Worshipping Science
by JIM BEERS
First there was the State Veterinarian. (Respecting truth-in-advertising, I must confess to a long-standing adversarial relationship with such bureaucrats for their reluctance, that I call cowardice, to speak out about or engage in truthful veterinary aspects of things such as wolves as vectors of all manner of human diseases and infections as well as diseases and infections affecting both wild and domestic animals.) The Minnesota State Veterinarian was solemn as he described the Minnesota cattle ranches where entire herds were destroyed.
Then, a progressive state politician complimented state government and spoke of the threat posed by “other” politicians that would “cut” this vital government service if we didn’t all pull together to thwart their short-sighted efforts. Although she only spoke for a few minutes, I almost turned off the program because I had heard all this before. Whether it is teacher’s salaries, class sizes, snow removal, police and fire services, or (since license sales are declining) DNR staffing “necessary” for hunters and fishermen (never the environmentalists they increasingly serve); some progressive politician seizes the microphone and sings this same old tearjerker.
Finally, there was the obligatory Cattle Rancher Organization Head. He complimented state bureaucrats and bureaucracies while telling of fellow-ranchers who have lost their entire herds. This was couched in personal terms describing the romance of ranching and the place of the herd in the context of the family units that live with - and profit from - such herds from one generation to the next.
As the show wound down, I was reminded of the testimony I gave before the Oregon State Legislature on the subject of wolves as vectors of diseases and infections. I did not remember tuberculosis being on the list of such infections that I had painstakingly composed over a period of several weeks. I called up that testimony on my computer and sure enough, although I listed and explained over 30 infections and diseases transmitted by wolves: tuberculosis was not on the list. Was this another example of shoddy or dishonest “science” unmentioned in the documents and rationale created by government... to justify the introduction and protection of wolves into the settled landscape of the Lower 48 states as worthwhile additions to the wildlife and rural communities from which they were purposely and with great effort eradicated over a 150-year period? Do wolves and coyotes contract, carry, and transmit tuberculosis? Could dogs (a high likelihood if wolves and coyotes do) also be vectors of tuberculosis? Could dogs get tuberculosis from wolves and coyotes? Could wolves transmit tuberculosis from one pasture to the next or from one deer yard to the next? Could dogs bring tuberculosis into the home and infect family members?
I did some research on tuberculosis, particularly regarding the transmission of tuberculosis. To my surprise (not really), the list of vectors and carriers was somewhat incomplete (as in non–existent) regarding non-bovine domestic animals and wild animals. One passage mentioned in an off-hand way that “raccoons, foxes, badgers, and mink” were known to contract (and thus spread) tuberculosis as they wheeze, sneeze, and become emaciated before dying and eaten by a scavenger or consumed alive by a predator. What of wolves? How long does the sneezed, tubercular sputum remain infectious at certain temperatures or on certain plants or animals? Is a recently (not apparently infected) tubercular prey animal like a calf or fawn or fetus able to transmit tuberculosis to a wolf that eats it?
As with other predators, wolves and coyotes contract and spread diseases and infections. Whether it is wolves with rabies or distemper; wolves carrying Mad Cow prions in their fur or between their toes, or anthrax on their feet from infected pastures; or tapeworm eggs in wolf feces (and spreading areas around the long-gone feces); or Neospora caninum a cause of a contagious disease (Neosporosis) of “all dogs and puppies” that causes death, deformities, and abortion in cattle, sheep, dogs wild animals AND MAN. Neosporosis, (a “coccidial” infection) is described as “like tuberculosis”. I leave it to you to determine this likely 2+2 answer.
Wolves live and move over very large areas. Wolves live in groups (packs). Wolves feed communally. Wolves tend to go from one successful feeding type habitat (pasture, wildlife winter area, dog yard, hunting dog area, et.) to another similar area thus infecting similar areas with similar infections and diseases. This is what makes wolves in particular, extremely dangerous vectors where foot-and-mouth or anthrax or Mad Cow outbreaks require killing all wild and domestic animals to prevent spread of the infection. How do you kill wolves that are in this infected pasture today and transit seven other pastures in 24 hours to rest in a similar pasture 15 miles away tomorrow? (Answer: you don’t and you can’t.) Coyotes, “raccoons, foxes, badgers, and mink”, and other critters (except for wandering young bears and mountain lions) do NOT move over large areas routinely nor of course do they move, live, and feed in groups while killing large numbers of other animals.
