
-That rural economies are declining as ranching costs escalate and hunters
and fishermen disappear?
-That keeping any dog, much less a free-roaming hunter, herder or watchdog
is increasingly foolhardy?
-That state fish and wildlife agencies’ reputations are increasingly in the
tank?
-That federal politicians are reluctant to undo what they wrought?
-That grazing allotments and forestry harvests have declined while
Wilderness, Roadless and other public land closures steadily escalate?
-That revenue sharing with local governments from logging, grazing, and
other revenue-producers on federal lands continue to decline?
-That promised “Payment-in-lieu-of taxes” (PILT) from new federal land
owners to replace the tax losses from local private lands taken off the
local tax rolls when purchased or otherwise obtained by federal agencies,
have dwindled and all but disappeared even before the recent national
“economic difficulties”?
-That public lands are no longer managed for the public and have become an
oxymoron?
-That each year more calls for more federal “Native Ecosystem Restoration”
and “Non-Native Species Eradication” authority at the expense of State and
citizen’s rights are requested?
-That recent threats by radicals to force the federal government to
“restore” GI wolves in all 48 Contiguous states tells us just how far we
have come from a Constitutional Republic to a federal autocracy wherein all
power is solely in a central government that does whatever the most powerful
among us dictate?
TOMORROW?
(Scenario 1)
-GI Wolves will continue to expand their territory and occupy the Contiguous
48 states even without any further federal action except for protection. As
their numbers increase, they reproduce more which in turn accounts for
faster and further expansion (more pups) each year.
-GI Wolves, exactly like coyotes and dogs, can and will adapt to ANY
environment whether cold or hot, wet or dry, mountainous or flat, cropland
or woodland, coastal or inland, urban or rural.
-GI Wolves will eat whatever is available, again just like coyotes and dogs.
While lone coyotes and certain dogs will attack and kill children,
occasionally adults, and even family members where the dog lives; GI wolves
will do all that routinely. Additionally GI wolves travel in packs (thereby
learning quicker than solitary animals how to survive and behave) and will
at various times and under certain circumstances attack and kill groups of
humans like dog-walkers, hikers, and campers especially if they are unarmed.
-Maintaining bird hunting dogs, retrievers, rabbit dogs, pets, and other
dogs except very aggressive watchdogs and large hounds kept close will
eventually become a thing of the past in rural America.
-Lone rural childhood activities like going to and from rural bus stops to
camping and fishing will eventually become things of the past.
-When left unmolested, just like coyotes and dogs, wolves will become
habituated (“bolder”, less “afraid”, whatever you want to call it) and more
dangerous to humans. Make no mistake that as GI wolves expand their range,
medium-size cities and then large cities with their “natural” parks and
trails will be frequented by GI wolves.
-Unlike the “old” days, food is not going to disappear whether it is
garbage, alley trash behind malls, calves, sheep, dogs being walked by
suburban ladies, or kids walking alone to a neighbor’s home; therefore
wolves will not come and go as they fill the Contiguous 48 states. Like
coyotes spreading east of the Mississippi for the past 50 years, wolf
numbers will increase steadily until they occupy every nook and cranny (many
of which are unimaginable at this time).
-Wolves will, just like coyotes and dogs learn to come into towns and cities
at night and keep a low profile as they look for food, defecate and leave
saliva and other fluids (i.e. disease), kill dogs and other animals both
wild and domestic. Urban parks and the web of urban “nature” trails are
excellent wolf byways for such forays and excellent vector sites for dogs to
pick up diseases and infections harmful to humans for transportation back to
human abodes and family members.
-Just like dogs and coyotes, wolves will behave differently as time goes by
in different areas and as they encounter different circumstances. Fifty
years ago, turkeys were said by “experts” to “need” wilderness to survive,
while today they chase mailmen and kids waiting for buses on suburban street
corners and scratch for waste corn in large snow-swept fields near my
Minnesota home. The only difference is turkeys don’t eat meat and don’t get
up to 150 lbs or more when they eat well.
The intended results are clear, as are the overarching goals of the radicals
and extremists that have put these wolves here. Wolf introduction and
protection is but one of many objectives (Wilderness, Roadless Areas, Forest
Management and Use Closures, Cougar protection, expanding “Critical”
Habitats, Government Land purchase and easement with “cooperators” like The
Nature Conservancy, “Native” Species restoration, Grazing Allotment losses,
Road Closures, Free-Roaming Buffalo, increased costs of rural living and
decreased rural land values) intended to evacuate rural America. Evacuation
serves the goals of those that:
Want to “save” the environment.
Want to eliminate hunting and “save” animals.
Want to reduce gun owners and rural residents that fight for 2nd Amendment
rights.
Want to stop ranching (grazing) and logging (forest management and use).
Want the US citizenry to be in urban areas where they are more amenable to
government rules from energy use and education of children to family
structures, cultural values, traditions, and even what they can eat.
Want to control others in perpetuity.
OR WE CAN
(Scenario 2)
Take advantage of the current national mood and political atmosphere:
1. Strong governors and emboldened state legislatures are being elected
to regain state’s rights lost to the federal government.
2. A new crop of federal and state politicians have emerged with a goal
of reducing federal impacts on American lives.
3. State governments are reducing spending and cutting taxes.
4. Federal proposals to drastically reduce federal government size,
power, and cost have never received such attention in my lifetime.
5. The possibility of real government reforms has not been so great
since the 1960’s or perhaps the 1930’s.
There is widespread concern throughout the states and the Nation about:
- The National Debt, The National Budget, The National Deficit, State
Debt Levels, Joblessness, Taxes, and Rural Economic Life.
- Rural communities and rural states are seeing more and more land
being taken off tax rolls due to federal purchase, private conservation
group purchase and easement, and non-use due to federal regulations.
- Loss of hunting and fishing revenues, especially due to loss of
non-resident licensing is increasing throughout the states. Escalating
costs of ranching, logging, farming, construction projects, and energy
development is keeping recovery of the rural economic collapse from getting
started.
SO, you might ask, what does all this have to do with wolves?
Nothing I am about to say is meant in any way to disparage ongoing lawsuits
and proposed exemptions of wolves from The Endangered Species Act. I hope
that all of these actions are successful and the sooner the better.
That said, I believe that nothing less than the repeal, nullification, or
serious amendment of the Endangered Species Act (the bedrock for the entire
insertion of the federal presence into wolves anywhere in the Contiguous 48
States) is necessary if we are to ever have a hope of controlling the number
of and distribution of wolves. Anything less than the elimination of this
proven perverse law and its future precedents leaves open never ending
lawsuit/court battles and the one-sided federal/state struggles that have
marred the last 45 years. Things will only continue to get worse and worse
as we continue these “minuets” that simply tie us up while Rome burns down
around us.
The Endangered Species Act has been perverted from an attempt to save
SPECIES from worldwide extinction to a radical tool used to RESTORE NATIVE
SPECIES and thereby control rural America. It has eroded the Constitutional
prohibition against “taking without compensation”. It has transferred
massive portions of state sovereignty to federal agencies. It has weaned
state agencies from state control to federal control. It has redefined
“property rights” into discretionary government grants. It has cost us
Billions of tax dollars to perpetrate and the loss of American productivity
and output from rural economies over the past 40 years is likely in the
Trillions of dollars. Future funding of such an Act while the country makes
Draconian budget cuts and tries everything to restart the American economic
engine is foolhardy at best. The losses to American culture, traditions,
and lifestyles are incalculable. Revenue from the use and management of
renewable natural resources has been greatly reduced nationally and public
land management, access, use, and self-funding ability has dwindled
precipitously as a direct result of all manner of claims made under the Act.
The Act is responsible for massive transfer of public funds to radical and
extremist groups for legal fees (for lawsuits), “administrative” fees for
land acquisition and easement, concocted schemes like appointing Defenders
of Wildlife as “wolf depredations” Czar, and practically unlimited awarding
of grants and contracts to ally government agencies with radical groups and
certain self-serving University “scientists” in causes that threaten the
very foundations of our Nation.
Speaking of allies, think of all those potential allies across the Nation
that have been similarly harmed by Endangered Species Act abuses:
- Suckers (Klamath)
- Salmon (entire NW and Alaska)
- A Fly (California)
- Snail Darter (Tennessee)
- Smelt (California)
- Sage Grouse threats (Upper Rockies)
- Bats (Eastern ½ of Nation)
- Black Bears (Florida & Louisiana)
- Grizzlies (Upper Rockies and NW US)
- Owls (Oregon, California)
- Red-cockaded Woodpecker (Southern US)
- The imaginary Ivory-billed Woodpecker (Southern US)
- Some species like Polar Bears, Killer Whales, certain Cetaceans like
Minke whales, and Sea Otters have been left unmanaged, destructive to other
animals of importance to man and simply wasted by the “clever by half”
The American Revolution succeeded with only about 1/3 of the colonists in
support, 1/3 loyal to England, and 1/3 wanting to be left alone.
