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).
The Wolf-Dogs of Yellowstone
Wolves have decimated the elk herds in Yellowstone Park [here], but that’s okay because Yellowstone wolves are wild animals in danger of extinction, whereas elk are totally expendable.
The USFWS tried to take wolves off the Endangered Species List last year [here], evidently because their scientists believe that Canadian gray wolves are not endangered [here, here, here, here]. But twelve enviro groups sued to put a halt to the delisting [here], and a federal judge agreed with them [here].
U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy enjoined the delisting of gray wolves in the Northern Rockies and put them back on the Endangered Species list because, in his a-scientific opinion, wolves need more “genetic exchange” [here]. If the entire country is not crawling with wolves, they might get inbred and retarded like European royalty, in the judge’s twisted view of world.
We wrote at the time:
The problem is that wolves breed like dogs, and with dogs, coyotes, and everything else dog-like. Genetic purity can only be maintained within limited populations. When wolves are allowed to roam all over, their genotype gets polluted with dog genes.
They become wolf-dogs, like in New Mexico, or wolf-otes, like in Minnesota.
Sure enough, a new study by a team of biologists and molecular geneticists from Stanford University, UCLA, Sweden, Canada and Italy has found that nearly half of North American wolves have dog genes already [here].
Biologists solve mystery of black wolves
UCLA Press Release, 5-Feb-2009
Why do nearly half of North American wolves have black coats while European wolves are overwhelmingly gray or white? The surprising answer, according to teams of biologists and molecular geneticists from Stanford University, UCLA, Sweden, Canada and Italy, is that the black coats are the result of historical matings between black dogs and wild gray wolves.
The research, federally funded by the National Science Foundation, appears Feb. 5 in the online edition of the journal Science and will be published later in the journal’s print edition.
The scientists used molecular genetic techniques to analyze DNA sequences from 150 wolves, about half of them black, in Yellowstone National Park, which covers parts of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho. They found that a novel mutated variant of a gene in dogs, known as the K locus, is responsible for black coat color and was transferred to wolves through mating.
It is hard to imagine how genes could get transferred other than by mating, but we didn’t write the press release. The scientists could not find evidence that Yellowstone wolf-dogs had picked up the domestic genes recently, but if the proliferation desired by Judge Molloy and the Plaintiffs in the lawsuit is realized, more cross-fertilization with dogs is inevitable.
“The underlying assumption is that genes from one species will be contained and not enter another species on a massive scale; this may not be true,” [Dr. Robert] Wayne said. “There may be implications for genetically modified organisms.”
Implications? Genetically modified organisms? Wolf-dogs?
All the hoo-rah over wolves and it turns out they aren’t wolves after all!
Elk herds decimated, sheep and cattle slaughtered, rural residents beset with killer predators, state legislatures in an uproar, Fish and Game budgets cannibalized, and the damn wolves aren’t even pure wolves.
They’re wolf-dogs! It’s Save the Zebronkey [here, here] all over again.
The wildlife rights groups who wish to “save” a species (Earthjustice, 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, and Wildlands Project) are gumming up the wildlife populations of an entire region with hybrid wolf-dogs!
The whole thing is a monumental fraud!
The wildlife species of choice (the wolf-dogs), to be protected no matter how much damage they do to other wildlife species, are not even wild; they’re feral!
Oh well. The monumental fraud will continue. Too many folks are too deeply invested in the proliferation of killer predator wolf-dogs. They hate everything else (people, elk, sheep, etc.) with such a burning passion that it does not matter to them what the killer predators are. As long as the slaughter continues, the wolf-dog lovers will be happy.
Slaughter, death, destruction, extirpation, mass suffering of man and beast; it’s all good.
Save the Wolf-dogs! Kill everything else.
Palin and lawmakers were right to dispute beluga, bear listings
by Matt Cronin, Opinion, Anchorage Daily News, Feb. 6, 2009 [here]
Gov. Sarah Palin and the Legislature were criticized for opposing the Endangered Species Act listings of beluga whales in Cook Inlet and polar bears. Mike Nizich and Gov. Palin eloquently justified the state’s positions. Species considered under the Endangered Species Act are not necessarily in danger of extinction. Polar bears have increased worldwide over the last 40 years and most populations have not declined. Numbers of belugas have increased over the last six years. The bears and belugas were listed because of predictive models that a scientist would treat as hypotheses in need of testing, not conclusions.
