Confessions of a Treatyphobe
by Jim Beers
“My name is Jim Beers and I am a treatyphobe.”
I grew up in the period of wildlife abundance in the 1940’s and 50’s. From the first time I hunted with my Dad, the dream of spending my life managing and preserving the use and cultural heritage provided by US fish and wildlife was always in my mind.
When I studied wildlife management in college and when I worked for the Utah Fish and Game and then the US Fish and Wildlife Service after a stint in the Navy; fish and wildlife management and use, like American freedoms and the American way of life were still intact. Today, fish and wildlife management and use, like American government, American freedoms, American culture and traditions, and American society are in tatters and on the verge of disappearance.
I lay much of the blame for this decline on the sordid manipulation of the Treaty powers contained in the US Constitution by persons with hidden agendas. That is not to say that this power is wrongly described therein, it is to say that this power as it has evolved in the past century has eroded the strong foundation of Constitutional government and fish and wildlife use and management as we knew it.
I am “taking pen to paper” here because yesterday I wrote about the potential for the current Administration (Obama et al) and the current US Senate (Reid et al) to cynically craft and line up a few nations to sign a UN Treaty “On Small Arms and Ammunition” that, when signed by the President (of the US) and ratified by 2/3 of the Senators “present” whenever old Harry (Reid) deigns to ask for a vote, automatically becomes “the Law of the land” per the Constitution. I further speculated that it would mean the inevitable demise of our 2nd Amendment rights.
A lawyer that I respect essentially responded that such a scenario was unlikely because such a treaty would not and could not change the Constitution and therefore would be challenged and found to be unable to change our rights. I was crestfallen but I accept that lawyerly advice.
Therefore I have joined Treatyphobics Anonymous and as my first step in overcoming my phobia about Treaties will try to explain my formerly inexplicable fear of Treaties so that I might return to societal confidence in the Treaty-making authority of federal leaders.
Analysis of the DEIS for Wildlife Conservation Strategy Phase I for the Boise National Forest
Full text [here]
Selected Excerpts:
By Ned N. Pence, Retired Forester
Jan. 24, 2010
INTRODUCTION
The Boise National Forest comprises nearly 1.68 million forested acres. A current Forest Plan was completed in 2003; however since 2000 the forest has experienced extensive wildfire, affecting about 380,000 acres (17% of the forest). The purpose of the project is to complete a comprehensive Wildlife Conservation Strategy (WCS) for the forest and amend the 2003 Forest Plan (Summary, page 6). The Wildlife Conservation Strategy is being completed in conjunction with the Sawtooth National Forest and the Payette National Forest that have also experienced similar extensive wildfires.
The DEIS explains that Forest Plan amendments are necessary for eight reasons (Summary, page 8):
1. Add to or modify existing management direction to emphasize retention of most forest stands that meet the definitions of old-forest habitat or large tree size class.
2. Add to or modify existing management direction to focus restoration in forest stands classified as large tree size class and medium tree size class to promote desired old-forest habitat or large tree stand conditions and reduce hazards and risks to these habitats.
3. Delete wildlife standard WIST01 and replace it with a more comprehensive and diverse strategy for wildlife conservation that relies on scientifically accepted conservation concepts and associated principles.
4. Move the 400,000 acres in the planning unit that fall within Management Prescription Category (MPC) 5.2 (Commodity Production Emphasis) to a restoration emphasis.
5. Add or modify existing management direction to emphasize retention of large snags while balancing other objectives associated with a given MPC (e.g., the desire to provide for economically viable timber harvest on lands suitable for timber production).
6. Prioritize vegetative and associated wildlife habitat restoration treatments to increase the overall probability of restoration success.
7. Identify the location of priority or key habitat areas for wide-ranging carnivore species, such as wolverine, and retain linkages between these habitats. Based on the best information available, identify where potential conflicts between this species and human use may exist and whether further review is warranted.
8. Balance wildlife habitat restoration needs with multiple-use objectives, and allow treatment exemptions for treatments that respond to emergencies, provide for public health and safety, and allow for the exercise of existing rights and other statutory requirements.
