Jim Beers

I just read a short article on the “Natural Resources Defense Council Staff Blog” titled “Just How Much Does It Cost to Kill A Wolf? More Than You Think.” The Natural Resources Defense Council is one of many radical environmental/animal “rights” organizations that make millions litigating in cahoots with the US Fish and Wildlife Service to introduce and spread wolves and grizzly bears and mountain lions to put ranchers out of business and generally impoverish rural America. Their actions ultimately set the table for the US Fish and Wildlife Service and their “partners” like The Nature Conservancy to obtain elimination of grazing allotments and diminish the land values of private property in order to buy the land or purchase (from “willing” sellers that are less and less able to make a living from their land) easements that further impoverish rural communities in countless ways like reduced tax revenue, population decreases, welfare and crime increases, inadequate law enforcement and no-longer-functioning business environments.

So this NRDC “staff” person bemoans the cost of killing a wolf (or coyote) by government animal control employees and asks the question “Is it really worth over $800 an hour to kill a wolf or a few coyotes? He then regales us with the mantra of NRDC, “Defenders” of Wildlife, Center for Biodiversity, and all the associated “Societies” and “Conservancies” et al that control and manipulate the federal US Fish and Wildlife Service, US Forest Service, BLM and National Park Service that in turn now control most State Fish and Wildlife Departments. He states:

“Maybe that’s why counties are increasingly questioning their Wildlife Services contracts and turning to nonlethal methods of predator control, which are better for ranchers, better for wildlife, and better for the bottom line. Even Wildlife Services is starting to invest more in nonlethal practices. Because at $865/hour, that math just doesn’t add up.”

The “Truth” is that no one (not US taxpayers, not Counties, not States, not ranchers, not rural residents in fear for their children or dogs or their own safety) can or should expend that sort of money to “control” (a never-ending task) wild animal populations that cause all manner of extensive economic, social, and health destruction to rural (and increasingly urban) Americans.

The “Lie” is that the choice (like Iran/US dealings are either capitulation to Mullahs or war; or the soaring urban homicide rate in minority communities can only be solved by the illegal government seizure of guns from law-abiding citizens nationwide that need them for many reasons in addition to protection from a rogue government as did our Founding Fathers that penned the 2nd Amendment) is either $800+ per hour for a government employee to kill an insignificant portion of (destructive) animals OR “nonlethal methods of predator control” that do not work and are merely Rubik’s Cube exercises for smart predators to see how fast they can learn to avoid them. MEAT; be it a moose calf, or cow giving birth, or ewe with her lamb, or dog, or a kid at a rural school bus stop or a toddler learning to walk in a fenced back yard in New England while Mom answers the phone, or an elderly lady like the one killed recently behind her cabin in Wisconsin or the two killed hiking in Idaho or the old Russian lady just killed walking to a rural neighbor’s home; IS MEAT to these predators and fences just like fladry, guard dogs, recordings and all the rest are merely impediments that they have been overcoming for millenniums both in the presence of humans and in their absence.

When a “staff” person for NRDC (who likely got a bonus for writing this Lie) bemoans the “cost” of government costs to kill predators causing destruction you have to admire his Chutzpah. Chutzpah is a Yiddish word for a man that kills his mother and father and then throws himself on the mercy of the court as an “orphan.” NRDC bemoaning this matter is akin quite seriously to a German “staff” Officer in 1942 bemoaning all the suffering and expensive costs afflicting Poles, Jews and Gypsies in Poland recently conquered and occupied by the Reich.

