ROTTWOLVES & PITLIONS

Am I the only one perplexed about the media and government officials explaining attacks by mountain lions that kill rural New Mexico residents, California bicyclists, Colorado joggers and children, British Columbia mothers and daughters, and seriously maim and injure dozens of others in recent years as somehow explicable and justifiable because “‘they’ (the deceased and the maimed) were ‘in the lion’s habitat’”?

Is there no one else dumbfounded by the media and government officials stating that the spreading destruction by wolves in America on livestock, big game hunting, and rural dogs added to their stalking of western US schoolchildren, their deadly attacks in Saskatchewan, their attacks in British Columbia and Alaska, and their historic toll on thousands of humans in Asia and Europe; is of no importance because wolves “belong” everywhere they can exist because they are a “native species”.

Other than those that “hate” hunters (and there are many such people) doesn’t anyone see the danger of increasing numbers of grizzly bears that are killing stock, big game, rural dogs, and stalking rural homesteads while beginning to stalk and attack bowhunters and other rural outdoors folks.  To say, as noted above that those and their property harmed by these massive and dangerous animals are “in their habitat” or that they (the large predators) “belong” here or that we “need” more of them should leave us all in high dudgeon.

As a matter of fact, all of these animals (“red” wolf, “gray” wolf, “Mexican” wolf, “timber” wolf [i.e. wolves], grizzly bears, cougars, mountain lions, “Florida” panthers [i.e. cougars], and the laughably “Listed” black bears of Louisiana and Florida) are merely the current tools of those that would vacate rural America (but for themselves and the filthy rich), eliminate hunting and fishing and trapping and ranching and the concept of private property and animal ownership and use.

Wolves are eliminating the big game herds thereby reducing the number of hunters (and coincidentally gun owners, a “two-fer” so to speak).  Wolves are eliminating ranching by making livestock losses, coupled with the powerful hostility of government bureaucrats and the pressures of wealthy environmental groups a powerful juggernaut to make the west a “corridor to nowhere” devoid of rural community life, owned by government. and closed to both use and management of natural and agricultural resources.  Wolves are making ranchers and other rural residents with families increasingly look to sell out and move away to “safer” (more urban) places for children and the elderly especially.

Lions are the excuse for closing more and more of Florida to hunting and other human activities.  Lions are the excuse being used by Midwestern bureaucrats (dressed in state uniforms but in reality federal bureaucrat wannabees) to argue for “protection” of “native species” as lions mysteriously appear in Iowa and Wisconsin and Illinois.  Lions increasingly stalk and kill humans as their numbers increase and their food supply dwindles and especially as they (like wolves and bears) experience no adverse consequences as they move in and around human habitation.

Grizzly bears are very, very dangerous omnivores that, like wolves and lions, are increasing in numbers and range.  Their presence is used to justify closing roads, eliminating grazing and logging, reducing hunting, the easement and purchase of more and more private property by government and their subsidized “partners” like the massively wealthy Nature Conservancy.

All of these animals are making rural life more tenuous, more dangerous, and less economically viable.  Yhis is intentional.  Add to this the urban support for higher gas prices and the current crop of federal (give the urban voters the rural countryside) politicians and you have a recipe for a rerun of the Highland Clearances of rural Scotland (by British Lords) in the years following our Revolution and the Founding of this country.  Read John Prebble’s book The Highland Clearances sometime if you want to see how even “civilized” and “educated” rulers can be every bit as callous as the worst Third World or communist dictator.  Ask yourself then, “How lucky am I to have Constitutional rights and a limit on the power of government?” and “Can I afford to allow others chip away at my rights?”  But I digress.

The wolves, cougars, and bears are being protected and spread by federal and state bureaucrats utilizing recent laws and regulations that are built on the erroneous assumption that they belong everywhere (they definitely DO NOT belong where they are a danger to humans or to human activities or property) and that citizen protection of persons and property from these animals makes the human guilty of a serious offense unless he can prove otherwise in a court of law.  Large predators near human habitation should be killed by public employees or private citizens immediately. The numbers and ranges of such animals should be controlled and strictly circumscribed.  Public hunting should be the preferred method of such control for a whole host of reasons that would fill pages.  Their adverse effects on livestock, big game, and dogs should be minimized.  Their danger to humans should be strictly minimized and rural people should be given all freedom to carry weapons and take deadly action in the few areas where such animals might be expected to occur. 