The Boise National Forest desires to return the vegetation to “historical conditions” believing that past forest management – wildfire suppression, and timber harvest have “directly and indirectly affected habitat quality, quantity, and distribution” (Summary, page 7). It is not possible to know what “historic conditions” (prior to human settlement) were; however, the Forest Service believes past management practices have resulted in:
1. Substantial reduction in the abundance and extent of large trees size class and old forest habitat.
2. Substantial reduction in the abundance of legacy ponderosa pine and western larch, and large snags.
3. Substantial increases in tree densities and ladder fuels resulting in reduced habitat quality.
4. Reductions in habitat quality due to an increase in climax tree species.
5. Reductions in forest cover from uncharacteristic wildfire, insects and disease.
6. Reductions in habitat quantity and quality due to historic and/or continued human use.
The above concerns prompt me to ask, which is more important, habitat or human use to satisfy current and future needs? The Forest Service must recognize that it is not possible to change current human needs and the impossibility of returning the historic conditions that existed prior to European settlement. However, the desire to return the historic role of fire has to make one wonder.
There is considerable evidence that Native Americans regularly burned the forest to satisfy their needs prior to European settlement. The “mosaic” that the Boise National Forest seems to desire was the result of hundreds of years of deliberate human caused fires combined with allowing lightning fires to burn. It is doubtful that current management can duplicate those conditions due to existing fuel loading without mechanical treatment and then frequent prescribed fire. A major question and concern should be: “Will current attitudes and needs allow the Forest Service to return the historic role of fire?” Current attempts using Wildland Fire Use (WFU) and Appropriate Management Response (AMR) have resulted in catastrophic fire and the expenditure of millions of dollars. …
Endangered Specious Salmon and other fish Wildlife Agencies
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No Balancing of Hardship in ESA Cases
Note: the following article is from Ag Alert, a news service of the California Farm Bureau Federation. The article quotes a U.S. District Court judge from a speech he gave at a water conference. The judge says, in so many words, that there is no such thing as justice in the Endangered Species Act. The Constitution, including the Bill of Rights, has been discarded, and there is nothing the judiciary can do about it.
Judge says water problems won’t be solved in court
By Steve Adler, Associate Editor, Ag Alert, February 24, 2010 [here]
His rulings play a crucial role in determining the operation of federal and state water projects in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, but Judge Oliver Wanger said last week that court rulings aren’t to blame for drastic reductions in water deliveries.
Wanger, a U.S. District Court judge for the Eastern District of California, gave the keynote address during the annual Madera County Farm Bureau Water Conference.
He has been instrumental in several recent court cases relating to Central Valley Project and State Water Project water deliveries that have been severely restricted by the Endangered Species Act and other federal laws. Most of those cases revolve around protected species such as the threatened delta smelt, as well as threatened and endangered species of salmon, steelhead, sturgeon and even killer whales — “because they feed on salmon,” Wanger said.
Wanger let it be known at the beginning of his talk that he was speaking as “a private citizen and not on behalf of the United States District Court where I serve,” and that his views were not intended to be a comment on any pending cases.
“I am going to touch on subjects that relate to these cases, but I am going to try to not comment on the cases themselves, because we have issues which have been submitted for a decision, or will be very soon,” he said.
The Fresno-based federal judge said he finds it remarkable that there is, what he called, so little accurate information about how the California “water wars” were created and whether there are any solutions to the dilemma.
“I will start by saying one thing: The one place where there can be no solution is in the courts. That is where these cases are, at present, but there is no question that the courts don’t have resources, the courts don’t have expertise, the courts don’t have political authority or executive authority to do anything to solve the issues that are presented,” he said.
New The Outdoorsman Is Excellent
The previous two posts were extracted (with generous permission) from articles appearing in the new issue of The Outdoorsman, No. 35, July-Nov 2009 [here]. The Outdoorsman is written and edited by Mr. George Dovel [here].
The new issue is excellent, as usual. Looking back, we have posted excerpts from six? previous issues [here, here, here, here, here, here] at least. We highly value and appreciate Mr. Dovel’s work and voice.