• These radicals and beguiling bureaucrats have placed the wolves and grizzly bears and mountain lions (FL) where they are
• They protect them by force of draconian laws and penalties.
• They oppose hunting the predators despite indications to the contrary when the “good guy” federal bureaucrats and their subservient state counterparts appear to “oppose” lawsuits they orchestrate with the radicals when the radicals sue to prohibit hunts, guns, traps, ammunition and any state authority or methods or Local say in the matter of destructive predators.
• They never admit to “enough” nor to admit places where such dangerous animals cannot be tolerated.
  - They census these animals that are all but impossible to census with made-up figures that serve their purpose of the moment.
• They denied the health and human safety implications of these dangerous predators and then disappear when losses (to game animals, livestock, dogs and human safety) occur with impunity and without any sense of responsibility or accountability.
• They trumpet “returning management to the state” (without funding of course) and then sue to stop any controls or hunts or methods that kill (the only absolute and enduring “control”) the animals or reduce their presence or unlimited distribution.
• They sue to “place the predators back under federal “authority” when state managers or local communities struggle with these destructive animals in their midst in any way unacceptable to federal bureaucrats and urban radicals.
• They erode the Constitutional concept of private property by arresting any landowner or businessman killing predators on his own property while in the act of killing his property (livestock, dog, etc.) or threatening his family or abode.
• They further erode the Constitutional concept of State’s Rights by introducing and providing extra-territorial status to destructive predators.
  
  NOTE: Yellowstone National Park is unique (along with Washington, DC) in being under EXCLUSIVE FEDERAL AUTHORITY. This is because it was set aside before any State authority was exerted over it. 99.9% of all National Forests, National Wildlife Refuges, National Parks, BLM lands, USACoE lands, Bureau of Reclamation lands, etc. were either purchased or otherwise transferred to federal ownership as if purchased by Weyerhaeuser or you dear reader. All of these other federal landholdings either share jurisdiction with state governments or strain (illegally) to make themselves the unquestioned primary authority on “THEIR” land. In other words, the state (due to the ongoing drainage of political testosterone from state governments by federal politicians and bureaucrats for nefarious purposes in recent years) condescends to allow federal interlopers to exert as much authority as they desire without any pushback in hopes of continuing or increasing the flow of federal taxpayer dollars that state politicians get without angering their constituents with any higher tax increases.
  
  While you and I could prohibit hunting, fishing, trapping and animal control ON OUR LAND subject to state laws and Local Ordinances WE could not introduce or protect deadly predators that savage our neighbors without a just government coming on our land to kill or capture the animal and penalize us much like a dog without rabies’ shots or a dog that attacked people or killed or maimed the property of another. You and I could and would be sued if the neighbor’s dog killed our stock or threatened our kids or forced us to stay in the house while it roamed about our home place doing what it will and infecting the area with invisible diseases and infections. NONE of this applies to federal agencies or federal bureaucrats that create and unleash similar destructive predators from, on, or about federal ownerships that state governments have effectively turned over to federal counterparts for grants, potential job opportunities, and the fallacious myth that “federal control is ‘better’ for the environment.”
  
  If you have bought intro this myth, consider the lowly cormorant. In 1917 when we signed a Treaty (long before the current “agreements” like the Iran nuclear bomb fiasco “ratified” only by an illusion and without any knowledge of the public that are little more than the Proclamations issued by Nero or Orders by Stalin with unanimous “votes” of the Commissariat) with Canada to protect (federally based on a legal federal Treaty) Migratory Birds named in the Treaty. That was (long ago) when actual “Treaties” were ratified by 2/3 of the US Senate and signed by a President that respected the US Constitution as required by the US Constitution and his oath of office. Cormorants were specifically (and wisely) excluded from the federally-protected species in 1917 because our forefathers knew they depressed domestic and wild fish stocks and therefore the availability of affordable and nutritious food much like destructive predators’ effect on livestock and other matters. Things went well for over ½ a century as states allowed controls and issued permits in accord with human activities and the desires of Local communities and businesses. Cormorants thrived in reasonable numbers and distributions as did America. Hatcheries, domestic fish stocks and desirable wild fish stocks thrived as well as small businesses and rural communities.
  
