Klamath Basin Water Crisis wolves on the horizon 082105

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WOLVES ON THE HORIZON!

This from Boston and Rhode Island newspapers -

"Judge orders feds to promote wolf restoration in Northeast
By David Gram, Associated Press Writer | August 19, 2005

MONTPELIER, Vt. --In what environmentalists hailed as a major victory, a
federal judge on Friday ordered the Bush administration to step up efforts
to restore the gray wolf to Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and New York.

"The wolves are howlin'" in celebration, Patrick Parenteau, director of the
environmental law clinic at Vermont Law School, said with a laugh.
Parenteau, lead attorney in the case, said his students "did all the hard
labor in the case. It's a nice victory for our students."

Welcome aboard New England. The western US and the Midwestern US and lately the southern US have kept a seat open for you on the Endangered Species Act train. You know, the train all your Federal politicians have loved to death for so many years. That this latest "environmental achievement" was wrought by a State University Law School and is characterized by State employees (I know we no longer think of professors as State employees but sad to say they are) as "a nice victory for our students" is both ironic justice and not surprising to those harmed by the Act in the past throughout the rest of the Nation.

Perhaps, now a New England politician or two will emerge in a year or two to not fight the need for Endangered Species Act reform and perhaps even support it. Why do I say this? Because you are about to experience what your city newspapers (and a few rural ones too) and your politicians and your professors and your rather large contingent of environmentalists and animal rights folks have repeatedly said is either greatly exaggerated or does not exist. Unchecked Federal authority, property loss, game animal disappearance, steady hunting/fishing/trapping reductions, public land restrictions, loss of valued pets, and general societal mayhem for which there is no remedy but checking the authority of the Endangered Species Act and Federal bureaucracies and courts.

How will wolves affect New England? Let me count the ways.

- Deer numbers will markedly decrease and stay decreased (what else will they eat to start? How much easier to close roads, stop logging, declare Wilderness when deer permits are like Arizona desert bighorn permits ( a drawing for 18) and the number of hunters rivals the number of whalers?

- Moose will soon decrease. First calves, then birthing females, and then wintering adults as hunger, opportunity, and experience favor the wolves. See Isle Royal National park in Lake Superior for confirmation. What doesn't happen for ten years suddenly happens after a certain snow and rain and ice and wolves suddenly gain unlimited access to wintering animals with horrific results. This will be described as "natural" or some mysterious "balance" or some "ecological function".

- Coyotes and foxes will all but disappear and you will yearn for the days when coyote damage was thought excessive.

- Pets like your golden retriever and hunting dogs will be killed and injured at increasingly appalling rates. Soon you will not be able to let your dog out and if your gun laws are strict you will not be able to walk him on a leash (oh I forgot, a wolf cannot be killed if it is "only" after a pet or stock - only if you can "prove" it was threatening a human.) Ask a western rancher what the investigation of this is like when the Federal agents are looking to "make an example".

- Bird hunting and rabbit hunting (while it is still allowed) will have to be done without a dog. Ask Wisconsin rabbit hunters and bear hunters and bird hunters what wolves do to their dogs. Ask for a picture.

- Grandkids and children will have to be watched constantly in rural homesteads and during winter (especially) school bus stops.

- People walking or working alone or camping or fishing in rural settings will have to exert caution and fight the urge to discontinue such pastimes.

- Livestock from your daughter's foal to sheep to adult steers and horses and llamas and emus and ostriches will die horrible deaths and there will be great financial and emotional losses that will of course be denied and minimized by newspapers, professors, and bureaucrats.

- The disappearance of deer and moose will be accompanied by a bevy of professors and government "scientists" in daily news coverage saying it is caused by everything from global warming to Invasive Species. Once you understand this, such "sound science" articles can be immensely amusing.

- State agencies will be forced to show their previously hidden acquiescence to Federal grant writers and a US Congress that they look to heel to for potential new and steady Federal funding. (Who will they answer to then?) This will cause some voters to wonder if they need State politicians that stand up to Federal usurpers rather than cohabit with them.

I could go on but space is limited. The real beauty of what you are about to experience is that NO ONE, not the Federal bureaucrats, not the State "partners", not the radical students, not the radical professors, not the politicians, not the judge WILL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR ANYTHING. As an old bureaucrat, let me assure you it doesn't get any better than that. Welcome aboard.

Jim Beers

20 August 2005