Where Will We Be in Y3K?

With several important issues on deck to blog about, the spring winds blew a tree over our power lines and we spent the afternoon back in the relative Stone Age, huddled next to an outside window, straining to read printed pages by what natural light the stormy day had to offer. I decided to do some spring cleaning and throw out anything I hadn’t read or in some other way utilized in the last decade or so. Just as the power came back on I came upon the following letter I wrote after reading Richard Leakey’s book, The Sixth Extinction. This letter, which is as relevant today as when I wrote it (except that there are now 7 billion people instead of 6), was published on January 10, 2000 in the Seattle Post Intelligencer:

Ina fit of arrogant optimism bolstered by surviving the Y2K non-crisis, many are asking, “Where will we be in Y3K?” Perhaps a more pressing question is,” Which species would be able to survive another 1,000 years of mankind’s reign of terror?”

Forget computer malfunctions, power outages or other inconveniences. The new millennium finds us in the midst of a mass extinction unrivaled since a giant asteroid struck Earth 65 million years ago. Unfortunately, Bruce Willis can’t bail us out of the impending Armageddon by simply blasting a menacing death-rock to smithereens.

Our species, one in 1,413,000, is out to prove that it doesn’t take an asteroid strike to unravel life’s intricate diversity. In doing so, humans are on a collision course with destiny. We are eradicating 30,000 species per year—120,000 times the natural extinction rate of one every four years.

A recent annual survey by the Chinese government found so few of their nationally celebrated, freshwater white dolphins remaining in the Yangtze River that on Dec. 29 they were written off as living relics of an extinct species. China and India now boast more than 1 billion each of a human population that is 6 billion strong and growing. Comparing those figures with the billion inhabitants on the entire planet in 1600, any game manager would clearly see a species out of balance.

As Richard Leakey, the renowned paleoanthropologist warns, “Dominant as no other species has been in the history of life on Earth, Homo sapiens is in the throes of causing a major biological crisis, a mass extinction…And we may also be among the living dead.”

Where will we be in another millennium? Will a future Bruce Willis save us from ourselves? Or will we have gone the way of the dinosaur and the Yangtze white dolphin?

Be the Wind

Upon awakening from a fitful sleep after a cold, windy night, it occurred to me that birds must have to keep an unconscious death-grip on the branch they’re perched on to hold their place until morning. It must be second nature to them; part of what makes them who they are.
Next the thought came to me that a bird’s nighttime death-grip on a perch is analogous to the death-grip “sportsmen’s” groups, “game” departments and the livestock industry have on our wildlife. Like a trembling bird, fearful for its future, animal exploiters must be afraid that if they loosen their grip, they’ll be blown away.

Well, they’re right.

It’s high time we be the wind that finally breaks loose their death-grip on wildlife once and for all, and for the good of all.

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

Wolf-Murder by Numbers

Here are the totals of wolves murdered in the tri-state area, not including those who were victims of our taxpayer-funded assassins—the hit men from the federal “Wildlife Services” agency. (Note: all three of these states share a border with Yellowstone National Park)…

Latest Posted Idaho Wolf Hunt Kill total (current season): 169
Latest Posted Idaho Wolf Trapping Kill total (current season): 76
Final Posted Montana Wolf Hunt Kill Total (most recent season) 128
Final Posted Montana Wolf Trapping Kill total (most recent season): 97
Wyoming Wolf Kill Total (current season): 74 (Note: as of March 1st Wyoming’s season has been extended indefinitely)
Regional Total Reported Killed This Season: 544
Regional Total Reported Killed Since Delisting: 1,089

Meanwhile, a new National Park Service report for 2011 shows that the 3,394,326 visitors to Yellowstone spent $332,975,000 in communities surrounding the park. This spending supported 5,041 jobs in the local area.

(Michigan State University conducted this visitors’ spending analysis for the NPS. The report includes information for visitor spending at individual parks and by state. It can be downloaded at http://www.nature.nps.gov/socialscience/products.cfm#MGM click on Economic Benefits to Local Communities from National Park Visitation 2011.)

Needless to say, most people who visit national parks want to see the wildlife unmolested. They are not there to hunt; the money they spend reflects their strong interest in the quiet enjoyment of nature. Pro-hunting factions like to boast about the money their bloodsport brings to local communities. I don’t know if anyone has taken a survey on how much those kill-happy cowboys add to the communities around Yellowstone, but you can bet your boots it’s nowhere near $332,975,000.
One thing I know for sure is that the number of dollars spent by Yellowstone visitors is going to drop as the wildlife they went there to see continues to disappear.

