Summer comes, final plans are made and the car is packed. The drive takes about 12 hours but the anticipation is great. Everything the family has read and heard and even pictures viewed attributes to the building anticipation.

Finally, on the first day, you drive the wife and kids to the park and you visit the Welcome Center, once again picking up brochures and looking at maps, all that touristy stuff. You even take the time to view the movie in the theater. But when you and your family emerge from the darkness of the theater, it is only then that you discover that’s it. This is all there is to see and do in Acadia National Park. You question an information employee and they tell you that having attractions in the park is part of a long-term plan that hopefully funding will become available so that eventually they can build roads and put out picnic tables, etc.

As inane as this all seems, it appears this is what the recommendations will be like when the Maine Legislative Task Force, commissioned to figure out why Maine has seen such a drastic decline in game license sales, presents its findings.

The minutes to the final officially scheduled Task Force meeting of November 20, 2011 have become public information now and these minutes gives us a glimpse at what the Task Force will recommend to the Maine Legislature. Oddly, those recommendations were due on December 1, 2011. (Note: At the time of this writing, those minutes had not been posted on the MDIFW website. Check this link to see if they have.)

It is no secret that the overwhelming attraction for hunters to Maine has been the opportunity to hunt whitetail deer. One can argue that perhaps the state hasn’t done a good enough job promoting the resources available to hunt other game species, however, you just can’t ignore that fact.

If the majority of people visit Acadia National Park because their main focus is to see Thunder Hole or drive to the top of Cadillac Mountain and either or both of those elements of the park disappeared, who would still want to come? Yes, the National Park Service can mount a campaign to get visitors to come because there are other things to do and see, but it would remain a major obstacle to overcome and pretending the Mountain or Hole is still there and the Park Service is doing all it can to get them back, will do little to bring visitors until it actually happens.

This is how I see the Task Force attempting to address a problem with lack of hunting license sales. There are no deer to speak of in Maine. The herd is in trouble, and while the vast majority of hunting license buyers want to hunt deer, expending nonexistent money and resources to convince them to come to Maine anyway and hunt other things and do other activities besides hunt whitetail deer is nothing more than a huge denial. Hey, here’s an idea. Let’s use the same resources and money to build the deer herd and THEN go invite participants! Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (MDIFW) complains they can’t do this or that to help the deer herd because there is no money, then why, if this Task Force thinks it can find money to promote other things to do with hunting, funds can’t be found to kill more coyotes and improve habitat?

In the final meeting minutes, of which comprises 14 pages, the ONLY mention of the major attraction gets two and one half lines:

7. We need to educate people on what DIF&W is doing to increase the deer herd. Stop sending the negative messages and send the positive messages of what we are doing to address the problem.

I’m afraid that’s it! And then the next page and a half is spent addressing how to market all the other things Maine has to offer. I’m not saying that this Task Force hasn’t come up with ideas and suggestions that probably would help attract visitors IF THERE WERE DEER TO HUNT! Get it? DEER – DEER – DEER – DEER! That’s what it’s all about. A nonresident hunter might want a hot tub to play in at night or Wi-Fi but it’s still all about deer! Have you ever seen a ski resort draw a crowd when there is no snow? Didn’t think so.

As I illustrated at the very beginning, people are drawn to certain things. Whether it’s Magic Kingdom at Disney, Thunder Hole in Acadia or Old Faithful in Yellowstone, if those attractions comprise an overwhelming majority of what the people want to see and those are taken away, these attractions will suffer greatly until they are brought back or something better to replace them.

It appears, for whatever the reasons, this Task Force is either unable or unwilling to see clearly that having no deer to hunt is a problem. If you want to open a theme park, it is strongly recommended that the first thing you do is develop a theme. There must be a focus of what the attraction will be. Whitetail deer are the focus of attraction for hunting in Maine. Yes, the turkey hunting, grouse hunting and bear hunting might be some of the best around but it does little when the majority want deer to hunt. It’s a simple concept really.

I understand the complexity of resolving the lack of deer problem. What I don’t understand is the skirting of the issue by this task force. Because the Legislature decided who would be able to sit on this task force, perhaps the make up is too heavily empowered by governmental agencies and representatives that most participants fear addressing this issue. I just don’t know.

There are no “regular sportsmen” on this panel; only guides and outfitters. While I understand the focus of this task force is to determine why nonresidents aren’t coming to Maine to hunt, don’t Maine resident hunters/sportsmen have something to say about it?

It makes little sense to me and has positioned itself to become nothing more than just another governmental bureaucratic waste of time and resources to say and recommend things that sound good and make our hearts beat a bit faster for a moment.

I think it would be a reasonable recommendation to make that Maine first built the roller coaster ride and then sell tickets for the ride. Doesn’t that really make sense?

Tom Remington

Technology is supposed to speed things up, isn’t it? And, one would guess better technology would make for more precise things, and maybe even make “forecasting” even better. It has become obvious that this certainly isn’t the case for some things.

Consider the efforts by William Gray and Phil Klotzbach from the University of Colorado, who for twenty years and with some the finest and most advanced technology available to them, have decided to give up trying to predict how many hurricanes the United States will have to deal with in the next upcoming hurricane season. Why? Because their method stinks and the results are worse.

Of course, most of the sane world now understands that high tech computer models used for predicting climate changes are only as good as the biased information fed into a software model designed to create desired outcomes. While the modeling for climate change fails miserably, perhaps the technology isn’t all that bad. But when used and abused in the wrong way, it spoils the whole bunch.

