Woodpeckers and Advisory Committees

 

 
Birders Find No New Evidence of Woodpecker
By ANNIE BERGMAN, Associated Press Writer Thu May 18, 8:29 PM ET

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - With news Thursday that search teams had found no new
confirmation of the ivory-billed woodpecker's existence in the swamps of
eastern Arkansas, wildlife managers said there was no longer a reason to
limit public access to the region.

You may have missed the above "news article", I did.  Had it not been for a
friend on the west coast and another on the Eastern Shore of Virginia I
would have missed it too.  I have yet to see it in the Washington papers
that I read frequently.

So they quietly put to rest a scandal of major proportions and nobody
notices.  Note that the "press release" comes out on a Thursday in a
Richmond, Virginia paper and a Seattle paper.  Notice that the Ivory-billed
Woodpecker is no longer capitalized and that the Gang of Six (US Fish and
Wildlife Service, Cornell University, The Nature Conservancy, National
Wildlife Federation, Arkansas Game and Fish, and the US Congress) who's
names were everywhere in these notices for the past year are now simply
"wildlife managers".  No politician is crowding out all others in this
announcement like the biggest puppy in the litter at suppertime.

Care to bet that as I write government public affairs minions and their
chums over at TNC and NWF and the Arkansas State agency aren't writing
articles for the press and magazines about how "good" all this was and will
be in the future for wildlife and local communities and the environment?  It
will probably be spun that the economy has been benefited too and that
"awareness" has risen.  Teachers will soon get packets about the entire
sordid affair that will rank it right up there with Alice in Wonderland.

I have every right to say "I told you so".  If there was anyone else saying
this from the get-go and in specific and understandable terms I am unaware
of it, but I do know that skepticism grew and this is encouraging.  The
audacity of these extremists and radicals to show such arrogance and
contempt for the integrity of the American public was stunning.  The US
Department of the Interiors dismissal of the rights citizens to know much
less the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act was reminiscent of
Al Capone. The US Fish and Wildlife Service and TNC and NWF and Cornell
acted as though they took the script from my writings of the past six years
even though they and their fans are my greatest critics.  The perfidy of
Federal politicians to fund all this and to condone such "secrecy" exceeds
my worst reports of recent years.  Had I just made all this up, no one would
have believed it.

Worst of all, just like seven years ago when the US Fish and Wildlife
Service was found to have stolen 45 to 60 Million Dollars form State hunting
and fishing excise taxes, NO ONE IS ACCOUNTABLE.  Bonuses will continue to
be awarded, careers will flourish, perpetrators will go on to jobs with
these organizations after retirement or elections, and guys like me will
still engender only laughs or sneers from the people and groups carrying out
the next scandals.  The same folks or their followers will try it again and
again because there are no consequences to losing and everything to gain
when they win.  But there is one bright spot here, like the dog that did not
bark in the Sherlock Holmes story, what about all the State biologists and
State lobbyists and all the "Unlimiteds" and "Foundations" and "Forevers"
and "Bureaus" and "Associations" that "represent us" and "work for us"?  Not
a peep!

About two months ago a regular reader wrote me a common sense suggestion.
He said I was always complaining about Invasive Species and that there was a
call in the Federal Register for nominations and applications to an Invasive
Species Advisory Committee for the Secretary of the Interior so why didn't I
apply?  I brushed him off with how busy I am (true) and how they would NEVER
let me on such a group that is formed to GET (not investigate and discuss)
new Federal authorities.  But then my conscience started gnawing away and I
knew he was right so I applied.

I got the Notice and updated and focused my resume and references and wrote
a lovely composition about why I am so great and how they would benefit so
much from my insight. Then I went searching for two influential persons to
write me a letter of recommendation (a requirement).  To make a LONG story
short, I could only get ONE and that was from a grand person and friend on
the west coast that had worked twice for President Reagan to great
distinction and whom I had only met years later.  No one in Washington or a
State bureaucracy would touch me with a ten foot pole (although they didn't
quite put it that way).  A few days ago I had to tell the nice lady at the
Department of the Interior that she should deep-six my application in her
file because I could not get a 2nd letter as required.

Just like the thing to consider in the Woodpecker scandal isn't whether or
not the bird exists or people's motives (they are ALWAYS pristine in these
affairs) it is the secrecy, misuse of government money, lying, cover-up, and
illegal government alliances with certain groups for illicit purposes.  So
too in the business of an old guy like me with a mile long history of
writing, testifying, speaking, and studying INVASIVE SPECIES activities
trying to get on a National Advisory Committee, the thing isn't that I can't
get any recommendations (surprise, surprise) it is the two facts that such
"Committees" NEVER have any room for skeptical viewpoints and that all these
national groups and State bureaucracies we think are "on our side" are just
as big a part of the problems as the Humane Society of the United States and
The Wilderness Society and PETA and Defenders of Wildlife and all their ilk.
They hear no evil and see no evil and hope that evil will give them a job
when good men remain silent and evil triumphs.

Woodpeckers and Advisory Committees tell us by what we don't hear or see,
just what is being said and done.

Jim Beers
20 May 2006

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