Another article (beside the two we posted) printed in the new The Outdoorsman is “When Biologists Stocked Alaska with Wolves” by Ned Rozell of the Geophysical Institute, University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Rozell discusses the “predator pit” that resulted from the 1960 release of a mating pair of wolves onto Coronation Island, a remote 45-square-mile island exposed to the open Pacific. Prior to the release, Coronation Island had a high density of blacktailed deer and no wolves. By 1965 at least 13 wolves lived on the island and three litters of young had been born since the first wolves had arrived. Few deer remained. By 1966 only signs were found of 3 deer and one wolf. By 1983 researchers found no evidence of wolves, and the deer were once again plentiful.
Another article is “Let’s Get Real” by Dr. Valerius Geist, about the myth of the “harmless wolf”. Dr. Geist is the undisputed authority on North American big game species, and many of his essays have also been posted at Wildlife and People [here].
Another article is “The Rest of the Story” by George Dovel in which he discusses predator-prey relationships and the myth of the “balance of nature”.
… In his article “Vancouver Island Wolves,” (see April-May 2006 Outdoorsman) Dr. Geist described how, when wolves entered Vancouver Island during the 1970s, the annual deer kill by hunters plummeted from about 25,000 to less than 4,000. Are we to believe that Vancouver Island’s 12,076 square-mile area is, like Alaska’s Coronation Island, also supposedly “too small for both deer and wolves?”
In both cases, with an abundance of deer to kill and eat, the wolves multiplied much faster than the deer and soon depleted their numbers. When the wolves on Coronation Island killed off most of the black-tailed deer and exhausted the supply of other prey they starved and the deer eventually recovered.
But, as Dr. Geist explained in “Vancouver Island Wolves,” after the wolves killed off most of the black-tailed deer and smaller prey, they survived on alternate prey, including elk, livestock and domestic animals and pets. These wolves also continue to kill pockets of deer thereby preventing recovery of the deer population. …
In geographically “closed” ecosystems such as Coronation Island and Isle Royale, a single large carnivore species decimates its single wild ungulate prey and ultimately destroys itself, allowing the prey to repopulate over time. But in the vast majority of ecosystems such as Vancouver Island and Interior Alaska, where alternate prey species allow predators to survive after the primary prey is decimated, the primary prey may not recover without a dramatic reduction in predator numbers. …
That is the situation throughout much of Alaska today and it resulted from pandering to propagandists who were allowed to promote the myth that predators and their prey will seek and maintain a “natural” balance. …
In the lower 48 States, pretending to manage ecosystems rather than actively manage wildlife populations can only result in decades of starvation, disease and scarcity in between the occasional rare “balance” that may appear to exist briefly. At a time when our federal government is promoting sustainable communities and the use of renewable natural resources, promoting the wanton destruction of our renewable timber and wildlife resources is inexcusable.
Please read the (free online) newest issue of The Outdoorsman [here]. You may also wish to send George Dovel a donation for his important and valuable efforts (see the last page of The Outdoorsman).
Wolf Recovery and the Corruption of Government Science
by George Dovel
From The Outdoorsman, No. 35, July-Nov 2009 [here]
In November 2007 when Evolutionary Biologists Jennifer Leonard and Robert Wayne announced that most of the several thousand “wolves” being protected in the Great Lakes region were actually wolf-coyote crosses, Utah Wildlife Ecologist Dr. Charles Kay commented, “What a mess!” During their two-year study of the genetic make-up of Great Lakes wolves that were delisted, the study did not find any purebred Eastern Timber Wolves, and only 31% of the wolves tested had any Eastern timber wolf “genes” in their genetic make-up.
When confronted with this information by the news media in November 2007, Eastern Gray Wolf Recovery Team Leader Rolph Peterson admitted they had known all along that the wolves were crossbreeding with coyotes. …
The wolfote or coywolf hybrid reportedly found in western New York, Pennsylvania and elsewhere. Image courtesy The Outdoorsman
Molecular genetics analysts concluded that the “red wolf” being bred and raised in captivity and then released into rural areas of the Southeastern US by the US Fish and Wildlife Service is in actuality a wolf-coyote hybrid. Image courtesy The Outdoorsman
Parallel Universe, Part One: When Two Worlds Collide – Ranching and Litigation
By Julie Kay Smithson, property rights researcher, London, Ohio [here]
Today’s ranchers raise beef that is leaner, grown with an eye toward both responsible grazing techniques and health-conscious consumers. Unlike America’s east, where private property is in the majority of land ownership, the federal government owns vast areas in the American west. Ranchers own grazing permits on federal lands. Modern ranching has become complex. Ranching practices must be leaner and greener in order to be environmentally responsible and profitable.