Yellowstone wolf photo ©Jim Robertson. All Rights Reserved

Hope for a Humane and Environmentally Sane Future

The following is my review of a new book published by Earth Books…

Often, over the years, I’ve thought about taking on the task of chronicling the ways in which humankind is destroying the Earth, and how we need to change to survive as a species. Now, equally sensing the dire need for such a book, long-time animal activist, Will Anderson, has risen to the challenge with his new book, This is Hope: Green Vegans and the New Human Ecology.

I have to admit, the title, This is Hope, sounded to me like it could be almost, well, overly-hopeful. But in fact the book takes a hard, realistic look at where we’re headed if we don’t make some major changes in our destructive ways, our eating habits and our view of non-human animals as commodities. For instance, Anderson doesn’t buy into the increasingly popular fallacy that hunting can somehow be sustainable in this rapidly growing human world. Not only does he take on hunting, and those groups who promote it, he employs the term “neo-predation” for the myriad of ways in which the modern world disrupts biodiversity—to the peril of all who share the Earth.

And the author does not fall prey to the politically correct notion that human overpopulation is an overstated myth. Instead we learn that as environmentally-conscious, green vegans who truly want to see a future for all life on the planet, addressing and reversing our overpopulation is a must.

If we are willing to embrace Will Anderson’s prescription for a “new human ecology,” there truly could be hope for the future. As Anderson puts it, “The new human ecology can be the transformation of human behavior all of Earth has waited for.” Some of the positive results he foresees from this transformation include:

• Vast landscapes subjected to grazing and growing food for livestock are released from animal agriculture.
• Some of that land will be banked and rotated with other croplands. Soil erosion and pollution are sharply reduced. Sustainably grown, organic food becomes more reliably available.
• Conceivably, fewer people on Earth and the efficiency of botanical agriculture will allow lower food prices and raise food availability.
• We will reduce our greenhouse gas emissions immediately by 18% to 51%.
• Other human pressures on ecosystems decrease and allow them to trend toward recovery.
• Vegan diets will create better human health. This should result in lower health care costs.
• We stop the intentional impregnation of billions of domesticated individuals from other species, the torment of their enslavement and denial of their innate needs, and their early, violent deaths.
• The science and implementation of wildlife and habitat management is transformed…control by the small minority of people who hunt, fish and trap is ended.
• Livestock fences will be removed. Wild herds of indigenous wildlife can reoccupy habitat and have room to migrate long distances. Ecosystem keystone species like black-tailed prairie dogs will not be cruelly persecuted on behalf of animal agriculture.
• There are no new ghost nets, those fishing nets that break away from vessels, drift with oceanic currents, and continue to trap fish, turtles, marine birds, and marine mammals.
• We stop bottom trawling that destroys sea bed marine ecosystems. Since vegan human ecology does not require fish, it ends the trashing of millions of tons of unwanted bycatch (non-targeted species), eliminates shark-finning that is decimating shark populations, stops the killing of octopi, and ends the drowning of dolphins and turtles.
• We finally create a moral code of behavior that is based upon biocentric innate value; it is more consistently applied to all individuals of all species and ecosystems.

Photograph ©Jim Robertson

Sunday Go-a-Huntin’ Day

Living near prime wildlife habitat means that at any given moment you might get to see Vs of migratory ducks or cackling Canada geese flying right overhead. If you’re lucky, trumpeter swans might be among the waterfowl feeding and calling in the nearby estuary. And wood ducks or hooded mergansers might pay your inland pond a visit while searching for a quiet place to nest.
The down side of living near a natural wonderland? Being awakened Sunday morning at first light by the repeated volley of shotgun blasts, as though all-out war has been declared on all things avian (as is currently happening this morning). The Elmers out there (no doubt dressed in the latest expensive camo-pattern—a fashion statement apparently meant to impress the other Elmers out there) must be reveling in the fact that the dense morning fog allows them to “sneak” (in their loud outboard motor boats) up close enough to the flocks so that a large number of birds will end up dead, winged or otherwise wounded when they stand up and spray lead.

Duck hunting is the ultimate betrayal. It happens well into the winter, long after about other any hunting season is over, when the birds are congregated in flocks on their wintering grounds. And it happens often on lands supposedly set aside as wildlife “refuges.” Pro-kill groups like Ducks Unlimited (DU—an acronym, or perhaps an abbreviation for “duh”) insist that they have the animals’ best interests in mind. But when it comes right down to it, all they really want to preserve land for is to have a playground for killing (just listen to them scream if you try to propose a refuge closed to hunting).