Prohibition of all alcohol (a Constitutional Amendment) was repealed when it
was shown to be destructive to American welfare and a poison to state and
local governments much like the Mexican drug trade is destroying Mexico
today.
National HealthCare (1/6+ of the economy) is being challenged in court and
put up for repeal by federal politicians as I speak.
Other national policies (despite whatever we may think of them) like “Don’t
Ask, Don’t Tell” are being overturned by small minorities, so the change of
significant and widely favored (by the public) policies by minorities are
seen to be possible at this time.
All of the national concern about government costs, government regulatory
interference with economic recovery, and chronic joblessness nationwide.
Think of wolves and the Endangered Species Act in these terms and you
suddenly have allies in all 50 states for reform or repeal of the federal
Endangered Species Act that; like Prohibition, Obamacare, and “Don’t Ask
Don’t Tell”; was unimaginable mere months ago!
How could the Act be REPEALED, NULLIFIED, OR AMENDED?
REPEAL could be done in two ways:
1. Repeal could be accomplished by the US Congress and President right
now. Although many of the current crop of Washington politicians scoff at
this, the next crop we elect could be very open to consideration of such a
repeal of a harmful and expensive federal law. All that is required is for
Congress to draft and pass an Act repealing The Endangered Species Act that
the President then signs. I suggest taking a leaf from current advocates
for repealing Obamacare and put up a proposed Repeal of the ESA for a vote
without regard to likely success but with the intent of putting politicians
on record before the next attack or horrendous action by the GI wolves.
2. A new and innovative National Repeal Act is currently being proposed
by the state of Virginia. The Virginia state government is asking their
federal politicians in Washington to introduce a bill to make it possible
that whenever 2/3 of the state legislatures pass a law specifically
rejecting a federal law – that law is repealed.
Each of these bears watching and considering as we approach what appears to
be a watershed election of federal and state governments. Work with others
and the staffs of decent politicians to support Virginia’s proposal and to
draft a Repeal proposal that you can ask “running politicians about next
year as they ask for your vote!
NULLIFICATION may also be obtained in two ways:
1. Nullification can be obtained by having a federal court rule on the
legality of using the Endangered Species Act to RESTORE Subspecies, races,
populations, population segments, or distinct population segments of SPECIES
that are abundant and widespread worldwide. The “taking without
compensation” especially for a use that is not truly “Public” is another
challengeable aspect of the ESA in practice. Like the Constitutionality of
federal requirements to purchase health insurance, the Constitutional status
of federal actions based on “saving” Endangered “SPECIES” should be
vulnerable to such a challenge or similar challenges in court.
2. INTERSTATE COMPACTS have the potential to return the authority over
all Endangered Species to state governments. It works like this – when
State Legislatures approve a mutual wolf management and control program, the
states agree on the parts of mutual concern such as numbers, distribution,
methods of control, etc. and then dispatch it to Washington for ratification
by Congress and the President whose consent is not spelled out in the
Constitution (Article 1, Section 10). Ratification turns the Compact into
federal law. Justifications for Congress to approve such arrangements today
range from cost-savings and Constitutional sovereignty to increased
responsiveness to American communities and revitalizing rural America in a
time of economic crisis.
How could the Act be AMENDED?
An Amended Act could be proposed as a replacement or as a new substitute Act
as Repeal or Nullification of the current Act is being considered. Such a
replacement or substitute or series of proposed Amendments (to accompany
designated deletions in the current Act) might include the following items:
1. By stating “ONLY SPECIES, NOT Subspecies, Races, Populations, Population
Segments, or Distinct Population Segments may be considered under this Act.”
2. By stating “ONLY SPECIES endangered WORLD-WIDE may be considered under
this Act.”
3. By stating that “ANY TAKING authorized by Congress under this ACT must be
for ‘just compensation’ as stated in the 5th Amendment of the US
Constitution.”
4. By stating that “NO AUTHORITY UNDER THIS ACT may be used to restore
‘Native Species’ or ‘Native Ecosystems’ unless specifically requested by the
legislature and Governor of the affected state or states and specifically
authorized and funded by the US Congress.”
5. By stating that “Any action to restore species in any state may not be
undertaken nor may any taking of private property under this Act be
accomplished without the express consent of the legislature and Governor of
that state”.
6. By stating that “The constitutional authority of state governments,
particularly regarding wild plants and animals; and the authority of local
governments within a particular state shall not be diminished or adversely
impacted by any action taken under this Act.”
7. By making the federal government financially liable for any harms
(financial, human safety, loss of income, etc.) caused by plants or animals
placed in the national natural environment by federal actions.
8. By stating that “Wherever appropriate and possible, the first and
foremost federal role under the ESA for Listed SPECIES should be 1.) making
public recommendations accompanied by applied research and explanations for
each Listed SPECIES, 2.) offer all available dispositions to increase Listed
SPECIES on federal property to state governments and private property
owners, and 3.) then offering all available incentives to gain voluntary
compliance with necessary actions for Listed SPECIES. Failing this, the
vast federal estate should be the first to be used to maintain such SPECIES
where climate, soil, and habitat characteristics are most suitable before
any taking of private property or seizure of State sovereignty is proposed.”
9. Each Species restoration program funding and expenditure must be
specifically authorized by Congress.
10. Native Species and Native Ecosystem are hereby defined by Congress as
subjects appropriate for study and examination to determine where we have
come from and what effects from changes in the future might be concerning
changes in species of plants and animals resulting from environmental
impacts due to human activities. Such study is appropriate to plan for the
future based on experiences in the past. Neither Native Species restoration
nor Native Ecosystem restoration per se is to be the goal of any government
program funded by the US Congress.
11. Invasive Species are defined as expressly harmful plant or animal
species, recently arrived in this nation, that cause injury or harm to
wildlife, waters, domestic animals, plants, agriculture, or humans or human
welfare. Invasive Species specifically do not include currently present
animals considered game animals in any state. Such Invasive Species should
be prohibited from importation into the United States and may be, when
authorized by Congress, cooperatively researched, controlled, and extirpated
in states where they occur and wherein the Governor and Legislature of such
states concur.
A FEW TACTICS
1. Request that your federal politicians draft and support a federal
law amending the Endangered Species Act with the primary reason being
legitimate fears and concerns about wolf attacks on rural children, women,
and men. Ask them to introduce it and force a vote just is happening with
Obamacare. Let all those that support this travesty of an Act vote NO while
thinking about their political future when a kid is killed at a bus stop or
a woman is killed going to her rural mailbox.
2. Form County “Coalitions” that disregard state lines as has been done
in Arizona and New Mexico Counties that are plagued by wolves and federal
enforcers. This helps to offset the negative political influences of
urban-vote areas like Phoenix and Albuquerque. Just like the national urban
areas’ negative influences must be offset by states coming together
politically, so too must state urban-vote areas be offset by County
“Coalitions” formed to face a common enemy and deadly threat.
3. One of the big problems when wolf control is necessarily instituted
will be all the big movie stars, media moguls, widows in old-folks homes,
etc. that own big chunks of land and refuse to allow any wolf control on
their land. This must be treated by State and County governments exactly as
Midwestern states and counties treat Noxious weeds. That is to say that
when a landowner is notified that there are thistles or knapweed or wolves
on their property that they should either get rid of them or the county or
state will do it for them and then bill them and if they fail to pay a lien
is put against the property. Controls, when it is realized (probably after
one or more deaths of innocents) that they are necessary will require such
strong and concerted governmental action.
SOME GROUND RULES
To achieve REPEAL or NULLIFY or AMEND the Endangered Species Act, keep in
mind:
1. Don’t accept the federal/radical ground rules, in other words don’t
play their game. Disregard all the silly legal distinctions like this or
that “Population” or the concocted “science” about “genetic connectivity”,
etc. Reset the game with our Constitutional American rules and terminology.
Whether or not GI wolves will remain somewhere or be introduced somewhere is
a state responsibility with (hopefully as to state behavior) the consent of
the local communities that would be affected. This same applies to the
numbers of wolves and the means employed to control, manage, or otherwise
regulate their presence and impacts.
