Wolves Gone Wild

A FOREST FIRE PRIMER

Ever since the recent extinction of the species Forester americanus, the forests of the United States have become fuel for fires of ever increasing intensity and extent. This phenomenon, while great media, political, and bureaucratic fodder; has given rise to certain misconceptions among the general public of just what is happening. I was reminded of all this as I read the papers lately. I thought at first someone had slipped me last summers’ paper or perhaps the summer papers from 2005 or 2004. But alas they simply read the same: “More Fires”, “Larger Fires”, “More Homes Burned”, “Town Evacuated”, etc. Surely the autumn papers will once again report how “Government Firefighter” and “National Forest Supervisor” and “Government Forester” explain how “people shouldn’t live here” and “the costs of fighting are enormous so we need more people and more money”. Next winter and spring (as the Presidential candidates scramble to assure us of their “sensitivity” and “concern”, proposals for “condemning” and “buying out” the middle class and poor rural landowners will proliferate. Urban elites will cheer that “more” land is preserved and that “Nature” triumphs. As rotten and evil (the right words) as this all is, there is a need to explain what is happening as things go from bad to worse.

A forester should do this but since they weren’t “Listed” (on the Endangered Species List) about 25 years ago, they are evidently extinct today. Foresters were trained (years ago) to manage the forests for biodiversity, economic returns, recreation, fire management, rural economics, and sustainable uses of all stripes. Twenty-five years ago (+ or-) all that changed. Like “Wildlife Biologists” and “Range Managers”, most “Foresters” were employed by Federal and State land management agencies and those agencies were subverted from within by anti-management and anti-use radicals lobbying politicians, obtaining passage of anti-management laws and taking advantage of Equal Opportunity laws and the elimination of requirements to be a “Forester” or “Wildlife Biologist”. The Universities followed along as they saw who was hiring in the agencies and where grants and other funding were originating: the result is “Foresters” that are merely anti-use and anti-management ideologues masquerading as “knowledgeable” and “educated” persons. Today’s “forester” is someone that might have taken a course in “Global Weather Satellite Imagery” or “Techniques for Influencing Teachers and Students”. Hire them in a government agency with no entrance exam or job requirements, dress them up in a starched uniform with a patch, and send them forth as an “expert” with “answers” and you are expected to nod appreciatively or just keep quiet. Nothing could be further from the truth.

So this old wildlife biologist will strain to explain why the forest fires get ever worse; who is responsible; who is profiting; and what must be done to reverse the devastation that is making rural America hostile to average Americans and a playground for the ultra-rich and government bureaucrats and radical environmentalists. This is a simple explanation for the general public from Manhattan to Kemmerer, Wyoming.

Forest fires are an integral part of the juggernaut that is eliminating private property and rural livelihoods and rural families and rural communities from the landscape to be replaced by Federal and State lands closed to access, use, and management. Throw in the wolves and grizzly bears and the bureaucratic hunger for “more” and the competition between politicians vying for “greenest” in the campaign and you have the recipe for disaster we see all around.

What follows is a few basic facts to consider as you watch the scenario I have described unfold this summer and fall across this great Nation.

WILDERNESS*
(*NOTE: Wilderness is both a legal and generic term. Government, i.e. “public”, land designated “Wilderness” is inaccessible and unmanaged and unused. National Parks have been similarly unmanaged since their inception to “save” Yellowstone game herds [one is forced to ask for what and if so why wolves and bears are allowed to proliferate there] over 100 years ago. Increasingly National Forests, National Wildlife Refuges, and even Bureau of Land Management lands are being made inaccessible, unmanaged, and unused. There are current proposals before Congress to expand these areas and even shift Forests bought for “multiple use” to the Park system to confirm their de facto “wilderness” status without jeopardy for the politicians seeking reelection.)

Question: Is there more fuel for forest fires in an untouched “Wilderness” where woody fuels proliferate in thick stands, dead trees and brush are untouched and there is no access: or is there less fuel for fires in woodlands managed for timber and access for men and machinery?
Answer: Do I really need to say that of course there is LESS fuel in a managed forest than in an unmanaged and inaccessible forest? Alright, there IS LESS FUEL IN THE MANAGED FOREST.

LOGGING

Question: Does managing, i.e. harvesting in a sustainable process, the timber and trees in forest lands reduce fuel for fires and make fires more amenable to control and eradication when they occur?
Answer: Timber management reduces fuel build-up and maintains access to fight fires. Additionally it creates multiple (as opposed one) habitats for a diversity of wildlife, plants, and human activities and benefits. The annual loss of board-feet of timber in this country is staggering while we berate Canadians for not selling us their timber at the price we want to pay, go figure? Road, roadside, trail, and different age re-growth habitat types provide just not variety but “edge”, a valuable habitat feature for all plants and animals as foresters and wildlife biologists that received their degrees more than 30 years ago know.

ROADLESS AREAS

Question: When a fire breaks out from any cause (lightning, matches, catalytic converter, whatever) is it more likely to be contained and extinguished in and area where there are NO ROADS or where roads are numerous be they trails, logging roads, campground roads, county roads, etc.?
Answer: If you answer that the area with roads presents far less of a fire hazard when a fire breaks out you would have made a good forester years ago.

GRAZING

Question: Will an area that is grazed regularly and significantly, burn as readily or as hot or as quick as a similar area that is un-grazed? Remember that not only cattle and sheep and horses “graze” but consider elk and moose and deer and wild sheep et al that also “graze” and “browse” vegetation.
Answer: Of course the grazed areas are far less of a fire hazard and also, because of the reduction in fire “fuel”, fighting fires is more feasible and can generally result in quicker containment and smaller burned areas. – Ask yourself why it is so “popular” to “buy-out” grazing leases and to drive ranchers out of business? Ask yourself why more and more government land is closed to grazing (with truly religious zeal) as more and more grazed rural land is purchased by government or shut down by Nature “Conservancies” and Land “Trusts” using government tax exemptions, government cost sharing, and resales of such lands to government agencies with healthy commissions?

PREDATORS

Question: What is the link between predators and forest fires?
Answer: Large predators (cougars, wolves, and bears [especially grizzlies]) decrease big game herds and livestock operations by killing big game animals and livestock year around. These predators will multiply and kill such animals until the animals become scarce. When these animals become scarce, the amount of grass and browse and other vegetation they consumed BECOMES FIRE FUEL. As states like California protect cougars and like Oregon prohibit hunting them with dogs (the ONLY consistently effective method) and others like South Dakota and Iowa try to protect them as some sort of special species: they will decimate grazing and browsing animals BEFORE increasing their attacks on small and immature humans for food. Wolves and grizzly bears enjoy Federal protection and state agency cooperation in their spread across the United States. While urban neophytes giggle about how they might help reduce urban deer herds (BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR!) rural big game animals huddle in towns and by garages year around in vain hopes of avoiding these predators in the surrounding farm and ranch areas as well as the forests. This all results in quicker build-up of forest fire fuel and quicker spreading fires when winds and drought and lightning do what is too often blamed on lighters and campers and vehicles.

