Category Archives: Endangered Species

Endangered Species Aren’t the Only Ones Who Matter

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Text and Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson, 2015. All Rights Reserved

Text and Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson, 2015. All Rights Reserved

I’m getting kind of tired of hearing people talk about endangered species, as though they’re the only non-human animals they care about: ‘How dare some species do well or even begin to recover—it must be their fault that my favorite species is endangered.’

And if the endangered are a species people like to eat (such as salmon), then forget that humans sent them down the road to extinction by building dams along the rivers and heating up the planet so the spawning streams dry up or are too warm for fish eggs: ‘If some other non-human occasionally eats said endangered species, let’s wipe them out too.’

Scapegoating is happening to sea lions, to cormorants and to barred owls. Most people understand so little about the workings of nature that they forget they (all 7.3 billion of them) are a part of it.

It seems, unless they want to eat it, the only species they care about these days are the ones considered endangered.

Some people resent coyotes because they survive and even thrive where wolves sometimes didn’t. Sea lions are one of the most lovable creatures (and were nearly killed off once themselves during the fur trade), but it’s beyond appalling how many people hate them for eating fish, whether endangered or not.

I care about the fate of all individual animals, and don’t want to see any species extinctified. But this new policy of species favoritism has to go. I hate to break it to people, but we’re all endangered in today’s world of rapid climate change.

Whichever species makes it through the next century should be allowed to do so.

Now is really not the time for humans to think they can manage other species’ populations. They’ve done a pretty crappy job up of it so far. If anything, humans should be concentrating on their own kind.

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With Friends Like the Obama Administration, Endangered Species Don’t Need Enemies

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/noah-greenwald/with-friends-like-the-oba_b_7339268.html

by

Endangered species program director, Center for Biological Diversity

From gray wolves to Cheat Mountain salamanders, the more than 1,500 endangered species in the U.S. face threats like never before. In addition to the ever-present threat of habitat loss caused by our growing footprint on the planet, species now face growing threats from climate change, invasive species, over-exploitation and pollution.

Given the growing magnitude of threat to endangered species, one would think the Obama administration would pull out all the stops to save our precious wildlife heritage. Instead, the administration and its U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have quietly been rolling out a series of regulatory changes that threaten to cripple the Endangered Species Act, dramatic changes that would never have flown under the Bush administration.

Here’s a breakdown of those policies and why they matter:

In July 2014, the administration finalized a policy first conceived under the Bush administration that severely limits when species qualify for endangered species protection. Under the Act, a species qualifies as endangered if it is “in danger of extinction in all or a significant of portion of its range,” meaning that a species need not be at risk everywhere it occurs to receive protection.

The new policy, however, sets a much higher bar by requiring not only that a species be endangered in a portion of its range, but also that the loss of that one portion threatens the survival of the species as a whole. The policy also specifies that historic portions of a species’ range can never be considered significant.

If this policy had been in place when the Act was first passed, the bald eagle would never have been protected because although it had been wiped out across much of the lower 48 states, the Pacific Northwest and Alaska had strong populations that were not at risk of extinction.

Many other species that have similarly been wiped out or are at risk across large parts of the U.S. are sure to be denied protection because of this disastrous policy. Indeed, several already have, including the cactus ferruginous pygmy-owl and American wolverine.

The second regulatory change forwarded by the administration severely undermines protections for endangered species’ critical habitat. The Endangered Species Act requires protection of critical habitat for all endangered species. The designation of “critical habitat” has proven to be an essential tool with species that have designated habitat being twice as likely to be recovering as those without it.

Critical habitat protects species by prohibiting federal agencies from “adversely modifying” — that is, hurting — critical habitat for endangered species in actions they fund, permit or carry out. The Obama administration’s policy could enable more habitat destruction by redefining “adverse modification” as only those actions considered to potentially harm the entirety of a species’ designated critical habitat, a change that will give a green light to the many federal actions that destroy small portions of critical habitat. If enacted, the new proposal could allow the proliferation of projects that harm a species’ habitat without assurance that the cumulative effects will be taken into account — a particularly problematic development because the Fish and Wildlife Service already has a dismal record of tracking and limiting cumulative impacts on wildlife.

The third regulatory change proposed by the administration earlier this month lets federal agencies, such as the U.S. Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management, off the hook from quantifying or limiting the amount of harm to endangered species allowed under overarching management plans, including regional forest plans, plans for individual national forests, plans for BLM resource areas and many others.

