Liberty Belle
Well-known member
Endangered Species Used As Big Hammer
The Right Side
By Rick Coddington
special to Mountain Mail
November 21, 2007
SOCORRO, New Mexico (STPNS) -- If you are watching the Wolf War in Catron County you may have seen the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's current headlines "warning" the county not to trap the latest rogue wolf.
Personally, I think the headline should read "Catron County Deserves A Medal For Restraint." After all, they are still trying to achieve solutions by legal means even though it falls on deaf ears.
There is a simple lesson to be learned here: New Mexico just doesn't rate with the federal powers. We saw it when they pronounced the silvery minnow "endangered," regardless that a jillion minnows live somewhere else. We saw it in the federal minnow hearings where we discovered that the citizens "had no standing" with the court.
Now we see the federal steamroller at work once again in Catron. I suspect that the environ-nazis have learned from their success in killing the logging industry that Catron is easy pickings.
I started wondering how much the fiasco costs. I did a little clicking though the internet and got a real eye opener!
I was prepared for the whole federal program to be horrendously expensive – after all it is a federal program. You can be assured by definition that it's an economic black hole.
According to the start-up news coverage, the program was expected to cost either $8 million or $2, million depending on the model they chose in 1993 dollars. While I wasn't able to find real figures from the government web sites about the tab for the program, I did find enough numbers to do a little ciphering.
According to the Fish and Wildlife's reintroduction program three-year review (fws.gov/southwest/ es/mexicanwolf), the cost for each additional wild pup is $5.6 million. In 2006, there were 59 wolves in the program -- 46 of them born in the wild. That adds $198 million to the original estimates.
I doubt that accounts for all the litigation the feds are famous for. For example, I attended a federal minnow hearing where, by my count, 36 of the 51 people in attendance introduced themselves as attorneys!
One problem is that Catron County has 6,898 square miles. That's a lot of land on which to track wolves. It would be a lot more cost effective to manage a smaller area.
My favorite suggestion is to relocate wolves to the 843 acres that make up Central Park in New York City. If that sounds ridiculous, you don't appreciate how sick the enviros really are. Joe Skeen introduced a bill to place the wolves in New York back in '99. I really miss Joe. The hard-core huggers of the Center for Biological Diversity responded by one upping Joe with the news that New York activists want wolves back in New York.
Let's give them what they want. To be really generous, let's give them our wolves. That will save them the cost of importing them from Mexico, where according to animalinfo.org they are not even endangered. Just like the minnow, isn't that funny! It looks to me like we are led to believe that an animal is going extinct whenever the huggers want to accomplish societal engineering with the economic endangerment of a segment of the American taxpayers.
It's high time the city folks get a taste of the real effects of their pompous philosophies. A little quality time up close and personal with a pack of wolves will do wonders for their lack of real life experience. After all, as long as you stay out of the subways there are very few real predators in New York City.
All cuteness aside, this nonsense is a formula for disaster. In June 2007, the "collared population" accounted for only 26 of the 59 wolves. More than half are not being tracked.
As they put it, "Other uncollared wolves are known to be associating with wolves with radio collars, as well as being separate from known packs."
Now, the agency is considering a recommendation by biologists to allow the wolves to establish territories outside the current boundaries.
We're hearing about the problems with the trackable wolves, we're blind to over half of the pack. When we finally do have a tragedy, what then? Does anybody have an idea about how to get the feds' attention before we realize a worst-case scenario?
Rick Coddington is a third-generation native New Mexican. He attended UNM and studied political science. He has lived in Socorro since 1974. His opinions do not necessarily represent the Mountain Mail.
© 2007 Mountain Mail Socorro, New Mexico
http://www.stpns.net/view_article.html?articleId=64747571023276703
The Right Side
By Rick Coddington
special to Mountain Mail
November 21, 2007
SOCORRO, New Mexico (STPNS) -- If you are watching the Wolf War in Catron County you may have seen the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's current headlines "warning" the county not to trap the latest rogue wolf.
Personally, I think the headline should read "Catron County Deserves A Medal For Restraint." After all, they are still trying to achieve solutions by legal means even though it falls on deaf ears.
There is a simple lesson to be learned here: New Mexico just doesn't rate with the federal powers. We saw it when they pronounced the silvery minnow "endangered," regardless that a jillion minnows live somewhere else. We saw it in the federal minnow hearings where we discovered that the citizens "had no standing" with the court.
Now we see the federal steamroller at work once again in Catron. I suspect that the environ-nazis have learned from their success in killing the logging industry that Catron is easy pickings.
I started wondering how much the fiasco costs. I did a little clicking though the internet and got a real eye opener!
I was prepared for the whole federal program to be horrendously expensive – after all it is a federal program. You can be assured by definition that it's an economic black hole.
According to the start-up news coverage, the program was expected to cost either $8 million or $2, million depending on the model they chose in 1993 dollars. While I wasn't able to find real figures from the government web sites about the tab for the program, I did find enough numbers to do a little ciphering.
According to the Fish and Wildlife's reintroduction program three-year review (fws.gov/southwest/ es/mexicanwolf), the cost for each additional wild pup is $5.6 million. In 2006, there were 59 wolves in the program -- 46 of them born in the wild. That adds $198 million to the original estimates.
I doubt that accounts for all the litigation the feds are famous for. For example, I attended a federal minnow hearing where, by my count, 36 of the 51 people in attendance introduced themselves as attorneys!
One problem is that Catron County has 6,898 square miles. That's a lot of land on which to track wolves. It would be a lot more cost effective to manage a smaller area.
My favorite suggestion is to relocate wolves to the 843 acres that make up Central Park in New York City. If that sounds ridiculous, you don't appreciate how sick the enviros really are. Joe Skeen introduced a bill to place the wolves in New York back in '99. I really miss Joe. The hard-core huggers of the Center for Biological Diversity responded by one upping Joe with the news that New York activists want wolves back in New York.
Let's give them what they want. To be really generous, let's give them our wolves. That will save them the cost of importing them from Mexico, where according to animalinfo.org they are not even endangered. Just like the minnow, isn't that funny! It looks to me like we are led to believe that an animal is going extinct whenever the huggers want to accomplish societal engineering with the economic endangerment of a segment of the American taxpayers.
It's high time the city folks get a taste of the real effects of their pompous philosophies. A little quality time up close and personal with a pack of wolves will do wonders for their lack of real life experience. After all, as long as you stay out of the subways there are very few real predators in New York City.
All cuteness aside, this nonsense is a formula for disaster. In June 2007, the "collared population" accounted for only 26 of the 59 wolves. More than half are not being tracked.
As they put it, "Other uncollared wolves are known to be associating with wolves with radio collars, as well as being separate from known packs."
Now, the agency is considering a recommendation by biologists to allow the wolves to establish territories outside the current boundaries.
We're hearing about the problems with the trackable wolves, we're blind to over half of the pack. When we finally do have a tragedy, what then? Does anybody have an idea about how to get the feds' attention before we realize a worst-case scenario?
Rick Coddington is a third-generation native New Mexican. He attended UNM and studied political science. He has lived in Socorro since 1974. His opinions do not necessarily represent the Mountain Mail.
© 2007 Mountain Mail Socorro, New Mexico
http://www.stpns.net/view_article.html?articleId=64747571023276703
All I have left are 3 drakes. Not so much fun seeing them anymore..........