Upstaged by an Elephant

I feel like a circus performer doing daily death-defying feats on a high wire only to have the show stolen by an elephant. No sooner did I compose a post bemoaning the glacial speed of karma (even daring to question its very existence), than along came a story about an elephant—a very angry, rampaging elephant at that—who metered out some instant karma on his ivory poachers. (An upside of climate change? Perhaps global warming is speeding up karma along with the rate of ice-melt.)

But this was more than the faceless fate that seems to well up from the soul of Nature Herself (such as when a hunter falls out of his tree stand). This is a case of direct action on the part of an injured animal who decided to take his would-be assassin out with him in a single stomp.

Now that the story has gone relatively viral, I’m thinking maybe I should not waste time philosophizing and save my posting for any other entertaining acts of animal karma that come along (like when a deer trees a hunter or a trapper steps into his own freshly set torture device).

We can all use a good cheering up once in a while.

“Sportsmen” Disagree over Hunting Heritage and Opportunities Act, H.R. 1825

Hunters disagree over hunting bill’s intent

LAURA LUNDQUIST, Chronicle Staff Writer | Posted: Friday, June 14, 2013 12:15 am

A bill aimed at providing opportunities for sportsmen and women has some hunters up in arms.

On Wednesday, the U.S. House Natural Resources Committee voted 28-15 to pass the Recreational Fishing and Hunting Heritage and Opportunities Act, H.R. 1825, a bill that directs land management officials to ensure access to federal lands for fishing, hunting, shooting and other purposes.

The bill’s primary sponsor is Rep. Dan Benishek, R-Mich. Republican Montana Rep. Steve Daines is one of the nine other cosponsors.

Several sportsmen’s groups have wholeheartedly supported the bill because it states that hunting and fishing have as much validity on public lands as other uses, including resource extraction and livestock grazing. Under the law, land management plans, such as forest plans, would have to include consideration for hunting and fishing opportunities.

This is particularly popular in Montana, which has a healthy population of sportsmen and women. But nationwide, only 6 percent of the population hunts and just 14 percent wets a line now and then, according to U.S. Census numbers released in September.

The bill would also prohibit legal and administrative efforts to block hunting and fishing on public land.

As a result, 20 of the country’s biggest hunting organizations support the bill, including the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, the Boone & Crockett Club and the National Rifle Association.

But provisions in the bill dealing with wilderness have other groups balking.

The bill deals with all public land agencies, with emphasis on the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management. But wilderness areas are also public land, and some of the bill’s language doesn’t differentiate between land types.

Groups, including the Montana Wildlife Federation, the Backcountry Hunters & Anglers and wilderness organizations such as the Wilderness Society, object to some sections dealing with wilderness.

One paragraph says the bill would not authorize uses not covered by the Wilderness Act “or permanent road construction or maintenance within designated wilderness areas.”

Montana Wildlife Federation spokesman Nick Gevock said the Wilderness Act already authorizes managers to build temporary roads for clearly defined purposes. Plus, wilderness study areas are not designated wilderness, yet they are supposed to remain roadless.

By including that specific clause instead of reinforcing the tenets of the Wilderness Act, a law that requires certain areas to remain wild, groups worry Rep. Benishek is creating a loophole.

“We see this as an open door to create more temporary roads, and once they’re there, people will want to continue using them,” Gevock said. “We support 90 percent of this bill. But then they had to go and insert this Trojan horse, which is now dividing the hunting community.”

Smoke Elser of the Wilderness Outfitter Consulting Group said his group depends on roadless wildlands, such the Bob Marshall Wilderness. Additional roads would degrade the area and the small businesses it supports, Elser said.

A similar bill was introduced in 2012 as the Sportsmen’s Heritage Act. It passed the House but failed in the Senate.

Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation spokesman Mark Holyoak said his organization supports the bill and that it doesn’t usurp the Wilderness Act.

