“Death Row” Environmentalism
Ξ February 22nd, 2008 | → | ∇ General |
Despite “Environmental Friendly” lip-service, Bush seems out to make a sort of “last hurrah” in a series of parting shots to cater to his big business cronies with some “Death Row” Environmentalism.
Columnist Joel Connelly has this to say:
Whether it’s outsourcing a war in Iraq, or greasing the skids for industry buddies in Alaska, the Bush administration has made the backdoor fix its fundamental operating maxim.
I’ll leave you to read the rest of the article.
Here are just two highlights of the Bush Administration’s agenda which made it into the public spotlight (A longer list can be found here):
October 2005: A move is made to attach an amendment opening public lands for mineral exploitation onto the tail end of a defense appropriations bill. The delay caused by this maneuver put funding for troops in Iraq on hold.
August 18, 2007: Executive Order was issued by President Bush that directed federal land wildlife agencies consult with a Sporting Conservation Council, which includes the National Rifle Association and Safari Club International, with the sole intent of prioritizing big game hunting opportunities at the expense of all other uses on federal lands.
This Order led to the near extinction of wild horse and burros in Nevada, California and New Mexico in favor of high-ticket hunting such as big-horn sheep.
If you should wonder how high, then consider this:
In 2005 a single hunting tag for big horn was auctioned off for $199,000 in Arizona and another New Mexico for $177,800. Not exactly what the average American can afford. So who exactly did this benefit?
Ever since Dirk Kempthorne was nominated by President Bush as Secretary of the Interior (If you have any doubts about Bush and Kempthorne, here is a nice little article from USA Today released right after Kempthorne’s nomination indicating people were already concerned), certain long-standing policies have been (sometimes quietly) changed.
In a recent move led primarily by the state of Wyoming a (pun intended) rabidly anti-wolf state, plus the hunting and cattle industries, Bush administration (via the USFW) has removed the gray wolf (also known as the Timber Wolf) from the endangered species list, lower regulatory limits, and replace federal protections with state management in what will amount to declaring an open season, with some states allowing public hunts as early as this fall
Montana has already set October 26-December 31, 2008 for open hunting.
The Bush administration says the rule change is necessary because the previous standard required states to show that wolves are the primary cause of a decline in populations of certain animals, most often cited are elk, which are big draws for the hunting industry.
That has proven impossible because nearly all elk herds in Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana are above population objectives, and wolves have never been determined to have been the primary cause of a population decline.
So the bar for this determination is going to be lowered in order to make is easier to blame wolves for any population declines.
Which is funny considering the 2006 report by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department (I could not find a 2007 report):
The statewide antelope harvest was 39,526 which represents an increase of approximately
3,000 antelope over the 2004 harvest. Hunter success was 93.4% and days per animal
harvested were 3.4.The statewide elk harvest was 19,708 with a hunter success rate of 39.4% and days per
animal harvested were 18.5. This harvest represents a slight decrease from the previous
10-year average, but this is to be expected as many elk herds are now near objective
levels.
Despite the rosy picture the U.S. Fish and Wildlife announcement paints of current gray wolf populations, removal of the federal protections could result in a massive kill off in areas openly hostile to wolves or those with inadequate management plans.
In an announcement carried on FoxBusiness
With no federal protections in place, existing state management plans would permit wolf populations in the northern Rockies to be drastically reduced by as much as 70 percent, and eliminate any likelihood of establishing connections with Canadian wolf populations or promoting the establishment of wolf populations in other states such as Oregon, Washington, Utah, and Colorado.
Idaho, Montana and Wyoming say they are committed to maintaining a minimum of 15 breeding pairs and 150 wolves in each state, for a total of 450 wolves. All three states have stated their intent to allow hunting, trapping and other killing of wolves.
The Endangered Species Coalition and other environmental groups contend that Wyoming and Idaho will use public hunting to drastically reduce wolf populations to the minimum number of breeding pairs allowed under the new federal guidelines, which require a minimum of 100 individuals, including 10 breeding pairs in each state.
Before the ruling went into effect, Ed Bangs, the head of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s wolf recovery project, admits he thinks that 300 wolves are not enough. In a Science Magazine article on February 15 Bangs said, “I personally think it [the recovery goal] is too low.”
Then, in an article in USA Today, he does an abrupt about face.
Reports of predation greatly exaggerated
According to Ed Bangs in his abupt about face maneuver:
“If you go to area with year-round grazing of livestock, wolf packs cannot continue because they kill so much livestock they will not be tolerated,”
Yet, according to the 2006 report by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department:
A total of 94 damage claims worth $249,096 were filed and the Department paid $235,902
No breakdown of what these claims were was easily located, so there is no way to tell how much was actually a result of wolf predations.
And again, while a claim was made in the USA Today article by one rancher who claims to lose 1000 sheep a year to wolves, Ed Bangs own report for 2006 covering the Northern Rocky Mountain (NRM) states (Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming) states:
Wolves in the NRM subsisted mainly on elk, white-tailed deer, mule deer, moose, and bison.
Livestock depredations in 2006 included 184 cattle, 247 sheep, 8 dogs and 1 horse, and 2 llamas that were confirmed as killed by wolves
Even with this meager, slightly outdated data, it’s easy to see that the predation issue, really isn’t.
In a bid to bar states from aerial gunning and other state-sponsored killing of wolves, seven conservation groups filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Missoula, Montana to stop the implementation of the new Bush administration rule.
Bob Wharff, Wyoming executive director of Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife, called the delisting “a huge victory” and denounced the conservation groups that plan a lawsuit.