Wolves play and fight with each other while often sleeping together. Wolves are susceptible to a large spectrum of infections; just like your pet dogs as attested to by the enormous pet veterinary industry in this country. Pet dogs can and do contract all manner of disease from mouthing say a bone that an infected coyote or wolf mouthed. Dogs stick their noses in feces from infected wolves or coyotes or other infected dogs. Dogs transmit diseases to family members that “kiss” them or that they lick or where they rub their itchy anus on a rug (or “sneeze” on them?). I was reminded of a Chesapeake Bay retriever I had that once retrieved a ringneck duck for me, placed it in the blind, and directly sneezed nasal discharge all over my hip boots as I sat down.
The thing to keep in mind here is this – these wolves were PLACED HERE BY GOVERNMENT. Did government do an adequate or honest job of “vetting” (from the word veterinarian?) or warning us of what releasing and protecting these wolves would wreak? Is “government” or are federal agencies or state agencies or individual bureaucrats RESPONSIBLE for the effects of these wolves on humans, domestic animal property, wildlife, hunting, and rural communities and economies in general? What is the moral obligation of iknowledgeable “experts” that remain silent for personal reasons? Regarding Minnesota bovine tuberculosis, does or did the presence of record wolf populations cause or will it prolong (make endemic) tuberculosis?
Of course, “science” is the answer. But what happens when there is NO science? I am bombarded by communications imploring “why is there no research on the role of wolves and these diseases?” “How come no one is verifying what it means when wolves are present in a foot-and-mouth outbreak or in an anthrax outbreak?” “How do we find out what has happened with Neosporosis (from Neospora caninum), or rabies or distemper or tapeworm infections since the introduction of wolves in the Lower 48 states?” Don’t the Canadians know that wolves carry brucellosis as do the buffalo in Wood Buffalo Provincial Park? How come our state is encouraging the establishment of free-roaming buffalo and wolves in our state?” “Where is the science and research to investigate or stop this?”
What do I say? The bureaucrats, University professors, and politicians are:
- Liars?
- Self-serving lap dogs to powerful environmental and animal rights’ interests?
- Stupid?
- Anti-rural (hunt, fish, log, ranch, graze, camp, private property, government, etc.) activists?
- UN surrogates?
- Agenda 21, Y2Y, moles?
- Power-mad progressives that envision a rural America they control absolutely?
- Agents of sinister forces aiming to evacuate rural America in favor of urban enclaves where everyone is under government control?
- Simple little environmental waifs building a Natural World ruled by Gaea (the ancient Greek goddess of the earth, mother of the Titans)?
- Anti-human tinker belles determined to reduce the human population and eliminate the human footprint on earth to the barest minimum (excluding themselves of course)?
- All of the above?
- None of the above?
Take your pick.
Since there is no “science” on the real or potential role of wolves (in Minnesota or elsewhere) in spreading tuberculosis: so what do I know? It is like when I write about how Minnesota wolves kill Minnesota cow moose and moose calves contributing to the steady decline in Minnesota moose as Minnesota wolf numbers have increased. Even though it is the same scenario as is happening to elk and moose in the Upper Rockies, I am called a nut and ignorant by Minnesota bureaucrats and residents.
When I address human attacks by wolves in the Lower 48 states as their numbers, range, and comfort with living in close proximity to humans increase, I am laughed at by bureaucrats, and despised by lady dog breeders (among others) as “anti-wolf” and a “rabid ideologue”. These comments come largely from East Coast communities where coyotes (really small wolves since they interbreed successfully with both dogs and wolves) have recently returned after a century-long absence (like wolves are doing). The coyotes have found robust and 24/7-available food sources (as wolves are doing). The coyotes are living in closer and closer proximities (Chicago, New Haven, Scarsdale, etc.) to human homes, pets, garbage, garages, parks, paths, etc. (just as wolves are learning to do). The coyotes are very big from abundant food that takes little effort to obtain (just as we see with wolves). Coyotes are not being harassed or hunted or trapped (as is the case with wolves except for minor annoyances in Montana and Idaho at present), so their comfort level with humans is beyond anything recorded anywhere else in the world throughout history (just as wolves are discovering). In this evolving mish-mash, DOCUMENTED COYOTE ATTACKS, especially on kids in back yards when female coyotes are feeding pups- and on pets in yards being “walked” on walkways at night, are increasing in East Coast states. You need not be a wildlife biologist or University professor to see that these bigger and even more fearless and even wider-ranging (coyote/wild dogs called) wolves are evolving just like Eastern coyotes have. The only difference is that the coyotes were and are being foolishly ALLOWED by state governments to become established and flourish in urban/suburban settings (where gun laws and coyote control whether by government or individuals is all but impossible): wolves (the most deadly in so many ways of all the canids) are being PUT HERE BY GOVERNMENT!