2. Seek and enlist allies from the widest possible spectrum of the
American public. In addition to the previously mentioned rural factions and
groups upset with federal costs, taxes, etc. look to your national and state
organizations and if they are not supportive, do as you are doing with your
elected politicians and replace them. Organizations are ever-changing
things. Some like The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation were once quiescent
about the threat of GI wolves and now are in the forefront of the fight for
hunting, rural values and rural livelihoods. Others like Ducks Unlimited
and The Wildlife Federation nurture a “conservation” image while hiring
retired USFWS Executives that shoveled money their way while carrying out
radical Endangered Species actions elsewhere. National groups often act
like federal politicians and do so much “horse-trading” that what they
achieve eventually serves only their own narrow personal interests. This is
why state organizations are more to be trusted and more amenable to local
control and the reasons why they were formed and are being formed at
increased rates.
3. In addition to farm, ranch, and hunting organizations; contact
organizations of dog breeders, field trial participants, foresters, range
managers, rural landowners, rodeo associations, trappers, furriers,
commercial fishermen, gun owners, political parties, rural office holders
and whatever else you do, VOTE!
4. Don’t dismiss any control methods or management rules because you
are afraid that “sensitive” voters won’t support your proposals.
Controlling wolves is and will continue to be a very tough business with no
guaranteed success. Wolves learn quickly. Native Americans will support
USFWS and the Department of the Interior not only to receive financial
support but also because USDI issues or withholds casino licenses and
controls much Native American funding though often in slipshod ways. Traps,
aerial hunting, bounties, long and liberal open seasons, snares, and
chemicals will all have to be considered and on the table in the face of
many closed (to hunting or control) areas like Reservations; large closed
land areas from federal lands to absentee landowners such as movie stars,
moguls, elderly widows, etc.; animal rights’ landowners; and “wolf-feeders”
opposed to any controls. Remember that you cannot count wolves on a large
scale accurately so whose counts and how they are conducted and verified is
important since the federal government and the ESA supporters will be doing
everything in their power to maintain the current status quo of their
dictates running us and the courts for their benefit.
In 1770 Edmund Burke, an 18th century-member of the English Parliament,
wrote “"when bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall,
one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle”.
I submit that we must “combine” with others and as that monotonous TV
commercial selling gold says, “The time may never be better” and as the
former White House Chief of Staff (and current Mayor of Chicago-“wannabee”)
recently and famously quipped, “a disaster is a terrible thing to waste”.
The time for a robust national debate and action has never been better or
more urgently needed.
Jim Beers
16 February 2011
EPILOGUE – One week ago I gave a paper at the Society of Range Management
Wolf Symposium in Billing, Montana. The title of that paper was “Wolves and
The Natural Law”. While I had not seen these two papers as one when I wrote
them, upon completing this speech I was struck by how the two papers seemed
to go together. Upon reflection, they seem to be a sort of Declaration of
Rural American Rights. They seem to attempt to do what the Founding Fathers
did when they wrote the Declaration of Independence in 1776. That is they
attempt to explain why we are fighting and what we hope to achieve despite
hardships, scattered support, and neighbors that are either opposed to or
indifferent to our plight. I hope they are seen in that light and have the
same sort of affect as did that well stated Founding Document adopted on the
4th of July 1776.
(This talk was given in Boise, Idaho and Enterprise, Oregon on 16 February
and 19 February 2011 respectively.)
Jim Beers
14 February 2011
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
For thousands of years wolves have been vilified worldwide and depicted as
dangerous, deadly, and sinister. Myths, legends, and literature from Little
Riding Hood to modern movies and novels caution readers and listeners to be
wary of wolves. This depiction would have never persisted had there not
been a widespread awareness and recognition of wolves as dangerous and
destructive animals.
According to Stanley Young in his Wolves of North America, Pliny the Elder
(23-79 AD), a Roman author, naturalist, and natural philosopher “suggested
the use of a wolf’s tooth as an aid to infant teething”. Paulus Aegineta, a
Greek doctor in the mid 7th century “prescribed for arthritis, a bath,
prepared by boiling whole wolves in oil”. I mention this not as some useful
folk medicine, rather it indicates the presence of wolves not only in
ancient Europe but even within the precincts of the most “developed” nations
as “Western” civilization emerged and urban areas appeared.
In North America, Aztecs of present-day central Mexico were reported in the
1552 Badianus manuscript to recommend “wolf’s liver as an ingredient in
medicine to cure ‘black blood’ or melancholia” as well as “pricking of the
breast with ‘the sharpened bone of a wolf’”. Montezuma’s garden that
“provided animals and plants for the use of court physicians” “contained
wolves.” When Europeans arrived, wolves were found from Mexico to the
Arctic Ocean and from the Pacific to the Atlantic.
Wolves had been killing Native Americans, their dogs and the wild animals
that fed them both for centuries. When Europeans arrived they joined the
Native Americans in this situation, especially when they were unarmed.
Wolves killed the European’s domestic animals and dogs with abandon thereby
forcing small farms to stay small (like Asia) in order to protect domestic
animals. The next time you look at an old photo or drawing of Early
American homesteads note the closeness of corrals and outbuildings with
their smells and disease potential so close to homes: it wasn’t only
rustlers that forced ranchers and farmers to live like that.
Wolves spread diseases that killed and debilitated humans, domestic animals,
and wildlife. Wolf abundance varied with food availability. Population
fluctuations in buffalo, caribou, elk, moose and other grazing animals due
to fires, weather, and plant changes from over-use or lack of use by such
grazing animals caused population booms and busts that affected the
predators as well as the large grazing animals on which they fed. European
settlers’ livestock offered a steadier availability of food as Europeans
expanded their range and diminished former wolf food like wild grazing
animals.
Wolves, coyotes, and dogs are the same species. They can and do interbreed
and produce viable offspring. Wolves, like coyotes and dogs are omnivorous
and, though they prefer meat, they can and do adapt their diet to whatever
is available. They are proven and clever adapters. They are unpredictable
and may go for periods when they avoid humans to suddenly causing widespread
outbreaks where they attack, injure, and kill humans and human groups in
ways and with intensities not seen for long periods. They have been known to
spread all manner of diseases for centuries. I have written about 30+ such
infections and diseases spread by wolves, none of which was considered when
the wolf introductions were being formulated in “Impact” Statements or
Justification documents.
Wolves were purposely and with forethought extirpated from much of North
America by both immigrant Europeans and established families that had been
here for generations from the 1600’s to the mid-20th century as the
continent was settled. Posses, poisons, trapping, shooting, denning
(killing pups in dens), “Wolf Boards”, and other effective means were
employed as the continent was settled and as rural communities were
“civilized” and made hospitable to modern society. Ask yourself if such
time and effort would have ever taken place based on “myths” or on a blood
lust based on fables by men working 24/7 on the edge of existence?
A similar but total extirpation of wolves was concluded after centuries of
effort by the 19th century in Northern Europe as well as England, Scotland
and Ireland where the large Irish and English Wolfhounds were bred and used
to kill wolves that persistently killed and maimed humans while savaging
rural precincts in many ways. Dalmatians, originally from Croatia and to
this day still aggressive with other dogs, were used to accompany and warn
travelers about the presence of wolves. Large dog collars with spikes were
used in Europe and the British Isles to hopefully delay a wolf’s attempt to
tear open a dog’s throat in a fight until a man could arrive to save the dog
and kill the wolf. “Spittals” or small huts were built in the Scottish
highlands along isolated roads and trails “to guard the overnight traveler
from wolf attacks.” Again, does anyone believe that all this was because of
unfounded vilification of wolves?
Consider further an historical comparison between societies that eradicated
these deadly and destructive predators like Europe and North America and
those that simply lived with such dangerous animals like India, Kazakhstan,
Russia, Uzbekistan, and Africa. Contrasting those societies that have
entertained the continued presence of these deadly predators with those
nations where rural safety was assured by the extirpation of wolves:
stagnation, tyranny, and backwardness were more often the hallmarks of
societies where deadly predators were allowed to persist and rural safety
remained problematic; progress, freedom, strong economies, and participatory
government are hallmarks of nations that assured rural safety for rural
families by extirpating wolves.
By the 1950’s the only place where wolves were acknowledged to still exist
in the Contiguous 48 US states was northern Minnesota. Wolves in Canada and
Alaska were still common despite widespread wolf controls like shooting and
trapping in all three locations to protect rural residents and rural
economies. This control was periodically increased by rural residents and
government control officers when large-scale livestock predation, wildlife
predation, human attacks, or other such situations occurred.