HIDDEN AGENDAS

Question: If this is true that the things we are being told to support (no logging, no grazing, abundant predators, closing ranches, no resource management, etc.) are causing fires to be worse and bigger and more devastating, how can this be? Is someone lying? Who is benefiting from this?
Answer:
When the bureaucrat (disguised as a government firefighter or “forester” or “spokesperson”) tells us this fall that they need “more” people and dollars because they “have” to protect rural homes and communities “that don’t belong there”; guess who we are supposed to believe really “belongs there”? If you answered the US Forest Service or the National Park Service or the US Fish and Wildlife Service, you get an “A”. Government agencies and government employee’s careers benefit as well as the politicians seeking reelection that they manipulate like puppeteers.

When the bureaucrats and the radical environmental organizations tell us that we need “buffers” to protect ourselves and “the ecosystem” they are really providing the publicity and justification for the self-serving politicians to give them money and people and tax exemptions and grants etc. to create the illusion of “doing something”. This generates votes and slick pictures for articles about what “needs to be done” so send money.

As government land control expands and roads are closed and management and use of resources like timber and grazing and big game and fishing dwindles (thanks in part to our need to be “saved” from the fires) human uses and other activities are constricted. Those that “hate” grazing are mollified, those that “hate” tree cutting are benefited, those that “hate” hunting and fishing are happy, those that “hate” rural life and rural communities (except for the artist colonies) are encouraged, those that “hate” guns watch the numbers of people carrying or using guns diminish (as well as their political clout) and thus are many groups given to support the fire cycle made by government.

As the patchwork of plant and animal habitats that formerly existed in managed woodlands are replaced by monolithic (and therefore less biologically diverse) forests that grow as one and burn as one the abundance of birds and mammals and even fish disappears. There are fewer birds to hunt and fewer mammals to hunt. Ask yourself why we are introducing and protecting wolves and grizzly bears that destroy the elk and deer and moose and sheep herds? Fewer hunting dogs are needed and besides the wolves and bears kill them at every opportunity. Camping and hiking dwindle since only the young and fit can go far from the edges and the old and young and handicapped and people too busy or too poor to spend family time in gyms no longer have any access. As children are dragged from sleeping bags to be eaten and as mountain lions pounce on and eat equestrians and bicyclists and as a Canadian man killed and eaten by wolves is the subject of a 2-year debate about how he died (still not even a Coroners Report and bureaucrats told to remain quiet or face firing) the subject of predators is like a covered pot boiling on the stove and about to blow. Under these conditions rural communities dwindle, tax revenue (from citizens AND government landowners) dwindles and thus government land purchases or “Conservancy” easement purchases are to be had for a song. Also, the very rich buy up estates and live in isolated baronial splendor much like their ancient predecessors under ancient Kings and Emperors.

Ask yourself what possible benefit or benefits outweigh the destructive effects of these mad policies? Forest fires, decline of hunting, loss of ranches, destruction of rural economies, burned homes, broken families, gargantuan government bills to actually increase what they say they are the only ones that can decrease: ALL FOR WHAT?

I was reminded of this government discombobulating to explain away their role in fires and their horrendous effects while watching the news two nights ago. A southern Florida fishing guide was bemoaning the National Park Service plan to shut down sport fishing access in the Everglades. (Like the Park Service and US Fish and Wildlife Service plans to likewise shut down hunting and hunting access in Southern Florida as well despite all their protestations about “input” and “fairness” and “comments”.) The scene then shifted to a lady “Park Ranger” with big earrings and a “Smokey the Bear” Hat telling us that it was too bad about the fishermen but they were destroying aquatic habitats. (NOTE: What they claimed was habitat “destruction” could as easily have been characterized as “edge creation” a technique for increasing habitat utility and productive capacity.) Then she seriously wrinkled her brow and told us the Park Service’s Mission was to “save such places”.

The US Forest Service and the US Fish and Wildlife Service in cooperation with the National Park Service own and control HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF ACRES (20 % nationally, over 70% in certain states) already and they are always expanding for a long list of reasons including “containing” fires. Today, they each share the philosophy of the Lady Ranger: “People are the problem and closure of public land to management and access and use is the only way to ‘save’ it”. Fire is THEIR ally and OUR enemy. Does anyone remember when these government employees used to work for us?

I once read a philosophical question that I found fascinating. “If a sparrow falls in the woods and there is no one nearby to see or hear it: does it make a sound?” One might ask today, “If public lands contain no humans or human activities: whose responsibility is it to maintain it?”
Orginal Post
Jim Beers
25 July 2007
- If you found this worthwhile, please share it with others. Thanks.

- This article and other recent articles by Jim Beers can be found at
http://jimbeers.blogster.com (Jim Beers Common Sense)

- Jim Beers is available for consulting or to speak. Contact:
jimbeers7@verizon.net

- 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.

D v. R

This is not an article about Democrats and Republicans. It is an examination of the struggle in the United States to change a Republic with accountable, defined government and inviolate individual rights into a Democracy wherein the central government grows continuously by fulfilling the wishes of every faction desiring to impose itself or its ideas on everyone else and everything.

A similar struggle is more advanced in Europe. Whether characterized as a shift from democracy to socialism or as a “necessary” unification of European states for economic or social purposes, the struggle is the same. Private property and guaranteed individual rights, while never having existed as powerfully in Europe as in the United States, are dwindling along with individual States in a blizzard of laws and regulations from a central government. No facet of life or society is safe from the regulation and reach of central government politicians and bureaucrats unchecked by courts. Values, families, communities, lifestyles, traditions, and future are sucked into this whirlwind.

A major facet and engine of the production of precedents and propaganda for this march to replace the American Republic with a Democracy, and then assumedly with the socialism and oligarchy rising on Europe’s horizon, is the environmental/animal rights movement. A few of literally thousands of such examples from the past 35 years suffice to make this point:

1. Under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) Congress authorized and the courts approved –
A.) Government power to declare any private property “Critical Habitat” and to thus, without “compensation” nor for a “public purpose”, (as required in the Constitution) to take control of any use of that property from the owner.
B.) Government power to introduce and protect deadly predators like wolves and bears without being responsible for the loss of livestock, loss of game, loss of domestic animals like pets, or human deaths resulting from such introductions.
C.) Government power to ignore or crush any State government or local government objections to Federal “endangered species” actions.

2. Under the Animal Welfare Act Congress seized authority over an ever-growing list of animals, owned as private property, from their owners and from state and local governments.

3. Under the Marine Mammal Protection Act Congress seized authority over all marine mammals in state waters or jurisdiction and, like the ESA assumed the ownership of such animals from private owners.

4. Under the Wilderness Act Congress destroyed all the legal and sensible obligations of the past to manage certain Federal lands for “multiple uses” and to support local communities and local economies while providing food and fiber for the nation. Henceforth, a politically advantageous moment to close such lands to any use or access regardless of previous commitments would be condoned.

5. While urban agendas and constituencies from Oklahoma City to New Orleans, and Presidential aspirations of a Governor of New Mexico (Richardson) are fuel for eliminating the ancient tradition of cockfighting, Federal legislation is passed to eradicate interstate aspects of such activity. The birds are private property and their regulation should remain a state or even preferably a local matter.