Some Endangered Species Act species are not even species, because the act includes subspecies and populations (DPS), so almost any population can be listed. The belugas were declared genetically distinct to support the DPS designations but this is scientifically simplistic.
Maintaining belugas in Cook Inlet is one management objective, as are fishing, oil, minerals, marine and air traffic, and forestry. Because Endangered Species Act listings are not definitive and can negatively impact citizens, the governor’s opposition is legitimate and I believe reflects her concern for multiple-use management and her responsibility to the state of Alaska.
Scientists who don’t support ESA listings have been accused of non-objectivity and bogus science (Daily News, Jan. 15, 2009; May 9, 2008). This smacks of Soviet Lysenkoism, in which science was dictated by government policy and dissent was not allowed. In science, debate and discussion should be encouraged, not prevented.
Note: Dr. Matthew Cronin PhD. is Research Associate Professor of Animal Genetics, School of Natural Resources and Agricultural Sciences, University of Alaska Fairbanks. He is also a member of the Alaska Board of Forestry. Three of his research papers are currently posted at the W.I.S.E. Colloquium: Wildlife Sciences [here].
Wolf Delisting Redux a Ruse and a Sham
We reported [here] that the US Fish and Wildlife Service intends to delist Rocky Mountain wolves again, probably at the end of the month. The delisting will include all Rocky Mountain wolves except those in Wyoming.
The rationale for excluding Wyoming is that they have not written an adequate state wolf management plan. From USFWS “talking points”:
• While the Service has approved wolf management plans in Montana and Idaho, it determined that Wyoming’s current state law and wolf management plan are not sufficient to conserve Wyoming’s portion of a recovered northern Rocky Mountain wolf population.
• So even though Wyoming is included in the northern Rocky Mountain DPS, the subpopulation of gray wolves in Wyoming is not being removed from protection of the Endangered Species Act at this time.
Hanging Wyoming out to dry is a ruse, a red herring intended to draw attention away from delisting the other RM wolves.
The simple fact is that Rocky Mountain (Canadian gray) wolves are NOT endangered. The species is not at risk of going extinct. There are more than 60,000 wolves in Canada and the population is growing in leaps and bounds. The wolf populations in the US are also multiplying like crazy, expanding at 25% or more per year. Yellowstone NP (it’s in Wyoming) is saturated with wolves and ungulate (elk, deer, bison) populations are crashing due to wolf predation. In Idaho and Montana game herds are disappearing and hungry wolves are killing livestock in record numbers.
The USFWS attempted to delist RM wolves last year. They were sued and lost, not because wolves are at risk but because of egregiously bad decisions by pseudo-scientific judges. Rather than appealing the goofy judgments, last December the USFWS capitulated and relisted non-endangered wolves.
Now, in the waning moments of the Bush Administration, the USFWS offers up an off-the-wall Delisting Redux. It is shadow puppet theater, however. If the Obamaloids don’t squelch it within minutes of taking office, the usual suspect enviro-hysteric litigation-happy “advocacy” groups will sue.
Decision To Delist Gray Wolves To Be Challenged In Court
by Dee Chisamera, eFluxMedia, January 15th 2009 [here]
Rodger Schlickeisen, president of Defenders of Wildlife, called it a blatantly political maneuver that the Bush administration has been supporting since day one. It is nonsense to rush this rule through when states have plans to kill hundreds of wolves as soon as they’re delisted, he further explained, also adding that the Defenders of Wildlife organization plans to challenge the decision in court.
The Center for Biological Diversity also threatened to take the matter to court. Its representative, Michael Robinson, warned this rule (…) will result in the deaths of over a thousand wolves, and will unravel the natural balance these wolves have maintained. The organization reinforced the idea that the delisting doesn’t fix any problem, but instead it creates new ones that will prevent the gray wolf populations from recovering.