For those of us deeply involved in wildlife management, we’ve come to also understand that computer modeling for wildlife predictions about mirrors the fraud behind climate change modeling.

Looking for better data and information derived from this kind of technology, seems to be worthless because of the influence of man’s greed and lack of any kind of moral backbone. So let’s discard any thoughts that high technology is worth a bag of dirt when it comes to using it to better manage our wildlife and conserve our species and habitat.

But certainly one would suspect that from the days gone by when fish and game personnel would have to hand count deer harvests, it must have taken an eternity. Are we also to be grateful now because technology provides for anxious hunters’ harvest figures for the deer seasons just ending? Let’s take a look at Maine.

In the year 1913, the Boston Evening Transcript printed a story on Nov. 29th, two weeks before the end of the deer hunting season in Maine, stating that as of that date 1,900 deer had been harvested, compared to 2,561 for the same time period the previous year.

As well in 1913, the New York Times reported on Dec. 1, again two weeks before the end of the deer hunting season in Maine, that Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts had combined killed 5,180 deer. Now it must have taken some pretty advanced technology to be able to get a count on deer that quickly and from four states as well.

Evidently this lack of high technology didn’t prevent news reporters from getting all kinds of data on Maine’s deer herd. On Nov. 28, 1956, the Lewiston Daily Sun filed a report about what happened after the 1955 season. Not only did they provide Maine hunters with the deer harvest numbers, they also got: average number of deer killed per square mile statewide – 1.17; of the 35,591 deer killed, non-resident hunters attributed to taking 23%, along with a representation of where the non resident hunters came from; what percentage of the harvest was taken on Saturdays and holidays; when the peak killing time was; buck and doe ratio of the harvest; weather breakdown and how it may have effected harvest; kills by county; and others. All done by hand.

On Nov. 21, 1972, just 4 days prior to the end of a shortened deer season in Maine, the Bangor Daily News was able to report that 20,506 deer had been shot and tagged as of sunset on Nov. 18th. It appears it took a long stretch of 3 days to compile that information for the press. And Maine was still hand counting the deer harvest.

Laughingly, in 1974, Bud Leavitt takes Maine fish and game commissioner Maynard J. Marsh to task asking him why he is hiding information about the deer harvest for that year. Mind you the article, published in the Bangor Daily News on Nov. 21, 1974, I’m guessing with a week left to go in the deer hunting season, is asking for specific information about harvest data. Leavitt facetiously writes that this information must be a secret and that, “Through 4 p.m. Wednesday, a preliminary count indicated hunters had tagged 14,251 whitetails.” Mr. Leavitt wants, what I can only presume was the norm back then, information and data on the hunt to date, other than just a preliminary kill count.

In Leavitt’s frustration he writes:

Why shouldn’t the Maine citizenry be afforded the latest, up-to-the-minute information with respect to the cropping of one of the state’s most valuable game animal[s]?

Why should Maine citizens be spoon-fed information dealing with one of the state’s best known sporting traditions, the matter of deer hunting? We say, if a network television computer can predict the winner of a state governorship with the scantest kind of information, certainly Maine citizens ought to be apprised of how their deer are being killed in a season that began in the early days of November.

Leavitt makes more than one point here. Not only is he looking for deer harvest information but he brings into question two things. One, he wants to know what it is the commissioner is trying to hide, which of course is normal when information and communication from any state fish and game office is lacking. Second, Leavitt questions the commissioner, vis a viz the governor and entire state of Maine’s serious commitment to “one of the state’s most valuable game animals” as well as “one of the state’s best known sporting traditions”. Obviously Leavitt held these two in high regard and he was considering the commissioner did not.

And so, from years ago, when fish and game personnel used to manually collect and count harvest data it appears that it took, on average, about 3 or 4 days for the fish and game to come up with at least a preliminary count, when they had the mind to do it.

In Bud Leavitt’s case, he expected and demanded more information than that. Did he get it? This may have been the beginning of the end so to speak.

It appears, and I have to admit I didn’t spend hours researching old newspaper archives, that with the onset of the computer as a high technology tool to assist biologists and fish and game personnel, the free flow of information dried up. Most would consider that trend to be the opposite.

At a time when sportsmen would think availability of harvest data would be a mouse click away, Maine hunters have to wait for several months to get a “preliminary” deer harvest count and a few weeks later to get the extremely limited “deer harvest data”, a “full” report, that hunting license buyers pay dearly to be collected and compiled.

The “official” Deer Harvest Report from Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (example here) is two pages in length. The first page is a map of the state that shows deer harvest for that year by town. The second page is a generalized written report of harvest numbers compared to the year previous, with summations of how some Wildlife Management Districts may have fared compared to others. You’ll find harvest numbers for archery, etc.

It becomes a bit subjective from one hunter to the next as to what is considered valuable and useful information in a deer harvest report. Obviously, the number one issue is total numbers compared with other years and how many hunters bought licenses compared to other years so some general comparisons could be made.

For me personally, I would prefer to see data that tells me more important things like age structure and buck to doe ratios. Toss in a fawn recruitment figure or two and while your at it tell hunters if these numbers are high, low or normal.

But this is wishing and wanting I guess. It’s extremely difficult to get this information by asking for it directly but that isn’t really the premise of this article though.