“Some may be reading between the lines,” Holyoak said. “The bill supports hunting, but this does not mean that if you hunt with an ATV that you can take your ATV into the wilderness.”

Daines spokeswoman Alee Lockman said people opposed the earlier bill because of concerns that it would open wilderness to motorized use.

So the paragraph in question was added to address those concerns, Lockman said.

“This legislation is not amending the Wilderness Act, merely aligning the bill language to it,” Lockman said. “The main driver of this bill is the threat that arbitrary action by federal agencies and frivolous litigation holds to federal lands. It makes the ‘open until closed’ policy clear.”

Opponents encourage support for the Senate version, sponsored by Sens. Lisa Murkowski, R-Ala., and Joe Manchin, D-W.V., which offers the similar protections without appearing to encroach on wilderness protections.

Elephant Kills His Poacher and People Aren’t Exactly Sad

Speaking of karma…

Elephant Kills His Poacher and People Aren’t Exactly Sad

Since the African elephant population has been devastated in recent years, it’s pretty hard to see things from the poacher’s point of view.

http://www.takepart.com/article/2013/05/15/african-elephant-poacher-killed-zimbabwe?cmpid=tp-ad-outbrain-general

May 15, 2013, by Joanna M. Foster

Noluck Tafuruka may not sound like a lucky man, but he’s lucky to be alive. His “business partner,” Solomon Monjoro, was recently discovered, a crushed corpse in blood-stained bushes. How did it happen? And what was the motive? One really mad elephant that didn’t want to become a poaching statistic.

It all happened last month in Zimbabwe’s magnificent Charara National Park. The two alleged poachers entered the park with firearms, but apparently were not able to immediately kill their target elephant, which took karma into its own hands, or shall we say tusks, and charged, trampling one of the men to death.

The other man, Tafuruka, was arrested shortly thereafter along with one other in the capital city of Harare.

Elephant poaching has soared in recent years thanks to a growing demand for ivory sculptures and trinkets among China’s emerging middle class, who view the items as status symbols. A recent report by the Wildlife Conservation Society estimated that about 62 percent of forest elephants in Africa have been poached over the past ten years. Just this spring, poachers on horseback, armed with AK47s, gunned down almost 90 elephants in Chad in just one week, including 33 pregnant females.

Ivory currently fetches about $1,300 per kilo in China.

This level of destruction would be tragic for any species, but it is especially sickening in this case, because elephants are extremely intelligent creatures with tightly knit family communities, sophisticated communication systems, and, some researchers believe, highly developed emotions.

In recent years there have been increasing reports from throughout Africa that elephants are changing their behavior because of the enormous emotional stress caused by poaching.

“Elephants in areas that have been heavily poached, display an understandable fear of humans,” said Catherine Doyle, Director of Science, Research, and Advocacy at PAWS. “They often display aggressive behavior when approached.”

Joyce Poole of Elephant Voices recounted how a Masai friend in Kenya was noticing a difference too. “When the elephants come down on that old trail, as they do every year, they no longer come down during the day trumpeting their arrival; they now slip down quietly at night, and when we look at the tracks of these animals, we only see small footprints.”

It’s hard to imagine a world without elephants, but it’s almost equally disturbing to imagine a world where majestic elephants have to cower in the bushes like scared rabbits in order to survive.

Karma is Too Slow and Guns Are Too Damn Noisy

A lot of folks, dismayed and disgusted by the cruel and callous treatment of non-humans animals by our species, console themselves with notions of Karma, as in: “They’ll get what’s coming to them…” But the trouble with Karma is it’s too damn slow and indiscriminate to stop ongoing abuses and injustices in their tracks. Besides, it’s not guaranteed, and humans don’t always learn from it.