This will all but ensure that cumulative impacts from individual timber sales, development projects, oil and gas drilling operations or other projects will never be considered or curbed, increasing the risk that species will be driven to extinction from a death by a thousand cuts.

The most recent proposal by the Obama administration limiting the scope of the Endangered Species Act was issued just this week. It would place crippling burdens on citizens filing petitions to protect species as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act, ultimately making it more difficult for imperiled species to get lifesaving protections.

The proposed regulations bar petitions seeking protection for more than one species and require petitioners to provide advance notice of the petition to all states in the range of the species; to append any information from states to the petition itself; and to certify that all relevant information has been provided in the petition.

This disastrous proposal will not only make it less likely species will get the life-saving protections they need, but it’s fundamentally undemocratic, cutting the public out of endangered species management. Many environmental and other statutes allow citizens to petition the federal government for action. This proposal marks the first time that an administration has placed obstacles to citizens filing petitions for federal intervention and thus has the potential to set a very concerning precedent.

The Endangered Species Act was passed precisely because states were not doing enough to protect wildlife. In many cases, states remain opposed to protection of species. Forcing citizens to go through these very same states in seeking protection of species runs directly counter to the purpose of the Act.

In combination, these policies represent a rollback of endangered species protections that Tea Party Republicans in Congress couldn’t hope for in their wildest dreams, yet they’re being forwarded by the Obama administration perhaps as an attempt to appease critics of the Act.

If this is indeed the intent, it will fail because criticisms from states, industry and others do not come from a desire to see the Act work better but rather from a desire to see protections for endangered species watered down.

And if these changes are implemented, they’ll get their wish, effectively undermining the conservation law that has saved not only bald eagles and brown pelicans, but gray wolves, grizzly bears, humpback whales and many more.

Industrial logging invasion of the Tongass imminent! ‏

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From Audubon.org

One of America’s most precious and endangered habitats is under siege — again.

Contrary to its own policies, the Obama Administration is rushing through a massive old-growth timber sell-off in the Tongass National Forest in Alaska — the largest sale of its kind in decades. This industrial level logging could put many vulnerable bird species at risk.

Audubon has joined with other conservation groups in federal court to stop this malicious sell-off of America’s globally important coastal temperate rainforest.

The ancient coastal woodlands of the Tongass are home to many bird species that depend on old-growth forests for their survival. Native species include nearly a third of the world’s Red-breasted Sapsucker population and at least 20% of the global population of pacific-slope flycatchers. Marbled Murrelets — listed under the Endangered Species Act in Washington, Oregon and California — are old-growth-dependent birds that rely on Tongass old growth to support healthy populations.

Perhaps most at-risk from the so-called Big Thorne timber sale is the Queen Charlotte Goshawk, an old-growth dependent raptor. Only 300 to 700 breeding pairs of these birds survive in the wild. The proposed timber sale would degrade goshawk habitat, perhaps past the point of no return.

The Big Thorne timber sale would put 120 million board feet of old-growth trees literally on the chopping block. What’s worse, this is only the first of four massive logging incursions proposed by the US Forest Service.

Four years ago, the Obama Administration said it was bringing to an end the era of massive and destructive logging in the Tongass. This latest sale, sadly, is a giant step in the wrong direction.

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Some people need to go extinct…

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…like the one who wrote the following hateful opinion piece:

http://www.chinookobserver.com/co/outdoors/20150120/fish-feathers-let-steller-sea-lions-go-extinct

Let Steller sea lions go extinct

By Capt. Ron Malast
January 20, 2015 1:19PM

Steller sea lions may be coming off “threatened” list, raising possibility for more proactive management

Steller sea lions have been in the news a lot lately. Although recent articles expound around the virtues of bringing back endangered species such as sea lions from close to extinction, the Steller sea lion is not one of the more popular species enamored by certain portions of society.

Not only do Stellers prey on all types of salmon but they also have been found to take 85 percent of the sturgeon that fall to depredation.

Remember all the flounder we used to catch in the river during sturgeon season 8-10 years ago? Well, they are a thing of the past, thanks to Mr. Steller

The Washington Department of Fish & Wildlife has recommended listing tufted puffins on the state’s endangered species list and removing Steller sea lions from the state’s threatened species list, which may lead to a lethal means of reducing Steller numbers. Written comments can be submitted (wdfw.wa.gov/commission) through Jan. 23. A public hearing is scheduled Feb. 6 and 7 at the WDFW meeting.

