Lucy Holds the Football for Charlie Brown Once Again

Guest blog by Jim Beers

18 March 2011 -
“WASHINGTON, DC – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has reached an agreement with the majority of plaintiffs, including Defenders of Wildlife, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, and eight other conservation organizations, to settle ongoing litigation over a Federal District Court’s 2010 decision to reinstate Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections for gray wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains.”

So the US Fish & Wildlife Service “reached an agreement” with DOW, GYC, “and eight other ‘conservation’ (?) organizations”? That is like Libya reaching an agreement with Iran, Pakistan, “and eight other ‘freedom-loving’ Middle Eastern democracies” They are exactly the opposite of what they are trying to appear to be as they all plot mayhem to destroy 100 years of actual “conservation of USA renewable natural resources” while posing as a bunch of “conservationists”. You don’t know whether to laugh or lock up the women and kids.

USFWS is administered by advocates and sympathizers of these organizations that they appear to be dealing with. In fact, the USFWS has been “partnering with”, hiring, promoting, and appointing to high office members of these groups, employees of these same groups, and sympathizers of the agendas of these anti-hunting, anti-fishing, anti-trapping, anti-ranching, anti-logging, anti-management, and anti-use of resources and public lands radicals for over 20 years. Their “agreement” is simply a smokescreen to try and head off the gathering political force in Congress to delist the wolf in Montana and Idaho where their (the wolves) destruction and real danger have become evident to everyone from hunters and ranchers to parents
and grandparents. What USFWS and this despicable coalition appear to be doing is to “turn over” management of wolves to the states of Montana and Idaho: what they are actually doing is keeping their federal ESA authority in tact in those two states as future lawsuits, other “front” group actions and future federal actions will reassert when the time is right.

There is no evading the fact that as long as the present ESA is on the books and the awful precedents it has spawned are recognized by courts, there is no recourse for Americans and rural Americans in particular from the growing tyranny of those making this agreement. The USFWS will continue to cooperate, scheme, and plan for future Acts with these same groups and their agendas.

The next (or even the current one for that matter) Secretary of the Interior can say his Solicitor says this wasn’t lawful just like the President and the Attorney General recently said that the Defense of Marriage Act isn’t lawful so they just won’t enforce it. When Montana and Idaho allow killing wolves for 6 months annually, a judge will be found that says that is too long. When Montana and Idaho let ranchers shoot wolves killing livestock or dogs USFWS will say that will reduce the wolves below some imaginary term invented with a grant at a University (genetic turbulence or imbalanced sex ratios or habitat connectivity disruption, etc.). USFWS will assert that there are fewer wolves suddenly and that the potential for further reduction is endangering the genetic health of the Lower Montane/Upper Plains wolves that are so important to sustaining state biological niche interstices in the state wolf habitat as constituted throughout the native ecosystem of the state. In other words the feds and their “agreement” “partners” will reassert federal hegemony when the political climate returns to their idea of “normal”.

So you think you can “trust” the USFWS and this school of jellyfish? Does anyone remember?

- When USFWS ignored massive and routine pollution of the Potomac River in Washington, DC for years by the US Army Corps of Engineers making potable water for our elites?

- When USFWS remained silent about how Potomac River developments like bridge construction and shore-side marina/casino development destroyed the spawning and nursery habitat of the Endangered Short nosed sturgeon?

- When USFWS met secretly with these same, so-called “conservation” (gag me with a spoon), organizations in the 1990′s to work covertly with the European Union bureaucrats that were bribed to destroy the European fur market to destroy trapping and furbearer management in the US, Canada, and Russia?

- When USFWS stole $45 to 60 Million from State hunting and fishing program funds to dump the wolves in Yellowstone?

- When USFWS and their state fish and wildlife agency “partners” never replaced the stolen money?

- When USFWS began turning over millions of dollars annually to the state fish and wildlife agency Washington lobby group to buy their acquiescence in not asking for the replacement of the money stolen to
introduce wolves into Yellowstone?

- When USFWS was requesting federal autonomy over “Invasive Species” (like “Endangered Species”) and other “conservation partners” like Pheasants Forever and Trout Unlimited remained either silent or supportive, in spite of the explicit authority being created to eradicate pheasants, Hungarian Partridge, Brown Trout and many other important game species being in such Act?

- When USFWS let state fish and wildlife agencies’ uses of the Pittman-Robertson and Dingell-Johnson funds go unaudited for years despite legal requirements to audit them every five years?

- When USFWS fired contract auditors that were finding large misuses of the P-R and D-J funds in the state agencies and then hired the very same Inspector General responsible for auditing USFWS (??) activities to “audit” the state agencies for USFWS and to everyone’s “surprise” no discrepancies were found?