The beef here is why does it take Maine hunters 4 months or longer after the deer season closes before any of this information is made available? Bud Leavitt was angry that he didn’t have preliminary information, not just harvest counts, one week BEFORE the season closed. Today, with all the advanced technology available and at the disposal of our MDIFW personnel, we have to wait 4 or more months.

If we can’t do better than this, then I strongly suggest the fish and game department could save bundles of money by selling off and getting rid of their computers. They are obviously worthless when it comes to getting data out in a timely fashion.

And, have the Maine sportsmen become so desensitized to this kind of abuse and disrespect that they have just come to accept it? I would guess. Recall what I wrote above about the points Bud Leavitt was trying to make 27 years ago. He was questioning the serious commitment by the then commissioner of fish and game because of the blatant disregard of the sportsmen and one of the state’s most prized animals and traditions. What I took away from that piece was that Bud Leavitt felt like he was being kicked in the guts, that there wasn’t enough care from fish and game to give the hunters and the fine citizens of the state of Maine what they DESERVED to have.

How do you feel?

Tom Remington

Is it me and my expectations of the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife (MDIFW) are too high or has the passage and implementation of the Maine Game Plan for Deer, become a useless instrument supported by “I can’t”?

Some say I’m not fair in my criticism of MDIFW but frankly what criticism is ever considered fair when you are the target of the criticism? Criticism should always be followed by suggested remedies, which I usually try to do.

Maine sportsmen held out hope going into the last election of governor, thinking that an administration change at both the Blaine House and regime change at MDIFW, that resources and attention would shift back toward actual game management, particularly deer, addressing a decades-long downward spiral in the state’s deer population.

When all the changes took place, personnel went to work to draft an official plan to rebuild the deer herd. George Smith, former executive director of the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine and now writer and outdoor/environmental pundit, attended a long meeting with members of the MDIFW to update the progress of the Game Plan for Deer. George files an initial report on the meeting.

I did not attend the meeting so I can only comment on Smith’s perspective of what he took away from the event. In essence, Smith relates that there was little optimism for the future and little had been accomplished and little projected to take place. Perhaps he puts it best when he wrote:

expectations are now high and his [MDIFW Commissioner Chandler Woodcock] ability to deliver is low

In reference to the content of the meeting, Smith says: “A lot of time was consumed with a discussion of deer feeding problems, predator controls, and deer/vehicle collisions.”

I’m not sure that I agree, as Smith writes that the number one issue facing a depleted deer herd is habitat, it appears nothing is even being done to address that problem.

But very little time was devoted to habitat protection and enhancement – the key problem and the major reason for the state’s diminished deer population according to the agency’s wildlife staff. Surprisingly little is actually being done on this.

I guess the catch phrase here might as well be, “I can’t!” After reading this assessment, once again my blood pressure spiked and I began breaking pencils and tossing them across my office. One stuck into the screen to the side door. What I sputtered about for the next 20 minutes sort of came out something like this:

It’s all about habitat! I’m so sick and tired about hearing how everything must be blamed on habitat. Well, you know, habitat is important but nobody has ever answered my question about why if there just isn’t any deer wintering areas left there are many acres of deer wintering areas where there are no deer. I could better understand this excuse if the deer herd was near the state’s carrying capacity, but it’s not. And yet, according to George Smith nothing is planned to deal with that so………

We can’t do anything about the weather and MDIFW is not going to do anything about habitat, so………

Then logic would force a sane individual to ask, what CAN we do? Let’s take what we CAN do and prioritize it into what has the biggest negative impact on down to the least and begin there.

So once MDIFW gets done forming more task forces, putting up more signs of deer crossings, paying to fly around and count deer, reduce Any-Deer Permits, shorten the deer season, close it in some areas, raise the license fees, pray for more global warming, take the dog for a walk, go out to lunch, form another task force, walk the dog again, investigate how many deer are being killed by farmers, then perhaps they could get down to predator control or does that have any negative effect at all? Maybe they see coyotes and other predators as positive effects on the deer. I mean take the wolf. They are like the wonder drug, geritol, spandex and lycra, WD-40. I think the presence of wolves cures cancer. Can coyotes be that much different?

And I still haven’t calmed down yet!

I can’t! MDIFW doesn’t have the resources. I can’t! The demands are too high. I can’t! I can’t! I can’t! I can’t!

CAN’T NEVER DID ANYTHING!

Where’s the effort here? Who’s on board with this effort to rebuild Maine’s deer herd? Has the state really made a commitment to rebuild the deer herd? Does Maine honestly see and understand the economic as well as cultural impact the loss of a deer herd and ultimately a hunting season would have on the state?

I have to seriously question that commitment.

Recently I received an email from a gentleman who is head of Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife in Utah. I shared that email with a few select recipients on my email list, including the MDIFW Commissioner Chandler Woodcock.

The email was a call to arms for Utah and other sportsmen from the Western regions of the United States, to come together in a united effort to rebuild a depleted mule deer herd. The email begins by clarifying what efforts had been done to date to fix the problem.

While more than 750,000 acres of habitat has been restored, cougar populations have been reduced, and $650,000 a year in coyote control is spent, $50 Million has been invested to fence highways with underpass crossings, still not enough has been done. It is the feeling that 80% of Utah’s deer herds are still in decline, and only 20% or so are doing well.