Interestingly, they always seem to choose Sunday as their special day for bird killing. It’s no secret that most American hunters count themselves as good Christians. In choosing to hunt in lieu of church this time of year, they must feel closest to their gods in the killing fields.

How is this any different than a follower of Santeria sacrificing chickens? Both practices are equally bloody and violent. And the practice of Sunday go-a-duck-huntin’ probably claims more victims.

This Christmas, Show the Hunters that You Care

Judging by the frost on the grass and the ice on the birdbath, it’s time to start thinking about Christmas shopping. This year, your gifts can make a statement—they can show the hunters that you care.

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean you should show hunters that you care about them—no, quite the opposite—I mean you can show the hunters that you care about wildlife. And what better way than purchasing a pro-wildlife/anti-hunting book, like Exposing the Big Game: Living Targets of a Dying Sport?

There’s a common misconception that hunters are the only ones who “care” about wild animals. For example, when I brought some of my framed wildlife photos (such as the trumpeter swan seen here) to a small-town art gallery, the owner said, “Well, you might be able to sell them to a hunter…” My first reaction was an under-the breath “What the hell?” quickly followed by a resolute, “Never mind, I’m not hanging them here.”

I don’t know if it’s a sign of the self-absorbed, economocentric times we live in, but it seems Black Friday is garnering more attention than Thanksgiving these days. Across the country, you’ll find headlines like, “2 seriously hurt as driver plows through crowd of shoppers,” “Massachusetts bargain hunter took home TV, left tot” or “Earlier Black Friday kicks off shopping season.”

That last article reports: “This year’s Black Friday shoppers were split into two distinct groups: those who wanted to fall into a turkey-induced slumber and those who’d rather shop instead.” I’m guessing (hoping, really) that readers of this blog fall into still another category altogether.

The article goes on to say: “Stores typically open in the wee hours of the morning on the day after Thanksgiving that’s named Black Friday because of retail folklore that it’s when merchants turn a profit for the year. But after testing how shoppers would respond to earlier hours last year, stores such as Target and Toys R Us this year opened as early as Thanksgiving evening. That created two separate waves of shoppers.

Lori Chandler, 54, and her husband, Sam, 55, were a part of the early group. By the time they reached the Wal-Mart in Greenville, S.C. early Friday, they had already hit several stores, including Target and Best Buy. In fact, they had been shopping since midnight.

‘It’s a tradition,’ Lori said as she looked at some toys she bought for her four grandchildren….”

I’m sure you get the idea.

You’re probably not the type to camp out in front of Wal-Mart for the best deals on Asian sweatshop-produced, future landfill-clogging plastic trinkets, or you wouldn’t be here reading this post. But don’t worry, you won’t have to stand in line and risk being “plowed through” by some crazed shopper driving a Humvee or lose your “tot” in a crowded superstore while attempting to purchase Exposing the Big Game. You can order copies online from the comfort of your own home. If you’re not a fan of Amazon or Barnes and Noble, feel free to email me at exposingthebiggame@gmail.com for signed copies sent directly to your doorstep. Or you can ask your local “brick and mortar” bookstore (which is more than likely on the verge of going out of business) to order in a copy or copies for you. And of course, Exposing the Big Game is also available in e-book form.

There are around a butcher’s dozen new pro-hunting books on the market this year, while Exposing the Big Game is the only anti-hunting book to come out in decades, and the only one still in print. Don’t let the hunters think you’re indifferent about this issue. Together we can put an end to the absurd misconception that they’re the only ones interested in wildlife. While we don’t have the kind of financial support that the hunting industry gets from the NRA or the Safari Club, here’s our chance to show them that we’re the ones with the passion!

Memos to the President

Now that the post-election reverie is dying down, it’s time to remind the president why he got our votes and what we expect from him in return.  Several environmental groups have spelled out some of the issues and concerns we all have. The following reports are from three whose newsletters I’m subscribed to, and whose websites are worth visiting…

…First, from Defenders of Wildlife:  http://www.defenders.org/

“We congratulate President Obama on his victory and look forward to working with him and his administration in the coming months and years. With the el  ection now behind us, President Obama and the new Congress must find a balanced way to avoid the so-called fiscal cliff. This budgetary gridlock is threatening to unleash a series of devastating budget cuts that will slash funding for wildlife conservation to the bone.