In the absence of veterinary and pathological “science” anyone can believe and trumpet anything, for any reason. “Wolves never attack humans”. “Wolves don’t transmit any of those 30 diseases and infections that Beers told the Oregon State Agriculture Committee about.” “Wolf impacts on game animals and livestock are exaggerated”. “Wolves increase songbirds”. “Wolves ‘belong’ here”. “Wolves aren’t making deer, moose, and elk disappear; global warming is doing it”. “Anyone harmed or killed by wolves or coyotes or bears or mountain lions simply did not react or behave properly and thus are responsible for their fate.” “Most pet deaths and pet attacks are the result of improperly cared for dogs that are running free”. “It is just silly superstition based on childhood fairy tales that wolves hang around rural bus stops or follow kids or stalk women going to rural mailboxes”. “Anyone killing a wolf or bear or mountain lion should be prosecuted since these animals were ‘here first’ and present no danger to properly informed and properly behaving individuals like those of us in the government and organizations like Defenders of Wildlife or The Center for Biological Diversity.”
This discovery of yet another (hidden?, missed?, covered-up?, what?) health impact of wolves intensifies and confirms yet again my already deep cynicism of bureaucrats, professors, veterinarians, and the environmental/animal rights crowd. Not only is this complete lack of knowledge and truth disgraceful in its own right as wolves are spread – it is unconscionable that this Endangered Species Act (ESA) makes this “science” the unchallenged trigger for environmental and social mayhem that dwarfs the oppression and tyranny that we've avoided for 2 centuries - and that we decry in nations around us today.
As I write this, Washington bureaucrats are “tinkering” with modifications to the ESA; as if that means anything. Modifying this horrendous and un-Constitutional law is like putting a picture of Hitler in Nazi prisons or playing reruns of Stalin’s speeches in the Gulag and then stepping back and saying, “now isn’t that better?” The ESA is as wrong and as hollow as those two extreme examples. Until we admit that and change things, we will be ruled by “science” that is as truthful as 1943 Berlin newspapers, or Mao’s writings during the “Cultural” Revolution. That is to say we are ruled by the bunk spewed by would-be dictators.
If you want a copy of what I told the Oregon State Agriculture Committee about wolves as disease and infection vectors drop me an e-mail at jimbeers7@comcast.net and ask for my Testimony Before the Oregon State House Agriculture Committee.
Jim Beers
4 January 2012
If you found this worthwhile, please share it with others. Thanks.
This article and other articles written by Jim Beers since January 2009 can
be found at http://jimbeers7.blogster.com (Jim Beers Uncommon Sense)
Articles by Jim Beers written from March 2006 to January 2009 can be found
at http://jimbeers.blogster.com (Jim Beers Common Sense)
Jim Beers is a retired US Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife Biologist, Special Agent, Refuge Manager, Wetlands Biologist, and Congressional Fellow. He was stationed in North Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York City, and Washington DC. He also served as a US Navy Line Officer in the western Pacific and on Adak, Alaska in the Aleutian Islands. He has worked for the Utah Fish & Game, Minneapolis Police Department, and as a Security Supervisor in Washington, DC. He testified three times before Congress; twice regarding the theft by the US Fish & Wildlife Service of $45 to 60 Million from State fish and wildlife funds and once in opposition to expanding Federal Invasive Species authority. He resides in Eagan, Minnesota with his wife of many decades.
Jim Beers is available to speak or for consulting at jimbeers7@comcast.net