June 2, 2023

Maine’s Bald Eagles Not “Big Game” So Worthy of Population Counting?

What a mixed bag of contradictory statements that come from the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (MDIFW). We heard recently that MDIFW intends to shift its focus from keeping track of population densities of the state’s deer, moose, bear, and turkey and concentrate more on the health of these designated “big game” animals.

Evidently, Maine’s bald eagles are not “big game” nor are the piping plovers, as we discovered here, and so they deserve to be counted and kept track of in order that biologists can…can…can… better manage them? Because they are NOT going to be hunted?

A recent press release from MDIFW tells us that the Department is undertaking a bald eagle “survey” – something they do every 5 years. The release states: “Biologists are looking to determine the current eagle population; determine whether the eagle population has increased, slowed, or stabilized; evaluate changes in breeding abundance and occupancy rates and compare occupancy rates in traditional eagle nesting territories based on habitat protection.”

Sounds pretty smart to me!

Will this effort tell the biologists the overall health of the bald eagle? It would appear so. So why is MDIFW counting eagles and piping plovers and are not going to place as much effort on counting “big game” species? Is it because eventually, the move will be toward deer, bear, moose, and turkeys not being hunted?

If this focus on health is going to be the new scientismic approach to big game management, then, as the spokesman for MDIFW said, it gives the managers “more flexibility” in how they manage big game. We should then focus on the intent and purpose of “flexibility.”

Flexibility in government bureaucratic management historically has meant a chance to do whatever you want to do with less accountability for what it is you are doing. It also affords a chance to more easily cave into the demands of those whose power can make life uncomfortable. Of course, that “flexibility” is never presented in such a fashion. Instead, it is revealed to the public as some modernistic approach to new science that will make things better.

Unfortunately, this is never the case and will not be in this sense. It appears to me that seeking flexibility, or not having to account for numbers in wildlife as a baseline to successful species management, to go hand in hand with the continued migration of the purpose of wildlife management from supporting sustainable game herds to environmentalism’s non-consumptive over protection, is the real goal here…even if managers and biologists haven’t a clue as to what they are doing and for whom they are doing it.

Think indoctrination institutions!

However, the same press release indicates that perhaps MDIFW will decide whether or not they need to keep counting eagles: “The findings of this study will also be used to re-evaluate the future needs for monitoring of Maine’s breeding eagle population or determine whether to modify the 5-year aerial survey census that has been ongoing since 2008.”

If it is determined that there is no need to continue 5-year counting surveys, does that mean a shift toward general health evaluations instead? And if health evaluations are the focus, like with deer, bear, moose, and turkeys, I want to know how then managers will know how many of these creatures need looking out for? When they know numbers are low, counting is vital to the recovery of the animal. Is this then the new tactic – to wait until numbers of deer, moose, bear, and turkey “seem to be” so low protective measures must be implemented along with 5-year counting surveys? Are we not returning to the beginning stages of fish and game management of 150 years ago?

It would seem there is some middle ground here somewhere and perhaps that is what MDIFW is trying to do. But please, for those of us with a brain that works well enough to know the differences, do tell me that shifting management tactics from numbers to health offers more “flexibility.” I just am not going to buy it.

Can we back up and then move on?

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The Maybe, I Think, Could be, Possibly, Might be, I Hope Method of Wildlife Scientism

A bald eagle, a loon and a spotted owl walked into a bar…..

That story might be just as good as the vast majority of nonsensical, Scientism reports we read about in our “Fake News” Mainstream Media – the information readily supplied these echo chambers by fish and game departments, environmentalists, animal rights perverts, as well as our own U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service representatives.

Scientism is really nothing to do with real science and everything to do with fabricated possibilities that conveniently fit agendas. When was the last time you read an article published in any media platform where facts are presented as derived from the real scientific process, that once made real science a viable source of information? Perhaps this Fake News Scientism has been around long enough now that you can’t recognize it.

We live is what is now readily called a “post-normal scientific era.” I say readily, because when the term is used, it is not questioned. Essentially that means that the real scientific process has been abandoned in exchange for emotional clap-trap and outright dishonesty used to promote agendas, fatten wallets, control people, etc.

Here’s how it might work.

Yesterday I was reading an article published by the Associated Press about how bald eagles are becoming so numerous they are now a detriment to other species, including some that are also listed as endangered, and becoming a nuisance to some livestock growers.

None of these negatives seem to matter because the bald eagle is the nation’s official bird and is an icon to those incapable of reasoning anything beyond cute. To better put the bald eagle in perspective, I was once told by a wildlife manager (no, no names or locations) that a bald eagle was nothing more than a lazy, white-headed crow that scavenges for food, just like all the rest. Ben Franklin wanted the turkey to be the national bird but somehow the eagle won out. I’m sure it had nothing to do with the historic use of the eagle in the banners and emblems for organizations that rule the world. Nah! But that’s neither here nor there is it?