6. Horse slaughter, an emotional issue with the affluent and certain urban constituencies, is banned by Federal legislation. Horses are private property and, like fighting cocks, the recent spate of Federal authority declarations over these animals and their disposition by owners would have been unimaginable just 50 years ago.

One thing all six examples have in common is the lack of outcry other than from those directly affected. Horse owners felt no connection to the elimination of cockfighting. Marine Mammal owners and users showed no interest in the passage of the Animal Welfare Act. Dog owners, like private property owners and public property users, felt little need to be concerned about passage of a law to “protect” “endangered species”. Hunters, campers, fishermen, travelers, and rural communities felt no need to concern themselves with the impacts of the Wilderness Act on timber production or ranching.

Indeed, even organizations founded to advance elk hunting or trout fishing supported the wolf program eliminating elk hunting and the Wilderness Act closing access to and management of trout fishing and the replacement of robust trout fisheries with anemic fisheries or even lost trout fisheries. State agencies like fish and wildlife and parks agencies increasingly have come to depend on Federal largesse as Federal power and funding availability grows. Universities likewise have adapted completely to the new paradigm as grants and other emoluments build University careers and reputations.

“So what?” you say. Many of us feel cockfighting is “cruel”. Many of us believe that the horse is a “noble” animal and no one should be “allowed” to be slaughter one for any reason. No price is “too great to pay” to “save” a “species”. Marine Mammals are “cute” and “intelligent” and “necessary to the environment”. A “wilderness” has “supernatural” qualities that transcend and trump any and all “other” “ecosystems”. It would be impossible to “save” all the “endangered species” if we had to pay for every cow claimed by some farmer or dog claimed by some hunter or even some kid when he “didn’t belong there” or had failed to behave properly or pick up all his garbage. State governments and local governments are relics of the past and if we are to be able to “compete” and “advance” more government power and more rule of the informed “experts” is the only way we will “survive”.

In a Republic with guaranteed rights NONE of this would happen. Species in peril would be addressed by voluntary Federal incentives to property owners in line with state laws and regulations in which the property lies. If Federally managed animals killed stock, pets, and people then compensation would be due and state ability to eliminate or reduce such animals on all land under state authority (including all Federal lands not held under Exclusive Authority or necessary for national defense). Queasiness on the part of any citizen over the disposition of privately owned horses slaughtered for food or of gamecocks (remember a great Revolutionary War Hero was named after such animals) used as families have done for eons; would be grounds for no more than avoiding the eating of horseflesh, or feeding horsemeat to your pet or other animals, or attendance at a cockfight. Animal experiments would remain the prerogative of a University or company. Marine Mammals would not only remain under state authority in state waters except where a ratified Treaty intervened. Marine Mammals would be managed for numbers and distributions to maximize “watching” and commercial fishery stocks. Federal commitments to retain or purchase land for multiple uses and rural economic development and national uses would not be little more than royal decrees that could be changed with tomorrow’s winds.

In a “democracy” ruled by elite “experts” centrally (this is called an oligarchy) anything is possible. We say the world is “warming” so from now on “we” control this and that. We say only “native” species belong so we will now control all those and those and that and… We say this harmful species “belongs here” so you must either stay inside, have no pets or children, stay out of the woods, or move to a city where “you” belong. No one “belongs” “here” so here is a payment for your property and you must be gone by next week.

If you think some of this sounds “OK” or if you don’t think it is worth fighting to reverse this slide into oligarchy allow me to use these precedents in another area of national life. I could speak at length about sexual license or family authority or our disappearing attitude toward Life as areas that are experiencing these same phenomena but I choose instead the demographic changes we are experiencing.

Many Americans and Europeans profess to be abhorred by government processes in Moslem nations. Non-Moslems are discriminated against with impunity. Death and violence quickly emerge and go unpunished when other religions are practiced or even discussed in many instances. Immams function as judges and can declare almost any punishment. Private property is tenuous at best and central governments are often arms of religious law. In border nations when Moslem numbers reach significant levels, friction with non-Moslems over the supremacy or untouchability of religious court rules cause riots and deaths. In all honesty, there appears to be little interest in immigrating to these lands or to live under their ideas of law.

When Moslems move to Europe or the United States they may express interest in ruling their communities similarly to where they came from. They may feel that there is only their view of the world or that everyone else should live as they decree (like many environmental/animal rights organizations). So how should we (theoretically) answer such desires of some of these newest members of our society?

If there were demands to stop all display of any religious symbolism both publicly and privately, what could we do but comply? You say we have “freedom of religion”? Well we also “HAD” a “right to private property” that Congress eliminated with a snap of its fingers because some influential folks wanted it.

If there were demands to forbid any “unclean” animals, what could we do but comply? If Congress can simply take away your right to use your own gamecock or horse as you want simply because a powerful coalition demands it, why not take away your right to own or possess “unclean” animals too?

If certain public lands were requested for Moslem-only purposes, what could we do but comply? If Congress can increasingly make millions of acres of “public” land inaccessible for “wilderness” advocates’ peace of mind, why couldn’t it do so for the peace of mind of other powerful groups?

If different tax rates and more stringent building requirements for non-Moslems in Moslem communities were demanded, what could we do but comply? If Congress can make rural people and ranchers and hunters and dog owners and loggers bear disproportionate burdens of Endangered Species and Wilderness legislation, why not grant similar demands of other powerful groups?

If threats and demands for certain cartoon censorship or restrictions of public remarks are made, what can we do but comply? If Congress can claim authority at the expense of state governments and local control over some animals because of their “cuteness” or “intelligence”, why not simply eliminate the “freedom of the press” and “freedom of speech” when any powerful group demands it? We already practice such censorship in the schools anyway.

Consider how much more achievable the elimination of freedoms and rights may be under ONE government (as opposed 50) or thousands of empowered local governments as we once had. Consider the lack of appeal on YOUR part when YOUR rights are eliminated by an all-powerful, far-away, and unresponsive central government as opposed YOUR state government or YOUR local government that are vulnerable to your wrath.

I could go on but it is time for supper. I hope you get the point. If you do, welcome to the fight to save the Republic. If you don’t, OUR future will only grow increasingly darker.

Jim Beers
4 July 2007 - Original Article Link

- If you found this worthwhile, please share it with others. Thanks.

- This article and other recent articles by Jim Beers can be found at
http://jimbeers.blogster.com (Jim Beers Common Sense)

- Jim Beers is available for consulting or to speak. Contact:
jimbeers7@verizon.net

- 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.

COST/BENEFIT, WHERE ART THOU?

Scouring through all the reams and reams (actually boxcar loads) of “best science”, and justifications (for budgets and personnel), and lawsuits, and court cases, and Recovery Plans, and State “Management” Plans (proposed, disapproved, approved, and opposed by Federal overseers), and “Control” Plans, and “Depredation” Plans, and “Compensation” Plans, and “documentaries”, and explanations from bureaucrats and the professors getting grants and the radical Non-Government Organizations; all about wolves and why they are being foisted on rural America from the Mid-Atlantic and Great Lakes States (and soon New England States) to the Northern Rockies to the Mexican border: there seems to be something missing. Where we must ask is that ancient standby so heavily used in days of yore to stop and redirect everything from dams, roads, and water projects to justifying “more” money and people and power for government agencies? I speak here of the notorious and infamous “Cost–Benefit Ratio”.