Steller sea lions are the larger of the two sea lion species found in Washington and have been protected by the state as a threatened species since 1993. The species received federal protection under the Endangered Species Act in 1990 and the National Marine Fisheries delisted the eastern population ranging from northeast Alaska to northern California in December 2013. The population in that area has grown from 18,000 in 1979 to 70,000 in 2010. [Meanwhile, the human population grows by 200,000 per DAY!]

More than 1,500 Steller sea lions have been counted in Washington in recent years, compared to approximately 300 spotted during surveys in the early 1990s.

The millions of dollars that are spent trying to replenish salmon is just money going down the drain when you have a predator such as Steller sea lions in the Columbia River. The methods used to protect the “lions” are counter-productive to what we are trying to accomplish. In nature, sometimes it is best to leave things be as they may and not try to recover a particular species, as in this case.

Another case in point is the wolf, where God only knows how many millions have been spent to re-introduce it, and then find out that it has devastated deer and elk herds across the western U.S. Much of this is being benighted by the “dogooders,” the feds and the scientific community, but it’s a fact. In the near future, we will be trying to rebuild the lost elk and deer herds having been lost to those cute little wolves.

When is this world going to realize that not everything needs to be saved?

littleboyc09

Unsworth is Unworthy for Washington Wildlife

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The Governor must First approve Unsworth as the new Director of WDFW…..We can’t let this happen!! He’s an avowed wolf hater!! Here is WA Governor Inslee’s contact info…PLEASE call the Governor ASAP and Say NO to Unsworth!!!
http://www.governor.wa.gov/contact/interact/
More info from Jerry:
Idaho exported George Pauley to Montana and now Jim Unsworth to Washington….two avowed wolf haters. Look what Pauley has done in Montana and you can expect the same from Unsworth. To my knowledge Unsworth does not have a fisheries background which you’d think would be very important with the very complicated fisheries situation we have in Washington….seems that didn’t matter to the commissioners. Would like to know which commissioners voted for him…
….

Meanwhile in Illinois, Proof that Governors can occasionally do good things for wildlife, Illinois Gov. just vetoed a bill that would have allowed bobcat hunting there:

Gov. Quinn vetoes bill to allow Illinois bobcat hunting

Sunday, January 11, 2015 04:27PM
CHICAGO (WLS) —

Gov. Pat Quinn on Sunday vetoed a bill to allow bobcat hunting in Illinois for the first time in more than 40 years, saying the small, nocturnal cats “continue to need protection” even though they have been removed from the threatened species list.

Quinn issued a brief statement in which he said allowing hunting would violate a responsibility to maintain Illinois wildlife.

“Bobcats are a valuable part of Illinois’ ecosystem and continue to need protection,” he said.

His decision ignores the recommendation of the state Department of Natural Resources, which supported a hunting season as a way to help in long-term management of the species…

http://abc7chicago.com/news/gov-quinn-vetoes-bill-to-allow-illinois-bobcat-hunting-/470922/

[Just how hunting them would help the bobcats was not clear, but the misguided policy falls in line with wildlife “management” actions nationwide.

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Once-extinct on Olympic Peninsula, fisher population rebounds

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538458_532697610088640_841278349_nBy LYNDA V. MAPES  The Seattle Times
August 11, 2014 – 1:04 pm EDT

SEATTLE — Once locally extinct, fishers are bounding all over the Olympic Peninsula.

First released into Olympic National Park in 2008 in an effort to repopulate the native carnivore, they now range from Neah Bay to Ocean Shores, from Port Townsend to Olympia, preliminary data from remote cameras and hair snags confirm.

It’s a spectacular turnaround for an animal believed to be locally extinct for at least 80 years. Over-trapping of fishers for their luxuriant, lush brown coats and loss of the big, old-growth trees in which fishers like to lounge and den caused populations to plummet. The state closed the trapping season for fishers in the 1930s.

The National Park Service with other partners began a relocation effort in 2008, in an effort to bring the animals back. From 2008 to 2010, 90 fishers were moved from central British Columbia to the Sol Duc and Elwha Valleys.

The population today isn’t known, and the question remains as to whether births are keeping pace with losses, building a population that is self-sustaining over the long term.

But the indications from a monitoring effort by federal, state and tribal biologists so far are promising. “I’m cautiously optimistic,” said Patti Happe, chief of the wildlife branch for Olympic National Park.