The article is presented as some kind of retelling of what most people would see as a scientific event. If you keep science in the front of your brain, for a second, here’s a list of words used in the article and they are also used by the “scientists” who are quoted in the article.

Here’s that list in no particular order: efforts to preserve; leading to; sometimes; accused of; suspicious; it was possible; almost; will probably; about; only a few; also sometimes; subject of efforts; going to try; I think; can represent; service doesn’t consider; probably.

Surely these a true scientific terms? Of course not. They are never intended to be. These words and others are designed to remove the scientific process from our sources of information and replace it with vague terms, often sounding good, promising the best for the animals and trying not to present the demise of the property of people as anything to be concerned with – especially as it isn’t going to effect the vast majority of ignorant, autonomic readers directly.

This has become so effective that we commonly hear of efforts underway to destroy one species of animal in order to better “protect” another. The spotted owl comes to mind.

Here’s is part of a problem that contributes to the big picture. The last sentence in the linked-to article says: “At some point it [bald eagle] will reach carrying capacity,” he said. “But I think there’s plenty of room for more eagles.” As it turns out, the term “carrying capacity” is a misnomer. People are led to believe that so long as there is enough food and general habitat, the world can be filled to the maximum with any and every kind of animal species, while never once considering the consequences of those actions. This is fallout from the lie spread throughout everywhere of “natural regulation” – the false ideology that if man would just butt out, all these animals would magically limit their numbers, eventually bringing them to “carrying capacity.” Kumbaya!

What is the “carrying capacity” of bad eagles in your neighbor? Nobody knows. It’s a guesstimate. The above scientist was quoted as saying, “I think” there’s room for more eagles. He doesn’t know but he “thinks” and thus are we to accept that his value-weighted perspective is the scientific gospel? How does he get to decide? If we are to fill the forest and fields with the maximum number of eagles it can hold (carrying capacity) do we further risk all the other species of prey in order to embellish one scientist or group of scientists’ pet animal project?

Evidently this is the case.

 

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Wish to Be a Lynx Rather Than an Eagle

Actually, animals don’t matter when it comes to politics and profits.

But don’t go look!

Which reminds of the story of Barack “Walking Eagle” Obama, at a press conference, attempting, in his mumbling, stumbling, knuckle-dragging way, to speak about the need to protect the spotted owl. He told of the time he once ate a spotted owl. One reporter asked what it tasted like and he replied, “It was a cross between a bald eagle and a northern loon.”

If Obama’s greenie projects, to repay the cronies that got him elected, wanted to be put windmills up in the middle of the largest population of nesting spotted owls, you can bet it would happen.

We now see how, depending upon which environmental group and who forked over the most money for Obama’s “selection,” there is no rhyme or reason nor consistency in the hows and whys of the issuance of Incidental Take Permits – a Federal license to kill endangered animals.

So that Obama can pay off his political payback bills to his hacks before leaving office, in order for some of his crony wind farm owners to build their 500-plus windmill project, the Government is going to issue them an Incidental Take Permit to kill as many as 2 bald eagles and 14 golden eagles a year. The deaths occur from rotating windmill blades chopping the eagles and many other bird species into chucks fit for a stew. (Rumor has it the “road kill” is used in dog food.)

A previous study showed that such a wind project would result from between 46 and 64 eagle deaths. But, that information was discarded because it didn’t fit the president’s narrative on cronyism.

In comparison, Maine, in recent years, was issued an Incidental Take Permit that would allow trappers to kill one half a Canada lynx a year for ten years. Sound equitable to you? What a deal!

If lynx could fly, one has to wonder if some of the wind projects in Maine would have been granted Incidental Take Permits allowing for the destruction of 46 to 64 lynx over a prescribed period of time.

More information on the Incidental Take Permit for Eagles in Colorado.

Some online comments here.

And information about Obama’s environmental buddies putting up reward money to prosecute whoever killed two Canada lynx in Maine recently.

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Protected Predator Species Endangering Other Species

Of course the headline is really nothing new to honest researchers. We have known for some time that over-protected predator species raise hell with other species in order to survive. Is this what we want?

In an article in the Bangor Daily News, stupid is as stupid does, is discovering that too many bald eagles are destroying other species, some of which are also protected species. “Those great cormorants living under the eagles’ gaze are some of the last to breed in the U.S. Once extirpated here, the great cormorants too have made a comeback, reaching a peak of 240 nesting pairs in the early 1990s.

“And there are 40 pairs this year — and eagles have been attacking every colony every year, pretty much,” he said.