YESTERDAY (Late 1960’s to Mid 1990’s)
In the late 1960’s, the United States was gripped by social turbulence and
an expansion of federal claims of authorities taken from State government
over wild animals, domestic animals, and every imaginable segment of “the
environment” by an explosion of new federal legislation. Private property,
states’ rights, animals as property, ranching, logging, energy development,
irrigation, hunting, fishing, farming, trapping, wild animal management and
use, and public land management and use were all vilified and marked for
extinction by emerging Non-Government-Organizations like The Wilderness
Society, The Defenders of Wildlife, The Sierra Club, The Nature Conservancy,
Humane Society of the United States, and The Animal Welfare Institute.
These environmental and animal rights forces were joined by Gun Control
groups interested in eliminating the presence of guns and 2nd Amendment
support by stopping recruitment of young hunters and reducing wild game
availability. Both of these groups depended on eliminating the strict
interpretation of the Constitution that they challenged as they lobbied for
new federal laws and new federal authorities. Additionally, established
pro-hunting and pro-natural resource management organizations like The
Wildlife Federation displayed a knack for self-preservation and shifted
surreptitiously to support these “new” groups that many of them believed
were inevitable creators of a “new” federal government that would implement
their agendas. Terms like “environmental activist”, “animal rights
radical”, “extremist”, “liberal”, “Rino”, “preservationist”, “tinker bell”,
“eco-wing nut” and “tree hugger” became common slang to identify the new
factions and policies emanating from Washington, DC.
By the early 1970’s federal politicians began reaping votes and popularity
by passing The Endangered Species Act, The Marine Mammal Protection Act, The
Animal Welfare Act, and The Wilderness Act . Who could be opposed to such
high-toned and admirable things? Who could have imagined what they have
wrought today?
United Nations bureaucrats and US bureaucrats discovered mutual benefit
through cooperation by signing UN “Conventions” that could be claimed to be
“treaties” under the Constitution (thereby becoming “the Law of the Land”)
and thus granting US bureaucrats regulatory authority over more American
rights and traditions. Old treaties like the Migratory Bird Treaties with
Mexico and new bird treaties with Russia and Japan were “amended” or
re-negotiated to include, and thereby protect from any management, birds
like hawks, owls, and cormorants that were formerly and purposely managed
and controlled by state governments for the benefit of fisheries,
hatcheries, game animals, non-game wildlife, and domestic animals.
In the 1970’s, the social unrest of the 1960’s was answered by new Civil
Rights Laws that created federal Equal Employment Opportunity regulations
and the Civil Service Reform Act. These laws created sex and race quotas
and preferences throughout the federal government. They created federal
agency top managers that were not from the agencies’ ranks or backgrounds
but from outside selections made by political appointees based on political
criteria. These managers were paid annual bonuses of 10’s of thousands of
dollars based largely on “hiring, promoting, and transferring women and
minorities”. When this proved practically impossible due to long-standing
hiring and promotion “requirements” (like so-many-hours of certain academic
pursuits such as wildlife management or like the need for any promoted
employee to have worked in so-many states or so many stations or in a
Regional Office or Washington, DC) those requirements were abolished. The
natural result of all this was the CSRA became an engine to eventually
eliminate the commonly required Civil Service Entrance Exam as “biased” so
therefore hiring off-the-street became common based on “whatever” or
expected favors for hiring a powerful politicians kin. Whether viewed as an
“unintended consequence” or as some sort of “Manchurian Candidate” plot, the
results were particularly devastating to the land and natural resource
agencies like US Fish and Wildlife, Forest Service, and Bureau of Land
Management.
Think about it. Think about the US Fish & Wildlife Service, the US Forest
Service, and the Bureau of Land Management. Think about the
environmental/animal rights’ organizations and their agendas. Think about
rewarding federal managers for hiring people based on NOTHING more than
their philosophy and politics. Anti-hunting and anti-ranching federal
wildlife “managers” hire who? Anti-logging and pro-wilderness federal
forestry “managers” promote who? Anti-grazing and pro-public land closure
“managers” transfer who? “Managers” are then rewarded and given big bonuses
based almost entirely on the percentages (measured to the 10th’s of
percentage points) for women and minorities.
Consider the impact of this on federal policies over time. Consider if the
government made note of the lack of Quakers in the Department of Defense and
passed a quota/hire/promote/transfer/bonus-rewards system for managers to
increase Quaker representation. If such a system was in place for 40 years
would you be foolish to look to see what the impact of preferential
“non-violent” employee hiring, etc. had on Defense policies?
The USFWS, FS, and BLM workforce changes have been dramatic and should be
carefully considered whenever you deal with them or are asked to believe
that they are telling the truth or that they will keep their word about
predators, grazing, forestry, hunting, fishing, pubic land management or
public land use. To those that see this as “too confrontational”, remember
that the agendas these folks represent (anti-logging, anti-ranching,
anti-hunting, anti—energy development, anti-fishing, anti-trapping, etc.)
mean to eliminate these things; while we that see our livelihoods,
traditions, culture, freedoms, livelihoods and way-of-life being destroyed
ARE NOT trying to make vegans eat meat or birdwatchers shoot animals or
releasing rattlesnakes near urban schools because we believe everyone else
should do and be what we dictate. They are on a mission, while we are
defending our rights and freedoms.
Wolves were placed under Federal authority as “Endangered” in the late
1960’s based solely on claims and assertions emanating from philosophical
preferences (i.e. “Minnesota is still shooting and trapping wolves and soon
they will be extinct”, etc.) and not any “science”. This meant that
Minnesota (the only Lower 48 state acknowledged to have had wolves at the
time) could no longer do anything with or about Minnesota wolves unless
authorized or permitted by federal bureaucrats. While this initially caused
great consternation in Minnesota, state government resistance was muted by
offers of federal funding and a certain new national attitude about the
futility of standing up to the national environmental / animal rights /
federal juggernaut and the inevitability of an all-powerful federal
government representing these factions. The fact that there were 100’s of
thousands or millions of wolves in Asia plus wolves in Europe, Africa,
Canada, and Alaska made no difference.
In about 10 years federal wolf “experts” claimed a need to distinguish “red”
wolves and “Mexican” wolves from “gray” wolves and “timber” wolves. Soon
“red” wolves were grown in government kennels and released on Cape Romaine
National Wildlife Refuge in South Carolina and Alligator River NWR in North
Carolina. Then “Mexican” wolves were bred in government kennels and
released on federal lands in Arizona and New Mexico. In truth, this
government wolf-breeding brings to mind dog breeders that “breed” bigger
Labrador retrievers or “thinner” Irish Setters for customers that will pay,
and pay it did.
Federal and state “experts” gave cover to radical propaganda by studiously
ignoring the “big lie” that there has never been a documented attack on a
human by a wolf in North America” when there have been hundreds of such
incidents and many more undocumented attacks. Government agencies put the
fear of God (or should I say Gaia?) in people concerning defending
themselves or their family or their property such as a dog from threatening
wolves by establishing drastic penalties, large fines, felony charges,
jail-time, prison-time, loss of voting rights, and loss of gun rights for
anyone harming or harassing, much less killing, any wolf for any reason.
Ask yourself how my neighbors or a court would treat me if I told all the
families in my neighborhood that my Dobermans were harmless and that if they
get loose just stand still and they will leave you alone: and then they got
loose and killed your child or your wife? Our government acts as if they
have the ancient “Divine” Right of Kings and Roman Emperors and we are but
peasants created only to serve them.
What started as “saving” Minnesota’s wolves evolved into “introducing”
wolves on federal lands under the “special” federal authority of federal
ownership despite State laws. By prohibiting any controls, burgeoning
populations as in Minnesota soon began “spilling” into Wisconsin, then
Michigan, Then the Dakotas, Illinois, Iowa, and even Missouri. “Saving”
“Endangered” animals changed without notice into “introducing” deadly and
harmful animals back into rural communities from which they had been
purposely extirpated. Suddenly and without any legal justification the fact
that wolves had once (?) been here or there meant that government could put
them anywhere it pleased. Could I, for instance, have “introduced” cougars
or rattlesnakes or whatever on my purchased property in defiance of state
laws and regulations? Would I be held responsible for any death, injury, or
damage they perpetrated? Could I have put such animals near bus stops or
schools despite the objections of the members of my community? Hardly.