Tracking in such remote, wild country is tricky. The batteries in radio collars initially fitted to the animals are all dead by now, so biologists in 2013 began utilizing remote, motion-triggered cameras pointed at survey stations, including hair snags, baited with chicken drumsticks. The hair samples allow scientists to analyze fisher DNA to track the growing family tree of the initial, founder population.

Some of the new kits have ranged as far as 43 miles from their mothers’ home territory, and cameras have found fishers using habitat where the radio-collared animals were never tracked, documenting that the fishers continue to gain ground.

Sharp toothed and clawed, fishers are related to minks, polecats and martens. They hunt the small mammals that are abundant in the Olympics.

The cameras mounted to detect fishers also documented a menagerie of teaming wildlife in the Olympics: Some 43 species of animals in 2013 were captured on camera in more than 37,000 images, from spotted skunks to coyotes, cougars, bobcats, raccoons, black-tailed deer, elk, flying squirrels, mountain beavers, snowshoe hares, mice and wood rats. Black bear were the single most frequently spotted animal.

Fishers do face perils in their new home. Cougars, bobcats and coyotes take their toll. Several fishers were apparent road kill, including one carcass recovered along Highway 101 on the outskirts of Port Angeles.

Two fishers were released from live traps by a licensed trapper seeking bobcats.

But with an abundant source of food in the forests, fishers are expected to do well. Wolves are now the only mammal still missing from the original suite of life in the Olympics, after being shot and trapped to local extinction in the early 1900s. Wolves are slowly recolonizing Washington wild lands but are not yet known to have reached the Olympic Peninsula.

Fishers once occupied coniferous forests at low to middle elevations throughout much of the Western U.S. The goal of the relocation program is to restore fishers to the Olympic National Park within 10 years.

Radio-tracking initiated in the first phase of the project documented the fishers’ far-ranging travels, including one female released in the Elwha Valley at Altair campground in January 2008. She was the first animal set loose in a public event, where school children cheered as she sprang to freedom from her carrying box.

Biologists followed her “on the air” thanks to her radio collar for 2½ years, from the Elwha Valley to the northeastern portion of the Olympic Peninsula. She settled down in the upper Dosewallips in the summer of 2008, making it home until March 2009.

After a two-month walkabout in the southeastern Olympics, she cruised back down to the lower Elwha, back where she first sprang from her box. There she stayed through June 2010.

She went off the air in 2014, when the batteries on her collar died. But she is perhaps still out there, rewilding her bit of the Olympics.

Information from: The Seattle Times, http://www.seattletimes.com

First Utah condor chick at Zion

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http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/58186821-78/chick-condors-park-condor.html.csp

New mama: First Utah condor chick at Zion National Park
By Brett Prettyman
| The Salt Lake Tribune

First Published Jul 15 2014 12:39 pm • Last Updated Jul 15 2014 07:37 pm

The birth announcement is official — biologists from federal and state agencies, as well as a nonprofit group, have finally confirmed that a pair of California condors nesting in Zion National Park have produced a chick.

“This is the first documented occurrence of California condors raising a chick in Utah,” Eddie Feltes, condor project manager with The Peregrine Fund, said in a release. “This is great news. This pair of condors — and their newly-hatched chick — could be a major step toward California condors re-establishing themselves in southern Utah.”

The confirmation occurred on June 25 when a chick appeared on the edge of the nest located in a rock cavity 1,000 feet high in a remote canyon.

The biologists had suspected the arrival because the pair of condors in the nesting area were displaying behaviors indicating they may have laid an egg.

The nest was found by The Peregrine Fund biologists following radio and GPS signals from transmitters mounted on each of the adult condors.

Birders and wildlife enthusiasts are excited for the opportunity to see the condor chick, but it will likely be some time before it will be seen in public.

“Our top priorities are to allow the chick to grow and develop in a natural environment without significant human influence, keep it safe, and to protect park resources in the area where the chick is located,” Fred Armstrong, chief of resource management and research with Zion National Park, said in the release.

Keith Day, regional wildlife biologist for the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, doesn’t expect the chick to learn how to fly until November or December.

“California condors take about six months to fledge,” Day said in the release. “Their fledging period is the longest of any bird in North America.”

 

Leaked Document: Scientists Ordered to Scrap Plan to Protect Wolverines

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http://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2014/wolverine-07-07-2014.html

Despite Extinction Threat From Global Warming, Obama Administration Caves to
Pressure From States, Overrules Federal Scientists

WASHINGTON— According to a leaked memo obtained by the Center for Biological Diversity, scientists with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have been ordered to reverse their own conclusions and withdraw last year’s proposal to protect American wolverines under the Endangered Species Act.

