Editorial Calls For Non Professional Wolf Managers to Butt Out and Shut Up

*Editor’s Comment* On May 18, 2012, in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, newspaper staff crafted an editorial in which they basically said that unless you are a paid professional wolf expert, people should mind their own business and stay out of concerns over control and management of the wild canines. Retired U.S. Fish and Wildlife biologist, Jim Beers, rebuts that editorial and is found below.

BOW TO YOUR BETTERS

The following editorial from an urban Montana paper nicely encapsulates the arrogance of power being enjoyed by those that revel in subjugating others to their will, no matter the harm they create. The distortions it fosters are criminal and indicate that reason and appeals to civil discourse or to Constitutional guidance to such (per Lenin) useful idiots are as futile as explaining why increasing government debt is a similar recipe for disaster to a third generation welfare recipient.

Here is my answer to this editor:

1. So, “Let’s face facts: Wolves are going to be part of the Montana landscape from here on out. There will never be the national stomach to extinguish the species from the region for a second time.”

Then, when “the national stomach” wants authority over all Montana “waters”, Montanans should go into their homes and listen to the radio about what they are to be allowed to do henceforth? When the UN (the “international stomach”) says Montanans should not possess guns, Montanans and other Americans should quietly turn in their guns and carry cellphones with 911 on quick dial (does FWP respond to 911?). Then, when the state “stomach” leaves the state and crawls into the sack with the “national stomach” and “international stomachs” we should all plan a “shower” for any issue therefrom?

Local communities bear the brunt of the wolf debacle. Local citizens are being harmed and in the absence of either protection from their state government or federal acknowledgement of their #1, Constitutional charge, i.e. “insure domestic Tranquility” and “promote the general Welfare”: then by God Local citizens working with their Local government will return “domestic Tranquility” and general Welfare” to THEIR Local community. Let the “national stomach” take a gelusil or ex lax.

2. So, “State game managers are the most knowledgeable and best positioned to manage the wolves effectively.” Really?

The presence, distribution, and “management” of wolves, or any other high-impact wild animal is first and foremost a decision to be made and supported by those citizens and communities AFFECTED by such decisions. “State game managers” are charged to advise and implement the parameters of Local decisions from elimination of wolves to densities not seen since Russians were denied weapons by their dictators or Czars (and everything in between. Saying that “State game managers” should make such decisions is putting the cart before the horse. G.K. Chesterton said it best 103 years ago, “Science must not impose any philosophy, any more than the telephone man must tell us what to say”.

3. So, “Gallatin County commissioners may feel the need to act on pressure from constituents and call for a meeting with state wolf biologists. If so, the commissioners should listen politely, voice their concerns and then let the wildlife managers go about their work.”

Are we “free” men or slaves? Listen politely? Who works for whom?

Whoever believes such pernicious tripe would clearly be more comfortable in Stalin’s Russia where slaves (to the state) listened “politely” or were shipped off to a Gulag or worse. It has honestly gotten to the point where any opposition to federal or state wolf impositions begets not only law enforcement threats from those that ostensibly “protect” us but this sort of dripping disdain from arrogant elites.

4. So, “State wildlife managers, who took over wolf policy when federal protections were lifted from the species, have been upping the number of animals harvested with each season. And still the overall wolf numbers are increasing.”

Let’s see; state and federal “wildlife managers” release wolves despite overwhelming opposition from those on whom the wolves were imposed. Then the feds do a double arabesque and pirouette off the stage and the state “managers” oversee “increasing” wolf numbers (i.e. elk/moose disappearance, livestock losses, dog losses, stress and fear of rural residents as wolves habituate all around, etc.) and those rural bumpkins are told to buck-up, keep your kids inside, eat more vegetables, and take government job training for the next available job in LA or Chicago. My advice to those chirping this line is “stuff it”.

5. So, “On the good news front, state Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks officials report that predation on domesticated animals went down last year over the previous year. That may be the result of government biologists and wolf advocates working with stockgrowers on how to protect livestock from the predators. Those efforts should continue, and they should continue to get results.”

Earth to elites: neither the state nor federal government should be spending billions ad infinitum THAT WE DON”T HAVE on such harmful and senseless twaddle. Additionally, wolves NEVER HAVE and NEVER WILL be harmlessly blended into settled landscapes as found in the Lower 48 states. They ADAPT; they HABITUATE; they DEPLETE GAME ANIMALS; they KILL LIVESTOCK; they KILL DOGS; they SPREAD DISEASE; and last but certainly not least THEY KILL AND THEY ATTACK CHILDREN, WOMEN, THE AGED, and even MEN RUNNING A CHAINSAW! Read Wild Graves excellent book WOLVES IN RUSSIA. “Good News” my patoot!

6. Finally we come to the piece de resistance of our arrogant author, “In time, ranchers, hunters and the rest of us will learn to live with the wolves. But it will take patience.”

“In time”? Tell that to Russians, Kazaks, Siberians, Alaskans, and others where humans are killed and maimed annually, livestock husbandry is a matter of small flocks tended 24/7 by women and kids, game hunting is a matter of dreams (not reality), and dogs are not allowed in homes (much less “kissed” and slept with) because of the diseases they contract from wolves FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS!. Patience, like Dirty Harry’s boss’s breath mints “ain’t cutting it”.

What it will take is local wrath expressed Constitutionally by Local governments in the teeth of rogue government bureaucracies and their elite enablers like the editor of this paper.

Two final newspaper quotes from G.K. Chesterton 100 years ago in London shows us that such media distortions as this wolf propaganda piece are nothing new.

“There never was a power so great as the power of the Press. There never was a belief so superstitious as the universal belief in the Press. It may be that future centuries will call these the Dark Ages, and see a vast mystical delusion spreading its black bat’s wings over all our cities.”

“We do not need a censorship of the press. We have a censorship by the press. It is not we who silence the press. It is the press that silences us. It is not a case of the Commonwealth settling how much the editors shall say; it is a case of the editors settling how much the Commonwealth shall know. If we attack the Press we shall be rebelling, not repressing.”

Jim Beers
19 May 2012

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 Eagan, Minnesota with his wife of many decades.

Jim Beers is available to speak or for consulting. You can receive future articles by sending a request with your e-mail address to: jimbeers7@comcast.net