Spring (E)Scapes
In many parts of the U.S. the weather is finally beginning to break, the snow storms coming more as rain and the crocuses and primroses blossoming in response as if instinctually better gauges of what's to come. This is also a time when many animals awaken from hibernation and others such as wolves stand ready to begin weeding out the weaker newborns. In the wild refuges, areas so named as protected enclaves for the last of the wild animal populations in the U.S., such species have learned the boundaries and how far to remain or stray. Some areas used to make the news as bison stepped just feet over the Yellowstone park boundary and were shot by waiting hunters, a challenge about as difficult as shooting a resting sea lion on a sandy shore. And one would think that with Congress so enmeshed in possibly confirming a new justice for the Supreme Court and dealing with a new health care plan and new immigration orders and travel restrictions, well, that hunting would be way down the list. But such a thought would be to discount the power of the hunting lobby.
For many, hunting is a sport, a true challenge to spend difficult days in remote conditions, to bear through the cold and brush and thick camouflage clothing and human scent-removers. Sometimes the end trophy is a rack of antlers or perhaps the hide or in some of the rarer instances, some of the meat (although hauling out 700 pounds required at least 4 trips one hunter told me, something that he had now grown too old to do which caused him to give it up; many hunters who have hiked in --vs. being flown in or have paid for a catered and guided trip-- will simply leave the majority of the body of the animal for such a reason). And for many hunters, such sport is something they grew up with and continue to pass down to their children, having them taste everything from squirrels and pigeons to deer and bear...and have turned such sport into a multi-billion dollar venture, one that ranges far beyond the weaponry and clothing from sport hunting and added into that the tourism dollars spent on travel, lodging and meals in other cities and states (for this we're discounting the "canned" hunts where big cats and other animals are simply shot while they rest in cages on "sport" ranches in states such as Texas that cater to such crowds, allowing them to go home and say that they "hunted" a tiger or leopard). And this revenue is strictly about the archers and shooters hunting game (and the occasional subsistence hunter). Add in the fishing and small bird hunting monies and you've got even more revenue for each state...or do you?
Jumping just to the state of Alaska and the latest census figures (2011) from the Fish & Wildlife Service (a branch of the federal government), hunting brought in nearly $425 million and had over 125,000 hunting enthusiasts paying for licenses and permits to join the adventure. Sounds impressive. But that same chart showed that people coming into the state to simply observe and watch wildlife was five times that number (640,000) and brought over $2 billion into the state. So then one would have to ask why Congress just passed (and sent on to be signed by the President) a bill to allow hunting in the national refuges of Alaska. But it gets worse. The bill allows the killing of bears and their cubs, the killing of wolves and their pups still in the dens, and all of this can be done by helicopter and airplanes (to reach remote areas), GPS and even placing snares and traps to catch such animals at a later date. And guess what...a big chunk of it is paid for by taxpayers. What???
So how could this happen? Can a single lobby be powerful enough to sway an entire (albeit lop-sided) Congress? Apparently so, at least in the current political mood of the U.S. So no big deal you say since the Fish & Wildlife are just shooting a few bears and a few wolves, and Alaska is so remote that even finding such animals, emaciated as they are from winter and searching for a few berries to recharge, would be a difficult task, one that would likely be hundreds of miles away from human populations. No matter, such animals are considered pests and need not only the federal government to step in, but need to enlist the aid of outside adventurous hunters as well (some will be encouraged with easier-to-obtain permits and licenses); as to that majority of "observers" and watchers just wanting to see a bear or wolf in the wild and willing to bring in nearly 10 times the dollars to the state...well, they'll just have to go a bit further out.