“Natural balance” is a crock of junk pseudo-science, promulgated by wackos in the face of near consensus among wildlife ecologists that “natural balance” is a fairy tale myth. Be that as it may, the wackos will sue and the USFWS will again mount no defense.
According to informed Wildlife and People readers, Delisting Revisited is:
… a ruse designed by the USFWS to demonize the Bush Administration and nail down once and for all that the wolf is to be forever listed as an Endangered Species.
For the past 12 years the attorney generals and governors of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming squandered every opportunity to have this issue decided in federal court based on facts and law. Their foot-dragging incompetence has resulted in laches: they have “slept on their rights” and as a result of the delay have crippled their claim. Laches is a form of estoppel for delay. Equity aids the vigilant, not the negligent. And the attorney generals and governors of Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming did it for money, the pittance of Federal wolf funding that has been a handy bag of loot for the state bosses.
State and Federal governments have perpetrated a fraud. Canadian wolves are not endangered. On the contrary, their populations are burgeoning and it is ungulate populations that are crashing as a result. Too many sticky fingers in the till have sold the residents of Rocky Mountain states down wolf river, trampling Constitutional rights like a herd of enraged elephants.
The latest machination from the USFWS is a soft lob to the crazies who will hit it out of the park. Real suffering will result, to both humans and wildlife. It is another shameful episode in an endless parade of shame.
It is past time for states to stand up to the Feds and restore human rights to Americans. The displays of gutlessness and venality of elected officials have gone on long enough. It is time to put an end to predatory offenses against man and nature by sacrosanct, uncontrolled wolves.
Programmed Failure in Wolf Relisting
One all too frequent aspect of government initiatives is that they often are doomed to failure from the get go. The design is such that the planned action is guaranteed to fall apart sooner rather than later and never achieve the putative goals. I call that “programmed failure” and the examples are numerous, from affirmative action to welfare. The cases are so numerous and ubiquitous that programmed failure might be said to be the principal function and overriding style of our modern Federal and state governments.
Programmed failure is abundantly evident in the latest “relisting” of Rocky Mountain wolves. The manner in which the US Fish and Wildlife Service put wolves back on the Endangered Species List is so fraught with contradiction and legal screw-ups that it cannot stand the light of day.
Some background: Years ago the USFWS released Canadian wolves into Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming in a (misguided) attempt to “reintroduce” the species. The wolves multiplied to huge (but expected and predicted) numbers. Over the last few years the burgeoning wolf population has decimated deer and elk herds, and wolves have taken to slaughtering sheep and cattle on private ranches. The situation is out of control.
Last March the USFWS delisted (removed from the Endangered Species List) Rocky Mountain wolves. From an analysis by Dr. Charles Kay entitled Is Delisting Rigged? [here]:
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) has announced that wolves in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming will be delisted by the end of March 2008. According to a recent USFWS news release, wolves in the Northern Rockies were to be delisted when there was a “minimum of 30 breeding pairs and 300 wolves for at least three consecutive years. That goal was achieved in 2002, and the wolf population has expanded in size and range every year since. There are currently more than 1,500 wolves and at least 100 breeding pairs in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming. While most sportsmen think that delisting is long overdue, a consortium of eleven environmental groups has said they will sue to stop delisting because there are not enough wolves! Apparently “wolf recovery” has been a fraud from the beginning!
The “environmental” groups did indeed sue, and last July U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy granted a preliminary injunction, throwing out the delisting of gray wolves in the Northern Rockies and order them put back on the Endangered Species list. [here]
In December the USFWS obeyed the Judge and relisted Rocky Mountain wolves [here]. The USFWS was (is) petulant about the situation, though, and their relisting regulation is a deliberate joke — programmed to fail.
Of Mice and Caribou (and Men and Wolves)
Genetic Diversity Is Fool’s Gold and a Foolish Goal
Much ado has been made lately regarding “genetic diversity” in wildlife species. But genetic diversity is, for the most part, a pseudo-scientific concept. Like “cultural diversity” in human societies, genetic diversity is a subjective judgment, not a measurement. It cannot be calibrated and more importantly, genetic diversity has nothing to do with saving species from extinction.