The harsh reality is this: If Congress doesn’t get its act together and pass a budget before December 31, a cascade of crippling budget cuts will automatically sweep through all federal programs. The effect on wildlife will be devastating.

•The listing and recovery of endangered species will be severely curtailed.

•Urgent research on threats to endangered animals — like the white-nose syndrome that is wiping out entire colonies of bats — could be abandoned.

•Wildlife law enforcement reductions will leave wildlife refuges vulnerable to criminal activity and will decimate anti-wildlife poaching and smuggling enforcement operations.

•Many national wildlife refuges, forests and parks will be closed entirely — harming local economies that benefit from millions of visitors each year.

•Many public lands’ visitor centers will close, resulting in loss of education and recreation programs that benefit outdoor enthusiasts and children.

•Important protections for migratory birds will go unenforced.

Tell your representatives in Congress to do their job, and maintain needed protections for wildlife and their habitats. When Congress returns next week, they must act to stop this budget disaster. Tell them they must come to an agreement that will not harm crucial wildlife conservation programs.”

Wildlife lovers like you and me have a busy and challenging year ahead.

… Meanwhile, from the executive director at  WildEarth Guardians: http://www.wildearthguardians.org/site/PageServer asks of the president…

“While you savor your victory and contemplate your vision for the next four years, I’d like to share my vision of how to create a brighter future for our environment and our people.

•Create a new, clean energy economy . We need a carbon tax whose basis is both moral and economic; fossil fuels are killing the planet and Sandy’s wrath is just the latest example that the climate crisis is upon us. While it’s true that Americans want energy independence, it’s also true that the continued use of fossil fuels is endangering other core freedoms like a clean, safe environment. That’s unacceptable.

•Safeguard America’s endangered species. Whether gray wolves, sperm whales or tiger beetles—all species have a right to exist. It’s our moral and ethical imperative to protect imperiled species, as is beautifully articulated in the Endangered Species Act. We must defend and strengthen the Act to ensure that future generations inherit an earth as beautiful and diverse as the one we enjoy today.

•Protect our wetlands and rivers. Aquatic ecosystems are vital, now more than ever, and the Clean Water Act is a cornerstone of protecting these vital arteries of life. In a warming, overpopulated world it is critical that we do more to ensure that rivers have secure flows and that wetlands are protected as filters to pollution and buffers to intense weather events.

•Defend our last wild public lands. One of the most enduring and unique aspects of America’s natural heritage is simply that we still have wild country left. That’s because we have public lands that keep these places wild. Places like the Greater Gila in New Mexico and Arizona, the Roan Plateau in Colorado and the Red Rock canyon country of Utah. We want you to not only defend the ideal of public lands, but also use your authority under the Antiquities Act to protect these last wild places.”

…and from the NRDC: http://www.nrdc.org/ …

“American voters not only re-elected a president who made green jobs a cornerstone of his first term and his campaign, they also rejected some of the shrillest champions of Big Oil and Big Coal in key Senate races from Massachusetts to Ohio, from Virginia to New Mexico.We should be heartened that the fossil fuel lobby could throw $270 million at so many candidates hawking “drill, baby, drill” and climate denial — and get so little back on their investment.

Apparently, democracy lives … as does common sense. Voters roundly rejected an extremist agenda that says protecting polluter profits is job one, while the rest of us pay the price in illness, poisoned ecosystems and apocalyptic weather. That last point was hardly academic this Election Day, as millions in the Northeast are still struggling to recover some shred of normalcy after Hurricane Sandy.

Today, we are calling on President Obama to confront the urgent threat of global warming by reining in carbon polluters and dramatically boosting the role of renewable energy in American life. That is our very best hope for breaking Big Oil’s stranglehold on both our economy and our climate.

Toward that end, we’ll work closely with the second Obama Administration to build on great progress already made in so many sectors — like the new clean car standards we championed that will double the fuel economy of the average vehicle on the road. But we’ll also be watchdogging the administration to ensure it does the right thing: that the EPA proposes carbon limits for existing power plants … that the State Department delivers on its promise of a complete and independent review of the climate-wrecking Keystone XL tar sands pipeline … that the BLM cracks down on dangerous fracking.