So let's peek at the numbers...that occasional bear or wolf you picture being killed amounted to nearly 3 billion animals destroyed by federal government officials last year alone, according to the USDA report (to be fair, many of these were birds but note that the number of feral cattle killed equaled zero). Many of these were according to policy; said the report: WS biologists recommend or use nonlethal management methods whenever practical and effective. WS responds to more than 200,000 human-wildlife conflicts annually. The program works to prevent wildlife strikes from affecting civil and military aviation, manage damage to property and crops caused by wild animals, limit the spread of rabies and other zoonotic diseases, and protect livestock from predation, among other things. In fiscal year 2009, WS used nonlethal methods to move or disperse 27 million animals--representing more than 86 percent of the program's wildlife encounters. It's not the view of the Center for Biological Diversity which reported: Of the 2.7 million animals killed last year, nearly 1.6 million were native wildlife species. According to the latest kill report, the program last year destroyed 415 gray wolves; 76,963 adult coyotes, plus an unknown number of coyote pups in 430 destroyed dens; 407 black bears; 334 mountain lions; 997 bobcats; 535 river otters, including 415 killed “unintentionally”; 3,791 foxes, plus an unknown number of fox pups in 128 dens; and 21,184 beavers...According to the new data, the wildlife-killing program unintentionally killed 2,790 animals last year, including badgers, bears, bobcats, foxes, muskrats, otters, porcupines, raccoons, skunks, turtles and more. Such data reveals the indiscriminate nature of painful leg-hold traps, strangulation snares, poisons and other methods used by federal agents.
Much of this biologist-led and taxpayer funded effort is justified to protect farmland, but coupled in the small print is the effort to protect land for both cattle an sheep grazing and to increase the population of popular hunting species such as deer and elk which has resulted in a steady overpopulation due to the elimination of the top predators (such as cougars and bears). So this results in the same wildlife services having to go out and later cull the excess animals to prevent the spread of disease among the herds. It would seem an endless loop with taxpayers continuing to foot the bill until a proper balance is figured out, a balance of how to maintain a hunting population of animals while removing the natural predators (when wolves were reintroduced into areas such as Yellowstone, many more native plant and animal species returned as excess populations of the weaker elk and bison were taken down by the wolves...it soon became too much for the hunters and efforts began to have the wolves delisted as endangered or threatened and now open season on hunting them has been declared in some of the neighboring states).
So jumping over to the other side, what would be the balance? How do you provide enough of a viewing experience for tourists just wanting to shoot not guns but their cameras at a black bear but yet still wanting their inexpensive steak dinner later than night? Beyond the sport of hunting, much of the government's efforts are designed to keep the prices of meat and produce down to a reasonably subsidized price. If coyotes take down a sheep, the removal of the coyote/s is justified (often even if the rancher has been reimbursed for the market value of the downed animal), same with wolves, same with alligators, same with crows and other birds that eat newly planted seeds, or the same with introduced wild hogs which now appear with such regularity in southern states that open season on them is pretty much year round. As for the refuges themselves, hunting on them and even some conservation land (farming land set aside from planting but taxpayer funded back to the farmer for the time left idle) has been ongoing for decades; but projected revenues are down regarding the hunting world, at least in a recent report from the state of South Dakota. Likely no observers there, no people patient enough to scan the horizon in the hopes of catching a glimpse of a wild animal whose population has now been reduced; just the occasional gunshot and perhaps a flock of birds littering the sky in a desparate bid for escape. Then silence. But what if your idyllic cabin (or home on the edges of suburbia) is now being threatened by a predator (or worse, tame deer eating your roses...the horror!). This was presented in a piece in The New Yorker that encapsulated the problem facing all sides, from the emotional to the scientific, from the homeowner to the wild animal. The city? -- Los Angeles.
Joyce Carol Oates put it this way in a recent review she did in the same magazine. A "refugee" is, by definition, desperate: he has been displaced from his home, has been rendered stateless, has few or no resources...In the way that enslaved persons are truncated by the term "slaves," defined by their condition, there's a loss of identity in the category term "refugees." It might seem to be more humane, and accurate, to give someone who is forced to seek refuge a more expansive designation: "displaced person." With Congress now opening the door and redefining the term wildlife "refuge" to mean "hunting allowed," one has to wonder if the term "refugee" will also be redefined, a loss of identity and yet still left unprotected, a person or animal with no safe haven, no refuge. As the gun lobby continues to grow stronger and stronger and both certain people and animals are condoned by Congress to be hunted and sought out as threatening to the greater (or perhaps less expensive) good, one has to also wonder where our nation and perhaps our world is headed. Just as with the deer and elk, will our own predators --those that restore balance...the press, the passive, the observers-- be driven down and perhaps eliminated? And then what...an imbalance, a search for solutions with even more taxpayer monies? Despite dissatisfaction with such laws and bills, these are the people the United States appear to want as the majority of them continue to be re-elected without much of a fight (but often with heavy financial support). Guns and money...perhaps it does buy happiness. For the puzzled cubs and pups just awakening to life, their first and last glimpse of life might be the end of a rifle pointed into their dark den or something fired from the air...all paid for by taxpayers, taxpayers and Congressional leaders of the people, by the people, and for the people. And ever so slowly, the majority rest of us might watch the term "refuge" disappear from our pages of history.