  Enter the signing of “Bird Treaties” with Japan and Russia in the environmental plague years of the 1970’s. Who could or would oppose federal authority over cormorants? Only environmental Luddites or ignorant rednecks (subject to ridicule) could be opposed to “saving” cormorants. Under federal protection because they were named in the new Treaties; cormorants “flourished” (exploded is a truer word) and wild fish stocks, domestic fish operations, hatchery outputs and Local communities coincidental with very messy, dirty and smelly cormorant roosts all suffered without relief. Urban environmentalists and animal rights advocates all were horrified by any “lethal” controls and every cockamamie “non-lethal control” imaginable and some not so imaginable were employed at great cost and time to either negligible or no avail. Cormorants (like wolves, grizzly bears, mountain lions, et al) want the food and they will learn and do whatever they must to get at it just like they have done for millenniums – JUST LIKE WOLVES, GRIZZLY BEARS AND MOUNTAIN LIONS!
  
  What the Washington politicians and bureaucrats, and their radical environmental/animal rights allies like NRDC have done is destroy the North American model of Renewable Natural Resource Management in Sustainable Ways consistent with human betterment in all its many facets. They destroyed:
• 
  State governments exercising primary authority over how many, where and if any animals (predators to be sure) would be tolerated anywhere within the State.
• Local governments in most States exercising effective pressure on State governments regarding Local animals and control options.
• Federal government and far away urban constituencies exercising little, if any, control on State laws and regulations far away in other states.
• Federal landowners, while not paying Local or State Taxes, were not allowed to destroy Local governments, Local Communities, rural businesses, rural human safety, and to do all this with NO responsibility or accountability.
• State governments allowing the means (guns, traps, chemicals, etc.) desired and needed by Local landowners, businesses, families and governments to control dangerous, destructive and unwanted animals.
• State governments regulating periods and circumstances for “taking” destructive predators such as from year around and 24/7 to certain “seasons”, or when threatening stock or dogs, or within 150 feet of a residence.
• Local governments with authority to demand access to private property otherwise closed to necessary animal control in order to control or eradicate certain problem animals
• State and Local governments charging, when appropriate, for licenses and/or permits to “take” or control destructive predators. These fees and charges generated revenue to manage, census and “control” predators AS OPPOSED THE UNCOMPENSATED $800 PER HOUR COSTS RESULTING FROM THE FOUL ACTIVITIES OF THE RADICALS AND BUREAUCRATS THAT THEY THEN USE AS A RATIONALE FOR THE ADOPTION OF USELESS “NON-LETHAL CONTROLS” THAT ONLY EXACERBATE THE INTOLERABLE!
  
  NRDC and USFWS et al led us into this morass. Taking their advice and counsel to get out of it is like the proverbial last sheep sitting down with two wolves to decide what’s for dinner. They have destroyed what made America (especially Rural America) great. They will not be deterred by anything short of outspoken and revolutionary change. Just as Obamacare and the Iran deal are debilitating and dangerous to our future and our way of life; so too are these radical wildlife policies and laws (and the myths and lies that underpin them) a mortal danger to our Nation and must be changed. They were adopted by force and guile by powerful and rich political forces and they will not be modified by the politics of “getting along”, or one-sided deference and politeness, or political correctness. Anything short of brass knuckle politics reasserting political control (not party control) over the federal bureaucracy, modifying or repealing unjust and dictatorial laws, and rebalancing the federal/state nexus including separating the current Siamese Twins known as USFWS and “State” wildlife agencies will not be sufficient.
  
  Those are the means to the goal of sane, tried and true environmental management that proved itself both sustainably and by human benefit once the settled landscapes of the Lower 48 States became the idyllic and productive worlds once known to our fathers and grandfathers. Secondary means such as returning the election of US Senators to Appointment by State Legislatures and a dramatic reduction of federally owned land will eventually emerge in any real attempt at reform. If not; things will continue to worsen and we will soon be faced with exactly what Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, Washington, Hale, Henry, the Lee brothers, and Carroll, et al encountered and the question about whether or not any or enough good men are left will be raised to be answered once again.
  
  Jim Beers
  11 September 2015

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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