While it’s understandable that people want to see the perpetrators of animal abuse punished, maybe we should focus our energies on the primary objective—to halt current cruelties and head off any potential future threats against the innocents. But I don’t pretend to know how best to do this or to make the ignorant see the light. I find myself torn between two divergent stances held by readers who commented to one of my blog posts (about the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association) a few days ago. First Chris stated:

“They mention that wolves pose a threat to private property, especially livestock. Animals are NOT your private property! End of story. Leave the wolves alone! That being said, I wouldn’t wish mad cow disease on anyone. These people are just ignorant and in denial of the facts. We should show them compassion and try to get them to realize the damage that they do. Very few of us Vegans have been Vegan for life. Most of us had to unlearn what we were taught and work to bring out our natural compassion. That is why I think it is unfair to call names and wish harm upon these people. It does frustrate me as well but we should be the beacon of light to draw others to our way of life and not repel them with vicious attacks and wishes of harm.”

To which Geoff replied: “With all due respect, being ‘ignorant and in denial of the facts’ seems a pretty lame excuse for those promoting and engaging in reprehensible behavior towards wolves and other wild animals. How much traction would that same excuse get in the human political sphere if employed to excuse practices like racial discrimination, genital mutilation, and ethnic cleansing? And why after half-a-century of non-stop “environmental education” in this country do we still have ignorant yokels in denial of ecological facts? Could it just be that stupidity, selfishness, and a pathological intolerance for other sentient beings has more to do with the problem than a simple lack of access to scientific facts?

“It seems that many good-hearted people like yourself that do all the right things in their own personal lives still fail to acknowledge how late is the hour, how desperate is the situation for much of the world’s non-human ‘citizens.’ Hoping that western ranchers who have already extirpated bison, wolves, prairie dogs, badgers, black-footed ferrets, coyotes, mountain lions, et al. from their native habitat will finally come around after just a few more generations of “education” is a fool’s paradise.

“There is nothing wrong about calling a spade a spade, or murderously intolerant selfish ignorant bastards just that. And a good fatal case of mad cow disease seems to me like poetic justice for those who brought this very pathogen into being by feeding discarded parts of slaughtered sheep as a source of cheap protein to cattle themselves being raised for slaughter and then managed to spread it around North America into wild ungulate populations courtesy of game ranches.”

This whole dilemma brings to mind the classic 1986 film, The Mission, in which Robert De Niro plays Rodrigo Mendosa, a guilt-ridden former mercenary and slave-runner who seeks redemption for killing his own brother in a fit of jealousy. As penance, Rodrigo drags a heavy net full of his weaponry (sword, armor, etc.) to a remote mission above an imposing waterfall near the headwaters of the Amazon, to become a missionary under the empathetic guidance of the earnest, nearly Christ-like Father Gabriel (Jeremy Irons).

But the peaceful, priestly existence is cut short by the backward politics of the time (the 18th century), when the area falls under the rule of pro-slavery Portugal. Mendosa and two of his fellow Spanish Jesuit priests decide to fight to protect the Indian tribe under their charge. When Father Gabriel learns of this, he tries to diffuse the violent situation, “If you die with blood on your hands, Rodrigo, you betray everything we’ve done. You promised your life to God. And God is love!” Adding, “If might is right, then love has no place in the world. It may be so, it may be so. But I don’t have the strength to live in a world like that, Rodrigo.”

I see an analogy here, with Geoff in the role of Rodrigo and Chris as Father Gabriel. Unfortunately, both characters are killed by invading Portuguese troops: Rodrigo in battle and Father Gabriel while carrying a cross, leading his congregation in unarmed protest.

“The world is thus,” a plantation owner tells a head of the church, Father Altamirano, after the mission is burned and those Indians who were not killed outright have been taken as slaves.

“No, Señor,” replies Altamirano. “Thus have we made the world.”

Text and Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson, 2013. All Rights Reserved

Montana “Conservationist” Accused Of Declaring War On Wolves

From the San Francisco Chronicle:

Montana Conservationist Accused Of Declaring War On Wolves            

Robert Ferris,

Published 5:36 am, Saturday, June 15, 2013

 

Many conservationists are furious over a recent proposal by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife service to drop the gray wolf from the endangered species list.

