Here is a fine example of the utter nonsense being drummed into the heads of wildlife biologists and managers around the country…and probably the world. Similar statements are cropping up on a regular basis in many state wildlife management departments (example found here) in a perverted example of the Romance Biology and Voodoo Science that has gripped these agencies courtesy of Environmentalism’s evil hand.
I read this trash in a Vermont Online publication about how it no longer really matters how many animals are part of any state’s wildlife management programs: “It’s natural to be curious about how many moose or bald eagles exist in a given place at a given time, but is it necessary information? For most species, the answer is no. The overarching goal of state wildlife management programs is to maintain healthy, stable wildlife populations — to keep common species common, to help declining species recover, and to do so within the practical confines of a never-enough budget. Marchand described this part of his work as “determining what information we need to know in order to make effective conservation decisions. The more info you need, the more it costs.”
“In the end, we’ll never know precisely how many moose or bald eagles there are in the Granite State. What we do know, from trend data, is that wood turtles are vulnerable, moose are in decline and eagles, thankfully, are recovering. When it comes to managing wildlife, that’s enough.”
All this Voodoo Science accomplishes is it provides an escape goat for incompetent wildlife managers who want to operate their agencies as agents of Environmentalism; an operation that excludes consumptive use and provides “rights” and protection for all animals. So long as the waters can forever be muddied with garbage such as this, the easier it is to pull the wool over people’s eyes.
It is IMPOSSIBLE to responsibly manage any wildlife species without a relative assurance as to the numbers that exist within a population. To state otherwise is utter nonsense. To believe otherwise is insanity.
The only way anyone can claim that recognizing “trends” is enough when it comes to wildlife management, is that their long-term goals are to eliminate the North American Model of Wildlife Management and be done with hunting, fishing, and trapping as a proven management tool.
But don’t go look!