For many, hunting is a sport, a true challenge to spend difficult days in remote conditions, to bear through the cold and brush and thick camouflage clothing and human scent-removers. Sometimes the end trophy is a rack of antlers or perhaps the hide or in some of the rarer instances, some of the meat (although hauling out 700 pounds required at least 4 trips one hunter told me, something that he had now grown too old to do which caused him to give it up; many hunters who have hiked in --vs. being flown in or have paid for a catered and guided trip-- will simply leave the majority of the body of the animal for such a reason). And for many hunters, such sport is something they grew up with and continue to pass down to their children, having them taste everything from squirrels and pigeons to deer and bear...and have turned such sport into a multi-billion dollar venture, one that ranges far beyond the weaponry and clothing from sport hunting and added into that the tourism dollars spent on travel, lodging and meals in other cities and states (for this we're discounting the "canned" hunts where big cats and other animals are simply shot while they rest in cages on "sport" ranches in states such as Texas that cater to such crowds, allowing them to go home and say that they "hunted" a tiger or leopard). And this revenue is strictly about the archers and shooters hunting game (and the occasional subsistence hunter). Add in the fishing and small bird hunting monies and you've got even more revenue for each state...or do you?
Jumping just to the state of Alaska and the latest census figures (2011) from the Fish & Wildlife Service (a branch of the federal government), hunting brought in nearly $425 million and had over 125,000 hunting enthusiasts paying for licenses and permits to join the adventure. Sounds impressive. But that same chart showed that people coming into the state to simply observe and watch wildlife was five times that number (640,000) and brought over $2 billion into the state. So then one would have to ask why Congress just passed (and sent on to be signed by the President) a bill to allow hunting in the national refuges of Alaska. But it gets worse. The bill allows the killing of bears and their cubs, the killing of wolves and their pups still in the dens, and all of this can be done by helicopter and airplanes (to reach remote areas), GPS and even placing snares and traps to catch such animals at a later date. And guess what...a big chunk of it is paid for by taxpayers. What???
So how could this happen? Can a single lobby be powerful enough to sway an entire (albeit lop-sided) Congress? Apparently so, at least in the current political mood of the U.S. So no big deal you say since the Fish & Wildlife are just shooting a few bears and a few wolves, and Alaska is so remote that even finding such animals, emaciated as they are from winter and searching for a few berries to recharge, would be a difficult task, one that would likely be hundreds of miles away from human populations. No matter, such animals are considered pests and need not only the federal government to step in, but need to enlist the aid of outside adventurous hunters as well (some will be encouraged with easier-to-obtain permits and licenses); as to that majority of "observers" and watchers just wanting to see a bear or wolf in the wild and willing to bring in nearly 10 times the dollars to the state...well, they'll just have to go a bit further out.
So let's peek at the numbers...that occasional bear or wolf you picture being killed amounted to nearly 3 billion animals destroyed by federal government officials last year alone, according to the USDA report (to be fair, many of these were birds but note that the number of feral cattle killed equaled zero). Many of these were according to policy; said the report: WS biologists recommend or use nonlethal management methods whenever practical and effective. WS responds to more than 200,000 human-wildlife conflicts annually. The program works to prevent wildlife strikes from affecting civil and military aviation, manage damage to property and crops caused by wild animals, limit the spread of rabies and other zoonotic diseases, and protect livestock from predation, among other things. In fiscal year 2009, WS used nonlethal methods to move or disperse 27 million animals--representing more than 86 percent of the program's wildlife encounters. It's not the view of the Center for Biological Diversity which reported: Of the 2.7 million animals killed last year, nearly 1.6 million were native wildlife species. According to the latest kill report, the program last year destroyed 415 gray wolves; 76,963 adult coyotes, plus an unknown number of coyote pups in 430 destroyed dens; 407 black bears; 334 mountain lions; 997 bobcats; 535 river otters, including 415 killed “unintentionally”; 3,791 foxes, plus an unknown number of fox pups in 128 dens; and 21,184 beavers...According to the new data, the wildlife-killing program unintentionally killed 2,790 animals last year, including badgers, bears, bobcats, foxes, muskrats, otters, porcupines, raccoons, skunks, turtles and more. Such data reveals the indiscriminate nature of painful leg-hold traps, strangulation snares, poisons and other methods used by federal agents.
