TWO + TWO
12/04/07 15:30 Filed in: Jim Beers
Article
Two news stories have
crossed my desk this morning that say mountains about
what they don't say. One article from the New York
Daily News goes under the banner:
"Save tot from coyote's jaws"
"Beast tries to drag baby into N.J. woods but is chased off by gutsy 11-yr.-old boy"
The second article, from the Idaho Statesman, runs under the banner:
"Grizzly bear recovery presents new challenge"
"Save tot from coyote's jaws"
"Beast tries to drag baby into N.J. woods but is chased off by gutsy 11-yr.-old boy"
The second article, from the Idaho Statesman, runs under the banner:
"Grizzly bear recovery presents new challenge"
While each is
informative, these two articles together say a great
deal about the unsaid. So let's examine each one and
then add them up.
The 11-year-old New Jersey boy was playing in the back yard when "A coyote got ugly as it snatched a baby from a New Jersey home, biting into its neck and trying to drag it into woodland in only the second recorded attack in the state." He reports that, ""I heard some rustling in the shrubs, but thought it was a deer. Then all of a sudden, it came out and jumped on Liam and was biting him. I started beating it, kicking and screaming. I thought it was going to kill him. I didn't even think about what I was doing."
The 11-year-old's Dad said, "When I was a kid, the worst thing you were going to find in those woods was a skunk." When he ran out to save the child, "It (the coyote) turned round and it was running at me. It was the size of a German shepherd, skinny and mangy-looking, with tufty fur. I shouted at it, waving my arms, and it stopped, but it didn't leave. It stayed at the edge of the lawn, watching us. It seemed to have no fear."
The coyote escaped but "Liam (sic the 2-year-old) was treated for deep scratches and was given rabies shots but was not seriously injured".
To cap off this ugly incident, "Darlene Yuhas of the Division of Fish and Wildlife said a woman was bitten in Morris County in 1999 in the only known previous attack" and "Investigators had set traps but had not caught the animal as of last night".
COMMENT: Coyotes are increasing all over the Eastern US. In the urban/suburban habitats of Naivous americanus (those are naïve Americans) they are treated like Disney characters. Earlier this week my wife listened to ladies at Curves talk about how "cute" the coyote was that had walked into a Chicago Quiznos recently. When they become familiar with humans and their habitations they get bold and begin to behave unpredictably and dangerously. We will believe that Dobermans or pit bulls or rottweillers are dangerous when loose but we believe the twaddle from radicals and bureaucrats that coyotes and wolves and mountain lions and grizzly bears "always do" thus and so and "never" do that.
So the coyote lady from the New Jersey "Fish and Wildlife" (?) says there was only one previous attack? I'm sorry to be nasty but who takes reports of attacks? The same fish and wildlife people in all these states that tell the Minnesotan that "it couldn't have been a mountain lion" and tell the Wyoming sheep rancher "we can't be sure it was a wolf" or the New Mexican living in a trailer that "it was your fault for leaving the dog outside". These are the same state people that look to getting more money and people for doing what hunters and trappers used to do before hunting, like New Jersey trapping, is outlawed. Note the use of "traps" by "investigators" since trapping, indeed even the possession of traps (I have some old historic ones myself) is illegal in New Jersey. This episode is the sort of thing that will actually get Federal funding to hire more (union?) state employees as the Federal takeover of state fish and wildlife agencies (through Federal Appropriated funding with "strings) proceeds.
The second article about grizzlies is likewise full of word games and hidden facts.
"Today, biologists estimate the bear population in and around Yellowstone has risen to more than 600." One rural Idahoan reports, "living in a subdivision with dogs, neighbors and lots of activity, he never dreamed he'd stare down through his picture window at a bear standing erect on his deck. I figured you'd have to go into the wilderness to see one," Peterson said. "The bear ignored his garbage on its regular jaunts through his yard. But the young bear had found dog food and bird seed his neighbors left out and kept coming back for more. As the bear became bolder, Peterson began to fear for the safety of his 3-year-old daughter, Maggie. He wasn't alone. The bear was sleeping in the doorways of other homes and going inside other garages. By November, the bear should have hibernated. But apparently well-fed and confused, she kept coming into the aspen-covered community on the edge of the national forest until she was trapped and released in the wilderness east of Yellowstone." The ubiquitous lady biologist countered, "Some people like to have them around," said Laurie Hanauska-Brown, Idaho Department of Fish and Game wildlife biologist in Idaho Falls. She goes on to give us the solution, "The key to keeping bear-people problems to a minimum is keeping human food and garbage away from bears", said Hanauska-Brown.