“It’s not just great cormorants getting harassed. About 50 miles southwest of Drury’s birding grounds, in Casco Bay, state biologist Brad Allen is documenting declines in several avian species, some common, some not. Recently he was looking for great blue heron, designated a species of special concern in Maine.”

And thus we see one more time where attempting to manage wildlife species according to the demands and whims of society falls flat on its face. Science has been given a back seat to which group of environmental mental midgets and emotional insanity can make the most noise and come up with the most money to force fish and wildlife managers to destroy one species while protecting another.

These environmentalists are the first to cry out that “nature is in balance”…if man butts out, but are the first in line to butt in when they want to have their perverted desires to see more wildlife from the comfort of their air-conditioned automobiles met.

What utter nonsense!

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Government-Allowed Killing of Eagles With Windmills

If you follow this link, you can read where the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has crafted a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) for the construction of up to 500 windmills as part of the Chokecherry and Sierra Madre Wind Energy Project. The DEIS is for the allowance of how many golden and bald eagles will be permitted to be killed by environmental destruction of habitat and spinning windmill blades.

This link is a 70-page report of the “modeling” done to predict how many eagles will be killed from this project – 14 golden eagles and 2 bald eagles PER YEAR.

This link is to the complete DEIS.

It appears to me that there are different standards that apply for “incidental take” depending upon which ones are supported by Government, Wall Street and Banking.

And we are only talking about eagles. What of the other species?

BUT DON’T GO LOOK!


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Double Standard in Fining Who Kills Protected Animals

deadeaglesHere’s an interesting scenario. If a town can be fined for not preventing dogs from killing protected birds, can owners of windmills be fined for not preventing their machines from killing protected birds?

The events in Scarborough, Maine should open people’s eyes to the dictatorial fascism of the Endangered Species Act and the reality that there is no such thing as state of local governmental sovereignty. Especially when it comes to protecting animals and who is responsible for it. Protecting people? Not so much.

Piping plovers, a federally protected bird that the state of Maine and the Federal Government spend far too much money trying to protect (actually the goal here is to drive people off beaches), is part of this scenario.

According to the Scarborough Leader, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) plans to levy a $12,000 fine against the town because they can’t stop people from letting their dogs run loose. This action is being blamed for the deaths of piping plovers.

If the USFWS or any other federal agency can levy fines against towns for not doing the work of the government, or if you don’t like that statement, for NOT PREVENTING deaths of birds, then shouldn’t the owners of windmills be fined as well for the same reasons?

Fox News is reporting that windmill farms across the country are responsible for the deaths of at least 85 bald and golden eagles, most coming from one farm in California, and yet the Obama Administration refuses to levy fines against the owners of windfarms. Instead, he is proposing something similar to an “Incidental Take Permit” allowing windfarm owners to legal kill a prescribed number of eagles each year.

If that is the case then I suggest that President Obama issue the town of Scarborough, Maine an “Incidental Take Permit” for piping plovers. Or is it that Scarborough isn’t one of Obama’s cronies entitled to the many special privileges he loves to hand out?

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More Killing of Bald Eagles To Make Room For Environment Destroying Windmills

It’s official. The world, right along with the United States, has gone freaking mad. Consider, if you will, that in wind power projects, developers have to apply to the Department of Interior to get permitted for the “incidental” killing of bald eagles, “from both the construction and ongoing operations of renewable energy projects”. These permits, as they are with other permits of their kind, are good for 5 years.

According to the Heritage Foundation, the Department of Interior has a formal proposal to allow such granted permits, only for renewable energy projects, to last for 30 years.

From the reader who sent me this link, he says, “Depends on whose ox is being gored here doesn’t it.” And here’s an example of what is meant. In Maine, the state has been trying unsuccessfully for several years to get a like kind permit, called an “Incidental Take Permit”, for Canada lynx. This permit would release the state from liability for trapping Canada lynx unintentionally. Overwhelmingly nearly all incidentally taken lynx are released unharmed. Bald eagles get sliced and diced from windmill blades.

Maine cannot get a permit for this and the result is a seriously hampered effort by trappers to kill coyotes. Not only are coyotes killers of Canada lynx, but they are also destroying Maine’s white-tail deer herd.

It would therefore appear to me that the U.S. Government is very much willing to risk the killing of more bald eagles to protect their wind power projects, that have been proven as environmental destroyers but turn their backs on the biological needs of fish and game agencies to be able to properly manage wildlife.

What obvious two-faced belligerence!

Tom Remington

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Two Alaska Eagles Overlooking Feeding Grounds


Photo by Al Remington

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Alaska Bald Eagle Bookends


Photo by Al Remington

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