Lessons From Alberta

by JIM BEERS

Some things to note in the following recent report from Alberta:

- When wolves are established, killing lots of them on your own property does little other than provide space for surrounding wolves to fill.

- Government “compensation” is always too little and (necessarily) rationed: so dogs, donkeys, kids, etc. are merely collateral damage for rural residents to absorb.

- Government is of little effect anymore in doing what needs to be done. Look at Alaska and all the screaming about aerial controls that are both effective and costly to protect human safety and maintain big game species in desirable amounts. Pecking away at wolves does exactly what intentional “pecking away” (i.e. called annual hunting seasons to harvest +/- 20 %) does for deer and elk, etcetera. Consider what wolves are doing to Upper Rocky Mountain elk and moose. Note the effects of wolves on Minnesota moose. Note the response of State and federal bureaucrats and politicians to the ranchers, parents, guides, and small town residents of introduced wolf country from the Canadian border to Mexico.

- When these inevitable catastrophic predation effects begin on desirable game species, livestock, and human welfare where too numerous wolves, bears, and cougars are present; anything short of Draconian (60-70%) reductions for 5-10 years and then a steady and annual reduction of 40-50% annually will keep wolves in particular at a barely tolerable (to rural residents) level. Such control means shooting, trapping, denning (killing pups), aerial control, snares, poisons, etc., especially during the initial phase. Such control means ALL land (public, private, eased, closed, etc.) must be subject to control activities even over the whining of the federal lady forest supervisors, park “scientists”, billionaires, Philadelphia Lawyers (listen to that Bluegrass tune for a laugh) and other ne’er-do-wells. Pay special attention to the (non-livestock owner/hunter/ resident father) Doctor reportage at the end of the article warbling about the “cathartic’ effect of livestock protection and how donkeys (with the introductory picture??) “protect livestock”. This sort of “both sides” reporting is right up there with current religious coverage of terrorists or racial reporting of urban criminals and it serves no useful end other than the circulation goals of the media. Also, if you think rabies was the only reason they were willing to go to all the time and expense to eradicate wolves in 1950’s Alberta, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn I would like to sell you.

- Since government (State & Federal) funds and employees with such experience, grit and skills will always be in short supply for a variety of reasons; citizens and local governments must bear this burden that has been imposed on them. Local governments must seize this issue and implement what their local constituencies desperately need to survive. This is exactly what one of the Popes referred to over a hundred years ago; he called it “subsidiarity”. Anticipating the tyranny of emerging communism and dictatorial socialism, the Pope in an encyclical noted that the Higher Order (of government) should always give way to the Lower Order because the Lower Order has greater “competence” regarding the welfare and well-being of the local people – this is the opposite of what has gone on and is going on here and in other walks of American life today.

“Competence” includes “responsiveness” to local citizens’ needs, desires and problems. If the past 40+ years have taught us anything, it is that federal politicians and bureaucrats can rule us like some colony and ignore us like whites in Zimbabwe. Along those same lines if you do not understand the complete betrayal of state residents and their needs by state bureaucrats and politicians that increasingly live on federal funds and the hope that when they grow up they will be (if they behave) feds themselves; well, you haven’t been paying attention.

- When wolves were introduced into the Lower 48 states whether by conceited bureaucrats, ignorant radicals, profiteering scientists, or progressive do-gooders bent on bending others to their will; the effect on rural communities, rural families, rural economies, and rural (i.e. “local”) governance is the result is exactly like the eradication of logging, eradication of grazing, eradication of hunting, eradication of roads, eradication of homes and towns, elimination of Payment-in-Lieu of Taxes for federal landholdings, and the eradication of natural resource management and use on public lands and private lands (EPA, easements, federal fiats, etc.). Rural America has become the SLAVES (THE correct word) of federal politicians and bureaucrats in the service of those with the most vile and evil intentions. That they INTRODUCED AND PROTECT these wolves; that they increase the numbers, distribution, and densities of grizzly bears, and that they have seduced state fish and wildlife agencies to become little more than federal paramours are actions on an order with the destruction of the Russian peasantry in favor of Gulags, persecutions, and misery so that a select few can live as unaccountable, rich rulers.

- LOCAL control of this debacle in necessary.

- Making US Senators once again appointees of State Legislatures (thereby making them responsive to State Legislatures that are infinitely more responsive to Local needs as opposed the arrogant international dandies sucking up national and international money and support that they have become) is also necessary. Repeal the 17th Amendment!

- You may cringe when I use words like “radical”, “evil”, “ignorant”, or make racial comparisons (while our own government simultaneously categorizes and rewards citizens based on such characterizations), etc.. I use these blunt words not only because I believe them but because I believe that these issues will not be undone by “facts” or “science” or “dialogue” with those that concocted them. These issues will only be undone in the same way they were foisted upon us. That is to say by considering the “other side” as what they are, simply opponents to be destroyed and their children indoctrinated. The contempt for Ranchers (“destroying the ‘public’ land or ‘the environment’”) and Loggers (“destroying the ecosystem”) and Hunters (“killing animals”) or rural Homeowners (yesterday a firefighter on the news characterized the homes lost to government-caused forest fires in the West as “don’t belong THERE!”) or dog Owners (“no one should own any animal”) – all this has been on display for decades now. If you do not have contempt and disregard for such anti-American people and their purposes; you are like an NFL lineman playing in a soccer uniform. In other words you bring the wrong tools to the fight.

- Finally, compare American rural life today to American rural life 50 years ago. If you do this but are afraid to stand up to the lies of the self-serving bureaucrats and scientists in the employ of those that would destroy you, go back to sleep. If you see what needs doing, do not hesitate to laugh when they warble about the “ecosystem” and the “need” for “diversity”, etc. We were infinitely better off in The Lower 48 States with wolf numbers, wolf distributions, and state/local authority and cost-shared controls of wolves (and grizzlies) of 50 years ago. I could write chapters and speak for hours about how and why this is so. So do not hesitate to consider, speak about or advocate NO WOLVES or NO GRIZZLIES in your State or County. It is neither ignorant or stupid to advocate NONE as it is your right to strive for some other mix of such animals in YOUR COMMUNITY or even to, heaven forbid, succumb to the proscriptions of those far away that share neither your values nor your love of YOUR OWN families and community. That is your right and rights are like muscles: fail to exercise them long enough and they atrophy and disappear.

Jim Beers
29 June 2012

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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