I will hereafter refer to all of the wolves currently in the Lower 48 states
and their future offspring (with the exception of those wolves in northern
Minnesota where they occurred before the federal wolf introduction and
protection began in the 1960’s) as “GI” Wolves. The “GI” stands for
“Government-Introduced”. This term cuts through all the faux “science” like
“red” and “Mexican” and all the legalese-fairy tale terms like
“experimental”, “distinct population segment”, and “genetic connectivity”.
The use of the term “GI” identifies who is responsible for the wolf that
kills a child, dog, livestock or elk herd, as in “Jim Beers’ Dobermans”.
The use of this term covers ALL the wolves and their offspring both
introduced directly and those encouraged to spread throughout neighboring
jurisdictions by government fiat and government coercion.
As the GI wolves spread out onto private property from federal ownerships
like “Parks” and “Refuges” they killed livestock, hunting dogs and wildlife.
Both federal AND state wildlife employees downplayed what was pictured as
“certain rural bumpkins” were hysterically claiming was happening.
Newspapers and electronic media under-reported or blocked any publicity of
dogs, wintering game animals, and calving game animals dragged down and
eaten alive in backyards in towns where all animals were in danger more and
more of the time. Children often witnessed these spectacles and parents
worried about trips to and from school bus stops or to mailboxes or to take
out the garbage. The fact that government perpetrated this growing
situation was unbelievable to more and more Americans as the wolves
increased in numbers and spread into new areas. Today, Wisconsin even has
an 800# to get wolf warnings about where wolves are most active in order to
protect your dogs (and??).
State fish and wildlife agencies increasingly were seen as supporters of
wolves, grizzly bears, cougars, and coyotes as benign creatures that
“belonged” on the land because they were “native” and “balanced” things.
Wolf impacts were downplayed. Cougar sightings were denied or identified as
“escaped animals” by state employees; even as they burned and replanted
state hunting areas to eliminate pheasants under the auspices of “restoring
the native ecosystem”.. Bear attacks were blamed on human mistakes and low
berry crops. Coyote attacks on children were downplayed by state employees
describing them as very “unusual”. All in all, the symptoms of state
agencies becoming de facto federal subcontractors for federal agendas,
federal money, and national environmental agendas started to become apparent
to more and more state residents that, ostensibly, employed them.
Minnesota wolves began popping up in Wisconsin and the Upper Peninsula as
some began wandering south into Illinois and Indiana.. Mexican wolves hadn’t
started hanging around bus stops yet but they looked like they were going to
“take-off” at any time. Wolves in the SE were showing up throughout the
Carolinas and surrounding states killing some dogs and breeding with others:
so the stage was set by these precedents for the next phase of wolf
introductions – “The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem”.
TODAY (MID 1990’S TO THE PRESENT)
The early 1990’s was a period of secrecy about future federal wolf plans.
Federal action had already backed down Minnesota’s jurisdiction claims and
established the legal precedent that federal demands trumped state
objections. Federal claims of “red” wolves and “Mexican” wolf “population
segments” as separate from other wolves were found to be justified based on
federally purchased “science” that satisfied the courts. Unchallenged use
of new terms like “experimental”, “population”, “distinct population”, and
“distinct population segment” as the basis for federal actions under the ESA
became common. Assertions about “only so many wolves” or “only so many
packs” were calculated and purposeful lies meant to put underway the
situation we are facing today wherein wolf numbers are at best questionable
and census techniques, especially with limited budgets, are merely lies
calculated to win legal arguments in unchallengeable ways. Wolf destruction
of dogs was found by courts to be the dogs’ fault. Rural residents were
warned about harassing any wolf and the most advanced enforcement
techniques, entrapment and extreme punishments were upheld and tolerated by
certain courts. States and rural Americans were cowed, so what was next?
Federal bureaucrats requested funding to release wolves during this period
in the “mother-lode” of US wolf introduction sites in the Contiguous 48
states - “The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem”, otherwise known as the Upper
Rocky Mountain/Pacific Northwest/Intermountain Western States where
livestock and big game hunting were slated for elimination by the radicals
in and those controlling the federal “environmental” agenda. However,
Congress was getting wary of what was happening and rejected the request.
Consider the vast federal land holdings surrounding Yellowstone (itself a
100+year-old sacred federal icon of “untouched” and unmanaged “wilderness”
where hunting was specifically prohibited to “save” the animals.. Consider
the expanding AZ/NM – NC/SC – Great Lakes wolf locations. Consider the fact
that the federal politicians were beginning to worry about being blamed if
and when someone was attacked or killed. Consider the fact that complaints
about wolves harassing children and killing dogs, livestock, and wildlife
were increasing even as government and NGO “experts” pooh-poohed them.
In 1994, the Republicans, to everyone’s complete surprise (including the
federal workforce and especially the wolf “experts” and USFWS managers of
the day), took control of the US House of Representatives and thereby the
federal budget “purse-strings”. That same year USFWS began secretly
diverting or stealing millions of dollars from federal excise taxes that by
law could ONLY go to state fish and wildlife agencies for “Sport Fisheries
and Wildlife Restoration”. The money was used, among other federal things
to capture Canadian wolves quietly, import them surreptitiously, and with
the shortest “acclimatization” period in history to release them in
Yellowstone National Park. The rest, as they say, is history.
In 1999 The General Accounting Office was asked by the US House of
Representatives to audit the Excise Taxes collected for Sport Fish and
Wildlife Restoration. Such thorough audits never occur unless the Congress
directs the GAO to do so. The published findings were issued to the Natural
Resources Committee and covered the fiscal years 1995 and 1996. It was
found that the USFWS had diverted for its own use and in violation of the
authorizing Law $45 to 60 Million and used most of it to introduce wolves
into Yellowstone, pay bonuses to USFWS employees that had no connection with
that activity, and to open an environmental liaison office in California
that Congress had refused to authorize or fund.
Setting aside the fact that the USFWS had hired a US Senator’s close
relation that soon administered that California office: no one was ever held
responsible for the “diversion” and any follow-up by Congress disappeared
into the 2000 Presidential Election activities. Most astounding however was
the fact that the state fish and wildlife agencies, from whom the money had
been stolen, NEVER ASKED FOR IT TO BE REPLACED! After overcoming my
astonishment at this once inexplicable development, it took me several years
to piece together why and how this happened. It is useful as we contemplate
the future to be aware of these reasons in order to choose a path and know
who to trust and who to be careful about.
There were many reasons that the state fish and wildlife agencies never
requested that the federal government (either Congress or USFWS) replace the
stolen money and that there was no federal follow-up and resolution, for
instance:
1. The state fish and wildlife agencies could not risk angering their
newfound federal “partners” (USFWS) that were becoming the source of more
and more of their operating money for everything from endangered species and
native ecosystem restoration to Invasive Species eradication and
environmental education projects. Angering federal bureaucrats with
anti-hunting and fishing values that you would rely on for your fair “share”
of future funds did not make sense.
2. The environmental/animal rights organizations and national media
were
treating the wolf expansion program as a justifiable use of stolen hunting
and fishing money, the hunters and gun owners were increasingly described as
dinosaurs waiting for an asteroid, and the state fish and wildlife agency
Directors did not want to become the object of the radicals’ public ire in
the media. The radicals were viewed as “ascendant” and the hunters and
fishermen were seen as “disappearing”.
treating the wolf expansion program as a justifiable use of stolen hunting
and fishing money, the hunters and gun owners were increasingly described as
dinosaurs waiting for an asteroid, and the state fish and wildlife agency
Directors did not want to become the object of the radicals’ public ire in
the media. The radicals were viewed as “ascendant” and the hunters and
fishermen were seen as “disappearing”.
3. The USFWS is required by law to audit each state fish and wildlife agency
every 5 years to verify the legal use of the hunting and fishing excise
taxes. Reasonable audits had not been conducted for decades. Illegal uses
(wildlife lands given to prisons, purchase of vehicles for state motor
pools, paying salaries of state parks employees, stocking fish on private
lands for the influential, timber sales profits put into general funds
instead of fish and game accounts, etc.) of the funds by state agencies had
become common to curry favor with state politicians so any real audits were
feared by state employees and the federal employees charged with overseeing
the funds (some of which the4y had recently stolen). Right after the
discovery of the stolen money used to introduce wolves, USFWS hired an audit
firm to do a 5-yr. Cycle of state agency’s use of the funds and then USFWS
fired them after 2 years since they had already documented over $125 Million
in misused funds and had indications of far more as the auditors began
understanding the often quirky state fish and wildlife funding intricacies.