The West and its federal, or “public,” lands, is no exception.
Under the Taylor Grazing Act, the first grazing district to be established was Wyoming Grazing District Number 1 on March 23, 1935. Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes created a Division of Grazing within the Department to administer the grazing districts; this division later became the U.S. Grazing Service and was headquartered in Salt Lake City. [1]
The Continental Congress, through the “Land Ordinance of 1785,” adopted a “Rectangular Survey System” on May 20, 1785, which defines the public lands by Township, Range and Section, modified by the Act of May 18, 1796, and other subsequent Acts into the recognizable cadastral survey system of today. Originally established by Congress in 1812 under the Treasury Department as the “General Land Office.” The GLO, among other things, was responsible for the surveys of the public lands. Successor to the GLO emerged when the consolidation of the GLO and the Grazing Service occurred on July 16, 1946, creating the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). [2]
In today’s world, being savvy about definitions and laws is vital to running a business. It is also of paramount importance to those whose custom and culture, work and lifestyles, carry the indelible stamp of resource providing: America’s farmers, commercial fishermen, miners, ranchers, and timber growers and harvesters. The saying, “If it can’t be grown, it must be mined,” is true. Food and fiber grown in America is necessary for the health of our nation. Responsible resource utilization encompasses not only the ability to extract or harvest resources, but also the keen, ever-learning manner in which those resources are brought from source to consumer.
Twenty-first century resource providers never leave the classroom – they are constantly in pursuit of new and better ways to both protect the natural environment and provide products that are skillfully grown/raised to be healthful. The old days of just “being” a rancher, farmer, logger, miner, or fisherman, are, as they say, “history.” Today’s history is being written by those dedicated to making a positive contribution to the earth and its people. Such dedication requires a willingness to learn that goes far beyond the confines of learning institutions, one that also respects the science that is ever evolving from those places.
Today’s holders of grazing permits in the West must keep in mind that new ways of grazing mean everything from riparian restoration to making sure livestock don’t tarry too long at any one watering or grazing location.
USFWS Reinstates Great Lake Wolves As Endangered
On June 29 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reinstated Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves in the Western Great Lakes. In response to a legal challenge from the Humane Society of the United States, the Center for Biological Diversity, Friends of Animals and Their Environment, Born Free USA, and Help Our Wolves Live, the USFWS withdrew the April 2, 2009 final rule that delisted the Western Great Lakes population of gray wolves.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service NEWS RELEASE, June 29, 2009 [here]
Statement on Status of Gray Wolves in the Western Great Lakes
Service Will Provide Additional Opportunity for Public Comment
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has reached a settlement agreement with plaintiffs in a lawsuit challenging the Service’s 2009 rule removing Endangered Species Act protections for gray wolves in the Western Great Lakes. Under the terms of the agreement, which must still be approved by the court, the Service will provide an additional opportunity for public comment on the rule to ensure compliance with the Administrative Procedures Act.
Gray wolves in the Western Great Lakes area have exceeded recovery goals and continue to thrive under state management. However, the Service agrees with plaintiffs that additional public review and comment was required under federal law prior to making that final decision.
Upon acceptance of this agreement by the court, and while the Service gathers additional public comment, gray wolves in the Western Great Lakes area will again be protected under the Endangered Species Act. All restrictions and requirements in place under the Act prior to the delisting will be reinstated. In Minnesota, gray wolves will be considered threatened; elsewhere in the region, gray wolves will be designated as endangered. The Service will continue to work with states and tribes to address wolf management issues while Western Great Lakes gray wolves remain under the protection of the Act. …
Killer Wolf Tagged and Released
Wolves have been mass slaughtering lambs in NE Oregon. In April 23 lambs were wolf-killed in Keating Valley near Baker City [here]. Since then more sheep and calves have been killed by wolves.
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife tracked and captured one of the killer wolves. Then they released it so it could kill some more.
