What myths am I referring to? The myths that hunters and anglers pay for the majority of our wildlife conservation (debunked in my post on The North American Model of Wildlife Conservation and Who Pays for It) and the misconception that “predator management” is a necessary part of the wildlife conservation equation.
A recent article by Richard Foster from Counter Punch titled “The Fracking of Conservation: State Wildlife Agencies Invite Oil and Gas Industry to Fund Wildlife Management” explains how insidious the purveyors of these wildlife conservation myths have become. He explains that “the profession of wildlife management, though it pays lip service to the notion of wildlife as a public trust, has a pronounced tendency to listen only to the voices it deems sufficiently qualified to speak. That means hunters, groups that do not object to hunting, and sympathetic academics.”
The latest atrocity has been the killing of the Profanity Wolf Pack in Northeast Washington in retribution for the loss of a few cattle on OUR public lands. George Wuerthner, a former hunting guide with a degree in wildlife biology, wrote an excellent piece on this blatant mismanagement of “wildlife resources.” I urge everyone to read his article to realize the extent of this practice and its repercussions to our wildlife and to scientific research in general.
To make matters worse, our public wild places are now being attacked by a small group of extremists in state legislators as well as key members of the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate. We cannot ignore these intrusions into our public lands if we want to keep them safe for all of us to enjoy. Please do what you can to promote a wildlife conservation plan that respects all wildlife, including predators.
It’s going to take the retirement of a lot of people in state game departments and a whole new generation of biologists. And then it’s going to take keeping them from being tainted by the awful politics of so many of our rural states.
First, The film on the Tallgrass Prairie (less than 2% remains) and the Greater Prairie Chicken properly titled “Battle on the Booming Grounds” is complete and debuting in Estonia this week at the very fine Matsalu Nature Film Festival and next month in Prague, Czech Republic at the more prestigious Life Sciences Film Festival. That makes officially 3 film festivals and we have all the indications of the 4th pending now. The book to accompany the film is well underway and will be out late this fall.
It seems we are in a bit of a period where anything can be positioned to be controversial by some one political. This reminds me of one of the old I Ching lines about the fox on the ice, something like: ‘Steps in any direction are fraught with peril.’
I live in a very small community in Montana. Most of the people here reflexively vote for Republicans. They hate wolves, tolerate the Grizzly, and don’t seem to care much about poaching. The Government is terrible, unless we need it, suddenly it is critically important to have it – and it better damn respond -RIGHT NOW! … Sigh….
As an agreement to Corey’s statement above, with a giant ‘BUT’ attached, – It is going to take a massive ecological catastrophe to get the attention and understanding of the right wing. Let alone the cooperation.
Massive Fires will probably not be enough. I don’t want to predict- because it is too depressing, but it will happen.
The other side of the problem is the so called geniuses like Elon Musk – who are building space craft and talking about leaving the planet for Mars colonization!
Please- the BILLIONS of dollars he and Bezos are wasting on a smoky pipe dreams to the well monied 1% – could make a REAL Difference right here for conservation!
Great news Tim! When will the movie hit the US? Love the trailer.
The hatred for wolves in the West is inexplicable. It has been shown in study after study that a healthy predator base makes for a healthy ungulate population. Even hunters don’t understand the importance of these findings, or simply don’t believe them. I think these biases against predators are handed down from generation to generation, and until the cycle of prejudice is broken, it will not change.
I also agree with Corey on replacement of state and federal wildlife department staff with non-hunters and forward thinking biologists to turn our public lands into “wildlife conservation” areas, not “game management” lands.
I agree Corey. Fewer hunters in both the state and federal “fish & game” departments, and more forward thinking wildlife biologists using scientific based studies, is what is needed in the future to determine proper wildlife and habitat policies in order to protect ALL species.
I’m afraid the political problem is an entirely other can of worms that needs to be addressed! People who care about our public lands and our wildlife need to get involved and take action to keep what we still have for future generations to enjoy.
Totally agree with your post and the ensuing discussion below. These are our public lands that a very dedicated, antagonistic population is managing for the rest of us. I live in WA state where the Profanity pack was killed, and you can cut a knife down the spine of the Cascades for the division of politics on either side.
Thank you Bryony. There is a new opinion piece written by Richard Conniff for the New York Times on “America’s Wildlife Body Count.” It chronicles the US Department of Agriculture’s “Wildlife Services” 2015 killing spree of 3.2 MILLION wildlife exterminations.
I encourage everyone to read the article which discusses the lack of adherence to scientific research as Wildlife Services kowtows to the cattle industry and we end up with appalling atrocities like the killing of the Profanity Pack.
The hatred for predators is the main reason I do not view hunters as conservationists. The goal of conservation is to conserve biodiversity that way an ecosystem is completely healthy and that means conserving all of the ecosystem components. Hunters do not want all of the components because some of them hunt the same animals they like to kill (no, not “harvest” or “take”) and thus, want to kill the predators out of pure greed.