How many acres of this much needed habitat restoration has been done in Maine? Oh, that’s right. I can’t. What concerted efforts are underway in Maine to reduce predators, including black bears, bobcats and coyotes, even if only temporarily until the herd rebuilds? Oh, that’s right. I can’t. How much money has been put toward coyote control in Maine? Oh, that’s right. I can’t. How much has been invested in other projects around the state to protect and build the deer herd? Oh, that’s right. I can’t.

WE already know Senator Hatch has helped get tens of millions in habitat restoration money, personally toured Habitat restoration areas, won the wolf war for sportsmen etc.

In Maine, it appears the Governor has promised to do everything he can do, but when was the last time Sen. Snowe, Sen. Collins, Rep. Michaud, Rep. Pingree attended one of any meetings on the issue of rebuilding Maine’s deer herd? Or toured any deer yard? Oh, that’s right. I can’t. How about the last time one of these elected officials sent a key staff member to assist? Oh, that’s right. I can’t. When was the last United States senator or representative who “helped gets tens of millions” to help do anything with wildlife management in Maine? Oh, that’s right. I can’t.

As was written about in this email, there is an election coming up again next November. Maine sportsmen should be looking at every candidate and demanding that they have an agenda to actually do everything they can to save Maine’s deer herd or they won’t get your vote.

The overall effort here is just coming across as pathetic. Certainly there are pockets of positive accomplishes and isolated individuals doing what they can, but Maine’s overall effort is poor. The Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine, once the backbone of lobbying for the sportsmen is in disarray with a sinking membership and disunity among those members still hanging on. Perhaps David Trahan can right the ship. It is imperative for Maine’s future for sportsmen. The governor makes promises to “do what he can” but is he? Isn’t it time to rattle the cages of the 4 Congressional delegates and tell them it’s time for them to get involved. If Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah can “find” millions of dollars to help with restoring habitat and mule deer there, isn’t it reasonable to expect the same might be available somewhere for Maine?

Can’t never did anything. As long as the current administration in Augusta insists that there’s nothing they can do or they are doing all they can, what hope is there? To exclaim that “expectations are now high and his ability to deliver is low” is a loser attitude. There is no room for this when a state is faced with such a serious problem. But, then again, maybe the real problem is that those in high places don’t really view a lost Maine deer herd as a serious problem or even a small problem.

The Maine Game Plan for Deer is a worthless document until a strong and united effort is undertaken. It has to be more than task force creations, meetings, talk and rhetoric, while fractured small groups or individuals practice futility. It appears Maine has to learn how to build a coalition that brings everybody onto the same page. Until that happens the only rebuilding of any deer herds will be happenstance.

Maybe David Trahan, if he were to successfully pull all this together in a united and powerful force to reckon with, this would, at the same time, resolve the Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine’s membership problems. Just a thought! Let me know when you are ready to fight.

Tom Remington

The Syndicated News Articles – copyright 1968, 1969, 1970, 2010 Lili Fabilli Osborne, as executrix of the estate of Eric Hoffer.

Published by Hopewell Publications, LLC, PO Box 11, Titusville, NJ 08560

Man is Not One with Nature – December 7, 1969

Man’s ascent through the millennia must be seen as a ceaseless striving to break away from the nonhuman cosmos. The age long groping of freedom is an aspect of this blind striving to step outside the iron necessities which rule nature. The attempt to make human affairs as precise and predictable, as scientific, as a process in nature is an attempt at dehumanization.

The equation, human nature = nature, if read from left to right, gives us not only the scientific approach to Marx, Darwin, Freud and Pavlov but also the approach of ruthless soul engineers such as Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler who experimented with blood.

When read from right to left the equation gives us the magical approach, the belief that nature, not unlike human nature, can be influenced by words, and by other means which are proved their efficacy in the manipulation of human affairs.

Thus both the scientific and the magical approach postulate the oneness of man and nature, and both are agencies of dehumanization. The Communists and the Nazis embraced both the scientific approach, of treating man as matter, and the magical approach, of trying to change reality by the power of words, by slogans and incantations.

In human affairs, all genuine opposites reflect the archetypal opposites of man and nature. Life and death, city and country, civilization and barbarism, free and slave, God and the devil, and perhaps even man and woman are such genuine opposites. On the other hand, oppressors and oppressed are not true opposites since both are dehumanized.

The same is true of the natural and the mechanical: Both are the opposite of that which is uniquely human. You dehumanize man as much by making him “natural” by making him one – with rocks, vegetables and animals, as by turning him into a machine. Nature, after all, is a perfectly, automated machine. To build something in the image of nature is to build a machine.

When you automate an industry you modernize it; when you automate a life you primitivize it. Man is God-like when he makes nature pliant and obedient, but he becomes an anti-God when he automates human beings and makes them pliant and obedient. For God turned malleable clay into man while anti-God turns man into malleable clay.

The United States of America is disintegrating right before our eyes. But what’s just as alarming is that we are sitting here like idiots and letting them do it. The United States Senate has voted to include an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 that would give our military the right to take any American they deem a “terrorist” and lock them up indefinitely. You can be stupid about this if you choose, however, I suggest you take a couple of minutes away from Lady Gaga, Dancing With the Stars, The Biggest Losers, NFL Football and MTV and consider what this means.

Let me first say that the United States Congress, collectively the House of Representatives and the Senate, are the biggest crooks that live on this planet. They deserve nothing than to be run out of office and locked up tightly in jail as they are the real terrorists. These rotten bastards, contrary to the wishes of We the People, continue to use the legislative process to pass their dirty rotten political schemes, promote their tyrannical agendas and deprive every American of their God-given rights. This is the kind of action that has caused riots, civil wars and revolutions.