NEWS RELEASE, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, May 4, 2009 [here]
LA GRANDE, Ore. – A joint effort by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife specialists resulted in the capture, radio-collaring, and release of a male wolf on Sunday morning, May 3, at approximately 7 a.m. PT. The event marks the first radio-collaring of a wolf in Oregon.
The wolf captured and radio-collared was an 87-pound male estimated to be about 2 years old. The track size and a second, smaller wolf seen at the capture site indicate that the wolf is one of two involved in several livestock depredations in the Keating Valley area of Baker County over the past few weeks.
The male wolf was trapped about 2.5 miles from the ranch house where this pair of wolves attacked a calf on April 17. Tissue samples were taken from the wolf for genetic analysis. …
Here is smiling ODFW wolf coordinator Russ Morgan fondling the killer wolf just prior to releasing it 2.5 miles away from the most recent mass slaughter site.
The killer wolf happily on its way to kill more sheep.
Photos courtesy your bloodthirsty government.
Endangered Sanity
In our classic essay, Save the Elephino [here], we poked fun at the lunacy of “protecting” bizarre hybrids:
This is wrong (in many respects). If wolfotes and wolfogs are to be “protected,” then sparred (or botted) owls should be, too.
And why stop there? What about beefalos? It seems highly unevolutionary, biologically speaking, as well as inhumane, to sell beefalo meat in grocery stores right next to the salmon, for instance. Shouldn’t beefalos be allowed to roam free and commune with Mother Nature, freaks of nature though they might be?
And what about ligers, zebronkeys, and jackalopes? This old world is big enough for all God’s creatures, isn’t it?
We want our favorite hybrid listed: that rare cross and the answer to nearly every question that can be asked, the elephino.
Life imitates art, as they say. Our favorite hunter-blogger, Tom Remington of Black Bear Blog, send a heads-up: now enviro-wackos want wolfotes and wolfogs put on the Endangered Species list [here]:
Northeast Environmentalists Want To Protect Interbred Canids (Dogs)
by Tom Remington, Black Bear Blog, March 20, 2009
Where will the absolute insanity stop when it comes to efforts by extremists to end hunting, fishing and trapping, close off lands to human use, strip us of our rights and destroy our god given right in the pursuit of happiness?
It has gotten so bad that a group, made up of representatives from Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts and New York, have petitioned the Department of Interior in order to place protections under the Endangered Species Act for any interbred species of dogs, coyotes, wolves or any combination of the above, claiming these all to be unique species.
The goofy group consists of John M. Glowa and Walter L. Pepperman of the Maine Wolf Coalition, Christine L. Schadler, who has done “research,” Joseph Butera of the Northeast Ecological Recovery Society, and Jonathan G. Way of Eastern Coyote Research. Their Petition to the Government reads, in part:
In accordance with the Administrative Procedures Act and/or the Endangered Species Act, we hereby petition the U.S. Department of Interior and the Service to regulate the commerce or taking, and treat as endangered species in the States of New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts, coyotes (Canis latrans), coyote/gray wolf hybrids (Canis latrans x Canis lupus), eastern wolves (Canis lycaon), eastern wolf/gray wolf hybrids (Canis lycaon x Canis lupus), coyote/eastern wolf hybrids (Canis latrans x Canis lycaon), and coyote/eastern wolf/gray wolf hybrids (Canis latrans x Canis lycaon x Canis lupus) because of their close resemblance to the federally endangered and protected gray wolf.
In accordance with the Administrative Procedures Act and/or the U.S. Endangered Species Act, we also hereby petition the U.S. Department of Interior and the Service: (1) to establish a Northeastern Gray Wolf Distinct Population Segment consisting of the States of New York, Vermont New Hampshire, Maine and Massachusetts; and, (2) to develop and implement a Northeastern Gray Wolf Recovery Plan.
They really mean a Northeastern Wolfote, Wolfog, and Elephino Recovery Plan.
But guess what? That’s not what the ESA was set up to do. The Petition is not in accordance with reality. Hybrids are hybrids, not endangered species. Even the less-than-perspicacious functionaries of the USFWS know that.
Note: look it up!
Ah well. Sanity is a rare commodity these days, along with common sense, rationality, and the ability to tie one’s own shoes.
Save the Zebronky. Do it today.