At least one group of conservationists [their word, not mine], however, also supports dropping federal protection for wolves. They are the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, led by hunter David Allen. …

Allen’s controversial stance has alienated some former supporters of the Elk Foundation, who accuse him of turning the conservation group into a pro-hunting lobby. The family of famed wildlife biologist Olaus J. Murie pulled money last year for its annual Elk Foundation award on account of the organization’s ”all-out war against wolves,” according to the Montana Pioneer. …

Allen would like to see the wolf population in the Rocky Mountain region shrink: “We do feel like the number could be managed downward and not threaten the population overall,” he said. [How many individual wolves will suffer while they "manage" them "downward"?]

When asked by the Pioneer about the natural predator-prey relations, Allen said: “Natural balance is a Walt Disney movie. It isn’t real.”

The former marketer for NASCAR is not what you might think of today as a conservationist. [That's because he's not; he's a fucking marketer for NASCAR and a trophy hunter]. Allen poses for photos in hunter camo, and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation has a page on its site called “The Hunt,” where users can plan their own elk hunts and get game recipes from the “Carnivore’s Corner.”

But he and his cohort maintain that hunters are the original conservationists [LMFAO]. They take inspiration from early American hunters and outdoorsmen like Theodore Roosevelt. [Oh, you mean that guy who wrote African Game Trails in which he lovingly muses over shooting elephants, hippos, buffaloes, lions, cheetahs, leopards, giraffes, zebras, hartebeest, impalas, pigs, the not-so-formidable 30-pound steenbok and even (in what must have seemed the pinnacle of manly sport with rifles) a mother ostrich on her nest?]

The proposal to delist gray wolves across the country and return management to the states comes less than two years after populations in Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Utah, which cover the Northern Rocky Mountain region, were stripped of Federal protections.

Environmental activists who oppose taking gray wolves off the endangered species list argue that the population has not been restored to its historical range, which once extended across the much of the contiguous United States.

Considered a threat to livestock, the gray wolf was nearly hunted to extinction in the early to mid-20th century. Canadian-born gray wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park in the mid-1990s and the population has largely recovered due to conservation efforts. [True conservation, that is. Not to be confused with the warped perversion practiced by the self-serving Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation.]

 

Comment Info for Wolf Delisting

From Defenders of Wildlife,

Well they did it.

Last week the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) formally proposed to remove federal Endangered Species Act protection for most of the gray wolves across the United States.

FWS is required by law to accept public comments before they can make their final decision on this misguided proposal. Defenders plans to use this 90 day comment period to organize strong and vocal opposition from supporters like you to make sure the decision makers in Washington hear what America thinks about the premature delisting of gray wolves.

Submit your comment today and tell the FWS that you strongly oppose their misguided proposal to delist nearly all wolves:

…

https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2013/06/13/2013-13982/endangered-and-threatened-wildlife-and-plants-removing-the-gray-wolf-canis-lupus-from-the-list-of

You may submit comments by one of the following methods:

(1) Electronically: Go to the Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.regulations.gov. In the Search box, enter FWS-HQ-ES-2013-0073, which is the docket number for this rulemaking. Please ensure you have found the correct document before submitting your comments. If your comments will fit in the provided comment box, please use this feature of http://regulations.gov, as it is most compatible with our comment-review procedures. If you attach your comments as a separate document, our preferred file format is Microsoft Word. If you attach multiple comments (such as form letters), our preferred format is a spreadsheet in Microsoft Excel. Submissions of electronic comments on our Proposed Revision to the Nonessential Experimental Population of the Mexican Wolf, which also published in today’s Federal Register, should be submitted to Docket No. FWS-R2-ES-2013-0056 using the method described above.

(2) By hard copy: Submit by U.S. mail or hand-delivery to: Public Comments Processing, Attn: FWS-HQ-ES-2013-0073; Division of Policy and Directives Management; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; 4401 N. Fairfax Drive, MS 2042-PDM; Arlington, Virginia 22203.