USFWS then “hired” the US Department of the Interior Inspector General (the
Office responsible for “auditing” USFWS – think about that!) to complete the
audits. Since then the original findings were forgotten or “adjusted” and
subsequent audits have found everything “hunky dory”. The state fish and
wildlife Directors saved their jobs and the USFWS’ “favor” made both state
and federal bureaucrats look honest and “concerned”. That Inspector General
(the one that “saw no evil, heard no evil” etc.) went on to become President
Obama’s Stimulus “Sheriff” (IG) to make sure all the Stimulus money goes to
the right place!
4. The USFWS offered to give the State Agencies’ Washington LOBBY Group (a
LOBBY group mind you) $4 to 6 Million per year from the future excise taxes
to distribute to state agencies and others for “interstate activities”. Of
course the usual “administrative nick” and discretion was allowed the
International (soon renamed “National”) Association of Fish and Wildlife
Agencies for “all the administrative work” involved. This allowed this LOBBY
group to hire more staff and increase salaries. So federal tax money went
to the 50 States’ Washington LOBBY group to LOBBY the federal government!
5. The President of the IAFWA at that time was a retired Chief of the US
Forest Service. That gentleman never took on federal agencies and always
brokered a “deal” that would make everyone happy. Fighting with former
friends and federal coworkers is not in the DNA of such persons that too
often attain high federal positions based on pleasing whoever is in power at
the time. This phenomenon is repeated endlessly even today at other
“conservation” organizations like The Wildlife Federation, Ducks Unlimited,
Trout Unlimited and others that hire retired “top” federal bureaucrats for
their “connections” and “influence”. Never delude yourself that such
persons will defend you or your interests against other bureaucrats, federal
programs, or the agendas of whoever THEY think is or will be in charge today
or tomorrow.
6. The state fish and wildlife agencies had become such true mistresses to
federal and extremist agendas that the thought of holding the feds
accountable, even for stealing millions from the state hunting and fishing
programs, was inconceivable. Many state employees looked forward to future
opportunities to get federal jobs or appointments where the pay and benefits
were generally better. This became even more profitable when 401K’s, IRA’s,
and “Roth’s” became transferrable.
7. The USFWS Director at that time resigned when the White House changed
parties in 2000. The law required a 3-year wait until she could work for
organizations she had dealt with directly while Director. Among other
“achievements” she had made Defenders of Wildlife in charge of depredations
payments for wolf depredations (most often found to be ineligible and once
even denied because “sheep don’t belong there in ‘grizzly habitat’”). So,
after her resignation, The Wildlife Federation hired her at a top salary for
two years and then dismissed her with a payment and when the three years
were up, she was hired by The Defenders of Wildlife in a top slot. Today
she is reportedly waiting to succeed the top “Defender of Wildlife”
executive as he waits to become US Senator Baucus’ Chief of Staff.
8. The Democrat staff person hired by USFWS after losing his job on Capitol
Hill was put in charge of the stolen excise taxes has succeeded as well.
During the Bush Presidency he was (since he was a “career” employee) given a
non-job. Today he awaits, for two months now, a US Senate confirmation
hearing to be Director of the USFWS.
9. After the bitter 2000 Presidential election (Gore, Florida “chads”, and
a Supreme Court resolution) the Republican victors were more interested in
quieting things down than in resurrecting old accusations and thereby
appearing vindictive.
All of this was and continues to be covered up by a biased media, state fish
and wildlife bureaucrats concerned about their reputations back home, and
the fact that no powerful person (“Conservation” organizations?, Sporting
Goods businesses?, Hunters?, Fishermen?, President?, New Republican
appointees? Politicians? etc.) took up the cudgel to punish those
responsible, to replace the funds, and to assure that it would not happen
again. The Chairman of the House Committee that uncovered the theft went to
another House Committee.
What can I tell this audience about has happened in the last 15 years?
-That GI wolves are now in at least 21 states?
-That wolves have killed and consumed unarmed human pedestrians in
Saskatchewan, and Alaska recently? For the record, note that a coyote or
coyotes killed a “20-something” woman in a New Brunswick Park recently so
the lies about a wild dog (wolf) three times the size of a coyote running in
packs is what Nazi propagandists called a “big” lie that when repeated often
enough gradually becomes a fact to sheep-like citizens.
-That those that introduced and protect GI wolves have no responsibility for
the dogs they kill, the game they eradicate, the people they attack, they
rural communities they devastate, the rural lifestyles they destroy, the
rural land values they depress, or the loss of state revenue and joblessness
that they create?
-That the “Yellowstone” GI wolves are now in Oregon, Washington, Utah,
Nevada, the Dakotas, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Colorado?
-That the experts can no longer count or accurately estimate the GI wolf
numbers but make lowball population claims anyway?
-That elk, moose, and deer have declined, some precipitously?
-That state hunting revenues are declining due to a lack of game and safety
concerns for both hunters and dogs?
-That rural economies are declining as ranching costs escalate and hunters
and fishermen disappear?
-That keeping any dog, much less a free-roaming hunter, herder or watchdog
is increasingly foolhardy?
-That state fish and wildlife agencies’ reputations are increasingly in the
tank?
-That federal politicians are reluctant to undo what they wrought?
-That grazing allotments and forestry harvests have declined while
Wilderness, Roadless and other public land closures steadily escalate?
-That revenue sharing with local governments from logging, grazing, and
other revenue-producers on federal lands continue to decline?
-That promised “Payment-in-lieu-of taxes” (PILT) from new federal land
owners to replace the tax losses from local private lands taken off the
local tax rolls when purchased or otherwise obtained by federal agencies,
have dwindled and all but disappeared even before the recent national
“economic difficulties”?
-That public lands are no longer managed for the public and have become an
oxymoron?
-That each year more calls for more federal “Native Ecosystem Restoration”
and “Non-Native Species Eradication” authority at the expense of State and
citizen’s rights are requested?
-That recent threats by radicals to force the federal government to
“restore” GI wolves in all 48 Contiguous states tells us just how far we
have come from a Constitutional Republic to a federal autocracy wherein all
power is solely in a central government that does whatever the most powerful
among us dictate?
TOMORROW?
(Scenario 1)
-GI Wolves will continue to expand their territory and occupy the Contiguous
48 states even without any further federal action except for protection. As
their numbers increase, they reproduce more which in turn accounts for
faster and further expansion (more pups) each year.
-GI Wolves, exactly like coyotes and dogs, can and will adapt to ANY
environment whether cold or hot, wet or dry, mountainous or flat, cropland
or woodland, coastal or inland, urban or rural.
-GI Wolves will eat whatever is available, again just like coyotes and dogs.
While lone coyotes and certain dogs will attack and kill children,
occasionally adults, and even family members where the dog lives; GI wolves
will do all that routinely. Additionally GI wolves travel in packs (thereby
learning quicker than solitary animals how to survive and behave) and will
at various times and under certain circumstances attack and kill groups of
humans like dog-walkers, hikers, and campers especially if they are unarmed.
-Maintaining bird hunting dogs, retrievers, rabbit dogs, pets, and other
dogs except very aggressive watchdogs and large hounds kept close will
eventually become a thing of the past in rural America.
-Lone rural childhood activities like going to and from rural bus stops to
camping and fishing will eventually become things of the past.
-When left unmolested, just like coyotes and dogs, wolves will become
habituated (“bolder”, less “afraid”, whatever you want to call it) and more
dangerous to humans. Make no mistake that as GI wolves expand their range,
medium-size cities and then large cities with their “natural” parks and
trails will be frequented by GI wolves.
-Unlike the “old” days, food is not going to disappear whether it is
garbage, alley trash behind malls, calves, sheep, dogs being walked by
suburban ladies, or kids walking alone to a neighbor’s home; therefore
wolves will not come and go as they fill the Contiguous 48 states. Like
coyotes spreading east of the Mississippi for the past 50 years, wolf
numbers will increase steadily until they occupy every nook and cranny (many
of which are unimaginable at this time).
-Wolves will, just like coyotes and dogs learn to come into towns and cities
at night and keep a low profile as they look for food, defecate and leave
saliva and other fluids (i.e. disease), kill dogs and other animals both
wild and domestic. Urban parks and the web of urban “nature” trails are
excellent wolf byways for such forays and excellent vector sites for dogs to
pick up diseases and infections harmful to humans for transportation back to
human abodes and family members.
-Just like dogs and coyotes, wolves will behave differently as time goes by
in different areas and as they encounter different circumstances. Fifty
years ago, turkeys were said by “experts” to “need” wilderness to survive,
while today they chase mailmen and kids waiting for buses on suburban street
corners and scratch for waste corn in large snow-swept fields near my
Minnesota home. The only difference is turkeys don’t eat meat and don’t get
up to 150 lbs or more when they eat well.
