Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced this week that he would not reverse the Bush Administration's decision to remove gray wolves in the northern Rockies from the endangered species list. The Washington Post reports on the resulting controversy:
The wolf proposal was published just weeks before Bush left office, then suspended under a broad directive by White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.
Interior spokeswoman Kendra Barkoff said Salazar had followed the unanimous recommendation of Fish and Wildlife Service scientists in setting the new policy, rather than letting political factors influence him. "This was a decision based on science," she said. . . .
"Making the decision to adopt the Bush administration's flawed delisting proposal the same week that the president pledged his commitment to the Endangered Species Act certainly calls into question whether the Interior Department was coordinating as closely as one would expect to have done with the White House," said Bob Irvin, senior vice president for conservation programs at the advocacy group Defenders of Wildlife. "This was a controversy that did not need to happen."
One House Democrat, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, framed it in even more blunt political terms. "I just don't see what this does for us," the lawmaker said. "Here we are alienating people who did the most -- who did a lot to help us in the last election."
Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain...Democrats would never politicize science.
To be precise, no, the original Bush decision also didn't delist them in Wyoming.
Rahm's like a shorter, thinner, hirsuter, explitiver version of Dick Cheney.
Shrug agreed. The reporting seems confused over this. Certainly wouldn't surprise me if details were wrong.
The world is doing fine without dinosaurs and trilobites and will do just find with a few less species.
There can be only one!
You are aware that you're on the side of the wolves here, correct? Red in tooth, claw, and politics, evidently...
Also, natural selection means we need to stop caring about the environment if we want to save it. It's what Darwin would have wanted. I seem to recall He couldn't stop killing members of strange new species!
In reality, though, I was totally talking about God. See, I have noted that I am too awesome to arrive by random chance, and am proof of a higher power designing me.
Building on the Government Of Democrats idea, signs point to this power being a Roosevelt of some sort, though I cannot yet be sure which one.
An advocacy group that isn't committed to science-based decision making? This is NEWS!!! [sorry if that's stepping on sarcastro's turf]
Okay, first, wolves are no more dangerous than other relatively large predators. The notion that they are Dangerous Animals, as opposed to bears, coyotes, pumas, and so on, is just nonsense.
On the other hand, they, like most predators, are pretty smart. We've having a jogger taken down every so often by big cats in Boulder; they just see us as funny looking deer or something. now there there are substantial populations, it's probably good to have some hunting and otherwise give the big predators some reason to be cautious about s.
As far as Ken, I don't think anyone really believed Obama's "cold science" thing for a second; in any case, it usually works out that the balance of the science comes down to advise whatever the politician involved thinks is better. What we can say is that, unlike most of the "animal activists", Ken is a country boy (he and I were born in the same hospital in the same month, and his folks' ranch was adjacent to my folks'.) Unlike city folk, he's aware that there is something going on out in the open country other than Hungry Hungry Hippos and Hello Kitty. One of those things being that we, for human purposes, provide lots more prey animals in an area than the natural processes would; we inevitably end up needing to control some predators as a result. We took it too far at one point, but that doesn't mean no control at all is the right answer.
If you haven't already read "The Beast in the Garden" by David Baron. . . you should.
Habituation of wild animals to humans is dangerous. They aren't "genetically scared of humans". Every time a wild animal interacts with the world of humans and has a non-negative outcome it will become emboldened the next time and pass those values to it's offspring.
Don't believe it? Rent a coyote calling video. Some are called in so close it becomes 'mano a canino'. But, when they go to areas that have been hunted a lot, they come in to about 600 - 700 yards. They won't come any closer no matter how good the caller. The feeble and helpless among humans benefit greatly from this timid behavior. The coyotes that live, learn. And they teach that behavior to their offspring. Any bold offspring that violates the rule is likely to get shot or shot at. And that reinforces the validity of the rule to the survivors.
As anyone at Yellowstone should tell you, distance = safety for you AND them.
Endangered species and 'no-hazing' laws and public outcries of animal cruelty provide a special hazard. Protected animals don't learn the way of things in nature where humans are concerned. Eventually, when enough children are killed at a playground the public outcry (local) will override the public outcry (hollywood) and there will be no more wolves.
Delisting an animal from the Endangered Species Act that is not endangered is called integrity. Maybe if the left could find some of that in themselves we could trust them with power a little more.
As a child, I was free to explored the countryside without any fear whatsoever. This is a great gift for a child, as anyone who had received it would know. Who wouldn't want the same for their kids?
Wolves, bears, and other nasties, I could read about in books. From what I read then and have read since, I'm more than happy to leave it that way.
Count me with EpluribusMoney and Sarcastro. People First! It's for the children!
"I love how Sarcastro uses sarcasm and logical fallacies to deride and criticize ideas he doesn't
agree withunderstand. It's like the Daily Show on VC!"There. Fixed.
They want their fingers in everything, they want shackles on all of us and their hands on our wallets, and they're absolutely sure they're right about all of it.
ignoredlost in all of this is that the crazy communist Obama administration did make a decision based upon science rather than politics."The environmental community is the biggest danger this country faces. Bigger than terrorism. Bigger than illegal immigration. Bigger in the long run than Obama's deficit."
Nah, they're just the annoying helicopter parents of nature. Poor widdle wolbies need us to protect them from Big Bad Riding Hood! Maybe they once did, but even wolf populations eventually leave that cute, helpless puppy stage.
If they can get Obama to cave, then they're more than annoying, which, Oy Galt, I thought was the point of the original post, and the background of what followed. Those that mocked the administration's decision are the crazy communists (your words), not the administration.
"It's those leftists who really hate mankind and would prefer a world without us"
Gee, where'd you get that idea?
Well, for certain definitions of "obvious".... Does the fact that governments' power-growing programs lag quite a few years help to illustrate why they push it past the point of obviousness?
Wolfpacks are growing much faster and spreading out even more than the experts thought they would.
Based on their current growth and territorial spread they no longer met the requirements of the ESA.
Frankly, people in my County have spotted wolves this winter less than 15 miles from my home. I live in a pretty low population area, but they were spotted in farm and grazing land. Not mountain forest, on farms. People in my community have been upset about the wolves for years.
Idaho has allowed hound hunting for bears and cougars for years. Problem has been, everywhere a wolf pack sets up a territory, they kill all the hounds that the hunters bring. Cougar populations are starting to increase now too. I know long time hunters who sold their dogs off in the past 3 years. Elk populations in Central Idaho are below projected levels.
This was shoved onto our State against our wishes. An example of the tyranny of the majority. They will force us to maintain a certain number of wolves from now on. But now we will have the power to prevent their continued spread and growth.
I mean, right now, I've never been killed an eaten by wolves or a bear or whatever else because there's never been one around to eat me. Civilization's great, gotta love it. But... if I weren't freeloading off of the predator-prevention provided by others, could I keep them from eating me, on my own? I don't know. I have no idea. I just think it would be better for me if I were forced, by having them try to eat me, to learn how by myself to keep them from eating me. And it would be better for everyone else if I either learned that or else got eaten - since if I can't learn, I'm just deadweight. And obviously, it's best for future generations and the evolution of humans from Homo sapiens sapiens into Homo sapiens horribilis if I get eaten before having kids, if I'm so clearly going to be incapable of teaching those kids effective predator-fighting techniques...
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