Wolverine
Photo by Steve Kroschel, USFWS. Photos are available for media use.

Fewer than 300 wolverines remain in the lower 48 states, and global warming over the next 75 years is predicted to wipe out 63 percent of the snowy habitat they need to survive, government scientists have said. In fact changes due to climate warming are “threatening the species with extinction,” the Fish and Wildlife Service said in last year’s announcement of its protection proposal.

Now the memo — signed by Noreen Walsh, director of the Rocky Mountain Region of the Fish and Wildlife Service — tells federal scientists to set aside those conclusions, even though there has been no new science casting doubt on those findings.

“The Obama administration’s own scientists have said for years that global warming is pushing wolverines toward extinction, and now those conclusions are being cast aside for political convenience,” said Noah Greenwald, endangered species director at the Center. “This is a bizarre and disturbing turn, especially for an administration that’s vowed to let science rule the day when it comes to decisions about the survival of our most endangered wildlife.”

Fish and Wildlife Service scientists proposed Endangered Species Act protection for the wolverine in February 2013. Subsequently state officials in Montana, Idaho and Wyoming raised questions about the degree to which wolverines are dependent on persistent snow and about the degree to which warming will impact their habitat. In response Fish and Wildlife convened a panel of scientists to review the science behind the proposal, resulting in a report in which “nine out of nine panelists expressed pessimism for the long-term (roughly end-of-century) future of wolverines in the contiguous U.S. because of the effects of climate change on habitat.”

Based on the conclusions of the panel, scientists from the Montana field office of the Fish and Wildlife Service recommended that protection be finalized, but, as shown in the leaked memo, were overruled by agency bureaucrats.

“The decision to overrule agency scientists and deny protection to the wolverine is deeply disappointing and shows that political interference in what should be a scientific decision continues to be a problem under the Obama administration, just as it was under George W. Bush,” said Greenwald. “Wolverines and the winter habitats they depend on are severely threatened by our warming world. Only serious action to reduce fossil fuels can save the wolverine, tens of thousands of other species, and our very way of life.”

Background
On Feb. 4, 2013, the Fish and Wildlife Service found that wolverines warrant protection as a threatened species, concluding based on the “best scientific and commercial information available” that “the contiguous United States wolverine DPS presently meets the definition of a threatened species due to the likelihood of habitat loss caused by climate change resulting in population decline leading to breakdown of metapopulation dynamics.” This conclusion was based on the fact that “(w)olverines require habitats with near-arctic conditions wherever they occur,” that they “exist as small and semi-isolated subpopulations in a larger metapopulation that requires regular dispersal of wolverines between habitat patches to maintain itself” and that “(c)limate changes are predicted to reduce wolverine habitat and range by 31 percent over the next 30 years and 63 percent over the next 75 years, rendering remaining wolverine habitat significantly smaller and more fragmented.”

In response to the proposed rule, the states of Montana, Idaho and Wyoming all submitted comments opposing protection of wolverines, questioning the science behind the conclusion that they were threatened by climate change. To address these concerns, the Fish and Wildlife Service delayed final protection for six months and convened an expert scientific panel to evaluate the science. The panel issued a report in April 2014 concluding that “there are three primary climate related factors that are correlated with wolverines: persistent deep snow, contiguous snow, and temperature,” a finding that led to the panel’s unanimous statement of concern for the long-term survival  of wolverines in the contiguous United States. These conclusions support the conclusion of the proposed rule that the wolverine is threatened with extinction.

On May 17, 2014, the assistant regional director of ecological services at the Fish and Wildlife Service sent a memo to the regional director in Denver transmitting the recommendation of the Montana field office that “the wolverine listing be finalized as threatened.” The memo further concludes that, “In our review we have been unable to obtain or evaluate any other peer reviewed literature or other bodies of evidence that would lead us to a different conclusion.”

In contrast, the recently leaked memo overrules and ignores the substantial evidence and conclusions of the proposed rule, the independent science panel report, and the strong conclusions of the Montana field office, which is staffed with the agency scientists who have the greatest knowledge of wolverines.

The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 775,000 members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.

Captain Paul Watson on Welfare Ranching

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Paul WATSON, Brigitte BARDOT
Welfare Ranching Show Down in Nevada

There is a silly little drama going on in Nevada and the Neo Cons, the militias and the welfare ranchers would have us believe there is another Waco about to happen.

For some strange reason I am on the Conservative Daily mailing list. I think they confused the word “conservation” with the word “conservative.”

