*Editor’s Note* – I can hear the nonsensical comments from the environmentalist-trained game managers that they must manage wildlife according to social demands. I think in the circles I grew up in and the research that I conduct on a daily basis, the effect is called communism. It was the Roman writer Marcus Tullius Cicero who wrote after the fall of the Roman Republic, which was replaced by the Roman Empire, that: “The evil was not in bread and circuses, per se, but in the willingness of the people to sell their rights as free men for full bellies and the excitement of the games which would serve to distract them from the other human hungers which bread and circuses can never appease.”
I guess we are supposed to ignore the schizophrenic actions and reactions of moose managers from the past 4 or 5 years who one day tell Maine citizens there’s at least 90,000 moose, to they’ve all died from winter ticks, and now a population of 60,000 to 70,000 and the head moose biologist is, “so giddy about” the number of moose he is seeing in his aerial surveys.
Some thought that the head moose biologist’s decision to cut moose permits over concern of a dwindling moose population was a hasty move. I’m not sure I would describe it as much hasty as I would wrong. I would have gone in the opposite direction in order to reduce the numbers of moose to mitigate the infestation of winter ticks – evidently the number one killer of Maine moose. The Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (MDIFW) insists on grasping desperately to global warming as the answer and perhaps they shouldn’t be.
If MDIFW believe in global warming, which that seems to be their number one excuse for everything, then why react in the way they are because they believe last winter the weather was harsh enough to kill off a few ticks and suddenly the herd is healthy again? Surely, global warming will return (in their minds?) and along with it will be more winter ticks – according to their own conclusions as to why there are so many ticks.
Evidently, we are to ignore any scientific evidence as it might pertain to decisions made on how moose should be managed. We read in the article linked to below, that MDIFW is proposing a reduction of moose permits for the upcoming moose hunting season in order to provide more moose for viewing opportunities so that, “We can meet our objectives.” And MDIFW admits, as they always have, that this decision is based solely on “management” reasons [social demands] and is not scientific.
If wildlife viewing is becoming such an important central government decision to feed and entertain the servitude with “bread and circuses” then perhaps it is time to give the Motherland what she wants. Maine sportsmen spend millions of dollars each year that is meant to go toward wildlife/game management. As the pot boils and slowly kills the frog, few recognize that soon those valuable “hunting opportunities” will be replaced with the “bread and circuses” of “wildlife viewing.” Those demanding the entertainment don’t understand that managing game at numbers high enough to see from their cushy SUV’s and tour buses is seldom healthy and responsible for neither man nor beast. Evidently MDIFW doesn’t understand that either and/or are driven by totalitarian influences and out of fear of losing their handsome pensions they must appease the environmentalist gODs.
Maine is in the middle of a moose study – the reasons given because they don’t know enough about moose to understand what causes the changes in moose populations etc. If that’s true, then the study is a waste of time and money. What’s the point of collecting scientific evidence if it is to be trumped by pacifying the environmental-socialists by giving them their bread and circuses?
So why the reduction in permits?
“We want to meet our objective (for what the public wants as far as viewing). So it’s for management reasons rather than biological,” she said.
