or Legislators sea kelp (seek help) but cat (cougar) gets their tongues
By WA State Rep. Joel Kretz, 7th District
You’ll all be glad to know the people of Puget Sound will be able to sleep a little easier tonight. The state legislature has given them the right to protect themselves from dreaded attacks by, uh, Sea Lettuce.
For those of you who hadn’t heard, Sea Lettuce is a native species that has become more abundant around the Sound in recent years. The problem is that it grows profusely then dies off, leaving a stinking mess that threatens the health, safety and welfare of the residents in those waterfront mansions.
I can tell you, the legislators from the areas hardest hit by this invasion showed up with blood in their eyes and murder in their hearts.
Sea Lettuce has got to die, they said, and we don’t care how.
Now, these are the same urban legislators who told rural residents overrun with cougars that we had to “learn to live with cougars,” to somehow peacefully co-exist.
I was shocked at this knee-jerk reaction. These people have a little trouble with Sea Lettuce and they immediately want to kill it?
I felt compelled to offer other solutions, something along the lines of how they wanted us to deal with cougars.
Couldn’t we explore non-lethal means of dealing with wayward Sea Lettuce?
Couldn’t we trap the Sea Lettuce and relocate it? No, they said, it would just cause problems elsewhere.
March 30, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Cougars
The Idaho Statesman ran dueling reader’s opinion pieces about wolves this week. One was by Suzanne Asha Stone of Boise, the wolf conservation specialist for Defenders of Wildlife:
Forty years ago, there were no known wolf packs in the northern Rockies because people had driven them to near extinction in the region. Today, 1,500 wolves roam across Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. Returning wolves to the wild has been a remarkable wildlife achievement, but this is a story whose next chapters are just now being written. The question is: Will this story have a happy ending? … [more]
The other was written by Nate Helm, executive director of Idaho’s chapter of Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife.
Yes, it is time - time to remove the population of wolves living in Idaho from the endangered species list. Sportsmen in Idaho and across the West support the Department of Interior’s (DOI) recent proposal to delist wolves in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.
Wolves in Idaho are currently managed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). In the case of wolves, the constitutional right given to all states, including Idaho, to manage her wildlife has been superseded by the ESA. The traditional managers of wildlife in Idaho - the citizens of the state, the Idaho Fish and Game Commission, and the Idaho Department of Fish and Game - have had little say. … [more]
Both opinion pieces drew a rash of comments. Most are typical Internet drivel, but one comment stood out head and shoulders above the rest. It was submitted by OneCreek, a pseudonym no doubt. I don’t have any idea who One Creek is, but his comment was so superb that I am posting in its entirety. Please enjoy, and hopefully learn:
Heck - This should have been a “Letter to the Editor”…
I am going to tread dangerously here, and make an assumption that most, if not all of the previous commentary has been penned by those who live and work in cities. Therefore, thoughts and commentary on the subject outside of that which reflects on certain legal perspectives is mostly little more than “abstract”, rather than objective.
I live and work in the North Fork Ranger District of the Salmon-Challis National Forest. Not only do I live in said District, but my property is totally surrounded by the National Forest. Residing here year-around since the year the wolves were established in the area, 1995, perhaps my observations should be of some consideration regarding this debate.
Living here as I do, observation of the natural world around me is secondhand practice. I see things that the casual visitor does not, and for that matter, even the dedicated hunter or the naturalist. By the time their observational talents begin to truly and measurably improve, they must leave for more civilized environs. Conversely, this grand landscape is my constant companion.
March 25, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Cougars, Deer, Elk, Bison, Wolves
Last Thursday the Olympian Online reported [here] that Washington Governor Christine Gregoire signed a bill expanding the use of dogs in cougar hunts. The Senate passed the bill by a 31-18 vote earlier this month. The measure adds three years to a program that allows people to hunt cougars with dogs. The existing program has been operating since 2004, and it includes five counties in northeast Washington. The new bill allows all counties to participate.
The Democrat-controlled Senate and Democrat Governor passed and signed the bill despite Initiative 655 of 1996 whereby the practice was banned.
The Washington Dept. of Fish and Wildlife reports that there are 2,500 cougars in Washington and the population is growing in leaps and bounds (the actual number may be as much as 4,000 according to some sources). From the WDFW website [here].
[M]ore cougar attacks have been reported in the western United States and Canada over the past 20 years than in the previous 80. In Washington, one fatal cougar attack was recorded in 1924. Since then 12 non-fatal attacks have been recorded, 11 of them since 1992. …
Washington populations have more than doubled since the early 1980’s. Our increasing cougar and human populations and decreasing habitat creates new management challenges. The WDFW is responding to over 500 complaints a year regarding urban sightings, attacks on livestock and pets, and cougar/human confrontations.
The problem is serious enough to warrant action, at least in the judgment of the Washington State government.
Read more
March 16, 2008 | Leave a Comment | Topic: Cougars
