RESPONSIBILITY
5/20/07 by Jim Beers,  retired US Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife Biologist, Special Agent, Refuge Manager, Wetlands Biologist, and Congressional Fellow.

The following important question from a reader deserves a response.

"Is there any accountability expectation regards people like Rachael Carson, the spotted owl et al eco gangsters who've brought such massive damage to our land, water and human lives?"

Rachel Carson was a wildlife research biologist for the old Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife, today's US Fish and Wildlife Service. Her personal interests and professional specialty was birds. As far as I know she was always stationed in and around d the Washington, DC area. Her book, Silent Spring, was published in 1962 and has recently been published again as the 40th Anniversary Edition. It is described by booksellers as a "book focused on the poisons from insecticides, weed killers, and other common products as well as the use of sprays in agriculture, a practice that led to dangerous chemicals to the food source. Carson argued that those chemicals were more dangerous than radiation and that for the first time in history, humans were exposed to chemicals that stayed in their systems from birth to death."

The book is an icon and early "revelation" to environmentalists and animal rights radicals and it is revered by practically all of those who "toil" in the conservation/preservation fields. I can feel the steamy wrath of a million "believers" as I write this.

Her theses were mostly overblown hyperboles. While reduction of compounds like DDT as alternatives became available was certainly desirable, the hysterical bans and alarmism regarding every useful new chemical were early signs of the extremism and incremental expansion of legitimate concerns as tools of radical agendas. Very important and legitimate uses of chemicals like DDT were outlawed. A Cuban doctor once told me that the lice my kids picked up in school could be better and more quickly cured by rinsing in a weak DDT shampoo. Then there are the MILLIONS of NATIVE People (aren't they as "important" as the "NATIVE" plants, wildlife, fish, and ecosystems we are told take "precedence?) in warm climates like Africa and Asia and South America who were denied by international and US (shamefully) restrictions the use of DDT to disinfect their homes by killing the mosquitoes in and around their homes. Those mosquitoes carry deadly diseases and DDT was and remains the most effective and benign treatment to save human lives from everything from malaria to sleeping sickness. But not to worry, these are the very same NATIVES that we believe are expendable to overpopulated elephants and crocodiles and large predators that we (through the UN) force them to endure for our imagined "pleasure" and "ecological good". While she (Carson) speculated about all manner of "eventual" harms to humans, here we all sit. While she and all of her followers and those who utilized her for their own purposes prattled on endlessly about eagles and falcons and songbirds, the truth is that sensible investigations and careful use of many new compounds were foregone for things that were doing OK and would have done better eventually anyway.

So manipulation of her work by zealous bird enthusiasts and government bureaucrats (lots of Federal budgets were increased and even a new Agency was formed), and environmental radicals both gave her the revered status we see today and the constant notion that the path we have pursued since then (Federal power and government controls designed by radical power-brokers) IS THE ONLY PATH to reconciling man and his environment.

So in spite of being very responsible for the deaths of Millions and helping to place animals on par with and actually above mankind (well at least "some" of mankind) we see continuing book sales, stamps, education packets, and teachers all extolling Rachel Carson and her work.

The spotted owl was an example of an animal being declared "Endangered" by the "new age" Federal bureaucrats and their "partners" in the environmental radical movements. Clearly the "Listing" was simply overblown hyperbole about a little noticed (and therefore easy to lie about) species IN ORDER TO STOP LOGGING IN THE NORTHWEST. For 20 years the Federal government claimed that the owl "must have" "old growth" (more recently the radicals have begun using the term "ancient forests" but you get my drift) and therefore ALL LOGGING MUST BE STOPPED. Since then the Lynx and Grizzly Bear have been "Listed" with similar lies (that lynx are "Vulnerable to road traffic" and Grizzlies "need" habitat unscarred by roads, trails, mankind, etc) IN ORDER TO CLOSE MORE PUBLIC LANDS TO MANAGEMENT AND USE, but I digress. Recently, the venerable US Fish and Wildlife Service was forced by political appointees, thank you very much, to finally publish a Recovery Plan after the coastal communities of Oregon have been changed from logging and hunting communities to art boutiques run by rich California refugees and new age "artists".

Lo and behold, now the "reason" that there aren't "enough" spotted owls (think about that for a moment) is NOT LOGGING (now that the loggers and their experience and the mills are gone) but really COMPETITION FROM BARRED OWLS. "Scotty beam me up." But the news release mentions that in the meantime (the last 20 years) $200 Million has been "lost". Too bad no one can "find" it. Now that $200 Million figure is way low, any fair and educated estimate would exceed Billions and the losses to families and American community structure in inestimable.