There is a reason Congress refuses to provide legislation that allows for the voting of only one issue per bill. It is because they are criminals. They lie and love it. They cheat and make a living at it. They use these earmarks to gain the favor of voters but just as importantly to carry out the wishes of those who empower them. Their fellow crooks, who control the money and the power, buy and pay for their politicians and as Americans we are now seeing the results of that effort.

Always a crisis! Always! That’s the new leverage used against American. Keep the idiots in America scared. Keep them petrified and they will cede anything.

Some think this country has gone to hell because of the democrats; some think it’s the republicans who are to blame. It’s time for Americans to understand that it’s both of them. They do not deserve to even walk the halls of Congress. They disgust me, make my stomach wretch. Such filthy disgusting lies that emanate from their cruddy mouths. It’s vile, an abomination.

We voted for them and we need to get rid of all of them. We need to reform Congress. Hey, here’s a brilliant suggestion. Let’s return it to something that more closely resembles what the United States Constitution decided it ought to be.

Remember, and of course it began long before this, but if you will recall after the attacks on the World Trade Center, under the fear mongering of President George W. Bush, Americans were eager to relinquish their rights all in the name of national security. The masses supported it. The republicans demanded that Americans needed to be patriotic and give up some of what our forefathers died for. Freedom demands sacrifice, they said.

The same republicans are now demanding that the U.S. Military should be given the authority to take into custody anybody on American soil, including U.S. citizens, whom they suspect to be a “terrorist”, and hold them indefinitely. Understand what this is saying. Please!

Little that remains in America resembles the America my ancestors sacrificed their lives for. I am sick and tired of the perpetuated lies by the pretend “conservatives”, who wouldn’t know conservatism if it bit them in the ass, about how great America is and that we have a few troubles but we’ll work them all out. Just vote Republican! End all your worries!

Open your eyes! It’s all around. Vermin in Washington are taking everything that is yours! Don’t you get it? Wake up! They are taking your property. They are taking everything you have earned and for what? So they can tell you that you are incapable to taking care of yourself? That you need government to wipe your nose? These power repulsive bottom feeders now posses such large heads from their own self importance, they also wish to take from you rights given you by God at birth. Trust me when I tell you that God doesn’t like governments that do that.

Remember what Barack Obama promised America before he got put in the White House? He told Americans about how the world thought ill of us and that by the actions of the United States we had few friends. He was going to solve that problem. He was going to bring our troops home, have tea with the enemy and there would be no more fighting with the those who hated us because it was all our fault. Remember all that?

Where are we now? What friends we had are gone. More troops have died. Pakistan now hates us. Obama has succeeded in killing thousands and thousands of innocent people through support of his “Arab Spring”, a fancy name for genocidal regime change and paving the way for Islamic radicals. All the Mid-East and North Africa has been destroyed, and on and on it goes. In short, the man is a liar. He once was a member of Congress. What a better place to learn how to lie, cheat and steal from the American people.

Little by little by little we have given up all of our rights. We kid ourselves when we make statements like: “We need sensible limits on rights.” Was that a preamble to the Bill of Rights? Did the Founding Fathers layout the ground rules for the definitions of rights of which they recognized came from God not from government? Was it written in our Constitution that all of our recognized rights must first be examined by Congress and “sensible” restrictions put on them? And where is it written that we must cede these rights “for national security”?

What changed all this? Congress lied! Congress cheated! Congress stole! The structure of our Government is fine. It’s those elected to abide within that structure. They have failed miserably. And now Congress believes and have convinced you and me that they have the power to do that. Just ask any one of those corrupt mobsters and they will eagerly tell you that Congress has the right. They will not speak of the sworn oath to uphold the Constitution because in their minds they are the Constitution. They decide, you abide. That’s not freedom!

Much of what I have said above is harsh and probably most people will think politically incorrect but if it might help just one person to wake up long enough to understand what is happening, then I don’t care. I know the Department of Justice monitors this website and I don’t care.

For those who think I have shown disrespect for the offices of the United States Government, then I say respect is earned. At present there exists not one blessed sole in Washington that has earned an ounce of my respect. They are like ill-reared brats who have lost their way and have turned to corruption as the answer. Nothing in my book allows for respect for anyone who acts in such a manner.

Call your representatives today and tell them you are outraged by this. Don’t stand for it.

Tom Remington

While it appears that the newly leaked emails contain nothing new, one reporter for the Daily Mail, David Rose, points out that the University of East Anglia (UEA), home of the corrupt Climate Research Center (CRU) and Tyndall Centre for Climate Research (TCCR), provided advice and consultations with the BBC as to how it should present media stories on such issues as climate, economy and other issues.

The emails seem to indicate that the BBC was intent on working with UEA to stifle any opposing views or information as it pertained to the “research” of scientists at the University. This improper, if I might be so kind, relationship between the BBC and UEA was mostly fostered by one Roger Harrabin of the BBC, who, not so coincidentally, sat on the Advisory Board at Tyndall Centre for Climate Research at the UEA.

But seriously, should any of this come as a surprise to those of us that follow this issue and others, that we understand that the entire climate change thimble-rigging is a snow job? Should it also be of any surprise that the media, in this case the BBC, is in the command and control of what is allowed to be read by the public on climate change research?