We will post all comments on http://www.regulations.gov. This generally means that we will post any personal information you provide us (see the Public Comments section below for more information). Submissions of hard copy comments on our Proposed Revision to the Nonessential Experimental Population of the Mexican Wolf, which also published in today’s Federal Register should be addressed to Attn: Docket No. FWS-R2-ES-2013-0056 using the method described above.

                             ______________

From Defenders of Wildlife, Here are some important points you could include in your comments:

• Gray wolf recovery is not complete.  This decision could derail wolf recovery efforts in areas around the country where it has barely begun — in places like the Pacific Northwest and in states that possess some of the nation’s best unoccupied wolf habitat, such as northern California, Colorado, and Utah.
• Delisting would prematurely turn wolf management over to the states. We’ve already seen what can happen when rabid anti-wolf politics are allowed to trump science and core wildlife management principles.
• Montana, Wyoming and Idaho — where wolves have already been delisted — are not managing wolves like other wildlife such as elk, deer, and bears. Instead they’re intending to drive the wolves’ population numbers back down to the bottom.
• Other species, such as the bald eagle, American alligator, and peregrine falcon were declared recovered and delisted when they occupied a much larger portion of their former range. Wolves deserve the same chance at real recovery.

The future of wolves in the U.S. is at stake. Please send your comments to the FWS today.
Over the coming weeks, we are launching an unprecedented and aggressive campaign to convince the Obama Administration to withdraw this reckless proposal and make good on our nation’s commitment to restore imperiled wolves.

HSUS Finally Taking Notice of Reckless Wisconsin Wolf Killing Plan URGENT ACTION NEEDED NOW

Reblogged from Wisconsin Wildlife Ethic-Vote Our Wildlife:

In January of 2012 the United States Fish and Wildlife Services, bowing to pressure from national killing cartels, removed the gray wolf from the Endangered Species List in the Western Great Lakes Region. The very day that wolves were officially delisted Rep. Scott Suder (R-ALEC) introduced a very onerous bill in the Wisconsin Legislature that basically declared war on the gray wolf in Wisconsin.

Read more… 726 more words

Letting Wildlife Live Makes Good Economic Sense

Hunting vs Birding and Wildlife Watching

June 2012
Peter M. W. Murray

•Birding and Wildlife watching contributed $38.4 billion dollars to the nation’s economy in 2001. This resulted in $95.8 billion added to the economy, accounted for over 1 million jobs and 13 billion in tax revenue.
•Birdwatching is the fastest growing form of outdoor recreation….up 236 % from 1982- 2001. Birders spent $32 billion, generating $85 billion of economic benefits to the country, produced $13 billion of tax revenue and accounted for 863,406 jobs.
•Hunting and Fishing contributed $24.8 billion to the nation’s economy in 2001. This added $67 billion to the economy and accounted for over 575,000 jobs. $2.3 billion in taxes were generated by this sector of the economy.(Int Ass of Fish and Wildlife Agencies)
•2010 Yellowstone had 3,640,205 visitors.
•$2.5 billion was spent by tourists in Montana in 2010.

Photo copyright Jim Robertson

One Man’s Success is Another’s Demise

Correction: that title should have read, “One Man’s Success is ALL Others’ Demise,” for mankind’s triumph comes at the cost of endangerment, degradation and despoil for every other species. It’s not a simple case of Darwinian “survival of the fittest;” it’s the first and only instance of a single species’ persistence setting off a mass extinction.

Charles Darwin never actually said anything about “survival of the fittest,” (those words were dreamed up by some sensationalizing journalist) Darwin’s thing was natural selection. And anyway, humans can hardly be thought of as the “fittest,” compared to nearly every other species out there. Without technology we’re nothing but bald-bodied, clawless, finless, fleshy, flightless, miniature land sloths—most unimpressive next to every other animal we’ve sent down the road to oblivion.