The “cost-benefit ratio” was conceived, implemented, and utilized as a “scientific” or “mathematical” “formula” constructed by “scientists” and government “experts” (i.e. bureaucrats) to display for “decision-makers” (i.e. politicians) the complexities of natural resource issues that non-experts were unable to understand. Indeed the “cost-benefit ratio” was a formulaic depiction of the ONLY answer to the problem at hand. The “problems” ranged from why this or that project or human activity must be stopped; or this or that private property must be turned over to either government control or ownership; or simply why government solutions as opposed “private sector” solutions were always best.

Given the utility of the “cost-benefit ratio” before the advent of “Endangered Species Critical Habitat”, or global warming mandates, or UN “Conventions” treated as “Treaties”, or Wildlands “Corridors” as a government function, or the closure of public lands to public uses, or the shift from managing the plants and animals around us to worshipping them, or the avowed war on rural America being waged by Federal surrogates of radical organizations and their clandestine state bureaucrat partners State; one is forced to suggest a need for a “Cost-Benefit Ratio” for the introduction, protection, and dispersal of Wolves in the United States of America. I therefore, as a concerned citizen, volunteer to construct such a “Ratio”.

If you or any of your associates question any of the following facts, please consult the book, Wolves in Russia by Will N. Graves available for a pittance and less than 200 pages excluding the pictures and Endnotes (so it is short as well as informative and easy to read).

Let us begin by detailing the “COSTS”.

COSTS -

In 1988 the Soviet government had 1,055 collective, state farm, and forest management specialists in Kazakhstan (one of the smaller central Asian lands rarely mentioned in the news) fill out a questionnaire regarding wolves in this “Republic”. The results? “The total number of domestic animals killed by wolves in 1987 would be about 150,000 and in 1988 about 200,000”. So what domestic animal “COST” figure is appropriate for a nation calling itself a Republic with guaranteed rights, private property, and rural economies made up not of peasants bound to the land but men as free and as educated and as dependent on their livelihood for their families’ sustenance as any American urbanite? In order to leave room for each State to shoulder their “share” of the agreed-to “COST” in constructing their own “Wolf “Management” Plan when they get the wolves they are slated to get. So let’s enter 10 Million domestic animals annually so that the rural western states can suck up hundreds of thousands each as “tolerable” and the sanctimonious populous states like CA and NJ and IL and NY and MA et al can “shoulder their share of say, 10 or 15 thousand each. (Note that this will include horses that we refuse to allow anyone to slaughter for human needs as well as llamas and alpacas and other “lovable” domestic animals exclusive of dogs.)

ENTER: 10 MILLION DOMESTIC ANIMALS ANNUALLY.

If the British reported 624 Indians (in India) killed by wolves in 1878: if wolves killed 33 children in one state in India in 1996: if one rabid wolf in 1957 in Byelorussia traveled 150 kilometers in 36 hours and bit 25 people: if a rabid Russian wolf in 1979 bit 26 people in just 11 hours: if it is true that unbothered wolves (as during wars when guns and men are gone) or during high population periods or during periods of food shortages, etc. are more likely to attack and feed on humans: if even only some percent of all the thousands of accounts in Asian and European news accounts, church records, and government records of wolves attacking and eating people (travelers, loggers, herdsmen, washerwomen, trappers, hunters, etc.) of all ages and sex engaged in every imaginable activity are true: how are we to set a “COST” figure for the number of human lives to be “acceptable” in the US? Remember we must use a large enough figure to permit each state to use their “share” in their “Ratio”. So recognizing that eventually the Eastern and more populous states must have an even higher figure than the “rural” states (since the more populous the state, the greater the availability of wolf “food” - consult New Jersey about coyote’s grabbing kids or California about mountain lions dining on all manner of California “outdoorspersons”) and don’t forget that the figures will vary with the severity of winters, the availability of GUNS (carried and available), and the wolves understanding of what humans are (wolf-feeders, quick runners and tree climbers, or something to be feared) therefore it must allow for these “high-kill” years. So let us allow each state to list as an “acceptable COST’ say, 50 each (let’s exclude Hawaii).

ENTER: 2450 MEN, WOMEN (should we somehow mandate gender equality here?), AND CHILDREN ANNUALLY.

If in 1977 Ukrainian wolves ate twice the amount of wild game meat than all the hunters supplied to the government: if in one Russian forest wolves kill 28.6% of the moose: if wolves kill otters and fox and raccoons and other furbearers: what is the tolerable “COST” to big game species and furbearers and hunting and trapping and all the money these things generate annually to rural residents and their economies and businesses such as fur, guns, ammunition, gear, guides, processors, motels, restaurants, etc.? Here we have a dilemma. Current non-millionaire rural residents knowingly observe that this COST is inestimable. Conversely, the extremist environmentalists, the animal rights radicals, the covetous (of the land) government bureaucrats, the proponents of a strong central government, state bureaucrats interested in hastening the day they are weaned from accountable game management tasks and shifted to Federally-financed and unaccountable “ecosystem monitoring” tasks, billionaires in search of baronial estates, and urban progressives in search of some heart-warming substitute like Nature worship for religious belief et al: all these consider this NOT a COST but a BENEFIT! Therefore it is entered on both sides of the ratio to be “fair”.

ENTER: THE DEMISE OF WILDLIFE USE AND RURAL AMERICAN LIFE PLUS THE GOVERNMENT SHIFT FROM A REPUBLIC WITH GUARANTEED RIGHTS TO A PURE DEMOCRACY CENTRAL GOVERNMENT RULED BY THE POWERFUL.

If wolves carry and transmit rabies, distemper, brucellosis, anthrax, neosporosis caninum, foot and mouth, mad cow, chronic wasting disease, various intestinal parasites, and probably other disease that (due to lack of honest research) directly threaten human health and the health of domestic and wild animals: how to arrive at a “tolerable COST”? When does an “outbreak” become a “plague”? What does it mean when an anthrax outbreak in the Black Hills suddenly spreads into Wyoming and then into Montana or when a brucellosis outbreak in Yellowstone buffalo suddenly moves steadily outward? How do we tack the vector role of wolves as the reason brucellosis infects dogs in a community and then kids come down with it? What about intestinal parasites that begin cropping up in dogs? But this one will cancel itself out regarding dogs since hunting dogs or unleashed dogs will become things of the past as wolves make pets or working dogs as rare here as they are in Asia where wolves occur because wolves will kill dogs that they don’t impregnate with even more dangerous (wolf/dog hybrids) offspring. (That is the reason that for hundreds of years, European dog collars sported spikes and nails – to delay the wolf’s ability to rip out the dog’s throat hopefully long enough for an owner to either run off or kill the wolf!) So in order to be “scientific” and “inclusive” we will add 100,000 to our domestic animal “COST”, 1,000 to our human cost, and leave cost #3 as is since the same folks will consider this “COST” a “BENEFIT” since they will not believe that wolves will ever affect them or their interests.