Joe Otto who I assume speaks for the Conservative Daily sent me this message today (below) and I could not resist responding to it.

It’s all about a rancher named Cliven Bundy who has not paid his grazing fees since 1990 and is now upset that the government has come to collect over two decades in back fees.

You see, Cliven believes that he has every right to graze his cows free of charge on public land. It’s called welfare ranching and they believe their “right” to feed at the public trough trumps the right of endangered species to exist.

So I decided to inject my comments into Otto’s somewhat hysterical letter defending Cliven and his fellow welfare ranchers from the tyranny of Obama. You see when anything happens they don’t agree with, Obama is always at fault, and Obama is especially at fault when the thing the Neo Cons are upset with is something initiated by one of the two former Bush Presidents like this particular case.

Anyhow, this is Otto’s letter with my comments.

Dear Conservative, (PW: You mean dear conservationist Otto. You were addressing me I think.)

By now you have probably heard about the crisis surrounding the Bundy Ranch in Bunkerville, Nevada. In case you haven’t, here is the basic synopsis.

(PW: Yes the Fox Network has their undies in a knot over this, which means it is hardly a major story elsewhere.)

Cliven Bundy is a cattle rancher whose family has lived near Bunkerville, NV for the last 140 years. The Bundy family’s cattle have always grazed on what had always been state-owned, public land. In 1993, the Federal Government discovered that Bundy’s grazing area was also home to the endangered Desert Tortoise. As a result, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) swooped in and took over control of the land. In order to dissuade farmers and ranchers from using the land and threatening the tortoise population, the BLM instituted a policy where ranchers would be forced to pay a grazing fee before using the land.

(PW: Let me see, the Bundy family has lived on the land for 140 years and the desert turtle has lived there for hundreds of thousands of years. The Bundy family took their land by force from Native Americans but the turtles were there even before the Native Americans. In 1993, the government did not discover that the grazing area was home to the turtle. They knew that. What they discovered was that the turtle was endangered and one probable cause was over-grazing by rancher Bundy’s cows.)

For Cliven Bundy, this was an unacceptable affront to his livelihood. His family has lived off this land for over a century, long before the creation of the BLM, and the idea that he would now have to pay a tax to protect a turtle was nothing short of absurd.

(PW: To the turtles it is an unacceptable affront to their right to survive as a species. Rancher Bundy believes the turtle’s right to survive is absurd yet he believes he has a God-given right to graze his cattle for profit at public expense. It is also not a tax but a grazing fee. In exchange for the fee, Bundy gets to graze his cattle. Bundy wants free food for his cows at public expense. In other words he wants welfare.)

So, Bundy refused to pay the tax. He allowed his cattle to graze on the land and didn’t pay the federal government a dime to do it. Why should he? The land is technically state-owned public land, yet the federal government want’s a cut because of an endangered turtle. Well, after twenty years of court battles, the Bureau of Land Management has finally swooped in and begun confiscating Bundy’s cattle at gunpoint to pay the $1.1 million that he owes in back “grazing fees” for using public land! This is absurd and should be a wake-up call to everyone! The government doesn’t care about common sense or decency… these militarized agencies and bureaus will use every law, regulation, and technicality to come after YOU with the full weight of the Federal government!

(PW: The law assessed a fee and rancher Bundy refused to pay the fee for over two decades and now he seems surprised that the government has called to collect back fees. Otto states the land is state owned and public but somehow rancher Bundy has a right to use it free of charge. Bundy owes back fees and the government is collecting those back fees by the confiscation of the cattle that Bundy has been raising at the expense of the public. It’s a classic case of welfare ranching where the rancher believes he is entitled to have his animals raised for slaughter at public expense. I hope the government does use every law, regulations and technicality to collect the back fees and to protect the right of the turtles to survive.)

Tell Congress to STOP the out-of-control militarization of agencies like the Bureau of Land Management and put an end to the Obama administration’s intimidation tactics!

(PW: I intend to tell Congress in the words “Good on you for defending the turtles and enforcing the grazing fees.”

How despicable is this… The federal government is seizing a rancher’s cattle because he didn’t pay a $1.1 Million “grazing fee” that was set up to protect a damn turtle! Anyone with half a brain can see that this is ludicrous… yet the government continues to wage its war on Cliven Bundy and proceeds to seize his cattle at gunpoint.