So is anyone "responsible"? Of course not. Like Rachel Carson they are fondly remembered as "eco-warriors". Bonuses, promotions, and retirements were all greatly enhanced for destroying communities (like the infamous observation about having to "break eggs" to make an omelet) to stop logging and diminish hunting opportunities and grazing and ranches. It has generated millions for the Universities to eliminate any environmental management coursework remnants and shift over to "satellite telemetry" and "global weather monitoring". Speaking of "Global Warming" could it be that this sudden change of heart by the UN and the US about allowing NATIVES in far off jungles to begin using DDT has anything to do with the worries about these diseases (malaria and West Nile, etc.) being transmitted by mosquitoes HERE as we get "warmer"? If so, even an imagined dark cloud like "global warming" can have a silver lining if it reinstitutes the recognition of all human life, even those far-off and poor, as being worthy of more than ANY plant or animal.

Responsibility? What about the Federal bureaucrats that "planted" lynx hair on census posts to "get the lynx listed"? What about the Federal bureaucrats introducing and protecting grizzly bears that then kill people? What about the National Park Service personnel that lied to the state fish and wildlife agencies of New Jersey and Pennsylvania about allowing trapping if they "got" a National Park on the Delaware Water Gap? What about all the folks involved in the Ivory-billed Woodpecker scam in four (or is it six) states? What about the US Fish and Wildlife Service personnel that "promised" they would allow hunting on the Panther Refuge if they got it? What about the bureaucrats that have purposely buried any mention of the diseases wolves carry and transmit? Or the same ilk in the agencies and Universities that "Disneyfie" grizzlies and sharks and wolves and mountain lions? What of the state bureaucrats that make a show of managing hunting and fishing opportunities while selling them out for future funding from the US Congress? What about the state fish and wildlife agencies THAT NEVER EVEN ASKED FOR THE $60 MILLION STOLEN BY THE US FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE FROM HUNTING AND FISHING EXCISE TAXES TO BE REPAID? What about the US Fish and Wildlife Service theft of $60 Million from funds destined for state hunting and fishing programs TO FUND THINGS LIKE INTRODUCING WOLVES INTO YELLOWSTONE AND OPENING AN ENDANGERED SPECIES OFFICE (TO CATER TO RADICALS) IN CALIFORNIA - EACH OF WHICH CONGRESS HAD REFUSED TO FUND? What about the National Park Service, and the National Marine Fisheries Service, and DC Government, and EPA, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and State of Maryland, and the US Army Corps of Engineers who knew about and ignored the 20 plus years of nighttime dumping of tons of very toxic wastes INTO THE POTOMAC RIVER - ON THE SOLE SPAWNING GROUND OF THE ENDANGERED SHORTNOSE STURGEON AND THE MOST CONCENTRATED BOATING AND FISHING STRETCH OF THE RIVER? The waste was from the residue from DC soils (where toxic chemical weapons were developed and tested during WWI) and the effluent from the DC Water Treatment Facilities. What about the top USFWS managers who fished there and still remained silent as rocks were etched and cormorants fled the toxic plumes in the River? I could go on but you get the picture.

Finally, lest you think there is no responsibility involved in all this eco-mania, rest assured that there is LOTS of RESPONSIBILITY involved. There is the rancher shooting the grizzly in his yard. There is the hiker who "failed to puff up" or who "ran" from an introduced and/or protected predator "in their (i.e. the critter's) habitat". There is the poor boob that picked up an ivory accessory or a jungle fowl feather on a trip outside the country. There are the two Michiganders that shot wolves and were sentenced to jail. There is the private property owner told that his property is "Critical Habitat" for some slug or mouse. There is the coyote hunter unaware that a wolf has just headed toward him. There is the logger asking why there is no longer any logging on the Millions of acres in National Forests and is told if he can "get" millions of dollars to conduct the necessary "biological assessments" (as Florida hunters were also told about why there was no hunting on a new refuge) it "might" be considered. There are the ranchers and farmers being forced to lose stock and dogs to wolves. There are the grandparents babysitting their grandkids where wolves have been seen or grizzly bears have been reported. There are hunters who "selfishly" want to preserve game herds of hunt birds with dogs where government introduced and government protected predators run rampant. There are all the hunters and fishermen who "just don't give the state fish and wildlife agencies 'enough' money so that they don't 'have' to shift to Federal funding and Federal objectives." They are ALL RESPONSIBLE and all suffering consequences from fines and even jail time to loss of property and elimination of their freedoms, traditions, and heritage.



The fault for all this lies with each of us. Unless we can elect politicians to bring the bureaucracies under control and reorient Universities, and stop the political pandering to these radical groups and agendas, things will only get worse and effective remedies will necessarily become more extreme. Otherwise expect to see more refuges named after politicians, more tax bills to man the bureaucracies that no longer generate anything on government lands except enormous and unmanageable fires, and the continued reduction of natural resource-oriented pursuits. But not to worry, there will no doubt be a "Fiftieth Anniversary" Stamp for Silent Spring and the bureaucrats will continue to capitalize on whatever it takes to feather their own nest: and you, well you are RESPONSIBLE and rest assured we are all very proud of you.

Jim Beers 19 May 2007

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- 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.