ENTER: 100,000 DOMESTIC ANIMALS AND 1,000 MEN, WOMEN, AND CHILDREN.

Financial COSTS are well hidden and obfuscated with great care by government and the environmental extremists and animalk rights radicals. Suffice to say that $40+Million per year have been spent just by the US Fish and Wildlife Service alone for each of the past 10 years. Add in another $30 Million per year for the US Forest Service and BLM. Add in $15Million per year for USDA to “control” (i.e. track, live trap, excuse, feed, and “release in another ‘wilderness’” problem wolves and as a last resort to kill and bury problem wolves). Add in $5Million per year for the State fish and wildlife agencies to tag along and play “Federal gophers”. Add in the REAL COST of all the livestock not compensated for and all the dogs killed and maimed and all the adjustments made by rural folks (driving the kids to school instead of letting them walk to and from the bus, securing barns, loss of prized animals, loss of hunting income to towns, depressed land values, closed grazing or logging leases, loss of recreation access to “public lands”, gardening or trapping foregone, etc., etc), say $500Million per year (that is way low but you wouldn’t believe the real figure). Add in the loss of revenue to Federal land agencies closing down management and use of timber and grazing, etc, for wolves (this increases their need for MORE money from Congress for the agencies because they no longer graze or log in the precious wolf habitats) and the money lost to County roads and schools that was promised to be “shared” by Federal agencies when they bought/condemned the lands promising to manage them for “multiple use” or “waterfowl”, etc. for another $400 Million. Let’s see, 40 +30 + 15 + 5 + 500 + 400 = $9,990. (See how “scientific” and “mathematical this appears?) We’ll just round it off to a cool $1 Billion per year recognizing that as the rural countryside is vacated the “COSTS” to rural economies will disappear but they will be replaced by inestimable (because you wouldn’t believe me) government COSTS as government takes over rural America like something from a Ray Bradbury science fiction novel.

ENTER: FINANCIAL COST $1 BILLION PER YEAR.

BENEFITS –

ENTER (from above): THE DEMISE OF WILDLIFE USE AND RURAL AMERICAN LIFE PLUS THE GOVERNMENT SHIFT FROM A REPUBLIC WITH GUARANTEED RIGHTS TO A PURE DEMOCRACY CENTRAL GOVERNMENT RULED BY THE POWERFUL.

Alright, alright; don’t rush me: I’m thinking. Hmmmm. How about “more” Federal grant money for Universities? No? Well what about all those Federal and state jobs for all those kids that “love” their golden retrievers or helped to get the slaughter of horses by their owners outlawed and those kids that wrote those letters to ban cockfighting (which they know about as much about as I do about Ming Dynasty art)? No? So, how about wolf howls? “They” say that lots of people will drive forever and stay overnight to hear one? Yeah I know that is nonsense but that is what “they” say. Well how about all those rural lands that will be bought for a “song” from people that can no longer raise their families and live where their families have for generations? No? Well how about all those rich folks like Turner and Donaldson and Letterman and the rich folks fleeing California et al that have backed all this environmental stuff and now can but millions of more acres surrounded by “pristine wilderness” while employees keep them comfortable? No? Yeah, well think about all those new and expanded National Forests and National Refuges and National Parks and State Natural Areas; how about all that? You say it will all just be closed to access so you can’t use it and it will be unused and unmanaged so it will merely accelerate the rural “Clearances” (see Scottish history from 1750 to1850 or Irish history from 1515 to 1920) for the benefit of the rich and powerful? OK, OK; I give up.

THE RATIO –

COSTS:

1. FINANCIAL COST $1 BILLION PER YEAR.

2. 10 MILLION, 100,000 DOMESTIC ANIMALS ANNUALLY.

3. 3,450 MEN, WOMEN AND CHILDREN ANNUALLY.

4. THE DEMISE OF WILDLIFE USE AND RURAL AMERICAN LIFE PLUS THE GOVERNMENT SHIFT FROM A REPUBLIC WITH GUARANTEED RIGHTS TO A PURE DEMOCRACY CENTRAL GOVERNMENT RULED BY THE POWERFUL.

BENEFIT(S):

THE DEMISE OF WILDLIFE USE AND RURAL AMERICAN LIFE PLUS THE GOVERNMENT SHIFT FROM A REPUBLIC WITH GUARANTEED RIGHTS TO A PURE DEMOCRACY CENTRAL GOVERNMENT RULED BY THE POWERFUL

There you have it, the vaunted Cost-Benefit Ratio. See how easy and scientific it is? See how it points in only one direction for government policy? See how well off you are in the hands of “experts” that understand “best science” and who are willing to tell the rest of us what is good for us? See how you could use this in court or at a meeting and everyone would be “forced” to agree with your conclusion and course of action? (I sound like one of those old 1940’s Coming Attractions films in the movies but you get the point.)

Americans have been sold a toy to take home to the kids and too late discovered that it is a pregnant viper that has escaped and is now living somewhere in their home. When it finally becomes apparent what was perpetrated will anyone take responsibility? Like the bureaucrats that first stole the millions of hunting and fishing excise taxes to kick this wolf business off after Congress refused to fund it: everyone will move on to a bigger and better position and no one will even miss a bonus. This old bureaucrat would just bet on it.

Jim Beers
22 June 2007 - orginal article link
- If you found this worthwhile, please share it with others. Thanks.

- This article and other recent articles by Jim Beers can be found at
http://jimbeers.blogster.com/ (Jim Beers Common Sense)

- Jim Beers is available for consulting or to speak. Contact:
jimbeers7@verizon.net

- 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.

Bad-bear surge stirs unease

“I’m up to my eyeballs in bears,” says one official. And the animals have yet to reach the late-summer feeding frenzy.
By Steve Lipsher
Denver Post Staff Writer
Article Last Updated: 08/07/2007 09:09:40 AM MDT

Wildlife officers have killed seven “problem” bears in the past nine days in western Colorado, raising fears for what may come during the animals’ late-summer feeding frenzy.

“I’m up to my eyeballs in bears,” said Randy Hampton, spokesman for the Colorado Division of Wildlife.

“In any given summer, you’re going to have isolated pockets of bear activity,” Hampton said. “This year, it seems like the pockets aren’t so isolated.”

Facing a diminished supply of natural food and pushed by encroachment from development, the black bears have learned to associate human habitation with food, breaking into homes and campsites, digging through garbage and raiding bird feeders.

The toll includes a 425-pound bear that was trapped and destroyed after smashing through doors of houses in Aspen.

“That was a spectacular bear,” Hampton said. “He had to have been around for a long time. But he was literally knocking over doors. People weren’t safe in their homes. There was no choice in this one.”

At least three other bears have been destroyed in the southwestern part of the state in the past month, said division spokesman Joe Lewandowski.

Wildlife officers try to relocate bears to remote areas after their first forays into town.

They are authorized to kill aggressive animals immediately and by policy must destroy “nuisance bears” that return.