Yet each cog in the great wheel of life we carelessly cast aside is another nail in our own coffin. Homo sapiens won’t come out of this man-made biodiversity crisis smelling like roses, but rather like road kill. All the kings gadgets and all the kings medical men won’t be able to put Humpty-humanity back together again once we’ve completely cracked the fragile shell of life on Earth and sold it off as the last McMuffin.

So, biodiversity or anthropocentricity—what’s it gonna be? You can’t have it both ways.

Come on Man, didn’t your mother ever teach you not to play with mass extinction? Having your own epoch is not something to be proud of. The current era, the Anthropocene, was so named not for any great human achievement, but because we’ve disrupted things enough to bring on our very own mass extinction—and this biodiversity crisis won’t go away until we back down or get out of the picture.

We are tilling under everyone and everything that gets in the way of our single-minded push to raise a bumper-crop of humanity. Of all the Earth’s invasive species, Homo sapiens is the one in dire need of controlling. Yet, we’ve been able to cleverly avoid or survive every effort Nature has come up with to regulate our numbers…so far.

But be warned, lowly human: Mother Nature still has a few tricks to throw at you if you aren’t willing to manage your own population. For as every good farmer should know: he who grows a mono-culture risks crop failure.

Text and Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson, 2013. All Rights Reserved

National Cattlemen’s Beef Assoc. has Beef With Mexicans…

…Mexican Wolves, that is. Some people are never satisfied. Although there are only around 75 individuals remaining on Earth, the “Cattleman’s Beef Association” wants the government to remove the Mexican wolf from the federal list of endangered species and turn their “management” over to hostile states…

http://www.cattlenetwork.com/cattle-news/210839191.html

NCBA, PLC call for full delisting of wolves nationwide

National Cattlemen’s Beef Association | Updated: 06/10/2013

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) and the Public Lands Council (PLC) expressed support for the proposal by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to remove the gray wolf from the list of threatened and endangered species. The livestock associations added, however, that Mexican wolves in the Southwest should also be delisted. In their announcement, FWS stated the Mexican wolf will remain on the list of endangered species.

The wolf, placed on the list of endangered species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) over three decades ago, has far surpassed FWS recovery goals across the country, according to NCBA President and Wyoming rancher, Scott George. He added that, unlike most other species listed under the ESA, wolves pose a serious threat to wildlife, humans and private property, especially livestock.

“It’s time to turn management over to the states,” said George. “Wolf depredation of livestock is increasing to untenable levels in areas where wolves are still protected. We were given relief in Wyoming when it was finally delisted here. It’s only fair to allow all producers across the country that same relief.”

According to FWS, the proposal to delist the gray wolf comes after a “comprehensive review confirmed its successful recovery following management actions undertaken by federal, state and local partners.” However, FWS added that it intends to maintain protection status and expand recovery efforts for the Mexican wolf in the Southwest.

PLC President Brice Lee, a rancher from Colorado, said that wolves in the Southwest have also recovered and do not warrant federal protection.

“The wolf population in Arizona and New Mexico has almost doubled in the last three years, thanks to the work of the state fish and game departments,” Lee said. “We feel that at a certain point, it’s possible to over-study and over-capture these animals. It’s time to stop with these government studies and allow them be truly wild, while the state departments continue their successful management.”

Lee stated that the FWS does not have the resources to continue managing the wolf as endangered, let alone compensate ranchers for their losses. Studies have shown, he said, that for every confirmed kill of livestock there are seven to eight that go unconfirmed.

“We appreciate FWS’ recognition that the gray wolf is recovered,” George stated. “But it’s also time to end the unwarranted listing of Mexican wolf. Wolf depredation threatens ranchers’ livelihoods and rural communities, as well as the economies relying on a profitable agricultural industry.”
- See more at: http://www.cattlenetwork.com/cattle-news/210839191.html#sthash.NesEph7B.dpuf