News Items

THE BEAT GOES ON (JAN. ’08)

A. GUN CONTROL -
By Matthew Daly
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON— Led by Idaho Republican Mike Crapo and Montana Democrat Max Baucus, 47 senators are pushing the Bush administration to allow gun owners to carry firearms into national parks and wildlife refuges.
The lawmakers have signed a letter asking Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne to lift Reagan-era restrictions that prevent citizens from carrying readily accessible firearms onto lands managed by the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
The current regulations, developed in the early 1980s, "infringe on the rights of law-abiding gun owners who wish to transport and carry firearms on or across these lands," the senators wrote.
The policies also differ from some other federal agencies, such as the Bureau of Land Management and Forest Service. "These inconsistencies in firearms regulations for public lands are confusing, burdensome and unnecessary," the letter said.
The National Parks Conservation Association, an advocacy group that works to protect and enhance national parks, supports the current regulations.
"There's no reason to need a gun in a national park, and it would possibly lead to unfortunate accidents and other problems, so we'd rather not see them in the parks," said Laura Loomis, the group's senior director of government affairs.

A few things to note –
1. The US Fish and Wildlife Service, that obtains millions of dollars annually from excise taxes collected on the sale of fishing tackle AND ARMS AND AMMUNITION, has been supportive of this ban for decades and is now silent as gun owners that are authorized to carry guns on other Federal lands AND IN THE STATES WHERE THESE REFUGES ARE LOCATED ask for their 2nd Amendment rights to be enforced
2. Many of the National Refuges were purchased with Duck Stamp revenue that for years were only bought by duck hunters (using guns) and stamp collectors.
3. If there are violations of refuge or park regulations with guns: PROSECUTE the violators, don’t think you can punish everyone because of the illegal behavior of a few.
4. Treating these Federal lands like schools and Churches and restaurants are treated (i.e. guns are banned) where law abiding citizens are otherwise entitled to carry a gun is illegal and merely a gun control ploy by the increasingly environmental protection/animal rights oriented workforce of these agencies that sympathizes the with gun control agenda. It is the ages-old ploy used against the death penalty and nuclear power plants and oil refinery and energy development, etc.: that is “death by a thousand cuts is the way to kill them”.
5. Note the clever use of the “Association” spokeswoman to do what government employees are either forbidden to do or are afraid to do (i.e. lobby openly). Such “Associations” are made up of retired employees and current employees and those advocates in your community that would turn the world into refuges and/or parks run by them and their cronies (i.e. the “wise” ones.)
6. When the Association lady says, "There's no reason to need a gun in a national park, and it would possibly lead to unfortunate accidents and other problems, so we'd rather not see them in the parks", does she not sound like every other gun controller (i.e. 2nd Amendment opponent)? Why are we tolerating the policies of two gigantic land owning (hundreds of millions of acres) federal agencies to conflict with the Constitutional freedoms and guarantees? Washington, DC is in Court because of this matter and these two agencies ought to be in Court too.

B. WHAT’S IN THE NEWS

Fox News broadcast a love fest between one of their lady announcers and some animal “advocate” last night (Saturday the 12th of January) wherein they each tried to outdo the other on how inadequate the punishment is for animal cruelty. Some person had killed 60 dogs and reportedly saved the “pelts” of some. Having only received a year in prison was supposedly evidence of leniency. The laws “were in need” of “overhaul” and “penalties needed to be increased dramatically” according to the young lady announcer (that said she has “rescued” animals in the past) and the guy who was merely an echo chamber for her radical views. When Fox does this, I expect that CNN and MSNBC are calling for the accused to be drawn and quartered before having his intestines set on fire and then hung (as long as we don’t “waterboard” him first).

Consider:
1. The fact that this person OWNED these dogs is never mentioned.
2. The assumption that all these sort of emotional calls are based on is that others (anti-hunters, anti-trappers, anti-cockfighters, anti-pet, anti-animal ownership, etc.) are entitled to simply deny YOUR right to YOUR property based on THEIR beliefs and feelings.
3. If anyone can generate the political support to get such (illegal because they take property from others) laws passed and enforced; how much longer will you be able to hunt or trap or wear fur or have a pet or fish? Anyone that believes that THEY or THEIR property or interest or activity is or will be immune from this sort of government-backed tyranny is naïve at best and ignorant at worst.
4. What is the difference (there really is none) between a dog owner killing his dog and keeping the “pelt” and any trapper killing a fox or an otter or a mink and keeping the “pelt”? What is the difference from this and a fisherman putting a fish on a stringer or a hunter shooting a deer or a duck hunter chasing down a wounded duck and killing it?
5. When we let these little emotional vignettes stand we are only allowing precedents to be set that, like Lenin’s famous quip about “hanging the capitalists with their own rope”, will be used on each of us soon enough.