Kevin Wright, a longtime wildlife manager in the Roaring Fork valley, was described in an Aspen Times story as being so distraught at destroying the big bear that he fought tears as he prepared the tranquilizer dart and administered the lethal dose of potassium chloride.

“We do not like killing bears,” Hampton said. “It is the worst part of a wildlife officer’s job.”

Biologists believe that late-spring frosts and a dry summer in parts of the state have decimated the usual food supply, including berries and acorns, and many bears are following their noses into town.

Bryan Peterson, director of BearSmart Durango - a volunteer organization seeking to educate residents about avoiding bear encounters - said he routinely finds several trash cans overturned by bears on his morning bike rides through town.

Peterson puts red tags on the cans to alert residents that they should not be taking their garbage to the curb the night before pickup. He sends photos of the strewn trash to members of the City Council to prod them to enact a tough ordinance requiring bear-proof containers.

Such requirements have had a positive effect in places such as Vail, where bear problems anecdotally have dropped this summer since the town began fining residents for leaving trash out, town officials say.

Observers fear the bear problem is likely to get worse as the bears move into their autumn eating binge, when they consume up to 45 pounds of food each day in preparation for hibernation.

“We’ve been telling folks for the past couple of weeks now: If you think this is bad, wait until mid-August,” Peterson said.

Orginal Story

Recent incidents Bears euthanized in the past nine days:

• July 29: Parachute. Bear had killed several pigs.
• July 30: Steamboat Springs. First bear destroyed in town in years.
• July 30: Collbran. Bear had broken into cabins for past two years.
• Wednesday: Aspen. Bruin weighing 425 pounds ripped open doors.
• Wednesday: Glade Park. No details.
• Friday: Aspen. 350-pound male broke into Wildwood School.
• Sunday: Grand Junction. “Two-strike” bear killed for repeat rampage.

A must read on the Wolf Recovery Program in the western United States includes a write up on the admitted environmental extreme hidden agenda on the wolf program.

As University of Wyoming geography professor James Thompson (1993:165) recently noted, “wolf recovery is [only] a ‘stalking horse’ for the larger issue of land use change.” Even environmentalists have admitted that “on the deepest level the issue of…wolf recovery is not about wolves. [Instead] it is about control of the west” (Askins 1993:S). Simply put, environmentalists are using wolf recovery and the Endangered Species Act to run ranchers out of the country and to thwart multiple use of public lands. It is also a way for animal-rights and antihunting groups to ban aU hunting and use of wildlife. Is this what Congress had in mind when it passed the Endangered Species Act? There is no evidence to even remotely suggest that it is.

What these environmental extreme does not realize is after they kick the rancher off his/her lands then the land will be divided and other smaller ranchettes will move in with lamas, cows, goats that are considered pets by these people or competition horses. This will prove an even dicer and larger group for the environmentalists to divide as negative wolf human interactions will be increasing as the prey base decreases and uncontrolled wolf population continues to grow.

Larry Pynn, Vancouver Sun

Published: Wednesday, August 01, 2007

A kayaker’s life-and-death struggle with a hungry wolf on B.C.’s remote north coast — the second wolf attack in the province in seven years, and the first thought to involve predatory intent — has prompted a conservation officer to warn against taking wolf encounters too lightly.

“This was a predatory wolf attack,” conservation officer James Zucchelli confirmed in an interview from his Bella Coola Valley office. “That fellow was perceived as a prey source. He was attacked with intent to eat. The wolf saw him and took off running at him.”

Zucchelli cautioned against public alarm since such incidents are extremely rare, adding he’s not heard of another predatory attack during his eight years as a conservation officer. But he said the attack reinforces the fact that wolves are predators and capable of attacking humans under certain circumstances, including when they are desperate for food.

The fit, 31-year-old Port Moody kayaker was setting up his tent on a beach at 4 p.m. in the Anderson Islands off northwest Aristazabal Island, a straight-line distance of about 125 km north of Bella Bella, when an old female wolf emerged from the bushes and attacked, Zucchelli said.

The kayaker fought with the wolf for a few long minutes, suffering bites to his leg and hands as he attempted to pry its jaws apart and put it in a headlock.

He eventually dragged himself and the wolf several metres down the beach to his kayak, removed a 10-cm knife from his life jacket, and repeatedly stabbed the animal.

“He proceeds to start filling this thing with holes in the neck and chest area,” Zucchelli said. “The wolf gives up, gurgling and bleeding, and wanders off into the trees.”

Unable to paddle due to his hand injuries, the kayaker called for help on his marine radio.

Employees from the floating King Salmon Resort at Borrowman Bay, about seven km to the southeast, arrived to remove him and his gear from the island and locate the dying wolf in the nearby bushes, killing it with a shotgun blast to the head.

The Canadian Coast Guard vessel Tanu took the kayaker to hospital in Bella Bella, where he was treated and released. Zucchelli returned to the island and spotted a lone wolf on the shoreline that circled the area of the attack and then disappeared into the bush.

Subsequent tests on the dead wolf showed it did not have rabies, but was emaciated at just 25 kg. A healthy female wolf should weigh closer to 40 kg. The stomach contents included the jaw of a river otter, a feather, and bones from a rat fish scavenged from the beach.

“There was nothing good in [the wolf’s] stomach — shrapnel off the beach,” Zucchelli said.

A man was severely bitten by a wolf in 2000 while sleeping outdoors in his sleeping bag at Vargas Island in Clayoquot Sound. He received more than 50 stitches to his scalp. Two young wolves who had a history of being fed by humans were killed.

That doesn’t appear to be the case in this latest incident, which occurred July 5 but is only now coming to light. “There was no indication of any feeding or garbage, that anything had been placed on a regular basis on that little patch of beach to suggest a wolf attractant,” Zucchelli said.

“This wasn’t a beach used on a regular basis. There was no fire pit. There is no evidence these wolves had been fed by humans, period. There was nothing.”Zucchelli still plans to conduct follow-up talks with north coast fishing lodges to reinforce the importance of not feeding wild animals.

The kayaker, who was on a four-week solo trip from southeast Alaska to northern Vancouver Island, asked not to be identified or interviewed, saying he doesn’t need the publicity and is concerned that news of the rare incident will only give wolves a bad image.

The Ministry of Environment estimates there is a stable or growing population of 8,000 wolves in the province.

A 2002 study by Mark McNay of the Alaska department of fish and game documented 80 cases in which wolves showed little fear of humans in Alaska and Canada over the past century.  His study documented 39 cases of aggression from healthy wolves (six involving humans with dogs), 12 of known or suspected rabies, and 29 cases of fearless but non-aggressive behaviour. Aggressive non-rabid wolves bit people in 16 cases, six of them severe. He could find no evidence of wolves having killed people.

McNay’s report estimates there are 52,000 to 60,000 wolves in Canada and 7,000 to 10,000 in Alaska.

lpynn@png.canwest.com
© The Vancouver Sun 2007

 orginal story

IDEOLOGUES & RESPONSIBILITY

I have felt a nagging obligation to try and report on the personal and hidden agendas playing out in Saskatchewan regarding the death of Kenton Carnegie for quite awhile. On 8 November 2005 Kenton Carnegie a 22 year-old college student from Ontario was working at a mine in northern Saskatchewan when he went for a walk. Hours later his body was found at the edge of a lake in snow covered with wolf tracks. He had been chased and knocked down several times before he was killed and worse.