The intended results are clear, as are the overarching goals of the radicals
and extremists that have put these wolves here. Wolf introduction and
protection is but one of many objectives (Wilderness, Roadless Areas, Forest
Management and Use Closures, Cougar protection, expanding “Critical”
Habitats, Government Land purchase and easement with “cooperators” like The
Nature Conservancy, “Native” Species restoration, Grazing Allotment losses,
Road Closures, Free-Roaming Buffalo, increased costs of rural living and
decreased rural land values) intended to evacuate rural America. Evacuation
serves the goals of those that:
Want to “save” the environment.
Want to eliminate hunting and “save” animals.
Want to reduce gun owners and rural residents that fight for 2nd Amendment
rights.
Want to stop ranching (grazing) and logging (forest management and use).
Want the US citizenry to be in urban areas where they are more amenable to
government rules from energy use and education of children to family
structures, cultural values, traditions, and even what they can eat.
Want to control others in perpetuity.
OR WE CAN
(Scenario 2)
Take advantage of the current national mood and political atmosphere:
1. Strong governors and emboldened state legislatures are being elected
to regain state’s rights lost to the federal government.
2. A new crop of federal and state politicians have emerged with a goal
of reducing federal impacts on American lives.
3. State governments are reducing spending and cutting taxes.
4. Federal proposals to drastically reduce federal government size,
power, and cost have never received such attention in my lifetime.
5. The possibility of real government reforms has not been so great
since the 1960’s or perhaps the 1930’s.
There is widespread concern throughout the states and the Nation about:
- The National Debt, The National Budget, The National Deficit, State
Debt Levels, Joblessness, Taxes, and Rural Economic Life.
- Rural communities and rural states are seeing more and more land
being taken off tax rolls due to federal purchase, private conservation
group purchase and easement, and non-use due to federal regulations.
- Loss of hunting and fishing revenues, especially due to loss of
non-resident licensing is increasing throughout the states. Escalating
costs of ranching, logging, farming, construction projects, and energy
development is keeping recovery of the rural economic collapse from getting
started.
SO, you might ask, what does all this have to do with wolves?
Nothing I am about to say is meant in any way to disparage ongoing lawsuits
and proposed exemptions of wolves from The Endangered Species Act. I hope
that all of these actions are successful and the sooner the better.
That said, I believe that nothing less than the repeal, nullification, or
serious amendment of the Endangered Species Act (the bedrock for the entire
insertion of the federal presence into wolves anywhere in the Contiguous 48
States) is necessary if we are to ever have a hope of controlling the number
of and distribution of wolves. Anything less than the elimination of this
proven perverse law and its future precedents leaves open never ending
lawsuit/court battles and the one-sided federal/state struggles that have
marred the last 45 years. Things will only continue to get worse and worse
as we continue these “minuets” that simply tie us up while Rome burns down
around us.
The Endangered Species Act has been perverted from an attempt to save
SPECIES from worldwide extinction to a radical tool used to RESTORE NATIVE
SPECIES and thereby control rural America. It has eroded the Constitutional
prohibition against “taking without compensation”. It has transferred
massive portions of state sovereignty to federal agencies. It has weaned
state agencies from state control to federal control. It has redefined
“property rights” into discretionary government grants. It has cost us
Billions of tax dollars to perpetrate and the loss of American productivity
and output from rural economies over the past 40 years is likely in the
Trillions of dollars. Future funding of such an Act while the country makes
Draconian budget cuts and tries everything to restart the American economic
engine is foolhardy at best. The losses to American culture, traditions,
and lifestyles are incalculable. Revenue from the use and management of
renewable natural resources has been greatly reduced nationally and public
land management, access, use, and self-funding ability has dwindled
precipitously as a direct result of all manner of claims made under the Act.
The Act is responsible for massive transfer of public funds to radical and
extremist groups for legal fees (for lawsuits), “administrative” fees for
land acquisition and easement, concocted schemes like appointing Defenders
of Wildlife as “wolf depredations” Czar, and practically unlimited awarding
of grants and contracts to ally government agencies with radical groups and
certain self-serving University “scientists” in causes that threaten the
very foundations of our Nation.
Speaking of allies, think of all those potential allies across the Nation
that have been similarly harmed by Endangered Species Act abuses:
- Suckers (Klamath)
- Salmon (entire NW and Alaska)
- A Fly (California)
- Snail Darter (Tennessee)
- Smelt (California)
- Sage Grouse threats (Upper Rockies)
- Bats (Eastern ½ of Nation)
- Black Bears (Florida & Louisiana)
- Grizzlies (Upper Rockies and NW US)
- Owls (Oregon, California)
- Red-cockaded Woodpecker (Southern US)
- The imaginary Ivory-billed Woodpecker (Southern US)
- Some species like Polar Bears, Killer Whales, certain Cetaceans like
Minke whales, and Sea Otters have been left unmanaged, destructive to other
animals of importance to man and simply wasted by the “clever by half”
“Australian Tag-Team” legal maneuvering of the Endangered
Species Act and
the Marine Mammal (total) Protection Act in tandem.
Think of all those harmed directly and indirectly by this short list
alone
as potential allies. As time passes the government actions become
more
arrogant and unreal. As time passes the alliances between
government and
radical animal rights organizations and extremist environmental
organizations steadily increase their ability to use The Endangered
Species
Act as a hammer on the rest of America.
Before you get up to leave in despair over this seemingly impossible
task,
consider:
The American Revolution succeeded with only about 1/3 of the colonists in
support, 1/3 loyal to England, and 1/3 wanting to be left alone.
Prohibition of all alcohol (a Constitutional Amendment) was repealed when it
was shown to be destructive to American welfare and a poison to state and
local governments much like the Mexican drug trade is destroying Mexico
today.
National HealthCare (1/6+ of the economy) is being challenged in court and
put up for repeal by federal politicians as I speak.
Other national policies (despite whatever we may think of them) like “Don’t
Ask, Don’t Tell” are being overturned by small minorities, so the change of
significant and widely favored (by the public) policies by minorities are
seen to be possible at this time.
All of the national concern about government costs, government regulatory
interference with economic recovery, and chronic joblessness nationwide.
Think of wolves and the Endangered Species Act in these terms and you
suddenly have allies in all 50 states for reform or repeal of the federal
Endangered Species Act that; like Prohibition, Obamacare, and “Don’t Ask
Don’t Tell”; was unimaginable mere months ago!
How could the Act be REPEALED, NULLIFIED, OR AMENDED?
REPEAL could be done in two ways:
1. Repeal could be accomplished by the US Congress and President right
now. Although many of the current crop of Washington politicians scoff at
this, the next crop we elect could be very open to consideration of such a
repeal of a harmful and expensive federal law. All that is required is for
Congress to draft and pass an Act repealing The Endangered Species Act that
the President then signs. I suggest taking a leaf from current advocates
for repealing Obamacare and put up a proposed Repeal of the ESA for a vote
without regard to likely success but with the intent of putting politicians
on record before the next attack or horrendous action by the GI wolves.
2. A new and innovative National Repeal Act is currently being proposed
by the state of Virginia. The Virginia state government is asking their
federal politicians in Washington to introduce a bill to make it possible
that whenever 2/3 of the state legislatures pass a law specifically
rejecting a federal law – that law is repealed.
Each of these bears watching and considering as we approach what appears to
be a watershed election of federal and state governments. Work with others
and the staffs of decent politicians to support Virginia’s proposal and to
draft a Repeal proposal that you can ask “running politicians about next
year as they ask for your vote!
NULLIFICATION may also be obtained in two ways:
1. Nullification can be obtained by having a federal court rule on the
legality of using the Endangered Species Act to RESTORE Subspecies, races,
populations, population segments, or distinct population segments of SPECIES
that are abundant and widespread worldwide. The “taking without
compensation” especially for a use that is not truly “Public” is another
challengeable aspect of the ESA in practice. Like the Constitutionality of
federal requirements to purchase health insurance, the Constitutional status
of federal actions based on “saving” Endangered “SPECIES” should be
vulnerable to such a challenge or similar challenges in court.
2. INTERSTATE COMPACTS have the potential to return the authority over
all Endangered Species to state governments. It works like this – when
State Legislatures approve a mutual wolf management and control program, the
states agree on the parts of mutual concern such as numbers, distribution,
methods of control, etc. and then dispatch it to Washington for ratification
by Congress and the President whose consent is not spelled out in the
Constitution (Article 1, Section 10). Ratification turns the Compact into
federal law. Justifications for Congress to approve such arrangements today
range from cost-savings and Constitutional sovereignty to increased
responsiveness to American communities and revitalizing rural America in a
time of economic crisis.
