BUSH MEAT AND INVASIVE SPECIES | Jim Beers Article | My Website

BUSH MEAT AND INVASIVE SPECIES

09/04/07 21:59 Filed in: Jim Beers Article
"Bushmeat", like "Invasive Species", is one of those colloquial terms that has been hijacked by environmental extremists, animal rights radicals, Federal and UN bureaucrats, and politicians in search of the means of holding onto and increasing their power. "Bushmeat" is an African term commonly used to refer to wild animals (hence the "bush" term) eaten by native residents and visitors to rural areas. The term encompasses any animal that is abundant (easily located) and edible from monkeys and baboons to various deer, zebras, and hogs. There is currently a bushmeat.org site on the internet and a "Bushmeat Task Force" made up of a gaggle of bureaucrats and radicals in desperate search of an example that justifies both their existence and new laws and bureaucracy to solve yet another Ecological Apocalypse.


Before you send any money, relax: it is merely the latest of a long series of scams designed to take each of us one more step closer to the world of international rule run by all those folks I mentioned in the opening sentence.

Legally speaking, "Bushmeat" encompasses all those African wildlife species NOT named under UN Appendices (thereby giving the UN jurisdiction over them) or on the US Endangered Species List. "Bushmeat" are the common species that have been eaten and used for religious ceremonies for eons by Africans and visitors to that continent. "Bushmeat" are the wildlife species STILL UNDER THE JURISDICTION OF THE NATION WHICH THEY INHABIT.

What? Do you mean to tell me that the UN bureaucrats and EU politicians and all their Federal US counterparts can't tell "those Africans" what they can or cannot do with ALL their wildlife (like forcing them to tolerate overpopulations of elephants that destroy crops and villages and trample kids, or crocodile populations that eat women and kids, or DDT bans that trade off millions of African lives for imagined harm to some birds)? Well the only answer here is to form a dot-org front group and whip up imaginary "conspiracies" and "smuggling" and "unknown impacts" by appointing a gaggle of US and UN bureaucrats to work with the radicals (and identified "professors") to "uncover" this major "Ecosystemic" (a new word?) catastrophe. When that happens, guess what "the answer" will be? If you said a new UN treaty and new US laws and "more" bureaucrats" and "bigger government budgets"; you Madam or Sir are a highly qualified wildlife expert and an apparently sensitive person.

It works just like the latest (2-3 years) UN "Conferences" regarding "Small Arms and Ammunition". If you really believe that those Conferences have any other motive than to give the UN more authority and in the case of the US to destroy the 2nd Amendment by getting the US to sign a carefully crafted (like the UN Convention that spawned the Endangered Species Act) "Treaty" or "Convention" that becomes "the Law of the land" per our Constitution, you might as well not read any farther.

It works just like the US version of "building the federal government while destroying State governments through 'biology'" called Federal Invasive Species authority or Native Ecosystem Restoration. The US Federal government has seized jurisdiction and authority over migratory birds and various marine mammals and Endangered Species from US State governments just like the UN has seized control over many plants and animal from nations (through Treaties and Conventions). The species remaining under State jurisdiction (like resident game and fish and predators and the full range of rodents and reptiles et al are slowly being usurped by Federal actions. National Forests and BLM lands and National Wildlife Refuges and National Parks more and more rule these species as though they do not exist under State authority. Public land closures, outlawing methods of take (traps, dogs, guns, etc.), Federal requirements above state requirements, undermining of state agencies (by increased Federal funding "with strings"), treating game species as impure "Invasives", claims of the "need" for "Ecosystem purity" (i.e. a "Native Ecosystem" free of "Non-Natives" or "Invasives") are all incremental ploys that replace State authority with Federal hegemony. When "Invasive Species" advocates (while moaning about killer bees and brown tree snakes) are asked about pheasants and brown trout they demur just as the "Bushmeat' advocates when faced with wildlife abundance and National sovereignty say they are concerned about "human health". The simile of UN growth at the expense of National authority over species and the environment is exactly the same as this domestic power shift.

One might ask why US States or African Nations do not fight this usurpation? The answer is that more and more US State politicians and bureaucrats, like their African counterparts, believe that this power shift is inevitable. They believe that their own careers and rewards either depend on or will be benefited by "cooperation". They are often hoping to "move up" to a Federal or UN bureaucratic or political post where the rewards are even greater. They are intimidated by the flow of money and grants from The Federal government or UN that might be interrupted if they speak out. They are afraid that their own job or post might be jeopardized by bucking what so many see as "something for nothing" and that generally only directly harms rural Americans or African natives that don't matter anyway. The hunters and fishermen are silent because they just hope it doesn't cat5ch up with them "before they die" and besides the majority trust their organizations even though that trust is more and more illusory as employees go from job-to-job in agencies and organizations and political offices. "Bushmeat" like "Invasive Species" is merely a ploy TO USURP AUTHORITY OVER ALL REMAINING WILDLIFE SPECIES NOT ALREADY UNDER THE DIRECT AUTHORITY OF THE HIGHEST LEVEL OF GOVERNMENT.

Just as rural Americans and Americans who understand and value States rights need to be on guard about "Invasive Species" and "Native Ecosystem" ploys, so too do Africans need to be alert to and defeat this "Bushmeat" ploy. Europeans, Americans, and the UN no more should be interfering with the harvest and use of "Bushmeat" than the US Federal government should tell South Dakota what to do with THEIR prairie dogs or Oklahoma about what to do with THEIR rattlesnakes or Florida what to do with their wild hogs. It is not a Federal or international matter to dictate to Africans or African Nations how they harvest, what they harvest (no matter how "cute" or how "smart" we imagine them to be), or how they use it or transport it be it for food or religious purposes. Africans from Darfur and Sudan to Rwanda have enough religious and ethnic issues to overcome without the constant interference and jurisdictional robberies of "developed" nations that have channelized their own rivers, cleared away all their buffalo and wisent, and enjoy the fruits of environmental control that they so readily deny others.

Rural Americans and African Nations share a common threat. Like hunters and loggers and dog owners et al, they can either come together and fight or simply watch things disappear one at a time. The record to date doesn't bode well.

Jim Beers
9 April 2007

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- Jim Beers is a retired US Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife Biologist, Special Agent, Refuge Manager, Wetlands Biologist, and Congressional Fellow. He was stationed in North Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York City, and Washington DC. He also served as a US Navy Line Officer in the western Pacific and on Adak, Alaska in the Aleutian Islands. He has worked for the Utah Fish & Game, Minneapolis Police Department, and as a Security Supervisor in Washington, DC. He testified three times before Congress; twice regarding the theft by the US Fish & Wildlife Service of $45 to 60 Million from State fish and wildlife funds and once in opposition to expanding Federal Invasive Species authority. He resides in Centreville, Virginia with his wife of many decades.