Note the date November 2005. I am writing this in late July 2007. The Canadian and Saskatchewan governments have yet to issue a finding about the cause of death and the swirl of hidden agendas, academic disingenuousness, and bureaucratic gamesmanship rivals (if such is possible) anything seen in the context of environmental and animal rights falderal in the United States. Trying to analyze the situation is especially difficult for me since I am not a Canadian and even were this going on in the United States any attempt to examine it would be subject to vilification and hyperbole. I am determined to attempt this for two reasons. First, for the sake of the victim, Mr. Carnegie, whose humanity makes us brothers despite national differences: to permit his death to go unrecognized and for its cause to go uncorrected is a tragedy we share if we do not do all we can to resolve it. Secondly, what is going on (and not happening too) in northern Saskatchewan is an important lesson for all Americans and Europeans that are being oppressed and harmed by the very same villains and ideology at work here.

My reluctance to stick my nose in here evaporated last night as I watched several of the Discovery Channel propaganda features presented under the rubric “Shark Week”. First there was the “documentary” on the shark attacks on the crew of the USS Indianapolis. The hubris involved in calling it the “worst shark attack in history”, when thousands of ships have disappeared throughout history and undoubtedly untold numbers of sailors and fishermen that went into the water were killed by sharks never to be seen again, was astounding. The “experts” that comment were, without exception, people with a basic opinion that sharks are, for a variety of reasons, to be protected and studied at all times. The bottom line from the U of Florida “expert” was that very few of the sailors were killed by sharks and we are all just victims of having watched “Jaws”. The similarities to the propagandizing of wolf behavior was overwhelming.

Then there were the photos of sharks coming out of the water with seals in their jaws. Never a word about the explosion of this shark food (seals) for 35 years and its certain increase in shark health and numbers as a result. This was interspersed with all sorts of technological descriptions of shark bites. Always those interviewed, including some victims that lived, expressed admiration for sharks and opposition to any “retribution” or killing of sharks. No one advocates “retribution” or killing all sharks but does that mean there can be NO DISCUSSION of managing the numbers and distribution of sharks considering factors like human activities and fishery resources?

The real issues are unmentioned in all the smoke and mirrors being passed off as a comprehensive look at sharks. For instance, should beaches or waters where deadly sharks congregate periodically be opened to swimmers or surfers? Should sharks be discouraged (that means everything from finding some means of scattering them to killing many of them) from using areas where humans are in the water routinely? What impact are sharks having on reduced or healthy fish stocks? Should we be managing shark species’ numbers and distributions in ways that protect human safety and allow fisheries to recover and increase? What is the primary role of government (both in the US and under UN policies) vis a vis human safety, fishery management, local economies, and species preservation and sharks? What is the impact of exploding Pinniped (seals, et al) and expanding Cetacean (whales et al) populations (i.e. shark food) on shark numbers and distribution? How should shark numbers be managed? Who advocates shark management and why are they never heard from? There are more such questions but you get the point. Be it shark attacks or wolf attacks or bear attacks, the publicity is the same: man is the culprit and no matter how many or what the impact of these animals on men and their communities, management of men and not the offending animals is “the answer”.

As I watched this propaganda I could not get the savage killing of Kenton Carnegie by wolves and the ongoing cover-up out of my mind. The differences in manipulating information and government duplicity in the US and Canada, like the shark pseudo-biology and wolf misinformation about how benign these harmful and deadly creatures are, as the WWII military slang for an old German saying meant, “mox nix”. This means the differences are “of no consequence” or “not important”. So let’s look at the Kenton Carnegie affair and learn what we all can.

8 November 2005, Kenton Carnegie, a 3rd year Engineering student from the University of Waterloo, goes for a walk when he gets off work at a mine in N. Saskatchewan. His remains are found several hours later in the snow on the edge of a frozen lake. There are wolf tracks all around. According to those who found him:
“He walked from the camp. About a kilometre away, on the edge of a frozen lake, a wolf appeared, following Carnegie’s footsteps through the snow, said Rosalie Tsannie, the province’s coroner for the north, who was called to the scene and arranged for Carnegie’s body to be removed.
Carnegie died close to these trees, about a kilometre from the camp.

Carnegie must have become aware of it – the snow pattern showed he quickened his pace.

There were other wolves on the way. One or two more moved in from the side, as the first wolf tracked him from behind, Tsannie said. “I believe he saw this wolf behind him.
“That’s when he thought he would have been in trouble and started running. And just shortly after that, about seven feet from there or less, the first scuffle happened, and there’s about five [sites of scuffles] that led to the point where the men had discovered his body.”
The searchers who went looking for Carnegie read the signs in the snow. They found footprints and then wolf tracks that told a story about Carnegie’s final struggle.
They say he fought hard, that he was knocked down and the animals drew blood but he kept getting up. Finally, the animals took him down and he could no longer get to his feet. It was getting dark when searchers found his remains, about a kilometre from the camp. The wolves were still there, close to the body, so the men retreated and called the RCMP.”
Since that date, 20 months ago:
-The government hired a wolf “conservationist” and “protectionist” to handle the investigation. Like the shark “experts” he will never have met a critter that should be killed or a population that needed to be controlled. Such “experts” are really only “expert” at blaming people for what they are actually responsible for by excusing and obfuscating animal facts, the danger from animals, and animal behavior.
- The government “investigator” has blamed a black bear. (Note that the attack took place in snow in November in N. Saskatchewan where most bears begin hibernating in September. He maintains that a bear killed Kenton and then wolves arrived and covered up the bear tracks. I’ll bet his dog ate his homework when he was a kid too.)
- National Geographic and the National Wildlife Federation ran glossy articles blaming “bears” habituated to a garbage dump”. (See above re: bears and when they hibernate.)
- The government “Report” came out in the summer of 2006 before any Coroners report was issued.
- The “Chief Coroner”, not a Doctor in Saskatchewan, then called an Inquest date of Feb. 2007.
- Disclosure was delayed and withheld between the Coroner, Crown lawyer, and the parents of the dead man.
- Disclosure was not made until January of 2007 leaving inadequate time to review and challenge government “findings”.
- The witness List was not divulged until after the February date had passed. It did NOT include the scene Coroner, a highly respected Aboriginal official that had reported that Kenton “was attacked, killed, and partly consumed by wolves.”
- The Pathologist involved in the case was on vacation and the Crown did not want to call him.
- The Inquest was rescheduled for 29 October 2007 (two years after the incident).
- The Crown lawyer gets to pick the 6-person jury without any challenge from the lawyer representing the parents of the dead man.