Reportedly on the bright side, a guest ranch owner says, "They don't bother me near as bad as wolves," Hossner said. "The bears haven't done more than get into our garbage cans. The wolves ate some of my neighbor's animals."
The answer? "The federal government organized the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee that included the federal land management agencies, the states of Montana, Idaho and Wyoming, and other federal agencies to develop the plan to recover the bear population. Sheep grazing was phased out of the national forests surrounding the parks. In addition to the sanitation programs, enforcement efforts reduced grizzly killings by hunters and sheepherders." Additionally, "Perhaps the toughest issue was the need to reduce road densities in the national forests. Decades of extensive logging had left a vast network of roads and trails deep into the heart of grizzly habitat. Biologists learned that too much human activity kept bears from using even good habitat. Roads also brought poachers."
So, "In the 1990s, under several court orders, the Caribou Targhee National Forest closed more than 400 miles of roads and trails in grizzly habitat over the loud objections of hunters and other outdoor enthusiasts. Officials cut the road density to six-tenths of a mile of road per square mile, the level federal biologists say is necessary for grizzly habitat." "But a new report written by the Greater Yellowstone Coalition suggests there are still too many roads. They looked at one area of the forest adjacent to Yellowstone National Park where they found 181 miles of roads getting regular traffic -- 117 more than allowed under federal rules. The same area had 193 miles of motorized trails open -- 104 miles more than allowed." Thus, "By the end of 2004, all six national forests surrounding the parks will have approved new grizzly bear habitat protection rules similar to those on the Caribou-Targhee, Reese said. That will ensure that the 9,200 acres of core habitat -- an area larger than Connecticut -- is secure."
I hesitate to quote any of the government "droppings" about "delisting" and "making the Idaho (or Montana or Wyoming) fish and wildlife "responsible" for the grizzlies. Any "delisting can and will be voided in a New York second by a lawsuit before the "right" (or "left" as the case may be) judge. The state agencies are less and less answerable to state government and state residents anyway as Federal funding transfers through Federal agencies grow and employees jump back and forth and Federal takeovers of everything seem inevitable as opponents of resource management and use gain more and more control of the levers of power. Finally, any "assurance" from a US Fish and Wildlife Service or US Department of the Interior "official" is suitable only for paper purposes in the home. Whether they are sincere or honest or not, whatever they may or may not do today, the employee or appointee placed there under the next Administration (from PETA or HSUS or Sierra or World Wildlife Fund, et al?) can be undone quicker than the New York second cited above. The problem is the law passed by Congress and it's pernicious use and expansion by bureaucrats and radical organizations tolerated by corrupt politicians.
COMMENT: The grizzly has been used to stop logging, close down sheep ranching, restrict cattle ranching, decrease elk herds (they are real good calf killers), kill rural dogs, shut down the majority of access and use of (formerly) public lands, and generally discourage more and more Americans from living on greater swaths of private property. "Trapping and release" is foolish since the places where they exist are already crowded (so they will kill or be kill by other grizzlies) and the places where they aren't, should not get them. Federal bureaucrats (like the Forest Supervisor) restrict uses and access and revenue generation on "public" lands while being rewarded not only professionally but by more and more funding from the National Treasury. People are told they "don't belong here" (i.e. their home or work site or place of recereation, etc.) by government employees (that reputedly work for them). They are told to keep their pets and children inside. They are arrested and prosecuted many time more thoroughly than illegal aliens by enforcers trained and equipped to levels comparable to what we have in Afghanistan and Iraq. The West is being vacated and American citizens are being persecuted by their own government and central government power is not only usurping state authority, it is expanding to permanently deny and eliminate the Constitutional rights of citizens. All because "someone?" says grizzlies (or wolves or mountain lions or coyotes) "belong here" in whatever numbers and densities government decrees? This is not "Nuts" it is an evil agenda being perpetrated on a nation of sheep.