Much of this biologist-led and taxpayer funded effort is justified to protect farmland, but coupled in the small print is the effort to protect land for both cattle an sheep grazing and to increase the population of popular hunting species such as deer and elk which has resulted in a steady overpopulation due to the elimination of the top predators (such as cougars and bears). So this results in the same wildlife services having to go out and later cull the excess animals to prevent the spread of disease among the herds. It would seem an endless loop with taxpayers continuing to foot the bill until a proper balance is figured out, a balance of how to maintain a hunting population of animals while removing the natural predators (when wolves were reintroduced into areas such as Yellowstone, many more native plant and animal species returned as excess populations of the weaker elk and bison were taken down by the wolves...it soon became too much for the hunters and efforts began to have the wolves delisted as endangered or threatened and now open season on hunting them has been declared in some of the neighboring states).
So jumping over to the other side, what would be the balance? How do you provide enough of a viewing experience for tourists just wanting to shoot not guns but their cameras at a black bear but yet still wanting their inexpensive steak dinner later than night? Beyond the sport of hunting, much of the government's efforts are designed to keep the prices of meat and produce down to a reasonably subsidized price. If coyotes take down a sheep, the removal of the coyote/s is justified (often even if the rancher has been reimbursed for the market value of the downed animal), same with wolves, same with alligators, same with crows and other birds that eat newly planted seeds, or the same with introduced wild hogs which now appear with such regularity in southern states that open season on them is pretty much year round. As for the refuges themselves, hunting on them and even some conservation land (farming land set aside from planting but taxpayer funded back to the farmer for the time left idle) has been ongoing for decades; but projected revenues are down regarding the hunting world, at least in a recent report from the state of South Dakota. Likely no observers there, no people patient enough to scan the horizon in the hopes of catching a glimpse of a wild animal whose population has now been reduced; just the occasional gunshot and perhaps a flock of birds littering the sky in a desparate bid for escape. Then silence. But what if your idyllic cabin (or home on the edges of suburbia) is now being threatened by a predator (or worse, tame deer eating your roses...the horror!). This was presented in a piece in The New Yorker that encapsulated the problem facing all sides, from the emotional to the scientific, from the homeowner to the wild animal. The city? -- Los Angeles.
Joyce Carol Oates put it this way in a recent review she did in the same magazine. A "refugee" is, by definition, desperate: he has been displaced from his home, has been rendered stateless, has few or no resources...In the way that enslaved persons are truncated by the term "slaves," defined by their condition, there's a loss of identity in the category term "refugees." It might seem to be more humane, and accurate, to give someone who is forced to seek refuge a more expansive designation: "displaced person." With Congress now opening the door and redefining the term wildlife "refuge" to mean "hunting allowed," one has to wonder if the term "refugee" will also be redefined, a loss of identity and yet still left unprotected, a person or animal with no safe haven, no refuge. As the gun lobby continues to grow stronger and stronger and both certain people and animals are condoned by Congress to be hunted and sought out as threatening to the greater (or perhaps less expensive) good, one has to also wonder where our nation and perhaps our world is headed. Just as with the deer and elk, will our own predators --those that restore balance...the press, the passive, the observers-- be driven down and perhaps eliminated? And then what...an imbalance, a search for solutions with even more taxpayer monies? Despite dissatisfaction with such laws and bills, these are the people the United States appear to want as the majority of them continue to be re-elected without much of a fight (but often with heavy financial support). Guns and money...perhaps it does buy happiness. For the puzzled cubs and pups just awakening to life, their first and last glimpse of life might be the end of a rifle pointed into their dark den or something fired from the air...all paid for by taxpayers, taxpayers and Congressional leaders of the people, by the people, and for the people. And ever so slowly, the majority rest of us might watch the term "refuge" disappear from our pages of history.
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