(PW: If anyone else does not pay their bills, they forfeit their property. Why should ranchers be exempt and above the law. Why should the public support Cliven’s damn cows? Why do his damn cows have more rights than the desert tortoise? The government is not waging war on Bundy, they are simply enforcing the law. Personally I disapproved of the fee myself. He should have been banned completely from grazing his cows on the land occupied by an endangered species.”)

I’ve said it before: It is absolutely ridiculous that we have so many militarized, non-law enforcement agencies in government. Agencies like the Department of Education, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the IRS, and even the Bureau of Land Management have been arming themselves to the teeth for years.

(PW: I’ve never seen an armed IRS agent, That would be scary, hell they are scary enough unarmed. I have certainly never seen an armed member of the Department of Education but considering all the school shootings, that might not be a bad idea. A law has been broken and it is being enforced. Pretty damn straight forward to me.)

Now, the full weight of the government has come down on the Bundy ranch. There are snipers watching the family’s movements, armed agents rounding up cattle, and the BLM has effectively made the whole area a “constitution free zone,” or at least that’s what they want it to be. The land is public land on a public road. Yet, anyone who wants to protest the government’s tyrannical actions is limited to doing so within a preset “First Amendment Zone” set up by government officials.

(PW: Can someone tell me where in the Constitution it says that ranchers have the right to graze for free on public land? The land as Otto says is public land on a public road. It is not Clive Bundy’s land. It is however turtle land. Thank you United States government for defending our endangered turtles. As for snipers, the fact is with dozens of trigger happy militia nut bars in camo, armed to the teeth, the deployment of snipers seems like a reasonable response. I admit the First Amendment zone is unacceptable but by order of the Governor of Nevada it has been taken down.)

That is ridiculous, and the protesters have fanned out, taking their frustration directly to the federal agents. In the last two days, one protester has been tackled to the ground and another has been shot with a stun gun. Now, militias from around the country have been mobilized and are beginning to arrive in Nevada to defend the ranch from this clearly tyrannical action. One county official warned the “inbred” militiamen (his words, not mine) from neighboring Utah that if they come to Cliven Bundy’s aid, then they “better have funeral plans.”

(PW: Oh no not the Mormons!!! I hope this is not another Mountain Meadow Massacre. It is amazing to see so many ultra conservatives ready to rise up and die to defend welfare rights for ranchers. Oh the tyranny of collecting unpaid bills.)

How despicable is that? Rather than defend the local rancher against the government thugs, the local Clark County Commissioner is actually threatening people if they show up to help him!

(PW: Yes I would imagine that the Clark County Commissioner would be opposing mob rule. When a bunch of wild eyed men in camo arrive with heavy weaponry it is reasonable for the County Commissioner to condemn their invasion of his county.)

I pray to God that there isn’t bloodshed. I really hope that the Federal government realizes that they are waging this war over nothing but a damn turtle and pull back. I mean, think about it… people could actually die over a dispute over cattle grazing on a turtle sanctuary… What on earth is this world coming to?

(PW: It is a world where human greed is eradicating endangered species and diminishing biodiversity. Otto you said it yourself, it’s a turtle sanctuary. It seems to me that people would be making a decision to risk dying for some damn cow. I think the turtle is much more deserving, after all it is a sanctuary for turtles. This is not a dispute over a turtle anyhow, it is a dispute over the fact that a welfare rancher has refused to pay his grazing bill.)

The fact remains that this is just one of the latest attempts for the Federal government to use loopholes to seize property for the “common good.” There is a case in Colorado where a couple’s mountain cabin is being seized and demolished to create “open space.” The government is actually using eminent domain to seize a piece of property just to create more open space.

(PW: If you build a cabin on public land you don’t have rights to the land just because you built the cabin. People have seized too much open space for their own use and by doing so they deprive nature of open space for wildlife. Nature needs more open spaces, more turtles and fewer cows.)

Rather than using common sense and restraint, the Federal government looks for every opportunity to come down hard on average citizens! This has to stop!

(PW: If citizens are a threat to the survival of an endangered species they should be stopped. Welfare ranchers are not average citizens, they are people who have grown rich at the public expense.)

The government shouldn’t be allowed to levy $1.1 Million fines on hard working Americans because their family’s ranch’s historical grazing grounds are now occupied by an endangered turtle! Americans from across the country shouldn’t have to mobilize in order to fend off tyrannical government agents!

(PW: It is not a fine, it’s a grazing fee, a fee that rancher Bundy has refused to pay for over two decades. Bundy’s lands are not now being occupied by an endangered turtle. The turtle’s land is being occupied by Bundy’s cattle.)