The Endangered Species Act (1973) was promulgated on the assumption that many and various species of plants and animals in the world are going extinct, and the Federal Government had to step in to do something about it. A plethora of dire reports warned of mass extinctions, a loss of “bio-diversity”, and the pending collapse of ecosystems worldwide due to extirpation of the entire “Noah’s Ark” of critters.
Those dire reports continue to this very day (despite 30+ years of worldwide efforts to avert the decimation of Creation). Just one example [here] from a Google search with 6 million hits:
At the present time there are about 5,000 species of animals and more than 25,000 species of plants facing extinction. Some of these are already poised on the brink of completely disappearing and may well be beyond all hope of salvation now whatever attempts might be made to save them. With the human race multiplying at the rate of one million more people every six days; the destruction of tropical rain forests at the frightening rate of 50 acres per minute; and the probable loss of approximately 800 square miles of wild habitat each day to human needs - it is hardly surprising that there are so many endangered species of animals and plants.
The howling about Mass Extinctions was and is deafening, but there is very little actual truth behind the cacophony. As of 2006, of the nearly 2,000 species of plants and animals listed under the ESA, only 9 have gone extinct and some of those were arguably extinct prior to listing. That is, after 30+ years of Mass Extinction dire warnings, it turns out that less than half of one percent of the MOST endangered species have disappeared.
That is hardly a crisis. In fact, extinction is a natural process and has been happening for hundreds of millions of years, as has been evolution and new speciation.
The ESA has spawned a massive bureaucracy however, and given rise to dozens of new species of government functionaries, regulations, taxes, takings, exactions, and entirely new branch of law, and courts, lawyers, judges, and advocates, as well as inflicting economic hardships nationally and worldwide. And contrary to the best intentions, “implementation” of the ESA has damaged ecosystems and extirpated species via “scientific” research.
Yes, sports fans. Researchers have been killing off entire species. Nest robbing, mist netting, bleeding creatures, and outright “collection” of entire populations has and continues to occur.
Museum warehouses, such as those owned by the Smithsonian, are filled with vats, jars, shelves, and drawers of dead animals, pinned, embalmed, or formaldehyded, of now extinct species. Buffalo Bill may have shot a lot of bison for their hides, but at least those robes were used for something. The deathly Smithsonian warehouses are morgues of uselessness. There is no cataloging or curating of the millions of “specimens”.
Those sordid tales are too many to relate in this essay. Our purpose herein is to examine the perversion of the ESA. There has been no Mass Extinction, a troubling defect of prediction which has pushed all the new species of functionaries, bureaucrats, lawyers, etc. to justify their own existence somehow. The solution has been to invent new animal species that never existed before, and to perpetuate the dire reports of extinction based on novel (and imaginary) new critters.
Egregious Misuse of the ESA
The Endangered Species Act was enacted in 1973 with the idea of preventing species from going extinct. From the Endangered Species Act of 1973 as amended through the 108th Congress. ESA § 3(6):
(4) the United States has pledged itself as a sovereign state in the international community to conserve to the extent practicable the various species of fish or wildlife and plants facing extinction.
However, in the ensuing years, the ESA has been used to “protect” a wide number of species that are in no way in danger of becoming extinct.
There are numerous cases in point. Polar bears were listed under the ESA as threatened last May [here], despite the fact that the polar bear population is growing and may be at an historic high [here]. Canadian grey wolves were planted (by the US Fish and Wildlife Service) in Rocky Mountain states and then declared endangered despite the fact that the exact same wolves teem in Canada.
One of the slick tricks the USFWS pulls is to declare some geographic sub-set of a species to be a Distinct Population Segment (DPS) or Evolutionarily Significant Unit (ESU), which are supposed to be genetically unique and separate sub-populations [here]. Examples abound, such as the western snowy plover and marbled murrelet, both of which are common and not threatened with extinction, but are listed as DPS’s at the extreme termini of their ranges.