As this disgraceful minuet proceeds, every Tom, Dick, and Harry comes out of the woodwork to trumpet his own cause.
- Wolf lovers are blaming black bears and “the dump”.
- Government biologists support the bear theory for many reasons. They don’t want to be held responsible for “managing” animals that are killing people (too much accountability). Also, they (like their American cousins) anticipate a future where Federal tax funds and Provincial funds pay their salary for “protecting” and “surveying” and “researching” the “environment” as opposed the accountable management of animals to minimize human threats, human economic activities, and rural communities. Bears and wolves “habituated” or visiting dumps are to be considered aberrations and therefore if you kill a couple the problem is gone: Voila!
- Fur Trappers oppose a hunting season for wolves to protect their annual fur take profits.
- The Mining Company blames Kenton for walking alone. This, in spite of the fact that Kenton’s young supervisor had been involved with a wolf attack the previous Friday.
- Some are blaming it on the permitted “baiting” of deer and bears both in general and around the perimeter of Parks and other closed (to hunting) areas.
- Environmentalists blame “the dump”. This was music to the bureaucrats’ ears as they put up an electrified fence (that wolves routinely bypass) and thereby can point to having “done something”. The electric fence shorts out all the time and wolf tracks are everywhere on both side of the fence.
- The academicians are blaming the “habituation” of the wolves and bears. This suggests that really, “only” when wolves or bears hang around people and towns and ranches do they become problematic and dangerous to humans. This, while a true observation except of the “only” part, allows the media and all the others cited to continue the fiction that all wolves belong wherever they want to be in whatever numbers as long as we (?) discourage “habituation”. Ah, the “need” for grants and funding for such “research” will indeed be endless: a true Professors’ Relief Act to coin a phrase from the “New Deal” during the US’ Great Depression.
- Search party members and 3 RCMP officers still maintain that wolves attacked and killed Kenton.
- Kenton’s family is spending scarce funds to assure an honest finding and follow-up to protect others but the cost of witnesses and experts is staggering.
It is not unlikely that the Crown will attempt to get a finding of at least “unknown predator” if not “Black bear” as the cause of death.
I have no doubt that both US and European Environmental and Animal Rights organizations are working behind the scenes here to preclude any negative wolf publicity and to emphasize how this tragedy is really the fault of anything other than the animals they are using to great advantage for their agendas in the US in particular. Refuting the “no wolf ever attacked anyone” lie will not be challenged if they can avoid it. Blame “dumps” or “bait piles” or “bears” or “walking alone” or “failure to behave properly” or eventually (I’ll bet) global warming but don’t mention anything else. Certainly it couldn’t be the “fault” of the wolves, could it?

There are many other wolf attacks on men in Canada in recent news accounts. One of them gives a glimpse into yet another hidden agenda going on here. A few weeks ago a man in British Columbia disembarked from his kayak and was charged and severely bitten by a non-rabid wolf. What caught my eye in the reportage was the tortured explanation about how rural folks are better protected by a knife (as opposed a handgun) against an attacking wolf because, A.) the man might only wound the wolf which might then turn and charge the shooter and B.) a screaming wolf might cause a pack to attack. Whether this report is a knee-jerk reaction to the Canadian dislike of and laws against any handguns or simply the wishful thinking of a dreamer I leave to you. Waiting for a wolf to be near enough to stab is better than wounding or killing it? A pack might attack because I shoot and wounded a wolf but maybe not as I stabbed it?
As for me, if I lived where wolves occurred I would be carrying a handgun in a holster anytime I thought I might encounter wolves. Like a home invasion or an armed robbery, the difference between my (or my families) life or death may well be my ability to stop what is about to happen. I appreciate all these anti-handgun folks concern for the rest of us making it worse for ourselves than it might otherwise be but that is our decision at the moment and not theirs. It is impractical to carry around a loaded rifle or shotgun but it is entirely practical to carry around a handgun. If these same folks (in the US particularly) that want to force these deadly predators on the rest of us don’t like more people carrying handguns, then reconsider all this “wolves and bears belong everywhere” philosophy. This American writer thinks of Kenton and if he were my son, I would have hoped he could have had a handgun when this incident began: it could be no worse and possibly (like the 7-Eleven owner with a handgun under the counter) he might have had a fighting chance. Whatever the future of gun laws in Canada, I am sure that some Canadians are concerned about what the effect of man-killing predators will be on rural Canadians attitudes about gun availability. Yet another of the hidden agendas swirling around as the 2nd Inquest date approaches and the intrigues continue and deepen.
This is an American perspective on a Canadian situation. Take it for what its worth. Canadians might well dismiss it but Americans should understand it and remember. As the wolves and grizzly bears increase under Federal auspices and as State bureaucrats become extensions of Federal bureaucracies and anti-rural environmental and animal rights agendas these very scenarios are being acted out here. As cougars are protected and increase due to hunting restrictions and as grizzlies and wolves spread: human attacks and deaths are and will increase. You must ask yourself “who is government paid to protect”? What is the purported benefit from these animals that kill humans and that are increasingly in areas and numbers that jeopardize all manner of rural residents and their day-today lives?
None of us should allow government to misuse the important authority WE GIVE THEM to order society. The hidden agendas driving these environmental and animal rights campaigns must be exposed and discussed openly. Rule by Star Chamber processes must not be allowed to reassert itself after 350 years. Government in both our countries is losing sight of the fact that no matter the emotions of many citizens (mostly urban), government exists to serve men and not animals and that catering to popular international movements that jeopardize our citizens will not be tolerated. Kenton Carnegie deserves an honest decision so that his death was not in vain. If we and our descendants are to have any hope of living peacefully in rural environs, we too must assure that Justice is done and that the forces of evil not distort that Justice and provide precedents for even greater abuse.
Ideologues that are never held responsible for their deeds only get worse and worse. Just ask the property owner in Big Sur or the rancher on the Arizona/New Mexico border or the folks living along New England streams or the horse owner that can no longer dispose of his horse. Like the parents of Kenton Carnegie they fight for what is right to make governments represent them and not ideologies that only survive by misinformation, subterfuge, and perversion of government itself. We all have a stake in the outcome of the Kenton Carnegie Inquest.
I for one will be praying that the truth is served and that subsequent policies aim at assuring that such things are minimized or, ideally, never happen again.
For more definitive information about his entire affair go to:
http://www.mtechservices.ca/Kenton/index.php/topic,164.0.html
Jim Beers
30 July 2007
- If you found this worthwhile, please share it with others. Thanks.

- This article and other recent articles by Jim Beers can be found at
http://jimbeers.blogster.com/wolf_ideology_kenton_carnegie.html (Jim Beers Common Sense)

- Jim Beers is available for consulting or to speak. Contact:
jimbeers7@verizon.net

- 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

From a report on Wolf Recovery, Political Ecology, and Endangered Species 

In British Columbia, expanding wolf populations have decimated game herds to the point that today there are fewer hunters in the province, which translates into less public support when wildlife officials have tried to oppose development projects (Hatter and Janz 1994). Black-tailed deer on Vancouver Island, for instance, need old-growth forest to survive during winters- forests that are worth millions of dollars if they are logged.

With few deer left to protect, the B.C. government has been reluctant to curtail logging. The same is true in Alaska’s coastal forests. More wolves = fewer deer = less public support for wildlife = more clear-cuts.