Of course, NRDC always stands for the environment, not for any party or elected official. So if the Obama Administration strays from its avowed commitment to the environment, then we will hold their feet to the fire — in court — just as we’ve done with every other president over the past forty years. As you read this, we are suing the administration to save the Polar Bear Seas from Shell’s reckless plans for drilling in the Arctic … and to safeguard the very last 284 beluga whales in Alaska’s Cook Inlet from oil exploration.

Simply put, we will do everything in our power to help President Obama deliver on his goals of clean energy and environmental protection. But NRDC will hold him accountable — for our planet’s sake — if and when he falls short. As for Congress, it is time for the House Republican leadership and Tea Party members to face reality: the American people are in no mood for more ideological intransigence. By rejecting Big Oil’s candidates, voters sent a message loud and clear that they want more clean energy, less climate denial and an end to the $4 billion in taxpayer subsidies for fossil fuels. Those are the priorities NRDC will be putting front and center when the lame duck session of Congress begins next week.”

…No doubt we’ll have to continue to repeatedly remind our politicians that though the animals don’t vote, we can and will continue to vote for them and for the natural habitats they call home.

Text and Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson, 2012. All Rights Reserved

Shotgun Wedding

As all good Sunday sermons should be, this one is about love.

Specifically, the misuse, abuse or perversion of the word “love,” as in “I love guns,” “I love hunting,” or when a hunter says, “I love wildlife.” In other words, any “love” that takes place over the barrel of a gun. I’m talking about the kind of “love” that would be better described as obsession, covetousness or, simply, the egomaniacal urge to possess.

Interestingly, some people (such as psychopaths) who are incapable of actually feeling benevolence towards others, act as if they know the meaning of the elusive “L” word. The terms “trophy wife” and “trophy house” are becoming increasingly popular, but if you care about someone or something just because you own them, it’s not the same as caring about them for who or what they are.

Hunters often claim to care about wildlife—to cherish the animals that they want to kill—but they’re confusing actual human emotions with an avaricious urge to manipulate, dominate and control (the three underlying behaviors of a serial killer, according to former FBI profiler John Douglas).

Hunting is not an act of love, it’s a hate crime. Killing animals for sport is nothing short of abuse. As studies have clearly shown, animal cruelty often leads to domestic abuse and other crimes along the violence continuum.

The serial killing of wildlife is certainly not a healthy expression of love.

Text and Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson

 

No Market for the Truth?

I was watching a PBS documentary on the Alaska Lands Act and how the concept of protecting the wilderness was met with opposition by local resource extractors who had the patrician perception that the land was theirs and theirs alone and who wanted no part of any new ideas such as land preservation for the sake of the wildlife and nature itself.

The resident’s closed minded stance was reminiscent of that taken by the owner of a bookstore in Lincoln City on the Oregon Coast who refused to carry my book, Exposing the Big Game: Living Targets of a Dying Sport, on the grounds that there’s “no market for an anti-hunting book” around there.

While I do not doubt there are a higher percentage of hunters in that smallish tourist town compared to the national average, I don’t buy that no one living there or travelling through would be interested in expanding their knowledge on the subject of animal protection. There are certainly plenty of new pro-hunting books and magazines out these days, some of which were for sale in that very shop.

Based on what she told me, it’s clear that the bookstore owners’ snubbing of Exposing the Big Game was due to there being hunters among her family and friends and thus she did not want anything in the store that might expose the dark underbelly of sport hunting. It was just another case of someone doing their part to suppress the truth about the myriad of malicious ways that the animals of the Earth are being exploited for the benefit of just one narcissistic, overly-acquisitive species.

Text and Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson

 

 

To Wildlife, They’re All Assault Weapons

During last night’s debate, the president accused his opponent of pandering to the NRA by changing his stance on so-called “assault weapons.” The accusation is valid—former Governor Mitt Romney also pandered to the pro-gun lobby big-time by tapping die-hard “sportsman,” Paul Ryan, as his running mate. But at the same time he made the accusation, President Obama pandered to the NRA himself.

Though Barack Obama has never been a hunter (to his credit), he was quick to give oral tribute to hunters and “sportsmen” who use their weapons regularly and repeatedly (albeit “legally”) to assault the non-human citizens of this country. At the risk of showing his hand, I’d speculate that if it wasn’t for the power of the National Rifle Association to make or break an election, the president, deep down, would ultimately prefer to see all dangerous weapons banned.

Though they tiptoed gingerly around the subject, both candidates agreed that all guns are dangerous in the wrong hands. From the point of view of the wildlife, all weapons are assault weapons—and all hunters are the “wrong hands.”

Text and Wildlife Photography ©Jim Robertson