ESA Captured By Monkey Wrenchers
$5 Per Gallon Gasoline! Reason: Endangered Species Act
by Tom Remington, Black Bear Blog, March 16, 2009 [here]
The intro to an excellent analysis:
That shouldn’t make a lick of sense unless of course scientists were to discover some rare and endangered species living deep beneath the earth where oil and natural gas reserves lie. But this is what has become of our beloved Endangered Species Act, a legal document devised in 1973 that was intended to help prevent the man-made destruction of animal and plant life.
Last year the Bush administration decided to list the polar bear as a species that is threatened - meaning that there is a possibility that if we don’t pay close attention to this animal, certain circumstances could put the bear in danger of going extinct. We don’t want that but was it necessary?
I guess it depends on whose science we opt to use and how much politicking comes into play. It appears that the Bush administration attempted to play politics instead of opting for science and fighting the battle based on that.
After the listing was announced, the Bush people tried to pull a double whammy political back 2 and one half somersault. They crafted an executive order that said lawsuits couldn’t be filed to stop energy production, or any other carbon emitting project, based on perceived global warming threats to polar bears. This of course makes about as much sense as pouring gasoline on a fire. The reason Bush and Kempthorne claimed for listing the polar bear was because of shrinking Arctic ice caused by global warming. Politics as usual.
Now with Obama in office and having recently overturned that sneaky little attempt by Kempthorne to prevent lawsuits, the door has been left wide open, welcoming with open arms any and every lawsuit known to mankind that might have an affect on polar bears. How creative can you get? … [more]
Conservation Groups to Sue Over Wolf Delisting
Earthjustice Press Release, 2009-03-09 [here]
… Conservation groups, represented by Earthjustice, will send the Fish and Wildlife Service a notice that the delisting violates the Endangered Species Act when the government formally submits the rule to the Federal Register, presumably next week. If the agency does not reconsider the delisting rule, the conservation groups will again ask a federal court to reinstate federal Endangered Species Act protections for wolves in the northern Rockies until wolf numbers are stronger and the states pledge to responsibly manage wolves.
Earthjustice represented Defenders of Wildlife, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity, The Humane Society of the United States, Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance, Friends of the Clearwater, Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Oregon Wild, Cascadia Wildlands Project, Western Watersheds Project, Wildlands Project, and Hells Canyon Preservation Council in the earlier suit.
Screwing the Economy With Polar Bears
Last week the US Senate voted to kill the US economy with polar bear nonsense lawsuits. In a 42 to 52 vote, the Senate refuse to expunge an alteration of Department of Interior rules that in effect limited polar bear lawsuits. Now the door is wide open to sue the bejabbers out of any project that emits carbon dioxide (all of them) on the grounds that CO2 will (allegedly) cause runaway global warming and thus (allegedly) drive polar bears into extinction.
The offense clause is in the Omnibus Appropriations Act of 2009. It is unknown (to this scribe) why a polar bear clause was inserted into the budget act, or who did it, although I suspect Nancy Pelosi. The clause was in the budget act when it came to the Senate from the House.
But there it is, a hidden little bomb that will blow up into myriad monkey-wrencher lawsuits and put a few more nails in the coffin of the US economy.
Background
Last May Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne, acting on the recommendation of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, listed the polar bear as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act [here].
This was done despite the fact that the world polar bear population has increased 300 to 400% over the last forty years [here, here, here]
Polar bears now number 20,000-25,000 worldwide as compared to 8,000-10,000 in 1965-1973. … The current worldwide population has not significantly declined in recent years.
and
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service estimates that the polar bear population is currently at 20,000 to 25,000 bears, up from as low as 5,000-10,000 bears in the 1950s and 1960s. A 2002 U.S. Geological Survey of wildlife in the Arctic Refuge Coastal Plain noted that the polar bear populations “may now be near historic highs.”
Montanans Object to Tactics Used to Suppress HJ 26
News Release - DecideToVote.com, 27 Feb 2009
MISSOULA - Citizens across Montana are placing 30-second radio spots today in protest over handling of House Joint Resolution 26 by the Montana House of Representatives. Prepared ads criticize Democrat leadership in the House for attempting to violate House rules by denying a public hearing on HJ 26. Ads also criticize House Democrats for voting against HJ 26 on a party-line vote.