As with most reports of this nature, never do reporters step beyond the obvious. It is easy, and many reporters do this, they report on what they are allowed to report on. I know that sounds silly and senseless, but if one is willing to look beyond the comfortably palpable regurgitation of the media, they may see a more disturbing snapshot of reality.

In our arrogant predisposition, bestowed upon us by our departments of education, we merely roll our eyes and mutter some kind of disapproving mantra about a sucky press and corruption and then move on with our shallow, self-fulfilling lives.

Does it not give us reason to pause, even for the blink of an eye, and wonder if there is more to this? Shouldn’t you and I wonder to what extent this manipulation by both the media and the education/scientific realms has on our lives? If it’s done for one such cause, i.e. climate change, isn’t it a logical conclusion to know that it is done at all levels for all issues?

And if one dares to think beyond even this level, then wouldn’t the next logical progression lead us to at least ask why this becomes necessary? You should wonder what, if anything, you have willingly accepted from the media as actually the truth.

If a person is courageous enough to delve into such thoughts, then why not one step further to ask: Who controls the media and the universities; therefore every aspect of our lives?

Tom Remington

Those whose careers are built on the creation and dissemination of ideas– the intellectuals– have played a role in many societies out of all proportion to their numbers. Whether that role has, on net balance, made those around them better off or worse off is one of the key questions of our times.

For many of us, a continuous battle wages on to reeducate the indoctrinated wildlife managers who have been enslaved by the intellectuals. In doing so, we must gain a better understanding of who it is we are battling against and why they say and do the things they do.

In the article I described above and in a more recent article, I spoke of a definite “divide” that exists between the hunter/field person and the wildlife managers. This divide, which prohibits the honest dissemination of wildlife management information, is at least partially attributed to the elitist separation of the intellectual from the “common man”.

As Sowell describes, the intellectuals “create and disseminate” ideas. Ideas are not scientific equations substantiated with hard data. They are ideas. Ideas about wildlife management seems to have taken a strong rooting in wildlife management while hard and proven science takes a back seat. Hunters in the field see the truth of what is taking place in the field and it does not necessarily match the ideas of the intellectuals who are responsible for the indoctrination of the biologists. The divide widens.

Over a year ago I called for efforts between the sportsmen and the managers to work at tearing down these ridiculous walls that divide us. Little has changed. While it is still important to fight the good fight, perhaps the realization exists that there is little hope of “changing” the intellectual.

I am currently reading Eric Hoffer’s book, “The Syndicated News Articles”. In the late 1960s, Hoffer wrote The Syndicated News. This book is a compilation of many of his thoughts, ideas and commentary on the events of the day. Interesting as each and every article is, much of what he writes is applicable to today.

I have taken the time to type out one article called, “The Definition of an Intellectual”. I believe it to be important to help us gain a better understanding of this one man’s perspective on what an intellectual is and how they affect all of us. With a better understanding we equip ourselves with improved tools to get our jobs done.

Here is: The Definition of an Intellectual

February 16, 1969 – By Eric Hoffer in his book “The Syndicated News Articles” – Hopewell Publications, LLC

The intellectual knows with every fiber of his being that men are not equal, and there are few things he cares for less than a classless society. He is convinced that government is too weighty and complex to be left to common people. He cannot see how anything originating in an uninformed, unprincipled and uncommitted populace could be of any value. There is nothing he loathes more than government by and for the people.

Yeah, yeah, yeah! I know. Too many indoctrinated and ignorant Americans will laugh and scoff at such statements because this would never happen in America…..right? And yet, the evidence stares them directly in the face. All one needs to do is open his or her eyes to behold.

Recently at the University of Montana a group calling themselves scientists gathered to discuss many things, among them the need to take private lands for the good of wildlife because it just seems that to these people the public lands, which comprise nearly 60% of the total land base of Idaho, isn’t enough for the animals. The Federal Government owns and controls over 30% of our total land and this isn’t enough?

When you read the article you’ll see that the culprit who thinks your land is worth taking for wildlife, Michael Soulé, refers to the need to pillage land as “recruit(ing” private land owners. Don’t be fooled by the choice of words.

People like Soule want your land. They first came as the Federal Government to “set aside” lands for the good of the Motherland. That wasn’t enough. It was discovered that endangered species declaration could chew up another chunk of private lands as well as destruction of rights. Introducing wolves has been quite effective and now these groups and individuals have become so brazen in their actions they just simply state they want your land. Are you going to give it to them?

If you read the entire piece, you’ll discover also some discussion about how “computer modeling” will help “scientists” see what the future looks like when one inputs their ideological theories into this devised software. When you consider the amount of trouble the world has gotten itself into with the inaccuracies and political hostage taking of computer modeling, there is absolutely no reason to have any confidence that “new” computer modeling is any different. It is created for one purpose and one purpose only; to achieve desired results. We the American people have the choice of being brain dead followers and accepting it or doing something about it. I have a pretty good idea what the end result will be.

Tom Remington

A growing chorus of hunters, dog owners, ranchers, and rural residents of all stripes are becoming aware of the magnitude of the enthusiasm and support for predators from wolves and grizzly bears to coyotes and cougars. While this enthusiasm is seen as a core belief by environmentalists and animal rights radicals intent on destroying animal ownership, hunting, fishing, trapping, grazing, public land use, natural resource management and use, rural economies, and a long list of impediments to their national hegemony like state and local governments and private property rights; the existence of this veritable predator worship among “scientists”, “experts”, University faculties, and government bureaucracies is surprising many, especially rural Americans.