SUMMARY:
I have no doubt that the real consequences of wildlife worship in the East and wildlife used as a radical tool in the West are far more than is publicly known or acknowledged. The attack on the New Jersey boy, like the attack on a similar Cape Cod child is avoidable by reducing and KEEPING reduced populations of such animals in urban/suburban environments. They will only get worse as the animals are more familiar and comfortable with humans. My own County in Virginia is hiring a "biologist" to explain to us "how to live with wildlife" while ignoring the politically incorrect, controversial, and only real solution - control. Rabies shots are bad enough. Coyotes, like mountain lions and wolves and grizzly bears are fully capable of snatching a child or older person and consuming them. This, in my opinion, allows our friendly government employee to pawn it off on a child molester or Alzheimer's because of some "law of biology" and a reluctance to focus public ire where it belongs.
The people being directly affected in the West know these things but they are powerless before unjust Federal laws, the raw power of government bureaucracies, and the legal machinations of truly evil environmental and animal rights agendas. They know coyotes stay away from human places where they are shot or trapped. They know that the grizzlies and wolves are killing their dogs, destroying their hunting, making them consider moving to a city, destroying rural economies, and leading to even more powerful central government and radical forces in this country. They know the depth of the lies about "they never" and "they always" and "you are living in their habitat". Yet they remain hostage to the values and ignorance of New Jerseyites, Bostonians, Chicagoans, and Los Angelinos that soon enough will experience the growing attacks and harms that have always far outweighed and environmental claims or romance in a howl and have heretofore been the burden of bumpkins and people that you disagree with politically anyway.
So supporting politicians that let you take away other's rights from property and guns to fighting roosters and pets is OK until they start to do the same to YOUR right to a free press, or speech, or religion. Just as the Western wildlife experience is heading East, our loss of freedoms is sure to expand. Like rust, once it starts it can prove impossible to stop.
Putting this genie back in the bottle, as our far wiser forefathers knew and did, will be costly and it will take time and determination. Whether we still have the intestinal fortitude for prolonged confrontation and victory is being tested not only in the Middle East but in New Jersey and Idaho as well. Much is riding on each conflict.
Jim Beers
12 April 2005
- If you found this worthwhile, please share it with others. Thanks.
- This article and other recent articles by Jim Beers can be found at http://jimbeers.blogster.com (Jim Beers Common Sense)
- Jim Beers is available for consulting or to speak. Contact: jimbeers7@verizon.net
- 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.
The 11-year-old New Jersey boy was playing in the back yard when "A coyote got ugly as it snatched a baby from a New Jersey home, biting into its neck and trying to drag it into woodland in only the second recorded attack in the state." He reports that, ""I heard some rustling in the shrubs, but thought it was a deer. Then all of a sudden, it came out and jumped on Liam and was biting him. I started beating it, kicking and screaming. I thought it was going to kill him. I didn't even think about what I was doing."
The 11-year-old's Dad said, "When I was a kid, the worst thing you were going to find in those woods was a skunk." When he ran out to save the child, "It (the coyote) turned round and it was running at me. It was the size of a German shepherd, skinny and mangy-looking, with tufty fur. I shouted at it, waving my arms, and it stopped, but it didn't leave. It stayed at the edge of the lawn, watching us. It seemed to have no fear."
The coyote escaped but "Liam (sic the 2-year-old) was treated for deep scratches and was given rabies shots but was not seriously injured".
To cap off this ugly incident, "Darlene Yuhas of the Division of Fish and Wildlife said a woman was bitten in Morris County in 1999 in the only known previous attack" and "Investigators had set traps but had not caught the animal as of last night".
COMMENT: Coyotes are increasing all over the Eastern US. In the urban/suburban habitats of Naivous americanus (those are naïve Americans) they are treated like Disney characters. Earlier this week my wife listened to ladies at Curves talk about how "cute" the coyote was that had walked into a Chicago Quiznos recently. When they become familiar with humans and their habitations they get bold and begin to behave unpredictably and dangerously. We will believe that Dobermans or pit bulls or rottweillers are dangerous when loose but we believe the twaddle from radicals and bureaucrats that coyotes and wolves and mountain lions and grizzly bears "always do" thus and so and "never" do that.
