by Jim Beers
| In a recent exchange of e-mails with a newspaper outdoor writer, I suddenly saw one of those things you hadn’t noticed although it had been right before your eyes all along. I had complimented the writer on the first half of his article titled “Are there more geese than we can shoot?” (St. Paul Pioneer Press 9-23-12) but I took issue with his characterization that the current national “resident” Canada goose phenomenon was the result of a disbanded hunting group (Geese Unlimited??) that “led” federal and state “officials” to “reintroduce(??) the birds” such that “suddenly, all this erupted into a massive increase of broods all over”. Mother Nature, I guess, like President Bush; had evidently done it again. |  |
Hunting the birds never was able to control urban populations due to gun laws, access and most of all the co-location of the birds with every environmental/animal rights activist and their “Funds”, “Counsel”, big-city politician and “Society” committed to the end of hunting and the seizure and destruction of all guns. So are we to blindly believe (have “faith in”) the same bureaucrats concerning wolves, cougars, “Native Ecosystems” et al?
When I tried to explain this to the outdoor writer, his final response was, “I don't see the need to emphasize that a federal agency spends taxpayer dollars. That's like the guy getting up at a city council meeting and starting by saying "I'm John Smith, and I'm a taxpayer." So much for my time and effort to inform someone that influences the public in a significant way.
As I considered how to be more effective in the future, I made a somewhat startling discovery for an old codger. While I had hoped to connect with the young writer who has admitted to being new to ‘outdoor” matters and to recently becoming an enthusiastic waterfowler, trout fisherman, etc.: I knew that newspapers are sold by telling outdoors folks how to catch perch and how “good” the deer hunting has been. It is also true that such writers get all their information from the state and federal bureaucrats, University “experts”, and the earnest and sincere conservation organizations and all their top volunteers: so I had figured it would be an uphill slog that I had thought worthwhile.
But, then it hit me. Forget about Minnesota and geese: instead consider the much broader implications for Rural America:
- Federal and State wildlife programs affect Rural America more and more every day. Increasing deadly and destructive predators like wolves, grizzly bears and cougars threaten and attack humans, destroy rural enterprises, reduce rural economies and spread diseases.
- Federal and state wildlife programs are reducing hunting opportunities, hunt-able game species, game habitat on public lands, and converting once prized species like Canada geese into vermin increasingly despised by the public.
- Federal and State wildlife programs (Endangered Species Act, Marine Mammal Protection Act, public lands policies, etc.) are destroying Constitutional private property rights from taking for non-public uses, taking without compensation, and federal No-Hunt Easement financing by “partners” working “stressed” private property landowners.
- Federal and State wildlife programs have increasingly been built on lies, deception and force of law as written by bureaucrat regulation writers with anti-Rural landowner/animal owner/animal user/etc. agendas. For instance:
1. Would the End. Sp. Act have ever passed Congress if it was admitted that wolves and grizzlies would be expanded and released (like urban Canada geese) over loud rural objections in areas that expand like an ink blot on the Lower 48 States’ map?
2. Would hunters, fishermen, ranchers, loggers, and other Rural-Contributors been so quiet and acquiescent about Wilderness and the losses they engendered from closed access and use to wildfires and diminished wildlife management?
3. How about “Native Species” programs financed with hunting revenue to diminish game species habitat?
4. How about federal “Invasive Species” Authority to eliminate all post-1492 AD species from Brown trout to Great Lakes salmon and from pheasants to Hungarian Partridge that go unmentioned as kudzu and killer bees are emphasized as justification?
5. How about State wildlife programs expanding to non & anti-hunting functions (Environmental “Education”, Native Ecosystem “Restoration”, Phony Species definitions from Universities funded publicly, etc.), for federal start-up funding that then is assumed by State F&W Agencies?
6. How about State Universities shifting from educating wildlife managers to training wildlife “protectors” and advocates of loopy environmental/animal rights’ policies that destroy Rural American society like the “benefit” of deadly and destructive predators in settled landscapes where big game hunting, ranching and rural living once thrived?
7. Would Rural America have fought government powers at the federal level that incorporated state governments to eliminate Oregon logging for an owl that shows no benefit, or from disappearing ranches as predators endanger and destroy them, or from miles and miles of rusting western railroad log-cars on side tracks broken only by the occasional road or driveway, or from the dwindling hunting and associated rural businesses, or from the increasing disease presence denied by state government, or from the dead dogs and humans killed and mauled by government-enhanced cougars, grizzlies (one Montana County has had 6 maulings in the past 2 years with inevitable increases ahead as food dwindles and bears increase), and wolves?