Long lists of predator “studies” – cited to “prove” that predators don’t depress prey species, or that large predators are not dangerous, or that predators are not vectors for deadly diseases, or that non-lethal protections for humans threatened by predators work, or that if individuals and communities simply adjust their lifestyles living with deadly and destructive predators will result in some sort of pre-human Eden – all baffle rural residents whose daily experiences expose these lies being used to pass laws to control, regulate, and adjudicate them and their families and lifestyles out of existence. The questions, “How can they believe this stuff?” and “Why do the politicians and courts and bureaucrats accept these lies and their truly evil purposes?”, are heard increasingly as wolf, grizzly bear, coyote, and cougar protection, population increases, range increases, and damaging effects spread like a snowball rolling down the long and steep national slope.

I believe that growing numbers of citizens are coming to understand the various self-serving agendas of those responsible for the growing list of deadly attacks, property destruction, and rural mayhem being perpetrated by these predators:

- Environmentalists use the “native species”, “balance of ‘naychur’” and “endangered” myths about predators to get laws passed that advance their blitzkrieg campaign to totally control every inch of rural America.

- Animal rights radicals use the myths about predators to justify destroying game herds and bird flocks that support hunting and trapping. The widespread killing of dogs discourages animal “ownership” (just like diminishing hunting decreases public support for the 2nd Amendment) thus reducing objections to eventual elimination of private property rights in animals. Livestock depredations increase costs to livestock owners forcing bankruptcies and small herds as seen in central Asia where livestock production is a tiny, local, and more subsistence thing. Human attacks discourage not only hunting, fishing, camping, and other outdoor activities; they discourage rural residency and thus private property owners in rural areas slated for radical/government acquisition and (cheaper) easements to employ land control that is but another key to people control.

- Politicians love to “pass” warm and fuzzy laws to “restore the ecosystem” and “save the environment”. Predators are romantically portrayed via an environmentally-friendly media in anthropomorphic caricatures beloved by urban children, urban elites, and moneyed powerbrokers – none of whom live with, raise families near, recreate near, or struggle to make a living near these very destructive predators. The result is a hard-core predator constituency that votes enthusiastically and supports expensive lobbying for more and more and more predators. This is why the increasing predator/human interfaces are more and more costly due to prohibitions against killing them as only an unjustifiable last resort in favor of catch-and-release processes that merely transfer the problem that more often than not returns to the scene of their original, sighting or crime – take your pick.

At this point I would like to take the liberty of “lumping” the rest of the predator lovers into one herd. I know that this leaves me open to charges of not “celebrating diversity”, but so be it.

Most University faculties, in addition to their personal interests in reaping the 30+ year bonanza of federal grants and professorial benefits attendant to “findings” confirming radical/government self-serving claims, have an even more visceral “love of predators”.

Most federal and state bureaucracies over the last 30+years preferentially hired and promoted women and other urban government-designated minorities (the majority of whom were at least uncomfortable with and at most unalterably opposed to hunting, fishing, trapping, logging, grazing, rural lifestyles, local governments, etc.) as they eliminated the legally-designated purposes of their agencies and the lands they acquired. The agencies that were once respected authorities have become little more than politically “responsive” roosts for political sycophant employees that support this visceral “love of predators”. Hence the lies about wolf impacts, the disinformation about grizzly bear’s presence in settled landscapes, the claims about how human behavior is responsible for human deaths, the encouragement for wandering cougars and wolves to settle in places like Iowa, Wisconsin, etc. (where they do not belong) and how “they were here first” chirping from government employees regarding a take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum to the very citizens that pay their salaries and retirements.

There are, in my opinion two basic reasons why Universities and government bureaucracies “love predators”.

1. The gradual perversion of the study of natural resources and applied methodologies resulting from such studies over the past century.

When I first began reading about wildlife and nature in the 1950’s there was a subtle undercurrent regarding “predator control”. It was often “unnecessary”, “ineffective”, and the advocates of predator control were often characterized as “uneducated” rural rubes simply tolerated out of necessity by the college-educated elites that ran the agencies. Predator control administrators that were once equal administrators that moving around and moving up in the agencies, were increasingly isolated in their control specialty where grades and responsibilities were less than the more “modern” branches proliferating in the agencies. Control agents were often called “killers” and were detested by the environmentalists, animal rights radicals, and New Age hires referred to above. From a premiere section of the federal bureaucracy that emerged under Teddy Roosevelt 100 years ago, predator control was unceremoniously and quietly moved to the US Department of Agriculture in the 1990’s where it was hoped that established agriculture priorities would lead to the demise of this despised activity.

When I went to college in the 1960’s predator control was recognized by some professors and dismissed by others. Very much like political discussions today, predator control v. anti-predator control discussions became heated matters that were irresolvable and only evoked recrimination and personal animosities.

When I went to work for the federal government I came to understand that since the time of Teddy Roosevelt there evolved the common-sense attitude toward natural resources v. the romantic attitude toward natural resources. Forests were either lands that produced timber, fish and wildlife, grazing lands, revenues, jobs, recreation, etc. for people and the Nation; or they were “Wilderness”, “Roadless”, “Closed”, “Preserved for their own sake” sacred lands to be kept inviolate ad infinitum. Wildlife management was either the preservation, control, and use of species supportive of human societies and landscapes or it was the “Native species” or “Native Ecosystems” or “necessary Apex Predators”, etc. to be protected, never interfered with, lived with or avoided by moving to urban areas. Similarly grass lands were either grazing lands or agricultural lands to be developed in line with American rights and principles or they were lands that must remain in “Native” grass, lands that should be let burn whenever the fire is “natural”, and only used by free-roaming buffalo or whatever “native” species that government designates based on the “science” bought and paid for by government and radical groups.

