jackelope that is my exact postion, thanks for saying it so simply...
Jim Beers (former USFWS employee turned whistleblower on illegal use of Pitman-Robertson funds)
Wolves, Guns, Gorillas & Grouse - Part IIYesterday morning I wrote the following 2 letters to the 2 Twin Cities
newspapers about their Sunday Sports Page articles crediting the decade-long
decline in grouse hunter numbers despite high grouse numbers to everything
from ATV's and obesity to the love of young people to text message and watch
The Vikings. I tried to point out that they had avoided the subject of wolf
impacts like the mention of the bird-eating habits of avian predators at an
Audubon Society Banquet.
I just hung up on a friend from Iowa who called to ask if I knew about the
publicized wolf-information phone number in Wisconsin FOR ANYONE PLANNING TO
HUNT WITH A DOG OR DOGS? While he said he had expected it to be some
private wolf group, he was surprised to find it was two Wisconsin DNR ladies
(Dawn and Stacey). The service they offer is to advise anyone hunting with
dogs (like grouse?, bears, pheasants, raccoons, rabbits, ducks, geese, etc.)
WHERE THE WOLVES ARE MOST ACTIVE SO THAT THEY AVOID THOSE AREAS (3/4 of the
state?) or keep their dogs so close that they are of little use. DUH! This
from the state that recently announced it is live trapping their elk herd
and moving it to another part of the SAME National Forest where there is
less wolf activity. That is like deciding that all the neighborhood kids
are too fat so you will move the Ice Cream stand and pie shop over one
block.
So there you have it! Minnesotans are propagandized by government and the
media that wolves are in no way involved in the decline of woodland grouse
hunters while just across the River in Wisconsin the bureaucrats have a wolf
hot line to further restrict and eventually eliminate hunting dogs as well
as hunters and hunting and 2nd Amendment supporters as they all morph into
obese football fans texting each other on fall afternoons. Man, you couldn't
make this stuff up if you sat up all night trying.
As an aside, my Iowa friend has no computer and was unaware of these 2
letters. He is a dog hunter that runs rabbits with his hounds. He came
across this Wisconsin phone number in a Fur, Fish, & Game magazine. He and
I have shared his concern about how the USFWS and its subcontractors (with
IA DNR support) have been and continue to burn all upland game bird and
rabbit nesting habitat and winter habitat on both public and private (IA has
lots of absentee landowners) land. His area is now devoid of pheasants - an
Invasive Species that went unprotected by "Pheasants Forever" - as the
government "only intended to restore the 'native ecosystem'" (among
wind-swept Iowa fields?) Sure. Just like the wolves in Minnesota and
Wisconsin are "good" for the state, burning all the pheasant, rabbit, and
turkey habitat in Iowa will one day make Iowa go "Poof!" and there will once
again be buffalo in prairie flowers up to their belly and wolf pups playing
with Indian children on the edge of a bucolic village.
In just 24 hours the corrupt nature and hidden agendas of three adjoining
states has been exposed yet again. These DNR's and the media are under the
thumb of federal bureaucracies that are forcing wolves where they are not
wanted, burning hunting and wintering habitat to eradicate highly-prized
game animals, and simultaneously making state DNR employees into Quislings
administering Vichy state fish and wildlife programs. The DNR's, outdoor
writers, and the "conservation media" are simply self-serving cowards
ingratiating themselves to what they see as the agendas of powerful
interlopers that they mistakenly believe will always be here.
A concerned and informed citizenry is our only hope. If you read
yesterday's Part I you can just skip the following. Please consider sharing
this with friends and others that might join us in bringing our state
agencies back under state control and placing wildlife back under state
authority where the US Constitution wisely put it. When that happens,
reforming state agencies back into State Agencies becomes a mere
administrative matter and the media will follow along as they sense the way
the wind will have changed.
-What Gun?
Rural America is being mugged and hijacked everywhere by wolves and like the
anti-gun advocate in a bad neighborhood or the pacifist on a Midwestern
farm; ignoring the true situation and not allowing it to be mentioned at the
table is like the storied ostrich reaction to danger while standing on a
sand dune.
It is Sunday morning here in Minnesota and I have just finished the
following two letters to the St. Paul and the Minneapolis papers. Each has
published a "grouse hunters are disappearing in spite of high grouse
populations and woe is hunting" "outdoor article" (it IS September, you
know). If you are interested in the insidious nature of disinformation from
state agencies and outdoor writers and newspapers you might find these
letters worth reading. The chances of seeing them elsewhere or hearing them
answered is on par with the "transparency" of the past two years of Federal
legislating in Washington.
1. THE 800 LB. GORILLA
Your "Grouse Booster" article about DNR plans to arrest the 10-year decline
in the numbers of grouse hunters despite abundant grouse numbers makes one
thing abundantly clear, like your front-page article many months ago blaming
global warming for the steady decline in moose: increasing wolf populations
are invisible and are only mentioned much like sightings of the extinct
Ivory-billed Woodpecker or Sasquatch.
Since returning to Minnesota 2 years ago, I have talked grouse hunting with
three former grouse hunters. One lost a dog to wolves and the other two had
close calls with wolves trying to kill their dogs. They want to be out in
the woods shooting grouse more than anything - except seeing their dog
killed or maimed right before their eyes. As one put it, "hunting those
woods with dogs is like trolling for muskies with a big spoon".
Like reversing the moose decline (wolves killing cows and calves each year
plus a few adults in winter snow is all it takes) or the declining deer
numbers for northern hunters, each of which has occurred as wolves have
increased; ignoring the safety of hunters and their dogs due to abundant
wolf populations cannot be disregarded
While wolf advocates either deny this or call it an "unintended
consequence", I for one know it is a very "intended consequence" and when
the DNR and newspapers either purposely or ignorantly avoid this fact, not
only grouse hunters, grouse hunting, and grouse dogs are put in jeopardy.
Jim Beers
2. INTENDED CONSEQUENCES
Your Sunday "hunting" article "Ruffed grouse hunting crowd is thinning" is
way off the mark in two ways: what it says and what it doesn't say. The ten
year decline in grouse hunter numbers is not due to "ATV's", "the woodcock
limit", hunters "wallets", baby boomer "aging", "obesity", young hunters
preferring to send "text messages", or the "Vikings" "success or lack of
success". Your writer redeems himself somewhat by ending with an admission
that it is "likely" "other factors as well". There is another "factor",
wolves.
Since returning to Minnesota 2 years ago after 30 plus years as a federal
biologist and 55 plus years as a hunter, I have spoken to lots of guys about
hunting and places to hunt. Three of those guys were "former" grouse
hunters that were sad that they no longer hunted the woods. Why? Because
one had lost a dog to wolves and the other two had confrontations with
wolves interested in killing their dogs. Those three out of my little
sample were concerned about not only their dogs but their own safety where
wolves were present.
It is disgraceful that the DNR and hunting organizations and newspapers act
as if wolves are extinct in the state or that hearing or seeing them is akin
to sighting a Great Auk or glimpsing and Ivory-billed Woodpecker, each of
which are extinct. Minnesota's robust and widely spread wolf population is
responsible for the moose decline and the paucity of northern deer as well
as the death of many rural dogs from watchdogs to hunting dogs as well as
human behavior modifications from solitary outdoor childhood behavior
(disappearing) to certain hunting safety participation in woodlands with
family dogs while carrying light-load shotguns with open chokes (declining).
While you may believe that such things are not occurring or that they are an
"unintended consequence" of some sort of semi-religious movement to "restore
native species", take my word that the wolf advocates and their cohorts in
the DNR and nationally are all too aware of these "intended consequences".
Jim Beers