So the coyote lady from the New Jersey "Fish and Wildlife" (?) says there was only one previous attack? I'm sorry to be nasty but who takes reports of attacks? The same fish and wildlife people in all these states that tell the Minnesotan that "it couldn't have been a mountain lion" and tell the Wyoming sheep rancher "we can't be sure it was a wolf" or the New Mexican living in a trailer that "it was your fault for leaving the dog outside". These are the same state people that look to getting more money and people for doing what hunters and trappers used to do before hunting, like New Jersey trapping, is outlawed. Note the use of "traps" by "investigators" since trapping, indeed even the possession of traps (I have some old historic ones myself) is illegal in New Jersey. This episode is the sort of thing that will actually get Federal funding to hire more (union?) state employees as the Federal takeover of state fish and wildlife agencies (through Federal Appropriated funding with "strings) proceeds.
The second article about grizzlies is likewise full of word games and hidden facts.
"Today, biologists estimate the bear population in and around Yellowstone has risen to more than 600." One rural Idahoan reports, "living in a subdivision with dogs, neighbors and lots of activity, he never dreamed he'd stare down through his picture window at a bear standing erect on his deck. I figured you'd have to go into the wilderness to see one," Peterson said. "The bear ignored his garbage on its regular jaunts through his yard. But the young bear had found dog food and bird seed his neighbors left out and kept coming back for more. As the bear became bolder, Peterson began to fear for the safety of his 3-year-old daughter, Maggie. He wasn't alone. The bear was sleeping in the doorways of other homes and going inside other garages. By November, the bear should have hibernated. But apparently well-fed and confused, she kept coming into the aspen-covered community on the edge of the national forest until she was trapped and released in the wilderness east of Yellowstone." The ubiquitous lady biologist countered, "Some people like to have them around," said Laurie Hanauska-Brown, Idaho Department of Fish and Game wildlife biologist in Idaho Falls. She goes on to give us the solution, "The key to keeping bear-people problems to a minimum is keeping human food and garbage away from bears", said Hanauska-Brown.
Reportedly on the bright side, a guest ranch owner says, "They don't bother me near as bad as wolves," Hossner said. "The bears haven't done more than get into our garbage cans. The wolves ate some of my neighbor's animals."
The answer? "The federal government organized the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee that included the federal land management agencies, the states of Montana, Idaho and Wyoming, and other federal agencies to develop the plan to recover the bear population. Sheep grazing was phased out of the national forests surrounding the parks. In addition to the sanitation programs, enforcement efforts reduced grizzly killings by hunters and sheepherders." Additionally, "Perhaps the toughest issue was the need to reduce road densities in the national forests. Decades of extensive logging had left a vast network of roads and trails deep into the heart of grizzly habitat. Biologists learned that too much human activity kept bears from using even good habitat. Roads also brought poachers."
So, "In the 1990s, under several court orders, the Caribou Targhee National Forest closed more than 400 miles of roads and trails in grizzly habitat over the loud objections of hunters and other outdoor enthusiasts. Officials cut the road density to six-tenths of a mile of road per square mile, the level federal biologists say is necessary for grizzly habitat." "But a new report written by the Greater Yellowstone Coalition suggests there are still too many roads. They looked at one area of the forest adjacent to Yellowstone National Park where they found 181 miles of roads getting regular traffic -- 117 more than allowed under federal rules. The same area had 193 miles of motorized trails open -- 104 miles more than allowed." Thus, "By the end of 2004, all six national forests surrounding the parks will have approved new grizzly bear habitat protection rules similar to those on the Caribou-Targhee, Reese said. That will ensure that the 9,200 acres of core habitat -- an area larger than Connecticut -- is secure."