HJ 26 reasserts Montana sovereignty reserved to the state in Article II, Section 2 of the Montana Constitution, and in the Ninth and Tenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution. In that regard, HJ 26 is similar to measures that are currently working in the legislatures of nearly 30 states across the U.S. Perhaps the first of these to be introduced was in New Hampshire, although the Oklahoma House of Representatives just passed a similar measure by a substantial vote margin.
In Montana, citizens are concerned about a possible move by Congress to cut off highway funds unless Montana caves in and accepts the federal Real ID, an idea rejected unanimously by the 2007 Montana Legislature and Governor Schweitzer. Montanans are also concerned about a likely wave of new gun control laws being proposed in Congress. One such proposed law, H.R. 45, would, if passed, make any person possessing a firearm a federal felon unless that person applied for and obtained a federal license to possess firearms. Montanans could not even apply for the required license because a Real ID is required to apply, and Montana has rejected Real ID.
HJ 26 addresses these issues and more. The radio spots that Montana citizens are placing across Montana are available from:
http://www.decide2vote.com/
This effort is distributed and not being organized by any particular organization, although several Montana organizations have picked up on the idea and are asking members and friends to place the ads locally with radio stations. People placing the ads want the public to know who is responsible for attempting to thwart the progress of HJ 26 in the Legislature.
Anyone with questions about this issue should look up HJ 26 on the Legislature’s Website and should contact their local legislators or their local radio station.
###
Note: see Restoring the 10th Amendment [here]
Deer, Elk, Bison Endangered Specious Homo sapiens Salmon and other fish Wolves
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$740 Million Goes to States for Fish and Wildlife Projects
U.S. Fish & Wildlife News Release [here]
Department of the Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced today more than $740.9 million will be distributed to the fish and wildlife agencies of the 50 states, commonwealths, the District of Columbia, and territories to fund fish and wildlife conservation, boater access to public waters, and hunter and aquatic education. These Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration Program funds come from excise taxes and import duties on sporting firearms, ammunition, archery equipment, sportfishing equipment, electric outboard motors, and fuel taxes attributable to motorboats and small engines. … [more]
Note that the money comes FROM hunters and fishermen and goes TO something OTHER THAN management of game animals and game fish. That is known is the parlance as bait-and-switch, or more plainly, yet another gummit ripoff.
For more information on this issue please see:
Ripping Off Idaho Hunters and Fishermen [here]
Corruption, Featherbedding, and Looting the Idaho Treasury [here]
The High Costs of Wolves [here]
Secret Meetings, Wolves, Missing Money, and the Next Possible Director of US Fish and Wildlife Service [here]
Endangered species listings lack solid science
by Matthew A. Cronin, Ph.D., Fairbanks Daily News-Miner, February 22, 2009 [here]
Governor Sarah Palin and the Alaska Legislature were criticized for opposing the Endangered Species Act listings of beluga whales in Cook Inlet and polar bears. In these articles, ESA advocates imply the listings are based on definitive science. They are not. Gov. Palin and her chief of staff, Mike Nizich, have capably justified the state’s positions.
Animals considered under ESA are not necessarily endangered with extinction. Polar bears were listed even though worldwide numbers have increased during the past 40 years and most populations have not declined. Of the 19 populations identified in the ESA documents, five were declining, two were increasing, five were stable and seven were unknown. Polar bears were considered endangered because of global warming and summer sea ice models. Whether polar bears are endangered at this time depends on one’s view of the model predictions.
Models also were used for the belugas, so it also is not definite they are endangered with extinction. The number of whales declined from 653 in 1994 to 375 in 2008, but have increased during the past six years. Model results are predictions, not facts, and should be considered hypotheses to be tested with new information.
Some ESA species are not even species because the ESA can apply to species, subspecies or “distinct population segments.” The terms “subspecies” and “distinct population segment” are not rigorously defined, so almost any fish and wildlife population can qualify for ESA listing. Subspecies and distinct population segments are simply fish and wildlife populations with distinguishing characteristics in a geographic area. Examples of these categories include entire species (polar bears), subspecies (Pacific walrus) and populations (belugas in Cook Inlet).