Let us ask what my liability would be if I released a vicious and deadly dog (“Rottwolf?”) or large cat (“Pitlion?”) in a town or suburb or rural area?  Let us further ask what my liability would be if the dog or large cat I released killed a child or someone’s dog or livestock or some wintering deer?  Could I protect myself from charges if I said, “the dog belonged there” or “the child behaved improperly” or “the livestock and dogs didn’t belong there”?  Could I take you into court and get you charged with a felony (prison, fines, loss of gun rights, loss of voting rights, loss of future employment, etc.) if you shot my dog and could not prove it was in self-defense?  Suppose I got some friendly veterinarian (better yet a University veterinarian) to testify that my dog was really harmless and that your dog was the culprit before it was killed based on forensic examination?  Suppose I got an archeologist to testify that dogs were roaming here thousands of years ago and belonged here now because they were “native”?  Suppose I got some bureaucrat biologist to testify that dogs like mine were “good” for the urban and rural environments because they kept down inferior breeds and that there have not been any recorded and substantiated incidents of my breed of dog ever attacking other dogs or children for hundreds of years?  Suppose that my dog or cat killed all the goats in the area and then I got some vegan authority to testify why not having goats, and goatmeat, and goat cheese was good for the health of children and adults?  Suppose I got a dog expert to testify that since my dog was purebred and was killing mixed breeds that this was good for the canine gene pool?  Who would buy any of this?

All of the above and more is being perpetrated by bureaucrats using the same false assumptions and claims every day.  These are the same folks that recently testified before Congress that guns should not be allowed on federal properties no matter what state laws said.  Just as they disregard gun rights, the right of rural people to “Domestic Tranquility”, the provision of which appears in the Preamble of the US Constitution as the PRIMARY reason for government, is not only ignored but purposely being destroyed by those whose salaries we pay.

Federal and state bureaucrats, agencies, and laws can no more justify the protection and spread of these deadly and destructive predators than I can loose deadly dogs or large cats on my neighbors and beyond.  Bureaucrats that are responsible for these programs should be sued by relatives and associates of persons killed by these animals.  Similarly those injured by these animals should also sue the bureaucrats responsible for establishing and protecting these animals in places and numbers that could reasonably be expected to have caused the attack.  Charges up to and including manslaughter should be sought.  Per the OJ Simpson precedent, if the charges don’t stick; go after Civil Damages.  Those who lose private animal property like stock or dogs should likewise sue the responsible bureaucrats for the damages and loss caused by these animals.  Those that are losing their public property opportunities to hunt game animals being extirpated by these animals have begun the process of court actions against agencies and regulators but have thus far avoided suing the individual bureaucrat perpetrators of these disasters on four legs.

Do not be deterred from what I am saying by being told about how “protected” from liability bureaucrats are by law.  As observed by Charles Dickens, if that is true “the law is an ass”.  Only by launching such suits nationwide and challenging the preposterous assumptions and precedents that have been built up by our apathy and failure to heed warnings of where this was headed, can there be any hope of stopping this rule of the urban elites through highly paid and amoral bureaucrats.  The current crop of politicians offer little hope, so it is up to us. 

Just like it was done, so it must be undone.  We need to WORK TOGETHER from the gamefowl breeder and trapper to the dog owner and fisherman.  We need to rearrange our representative groups from the ineffective bureaucracies they have become to focused advocacy groups full of fight, enthusiasm, and ideas.  We need to assert the local government controls outlined in the Constitution and once again run our local communities as we want and not as urban elites or animal rights groups demand.  Expecting and demanding an environment free of these damaging and deadly predators is just, proper, and the rightful purpose of government.  It is truly up to us. Reasserting the once revolutionary notion of everyone, bureaucrats included, being responsible for their actions is a first step in reasserting our individual rights and the limited role of government that made this nation the envy of people in every other nation of the globe for over 200 years.

Jim Beers

8 July 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.