From all this in the 1970’s the federal bureaucrats were wearing hats that read, “Save The Dirt” and there were increasing calls for “more” federal authority over “ALL” Waters of the US, increasing conversions of National Forests, National Refuges, and the uses of other federal lands from the Bureau of Reclamation to the Bureau of Land Management from traditional uses and management to non-use and “let ‘naychur’” take care of it non-management.

Throughout the above scenario, predators and their effects were romanticized and distorted by “science” and “scientists” that basically wanted to lift their image from Middle Ages Gamekeepers providing desirable species for those that employed them, to “Einsteins” of the Natural World deciding what will go where based on their knowledge that a befuzzled public would never understand or much less appreciate.

2. As a result of the foregoing (#1.) there has arisen a pervasive disenchantment with and growing disdain for US Constitutional government among Universities and bureaucracies that see themselves as representing not humans and their needs but a romanticized notion or plants and animals that need to be restored where people have “taken” their habitat from them. US Constitutional government represents the people that formed the government and people are the enemy of those thinking of themselves of serving this higher good of reducing the human presence to favor the plant and animal presence of their choice.

For those familiar with my essays, I have written and spoken at great length about how the US Fish and Wildlife Service stole $45 to 60 Million from state fish and wildlife agencies and used it to introduce wolves, an action that Congress had previously refused to fund. I have detailed a dozen serious violations of federal law involved in this theft. See my talk “Criminal Activities by Federal Bureaucrats and Others Involved in the Introduction, Protection and Spread of Wolves in the Lower 48 States” given in Bozeman, Montana for The Friends of the Northern Yellowstone Elk Herd in May of 2010. The result was that no one was ever prosecuted. The Director at the time went on to a high-paying job with the Defenders of Wildlife and the National Wildlife Federation. The political hire that was in charge of the funds at the time is now the Director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Finally, the State fish and wildlife agencies NEVER requested that the funds be replaced. So much for what everyone likes to deny exists: environmental extremism is eroding the rule of law and our limited government from beneath our feet.

As this “love of predators” more and more perverted wildlife “science” and as Universities, state bureaucracies, and federal bureaucracies merged like some biblical plague of locusts into a single form destroying Constitutional government beneath it, other things became impediments to their agenda:

- Private property rights were peppered like shooting targets that were not replaced. Whether it is livestock, dogs, or rural homesteads, predators are a wedge to government dictation of how and where we live and what we will be allowed to eventually “control” but not own at government sufferance.

- Local governments’ representation of local communities becomes irrelevant as such governments are stripped of tax sources and federal courts set one precedent after another about such government’s irrelevance in this New Age.

- State bureaucracies more and more depend on federal funds. State bureaucrats; like politicians, federal bureaucrats, and political staff employees; look to future job enhancements among these entities as retirement transfers and hiring become payoffs enabled by recent laws and the elimination of hiring standards and requirements have become the norm. There is no “credible” opposition as all recognized expertise resides with those adopting the new normal. Local communities are at the mercy of federal overseers that not only ignore them but actually work to remove them from the landscape.

- Authority and jurisdiction over “ALL Water of the US” instead of the Constitutional “Navigable Waters of the US” is seen as necessary if full land use and land management authority is to be taken from private property owners and State governments are ever to be placed under federal hegemony.

- Guns, whether for hunting or self-defense, are viewed by the “predator lovers” as dangerous to their agenda, dangerous to the predators, and dangerous to enforcers.

- Government land use and management that is anything other than contributory to government plans are problems to be dealt with and eliminated.

- Hunting, fishing, trapping, livestock, recreation, etc. advocacy groups must be shredded as grazing is shut down here, as timber management is shut down there, and as hunting et al disappear like stars one at a time as when the sun casts its first light on a night sky.

We are all starting to realize how these agendas are all one. The protection, spread, and introduction of these deadly and destructive predators is a major part of this movement. The disinformation about these predators is not only lies intended to attain evil objectives, the myths masquerading as “science” concerning predators is a deeply imbedded tenet of a belief system inimical to the rest of us that see and know the truth. Such beliefs are as hard to root out as some carbuncle on the national derriere.

The irony of all this is beyond current comprehension. If wolves, grizzly bears, coyotes, and cougars are ever to be tolerated in and persist in the rural Lower 48 States, four things are absolutely necessary:

1. Local (where the predators exist) support and tolerance.

2. Efficient, swift, continual, and lethal control measures.

3. Affordable controls by citizens as opposed politically vulnerable and expensive government programs.

4. State governments with ultimate predator jurisdiction that protect the interests of rural residents from both national and urban majorities’ whimsies.

Consider that these are precisely the things being destroyed as I write. One needn’t be a swami to see that if the predator pendulum is not reversed, either rural America will eventually be akin to some central Asian dictatorship where the pernicious effect of these animals are everywhere or rural America as we knew it during the height of American prosperity will begin to be slowly rebuilt for our children and their children.

The choice is ours.

Jim Beers
5 November 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