The same is true of Canadian wolves in the U.S. which are split into at least three DPS’s, or were until recent judicial decision found that ESA lacks any definition of a Distinct Population Segment [here].
Perhaps the most egregious misuse of the ESU designation is in Pacific salmon, with 52 (count ‘em, 52) so-called Evolutionarily Significant Units [here]. That doc was written in 2005. As of 2008 16 salmon and steelhead ESU’s are listed as threatened, and 6 bull trout ESU’s, as well [here].
Endangered Specious Homo sapiens Salmon and other fish Wolves
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USFWS Reinstates Protection For Wolves In Compliance With Court Orders
Tom Remington of Black Bear Blog has written an excellent review [here] of the court cases that led up to the recent re-listing of Rocky Mountain wolves as endangered species [here]. We excerpt some of Tom’s essay below. Please see Black Bear Blog for the entire article.
By Tom Remington
On December 11, 2008, recorded in the Federal Register, the Department of Interior, more specifically the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, published the final rule that places the gray wolf in nearly all of the lower 48 states, under federal protection of the Endangered Species Act. What this final rule does, I doubt 99.999999% of Americans understand.
How I understand this is that the Department of Interior (DOI) has cranked the clock back in time to 1978. My question now becomes, why stop there? …
What is becoming distinctly clear in all of these cases combined is that the DOI and USFWS have no legal authority to create a Distinct Population Segment for any species.
In the Vermont court case, part of the two lawsuits that essentially rendered the three DPS of wolves in the lower 48 states illegal and a violation of the Act, Judge J. Garvan Murtha’s ruling stated the following:
The definition of “species” includes “any distinct population segment of any species.” 16 U.S.C. § 1532(16). The ESA does not define “distinct population segment” (“DPS”), nor is it a term used in scientific literature.
Judge Murtha recognizes that the “DPS Policy” “allows” for the USFWS to protect species based on the Policy Regarding the Recognition of Distinct Vertebrate Population. This policy takes into consideration the “discreetness”, “significance” and “conservation status” of species. But Murtha obviously doesn’t think creating a DPS for management purposes and in this case, delisting purposes, is legal.
Judge Paul Friedman, who ruled that the WGL DPS was illegal, also stated that there is no definition of a Distinct Population Segment. …
As a result of the three court cases discussed above, I have to ask why the Department of Interior stopped their clock rewinding at 1978? Why not go back to pre-ESA. As we have seen by court rulings of Defenders of Wildlife v. Norton, National Wildlife Federation v. Norton, Humane Society of the United States v. Kempthorne and the twelve parties that sued Kempthorne to put the wolf back under federal protection in the NRM DPS, tells us that creating DPSs is an illegal act. Any reasonable person would now question whether the federal government had the authority to create the first Distinct Population Segment of gray wolves in 1978 when it classified wolves in all the lower 48 states.
The confusing mess this has created now extends beyond just the gray wolf. It involves every species in existence in the United States. This is a clear example of the courts having inadequate knowledge of the issues making rulings that have now put the very species we may be wanting to protect in danger as well as stripping management powers from the USFWS.
I wrote recently of the efforts taking place as we speak to list the Atlantic salmon in Maine as endangered or threatened under the ESA. From this information we now ask, can the USFWS and NMFS (National Marine Fisheries Service/NOAA) create a Distinct Population Segment of Atlantic salmon? The feds are attempting to expand the listing and define critical habitat. This, according to the court’s interpretation, is creating a new DPS within a DPS.
Surely the Department of the Interior, in issuing this final ruling to return the gray wolf protection to 1978 levels, is telling us their hands are tied. They should have taken it one step further and rescinded the original declaration of a wolf DPS within the U.S. from the beginning. (Perhaps they knew that would actually get someone’s attention.)
This also raises some very serious issues with regard to the “Nonessential Experimental Population” of gray wolves in the Yellowstone National Park area and Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. Was it a legal act to create these NEPs? The broader question becomes whether the federal government had legal authority to reintroduce wolves into these regions? Surely if they can’t create segmented DPS of a species for management purposes, they have no legal right to dump species into these illegally crafted NEPs. … [more]