I hesitate to quote any of the government "droppings" about "delisting" and "making the Idaho (or Montana or Wyoming) fish and wildlife "responsible" for the grizzlies. Any "delisting can and will be voided in a New York second by a lawsuit before the "right" (or "left" as the case may be) judge. The state agencies are less and less answerable to state government and state residents anyway as Federal funding transfers through Federal agencies grow and employees jump back and forth and Federal takeovers of everything seem inevitable as opponents of resource management and use gain more and more control of the levers of power. Finally, any "assurance" from a US Fish and Wildlife Service or US Department of the Interior "official" is suitable only for paper purposes in the home. Whether they are sincere or honest or not, whatever they may or may not do today, the employee or appointee placed there under the next Administration (from PETA or HSUS or Sierra or World Wildlife Fund, et al?) can be undone quicker than the New York second cited above. The problem is the law passed by Congress and it's pernicious use and expansion by bureaucrats and radical organizations tolerated by corrupt politicians.
COMMENT: The grizzly has been used to stop logging, close down sheep ranching, restrict cattle ranching, decrease elk herds (they are real good calf killers), kill rural dogs, shut down the majority of access and use of (formerly) public lands, and generally discourage more and more Americans from living on greater swaths of private property. "Trapping and release" is foolish since the places where they exist are already crowded (so they will kill or be kill by other grizzlies) and the places where they aren't, should not get them. Federal bureaucrats (like the Forest Supervisor) restrict uses and access and revenue generation on "public" lands while being rewarded not only professionally but by more and more funding from the National Treasury. People are told they "don't belong here" (i.e. their home or work site or place of recereation, etc.) by government employees (that reputedly work for them). They are told to keep their pets and children inside. They are arrested and prosecuted many time more thoroughly than illegal aliens by enforcers trained and equipped to levels comparable to what we have in Afghanistan and Iraq. The West is being vacated and American citizens are being persecuted by their own government and central government power is not only usurping state authority, it is expanding to permanently deny and eliminate the Constitutional rights of citizens. All because "someone?" says grizzlies (or wolves or mountain lions or coyotes) "belong here" in whatever numbers and densities government decrees? This is not "Nuts" it is an evil agenda being perpetrated on a nation of sheep.
SUMMARY:
I have no doubt that the real consequences of wildlife worship in the East and wildlife used as a radical tool in the West are far more than is publicly known or acknowledged. The attack on the New Jersey boy, like the attack on a similar Cape Cod child is avoidable by reducing and KEEPING reduced populations of such animals in urban/suburban environments. They will only get worse as the animals are more familiar and comfortable with humans. My own County in Virginia is hiring a "biologist" to explain to us "how to live with wildlife" while ignoring the politically incorrect, controversial, and only real solution - control. Rabies shots are bad enough. Coyotes, like mountain lions and wolves and grizzly bears are fully capable of snatching a child or older person and consuming them. This, in my opinion, allows our friendly government employee to pawn it off on a child molester or Alzheimer's because of some "law of biology" and a reluctance to focus public ire where it belongs.
The people being directly affected in the West know these things but they are powerless before unjust Federal laws, the raw power of government bureaucracies, and the legal machinations of truly evil environmental and animal rights agendas. They know coyotes stay away from human places where they are shot or trapped. They know that the grizzlies and wolves are killing their dogs, destroying their hunting, making them consider moving to a city, destroying rural economies, and leading to even more powerful central government and radical forces in this country. They know the depth of the lies about "they never" and "they always" and "you are living in their habitat". Yet they remain hostage to the values and ignorance of New Jerseyites, Bostonians, Chicagoans, and Los Angelinos that soon enough will experience the growing attacks and harms that have always far outweighed and environmental claims or romance in a howl and have heretofore been the burden of bumpkins and people that you disagree with politically anyway.
So supporting politicians that let you take away other's rights from property and guns to fighting roosters and pets is OK until they start to do the same to YOUR right to a free press, or speech, or religion. Just as the Western wildlife experience is heading East, our loss of freedoms is sure to expand. Like rust, once it starts it can prove impossible to stop.
Putting this genie back in the bottle, as our far wiser forefathers knew and did, will be costly and it will take time and determination. Whether we still have the intestinal fortitude for prolonged confrontation and victory is being tested not only in the Middle East but in New Jersey and Idaho as well. Much is riding on each conflict.
Jim Beers
12 April 2005
- If you found this worthwhile, please share it with others. Thanks.
- This article and other recent articles by Jim Beers can be found at http://jimbeers.blogster.com (Jim Beers Common Sense)
- Jim Beers is available for consulting or to speak. Contact: jimbeers7@verizon.net
- 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.