C. WHAT’S IN A NAME?

1. The Killer Whale (a very dangerous mammal in the North Pacific and Bering Sea that has decimated sea otter populations and IS now decimating the unmanaged seals, and which kills baby whales and even people with alacrity) is being renamed “Orca” to make them more amenable to human emotional attachment. NOTE - I know whale young are called “calves” and not “babies” but if you can change terminology for an emotional response, SO CAN I.
2. Good news for Native American women. The Old-Squaw duck has been renamed the “Long-tailed duck” in Federal Waterfowl Hunting regulations. As someone that listened to several million Old-Squaw ducks chatter 24/7 as they wintered for months on end outside my bedroom window in the middle of the Aleutian Islands, I regret this politically correct act that has robbed us of something that has brought a smile to many a man and woman (both European and Native American) for many years when they realized the reason for the name. Likewise the Colorado River Squawfish has been renamed the “Colorado pikeminnow”. Like any Old-Squaw I shoot, any Squawfish I hook won’t be called something else no matter what “they” say.

D. GOVERNMENT AT WORK

1. Speaking of Squawfish, did you know that the US Fish and Wildlife Service is trying to kill most, if not all, of the bass, pike, and catfish in the Upper Colorado River watershed (a never-ending and totally unachievable and incredibly expensive effort) to make “the habitat friendlier for the Squawfish”? The Squawfish is listed as Endangered but like the notorious Snail Darter of Endangered Species lore: the costs in tax dollars and the loss of fishing opportunity and loss of potential benefits from managing the river in other ways to achieve even the most optimistic forecast of success in maintaining Squawfish habitat is spending millions to harm certain citizens and prevent management and development of resources over a large area and in a river vital to the health of the American southwest. Like wolves and Indiana bats, the Squawfish is simply a surrogate for bureaucrats looking for power, radicals looking to stop America’s economy, Universities looking for grants, and politicians looking for votes.

2. Speaking of government at “work”: have you heard the one about the owls?
Shooting one owl to save another
Forest - A scientist says it's an easy, inexpensive way to get rid of barred owls and help spotted owls
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
MICHAEL MILSTEIN
The Oregonian Staff
Biologists grappled Tuesday with the realities of shooting barred owls that invade the older forest habitat of federally protected northern spotted owls.
Eric Forsman, a longtime owl biologist with the U.S. Forest Service, said it will never be clear whether the barred owls moved from East Coast states to the West naturally, or whether human activities encouraged their spread. If they spread naturally, he said, many scientists might argue with trying to halt that process in order to save spotted owls.

What can I say? What can anyone say? I am reminded of the Russian scientist I had lunch with in Brussels one day. When I mentioned how we were introducing and protecting wolves, he looked at me and shook his head and said in broken English, “how did you ever win the Cold War?”

E. HOW GOVERNMENT “WORKS”
Recently a top official of the US Fish and Wildlife Service began campaigning for a leading Democrat Presidential candidate while employed. When Administration officials found out, this former sterling example of sex and race preference became persona non grata and is being forced to retire. When I was told of this, my “source” felt sorry for this person because they were “so nice”. Well as the song goes in “Evita”, “Don’t Cry For Me Argentina”.
When President Bush took office, some Democrat activists and environmental radicals left the US Fish and Wildlife Service for jobs with Non-Government Organizations. Each fully expected to return at even higher levels when the Democrats got “back in” (i.e. re-elected). Alas, they have been in the wilderness (so to speak) for seven years.
The official recently invited to retire is evidently “nuts” about Obama and this of course will not go unnoticed by a President Obama’s “Transition Team” and maybe even a President Clinton’s Transition Team. Indeed the refugees that fled the US Fish and Wildlife Service seven years ago (and Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management etc.) upon the Republican arrival will also not be unnoticed and/or unmentioned and will (hopefully) be rewarded by a Democrat Administration, especially if they are working for their re-election as you read this.
In fact there are probably very many active federal employees pumping tips and information up to Democrat politicians and to Democrat Presidential campaigns in hopes of being “recognized” should they win the election. NOTE – I do not mention this regarding Republicans because they run the bureaucracy right now and it would be meaningless to “rat out” someone to their teammates or some policy to those advocating it. Republicans/Democrats are mox nix in this regard.
So when someone you know pops up out of nowhere with the new President, remember, it isn’t always their SAT score or their accomplishments or even their race or sex; often it is simply because they gambled their employment with abandon and won for at least “4 more years”.

FOLKS, IT IS NOT GETTING ANY BETTER. This is from just the last few days.

Jim Beers
13 January 2008
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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 Centreville, Virginia with his wife of many decades.