Wyoming Double-Crossed By USFWS
by Tom Remington, Idaho Hunting Today, September 24, 2008 [here]
Wyoming’s U.S. Senator John Barrasso yesterday says that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision to withdraw its proposal to remove protection of the gray wolf from the Endangered Species Act was a “significant breach of trust.”
We shouldn’t stop at Wyoming. Let’s add Idaho and Montana to the list as well, as I’m sure several states could also be included as being shafted by the USFWS. Promises were made from the beginning, promises some said the federal government would never adhere to, had no intentions of fulfilling and couldn’t achieve if it wanted to. Yet, the USFWS got its way and dumped the unwanted wolves on the back doorsteps of thousands of citizens in the Rocky Mountain West areas.
Much of the fears and concerns predicted over 12 years ago have come to pass and each of the states waited patiently for the feds to finally delist the wolf and turn management over to the state where it legally belongs anyway.
The feds were sued by environmentalists and the USFWS turned chicken and ran from the fight, once again leaving the citizens of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho to deal with a mess they never asked for with their hands tied behind their backs.
Sen. Barrasso is right. We were double-crossed, driving a wedge deeper to widen the gap of distrust between government and the people. Some day the majority of people will figure out that agencies like the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service believe they are independent. They have forgotten that they are supposed to be working for the people not for the promotion of their own special interests.
We are now entering historic times in this country, much of it the result of an out of control Congress and an administration that doesn’t know how to stop spending money. This of course affects us all and on top of that, we have citizens already struggling to pay bills, who are battling a killing machine that cares nothing about interest rates, mortgages and utility bills.
For decades these states have worked hard and spent tons of money building, protecting and managing an elk and deer population that can sustain itself. In areas these are being threatened, yet we can do nothing but sit back and watch years of hard work flushed down the drain all in the name of someone’s “experiment.”
It’s time for leadership. It’s time for all of us to step forward and say enough is enough. It’s hard enough for people to deal with the everyday financial struggles. Why should they also have to deal with animals that are destroying their only means to make a living, and threatening to destroy an elk herd that can provide much needed food for thousands of families?
The November election is approaching rapidly. I hope everyone decides to vote and when they cast that ballot, considers the circumstances we are in, the result of this Congress and the laws they and others before them have passed that have ripped from us our individual rights, threatening to do more of the same. Short of a revolution, the ballot box is the only way to effect the right kind of change.
What we have is broken. Socialism isn’t the answer. Freedom is! Dumping a $700 billion burden on us so that the “money people” can continue down the same path will do nothing good for any of us. This is your chance to do something. We have to have hope that by putting the right people in Washington, we can also change government agencies like the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