What if the government came into your home or business and threatened you because of a technicality or nonsense regulation? Things like this happen every day across America because we have given the Executive branch and its numerous agencies too much power over our lives!

(PW: When the U.S. Court and the IRS came after us for defending whales they were acting on the request of the Japanese whalers, I did not see many conservatives defending our rights to defend the whales. No most of them were defending the “right” of Japanese whalers to use American courts to stop American whale defenders.)

The Obama administration wouldn’t even send in one soldier to protect our ambassador in Benghazi, but it has sent in over 200 agents to harass a rancher in Nevada! This is despicable! The time has come to rein in these out of control, militarized government agencies. Congress must put an end to the Obama administration’s intimidation tactics!

(PW) Wow, they actually managed to fit Libya into their rant. That’s a stretch. The law removing free grazing rights came under the George H. Bush administration, not Obama.)

Tell Congress to STOP the out-of-control militarization of agencies like the Bureau of Land Management and put an end to the Obama administration’s intimidation tactics!

I will tell them in the words of George W. Bush, “Go get ‘em boys.” We need to put an end to Welfare ranching.

Sincerely,
Joe Otto
Conservative Daily

Dallas Safari Club Lauds Obama Admin Decision on Antelope

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http://www.gilmermirror.com/view/full_story/24425321/article-Three-Amigos–Becomes-Law–DSC-Lauds-Move-for-Rare-Species?instance=home_news_bullets

Three Amigos’ Becomes Law; DSC Lauds Move for Rare Species

WASHINGTON (Jan. 21, 2014)—President Obama has signed into law the 2014 Omnibus Bill, which includes a Dallas Safari Club (DSC)-backed provision to ensure the future of three antelope species nearly extinct in their native countries but flourishing on ranches in Texas.

The “Three Amigos” provision, for which DSC has lobbied over the past several years, exempts U.S. populations of scimitar horned oryx, Dama gazelle and addax from Endangered Species Act protections. The exemptions clear the way for ranchers to maintain herds of these exotic game animals and to offer hunts without federal intervention. Hunting revenue incentivizes ranchers to ensure that populations will continue to thrive.

Author of the provision, Rep. John Carter (R-TX-31), said, “This legislation gets big government out of the way so that ranchers can begin working to bring these rare antelope populations back to former levels. This has been a long time in coming, but we got it done.”

Rep. Pete Sessions (R-TX-32) and Rep. Ken Calvert (R-CA-42) also were key supporters.

“I’m pleased that the House and Senate were able to reach an agreement that allows American sportsmen to continue conserving the ‘Three Amigos,’” said Sessions. “Despite the onerous and unnecessary federal regulations that have recently threatened the ongoing work to preserve the existence of these endangered antelope, this Omnibus Bill takes important steps to protect the ‘Three Amigos’ and preserve a rich sporting heritage.”

The antelope were exempt from the Endangered Species Act from 2005 until 2012. During that time, populations experienced dramatic growth in the U.S. However, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was forced to remove the exemptions due to legal action that prompted a cumbersome and lengthy permitting process, all of which led to a dramatic population decreases. For example, scimitar horned oryx numbers in Texas are now at nearly half of 2010 levels.

“We’re very grateful to Congressman Carter for offering ‘Three Amigos’ legislation, and to Congressman Pete Sessions and Senator John Cornyn for insisting that it be part of the Omnibus Bill. This conservation measure wouldn’t have happened without their dedicated leadership. Senator Cornyn also played a big role behind the scenes in securing Senate support for this specific legislative fix,” said Ben Carter, DSC executive director. “Thanks to our DSC team and the Exotic Wildlife Association (EWA) reps in Washington for helping to make this happen.”

Organizations partnering with DSC on this legislation include the EWA, Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation, National Rifle Association, Safari Club International and North American Deer Farmer’s Association. DSC’s Washington representative Glenn LeMunyon and EWA’s Liz Williams and John Blount also played vital roles in the process.

About Dallas Safari Club (DSC)

Desert bighorns on an unbroken landscape, stalking Cape buffalo in heavy brush, students discovering conservation. DSC works to guarantee a future for all these and much more. An independent organization since 1982, DSC has become an international leader in conserving wildlife and wilderness lands, educating youth and the general public, and promoting and protecting the rights and interests of hunters worldwide.

Read more: The Gilmer Mirror – Three Amigos Becomes Law DSC Lauds Move for Rare Species