8. Would rural Americans have ever believed that urban voting majorities from Boston to Los Angeles would be manipulated by radicals to in turn manipulate federal politicians to do these things to remain in office while rural concerns are ignored? To force predators into places where rural Americans had exterminated them from for good reason and which the predators now disrupt mightily? That National Parks like Yellowstone should be federal release points for predators despised by surrounding residents and that an all-but-denuded (of elk, moose, etc.) National Park would be celebrated and “interpreted” in dishonest ways? To make all of rural America like rural Illinois or rural New York where state government urban-majorities treat the rural bumpkins like rural Scottish crofters in 18th century Scotland; to be “cleared’ from the land so that powerful aristocrats and their cooperators could own and “enjoy” vast estates.
WOULD ANY OF THIS HAVE HAPPENED IF RURAL AMERICA HAD KNOWN WHAT WOULD RESULT? It is as if State Highway Departments had been seized by Amish zealots that used the gasoline tax dollars to destroy road construction and maintenance until the funds ran out as the roads became unusable and everyone was forced to use public horses and buggies on routes and at times designated by remote, unaccountable and powerful bureaucracies.
The “much broader implications for Rural America” I suddenly saw were the absence of both any political will to return rural rights to rural residents and the lack of anyone to turn to.
- The newspapers support urban fantasies and happy stories.
- Outdoor writers are employed to be part of the Federal/State/Conservation Organization alliance. They are like remoras on a large shark.
- Universities are beholden to federal “priorities” for federal funds, tenure, grad students, “recognition’, etc.
- Conservation organizations (all the “Unlimiteds”, “Foundations” and “Forevers”) like the Outdoor Stores are businesses composed of folks concerned about their current job, their future job, their cash flow, and a future that many see as bereft of any Rural American activities or private property. They envision an inevitable Rural America that consists solely of government jobs and contracts “researching”, “protecting”, and “interpreting” untouched wildlife.
- State bureaucrats are beholden to and supportive “partners” of federal agendas for funding, future jobs, recognition, etc.
- Federal bureaucracies have become very corrupt. Go no farther than the $45 to 60 Million they took from their state “partners” and hunting in the 1990’s to do things Congress had refused to fund: and which no State bureaucrats requested replacement, and which national political interests suppressed during a Presidential election. Federal managers at the time have gone on to head up Defenders of Wildlife and to become the current Director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service.
- Government and private Veterinarians are largely silent because of career and business considerations.
- Nearly all federal politicians and many state politicians are reluctant to act because of their fear of “environmental”, “animal rights” and other urban coalitions from socialist/communists enlarging a central government under their control to naive pet owners and busy singles hoping one day to “hear” a wolf or “see” a grizzly or contemplate dangerous animals as anything other than sweet and cuddly.
- Outdoor magazines largely follow the “happy”-stories-sell philosophy of newspapers.
- All of the above (wow, how is that for a “conspiracy”?) are influenced, financed, or manipulated by the wealthy environmental extremist, animal rights’ radicals, and anti-gun rights’ agendas like the perpetrators of “Fast and Furious” and the big-city Mayors that help to squeeze state governments for federal assistance that they naively believe will not eliminate their power as well when the states’ authority all but disappears into the federal regulations.
We have allowed the government bureaucrats to assume a never-ending seizure of all state and local authority, especially as it relates to Rural American governments, communities, families, and economies. This has been done by quietly seizing the public persona of wildlife agencies and individuals that were once (50+ years ago) highly respected, honest and integral players in maintaining and improving the Constitutional “General Welfare” and “domestic Tranquility” of rural America. That all stopped 20 to 30 years ago and this fact is now just sinking in.
In order to begin to right this massive wrong we need to come together and force change the same way that it has been forced on as others were both too busy to notice and hopeful in their heart, would never come to them. If we cannot do this, the incremental changes will not only continue, they will escalate with the inevitable collapse that all such tyranny eventually creates. What we need goes far beyond “resident” Canada geese. We need to create a public sounding board with recognized leaders and this means new folks and being prickly when everyone wants “compromise and comity”. Being “concerned and cooperative” got us into this mess: what we need now (like the US Marines) is a few good men and some women like Maggie Thatcher and Golda Meier.
Blind faith in bureaucracies that our fathers once rightly trusted accounts for the unaccountability and unresponsive media, bureaucracies, Universities, and organizations that are destroying Rural America. While faith is indispensable in religious belief: it is misplaced when given to human endeavors, especially government. Skepticism by the public and recognized avenues of relief and reform are necessary and when absent as under any tyranny, spell disaster.
Jim Beers
28 Sep. 2012
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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. You can receive future articles by sending a request with your e-mail address to: jimbeers7@comcast.net