- When USFWS top retirees were and are hired by Ducks Unlimited and Bass Pro and others that somehow remain quiet when any USFWS scandal or request for new powers becomes public?

- When USFWS was buying tens of thousands of acres of private property for National Wildlife Refuges and local government governments were promised Payments-in-Lieu-of Taxes that USFWS never fought for and that slowly dwindled?

- When USFWS bought and requested lands for National Wildlife Refuges that would continue to manage natural resource uses like grazing, logging, trapping, and water both for Revenue-Sharing with local communities and the economic benefits that such management and use provided to rural economies?

- When USFWS tried to surreptitiously change (through regulations, policies, and insider-language insertion into existing laws) the Congressional intent for Refuges from “waterfowl nesting, migration, and wintering habitat” to “Native Ecosystems” with no hunting despite specific Congressional authorization language and the use of Duck Stamp funds for the purchases?

- When Defenders of Wildlife could get away with saying they “support hunting”?

- When DOW, NRDC, CBD, HSUS, AWI, API, and PETA et al had to sneak through the back door for secret meetings with top USFWS officials, before they took over the agency?

As long as the ESA stays like it is, without being either repealed, nullified, or seriously amended these bums will hang over the heads of Americans like a sword of Damocles. Like their history shows, this “agreement” is merely a ploy of the moment, just like yesterday when the UN Security Council voted to make Libya a “No-Fly-Zone” and Quadaffi or Khadafi or whoever quickly called a truce but kept on bombing, strafing, shooting, and attacking. You can no more trust federal agencies armed with tyrannical laws like the ESA and organizations bent on destroying America as we know it, than you can trust Khadafi and all those mercenaries he has hired to kill his opponents and armed with the superior firepower to call or keep a truce.

Apologizing for Being Unfair

Earlier this afternoon I wrote a harsh, but factual, piece about the recent announcement of an “Agreement” between the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the “Defenders of Wildlife, the Greater Yellowstone Coalition and eight ‘conservation’ organizations” regarding the granting of management of wolves in Montana and Idaho to state fish and wildlife agencies (under continuing federal oversight of course). In what was admittedly rather blunt language about this chicanery and the federal agency and the environmental/animal
rights organizations’ self-interest in this period of growing state and local outrage at the impacts of wolves on big game hunting, livestock, dogs, and especially rural human safety; I was less that thorough.

As a result of my candid and impolitic observations in the article titled “A Deal Between Devils” sent in an e-mail titled “Lucy Brown Holds the Football for Charlie Brown Once Again” I have been deluged by e-mails accusing me of being “bitter” and “insensitive” and of wrongfully accusing USFWS of “evil motives” and evil actions in the past. I stand accused and offer the following response.

I did fail to articulate two observations about the perfidy of this “agreement” that would shed more light on my claims of an agency (USFWS) and a law (ESA) that cry out for reform.

1. The “agreement” between USFWS and Defenders of Wildlife et al is in reality an “agreement” between USFWS and the former Director of USFWS who now hold a top position in the Defenders of Wildlife. This former USFWS Director was in charge of USFWS when $$45 to 60 million was stolen by USFWS from state hunting and fishing funds to introduce wolves into Yellowstone under President Clinton. This is the same Director that appointed Defenders of Wildlife to be the federal governments’ overseer of documenting and
paying for livestock depredations by wolves. This is the same USFWS Director that (when a Republican President was elected) resigned and went to work at a top salary for The National Wildlife Federation for 2 years and was amicably laid off with a big settlement from NWF for a year (which covered the 3 year legal requirement before you could go to work for organizations you had dealt with as USFWS Director) and then went to work for DOW (the leading pro-wolf organization) at a top job and salary.

2. USFWS has an additional and surprisingly fearful reason to propose this agreement at this time. With the Tea Party, Republicans, and those Democrats worried about getting re-elected all obsessing about “cutting spending”, the last thing USFWS wants is the growing anti-wolf sentiment in the Upper Rockies to spill over into politicians thinking about cutting the USFWS budget or, God forbid, USFWS authorities. Therefore this “look and see how we ‘get along’ and ‘compromise’ play acting” is considered wise bureaucratic maneuvering worthy of at least a bonus, if not a promotion.

So save your breath about being nasty or bitter. The USFWS needs reform more than any other federal agency I know and the organizations that they tout signing an “agreement” with are among the most anti-American Americans that I know of and I say that as one that has seen them up close. The ESA is perhaps the most anti-American and tyrannical law ever foisted on the American public, and to quote Lily Tomlin -”That’s the truth”.

Jim Beers
19 March 2011

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 Eagan, Minnesota with his wife of many decades.

Jim Beers is available to speak or for consulting at jimbeers7@comcast.net

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