How could the Act be AMENDED?
An Amended Act could be proposed as a replacement or as a new substitute Act
as Repeal or Nullification of the current Act is being considered. Such a
replacement or substitute or series of proposed Amendments (to accompany
designated deletions in the current Act) might include the following items:
1. By stating “ONLY SPECIES, NOT Subspecies, Races, Populations, Population
Segments, or Distinct Population Segments may be considered under this Act.”
2. By stating “ONLY SPECIES endangered WORLD-WIDE may be considered under
this Act.”
3. By stating that “ANY TAKING authorized by Congress under this ACT must be
for ‘just compensation’ as stated in the 5th Amendment of the US
Constitution.”
4. By stating that “NO AUTHORITY UNDER THIS ACT may be used to restore
‘Native Species’ or ‘Native Ecosystems’ unless specifically requested by the
legislature and Governor of the affected state or states and specifically
authorized and funded by the US Congress.”
5. By stating that “Any action to restore species in any state may not be
undertaken nor may any taking of private property under this Act be
accomplished without the express consent of the legislature and Governor of
that state”.
6. By stating that “The constitutional authority of state governments,
particularly regarding wild plants and animals; and the authority of local
governments within a particular state shall not be diminished or adversely
impacted by any action taken under this Act.”
7. By making the federal government financially liable for any harms
(financial, human safety, loss of income, etc.) caused by plants or animals
placed in the national natural environment by federal actions.
8. By stating that “Wherever appropriate and possible, the first and
foremost federal role under the ESA for Listed SPECIES should be 1.) making
public recommendations accompanied by applied research and explanations for
each Listed SPECIES, 2.) offer all available dispositions to increase Listed
SPECIES on federal property to state governments and private property
owners, and 3.) then offering all available incentives to gain voluntary
compliance with necessary actions for Listed SPECIES. Failing this, the
vast federal estate should be the first to be used to maintain such SPECIES
where climate, soil, and habitat characteristics are most suitable before
any taking of private property or seizure of State sovereignty is proposed.”
9. Each Species restoration program funding and expenditure must be
specifically authorized by Congress.
10. Native Species and Native Ecosystem are hereby defined by Congress as
subjects appropriate for study and examination to determine where we have
come from and what effects from changes in the future might be concerning
changes in species of plants and animals resulting from environmental
impacts due to human activities. Such study is appropriate to plan for the
future based on experiences in the past. Neither Native Species restoration
nor Native Ecosystem restoration per se is to be the goal of any government
program funded by the US Congress.
11. Invasive Species are defined as expressly harmful plant or animal
species, recently arrived in this nation, that cause injury or harm to
wildlife, waters, domestic animals, plants, agriculture, or humans or human
welfare. Invasive Species specifically do not include currently present
animals considered game animals in any state. Such Invasive Species should
be prohibited from importation into the United States and may be, when
authorized by Congress, cooperatively researched, controlled, and extirpated
in states where they occur and wherein the Governor and Legislature of such
states concur.
A FEW TACTICS
1. Request that your federal politicians draft and support a federal
law amending the Endangered Species Act with the primary reason being
legitimate fears and concerns about wolf attacks on rural children, women,
and men. Ask them to introduce it and force a vote just is happening with
Obamacare. Let all those that support this travesty of an Act vote NO while
thinking about their political future when a kid is killed at a bus stop or
a woman is killed going to her rural mailbox.
2. Form County “Coalitions” that disregard state lines as has been done
in Arizona and New Mexico Counties that are plagued by wolves and federal
enforcers. This helps to offset the negative political influences of
urban-vote areas like Phoenix and Albuquerque. Just like the national urban
areas’ negative influences must be offset by states coming together
politically, so too must state urban-vote areas be offset by County
“Coalitions” formed to face a common enemy and deadly threat.
3. One of the big problems when wolf control is necessarily instituted
will be all the big movie stars, media moguls, widows in old-folks homes,
etc. that own big chunks of land and refuse to allow any wolf control on
their land. This must be treated by State and County governments exactly as
Midwestern states and counties treat Noxious weeds. That is to say that
when a landowner is notified that there are thistles or knapweed or wolves
on their property that they should either get rid of them or the county or
state will do it for them and then bill them and if they fail to pay a lien
is put against the property. Controls, when it is realized (probably after
one or more deaths of innocents) that they are necessary will require such
strong and concerted governmental action.
SOME GROUND RULES
To achieve REPEAL or NULLIFY or AMEND the Endangered Species Act, keep in
mind:
1. Don’t accept the federal/radical ground rules, in other words don’t
play their game. Disregard all the silly legal distinctions like this or
that “Population” or the concocted “science” about “genetic connectivity”,
etc. Reset the game with our Constitutional American rules and terminology.
Whether or not GI wolves will remain somewhere or be introduced somewhere is
a state responsibility with (hopefully as to state behavior) the consent of
the local communities that would be affected. This same applies to the
numbers of wolves and the means employed to control, manage, or otherwise
regulate their presence and impacts.
2. Seek and enlist allies from the widest possible spectrum of the
American public. In addition to the previously mentioned rural factions and
groups upset with federal costs, taxes, etc. look to your national and state
organizations and if they are not supportive, do as you are doing with your
elected politicians and replace them. Organizations are ever-changing
things. Some like The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation were once quiescent
about the threat of GI wolves and now are in the forefront of the fight for
hunting, rural values and rural livelihoods. Others like Ducks Unlimited
and The Wildlife Federation nurture a “conservation” image while hiring
retired USFWS Executives that shoveled money their way while carrying out
radical Endangered Species actions elsewhere. National groups often act
like federal politicians and do so much “horse-trading” that what they
achieve eventually serves only their own narrow personal interests. This is
why state organizations are more to be trusted and more amenable to local
control and the reasons why they were formed and are being formed at
increased rates.
3. In addition to farm, ranch, and hunting organizations; contact
organizations of dog breeders, field trial participants, foresters, range
managers, rural landowners, rodeo associations, trappers, furriers,
commercial fishermen, gun owners, political parties, rural office holders
and whatever else you do, VOTE!
4. Don’t dismiss any control methods or management rules because you
are afraid that “sensitive” voters won’t support your proposals.
Controlling wolves is and will continue to be a very tough business with no
guaranteed success. Wolves learn quickly. Native Americans will support
USFWS and the Department of the Interior not only to receive financial
support but also because USDI issues or withholds casino licenses and
controls much Native American funding though often in slipshod ways. Traps,
aerial hunting, bounties, long and liberal open seasons, snares, and
chemicals will all have to be considered and on the table in the face of
many closed (to hunting or control) areas like Reservations; large closed
land areas from federal lands to absentee landowners such as movie stars,
moguls, elderly widows, etc.; animal rights’ landowners; and “wolf-feeders”
opposed to any controls. Remember that you cannot count wolves on a large
scale accurately so whose counts and how they are conducted and verified is
important since the federal government and the ESA supporters will be doing
everything in their power to maintain the current status quo of their
dictates running us and the courts for their benefit.
In 1770 Edmund Burke, an 18th century-member of the English Parliament,
wrote “"when bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall,
one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle”.
I submit that we must “combine” with others and as that monotonous TV
commercial selling gold says, “The time may never be better” and as the
former White House Chief of Staff (and current Mayor of Chicago-“wannabee”)
recently and famously quipped, “a disaster is a terrible thing to waste”.
The time for a robust national debate and action has never been better or
more urgently needed.
Jim Beers
16 February 2011
EPILOGUE – One week ago I gave a paper at the Society of Range Management
Wolf Symposium in Billing, Montana. The title of that paper was “Wolves and
The Natural Law”. While I had not seen these two papers as one when I wrote
them, upon completing this speech I was struck by how the two papers seemed
to go together. Upon reflection, they seem to be a sort of Declaration of
Rural American Rights. They seem to attempt to do what the Founding Fathers
did when they wrote the Declaration of Independence in 1776. That is they
attempt to explain why we are fighting and what we hope to achieve despite
hardships, scattered support, and neighbors that are either opposed to or
indifferent to our plight. I hope they are seen in that light and have the
same sort of affect as did that well stated Founding Document adopted on the
4th of July 1776.
(This talk was given in Boise, Idaho and Enterprise, Oregon on 16 February
and 19 February 2011 respectively.)
Jim Beers
14 February 2011
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