“The quicker we humans learn that saving our wildlife and open spaces is critical, to our welfare and quality of life, maybe we will start thinking about doing something about it.” Jim Fowler
Come with me for a moment, let’s take a walk on a trail in the Cascades. We stand before pristine Pines and an occasional Redwood. On this warm day the aroma intoxicates, blends romantically with the snap of a twig. The trail soft, as dry pine needles underfoot.
As we walk into the treeline, we notice, to one side of the trail, is a hound dog. He was used, at one time, for tracking Cougar. His decayed skin and what’s left of the dog’s bones tells its history. He’s been there for awhile, obvious the radio-collar taken off, then left by the owner. Claw marks in the dog’s hide tells the story, wounded and then abandoned . . .
Those of us in the mountains see too many wounded or neglected track-dogs that are left behind, and way too often. To say a majority of these “Hounders” are good animal keepers is an outstanding lie!
Stepping through the treeline we come to a clearing, rather quick. Wait. It’s not a clearing, it was a forested but obvious devastated area. It is a destroyed ecosystem. It’s the result of an over-browse situation from deer, Elk, and several other browsers.
The deer and Elk, supposedly regulated and managed browsers’ (most often incompetently by state or federal agencies), remained in this area too long, that is, until a proper browse no longer existed. The animals then moved-on to another area to devastate. This situation is caused by no Predators (wolves and Cougars especially) available to keep them moving; essentially browsing a little here, chased out, then move to another area and so on – which prevents devastation and over-browse to a single area.
The predator’s here were hunted and trapped, unconscionably, until few remained alive. So the browser’s now go unchecked…
We walk to the edge of the clearing and toward a creek. We want to follow the trail back into the forest; instead we wonder into a dank and rotting smell of decayed animal flesh. A Bear carcass lies along the side of the trail, its flesh rotted, with its stomach contents oozing into the creek. There is a bullet hole in the Bears skull. It is missing claws, teeth, gull bladder and a couple of other organs – the rest left to rot.
The creek is polluted. An oil/diesel and hydraulic-fluid slick floats by in different colors on the top of the water. It comes from a timber clear-cut just up the mountain, out of sight from the main road.
So much for a pleasant morning walk along a mountain trail. . . the fact is Poacher’s and neglectful trophy hunters abundant here, and their supposed conservation ethics seen quit readily, in reality non-existent and yet another outstanding lie – basically only written about in hunting magazines. These negative virtues come from an evolved hypocrisy combined with a not so ironic narcissistic and sociopathic tendency to feel killing a subordinate species to be their “Right” and to hell with everything and everybody else!
Change creates Resolution
What is wrong here is obvious. The methodology or paradigm toward wildlife management, within our mountains and forests, currently emphasize a management-paradigm only for a storage-complex for America’s Wildlife classified as Hunt-Animals – rather than the more humane management that creates preservation of ALL Wild Life and intermixed with a sound and productive Forest/Mountain environment. It is ALL one complex, as one link weakened or taken out, the remainder will collapse within a short time period!
All of our government’s management paradigms remain antiquated. This when compared to superior methodologies toward a diverse usage suggested in today’s more advanced and humane principle’s toward animal/environment management ideologies — rather than Special Interest Use Only principle’s that exist currently, and show beyond a doubt their narrow-defined data-collection and usage-research extremely flawed, via guess-ta-ment percentages, are erroneous most often, and demonstrated repeatedly in the field.
Yes, (one of the best examples, one of many more) these types of paradigms and formulas do not consider the extreme movement of a heard, into one canyon safety-zone, for example, and goes unseen; then the mind-set becomes a “kill-the-predators because they have killed our Elk and deer . . .
The herds, whether Elk, deer, or Antelope, repeated here, were simply unseen by the counters – or the counters were paid but never left their desks in their offices, and relied upon their percentages from previous years – also in error!
The reality becomes daunting to many people . . . An entire realm of American’s, the majority, remains left-out of nature’s finest, and indeed have become a low-priority (the tax payers who pay for it all), compared to hunting in these areas, being our government’s management priority. But our wildlife and environments are being destroyed – It is that simple!
The dead Bear and the dead Dog leave their message. Many of today’s hunters and trappers statements mean nothing, their actions scream to us loud and clear – the profoundness of the occasion, as we acknowledge, is not unique at all, and is one of many within our mountains of today – we see it – we tell others about it – the truth of the matter – and eventually action will be taken, eventually appropriate changes made – but the necessity loud and clear as well, those changes need to be made sooner than later . . .
Photojournalist - Journalist 
katdfinns
March 23, 2014 at 6:35 pm
Reblogged this on My Blogburdock root..
katdfinns
March 23, 2014 at 6:41 pm
Thank you once again for you insights and passion. It has been getting worse and worse. I’m not sure what the tax payers are paying for when the continue to keep land and wildlife services as agencies.
Louie C
March 24, 2014 at 6:14 am
POTENTIALLY “THREATENED” SPECIES CAN BE HUNTED, OVERPOPULATED SPECIES CAN NOT
http://watchdogwire.com/nevada/2014/03/21/potentially-threatened-species-can-be-hunted-overpopulated-species-can-not/
Sometime next year the free-roaming wild horse population is expected to hit 69,000. The BLM already has 47,000 wild horses warehoused in corrals.
Sue Carter
March 24, 2014 at 10:51 pm
Are you saying there will be 69,000 horses, not counting those who are already incarcerated by BLM ? Where are you getting these numbers? Can you tell me how many cattle, do you think, are on Public Land?
Photographer and Journalist
March 25, 2014 at 2:12 pm
The wild horse counts remain misinformation, as the BLM has not accomplished a reasonable and accurate count at all. Their paradigm, or count-formula, is flawed as the base data had already been shown as false as well. . . Bad information makes for Bad decision making!
Louie C
March 25, 2014 at 11:43 pm
Sue, I was posting the article and the corresponding link so that readers might comment. There were only 3 comments and one suggested that hunting licenses be issued.
They really need to hear from all of us there.
This is the original article was written by Thomas Mitchell and was published in Elko Daily Free Press.
http://elkodaily.com/news/opinion/commentary-tale-of-two-species-on-western-rangelands/article_7e1b3b88-af0e-11e3-bffd-001a4bcf887a.html
Commentary: Tale of two species on Western rangelands
Thomas Mitchell
“Sometime next year the free-roaming wild horse population is expected to hit 69,000. The BLM already has 47,000 wild horses warehoused in corrals”.
Louie C
March 24, 2014 at 6:21 am
H.R. 3188: the Groundwork for Denying Access to Court on All Levels
http://rtfitchauthor.com/2014/03/04/h-r-3188-the-groundwork-for-denying-access-to-court-on-all-levels/
H.R. 3188 could set a PRECEDENCE that could end judicial review of a federal agency (this would include the Department of the Interior and wild horse & burro issues). Call your House representatives and tell them you do NOT want them to support this unconstitutional bill!
SOURCE: PPJ Gazette
Marti Oakley
If H.R. 3188 passes and is signed into corporate contracting law and then converted to a public law, it will be used as a precedence for future obstruction of the public, by corporate federal agencies, to prevent access to the judicial system for remedy against federal encroachment.
Section (2) Administrative and judicial review salvage timber sales not covered under subsection (a) shall not be subject to—-
(A) Administrative review, including, in the case of the forest service the notice, comment, and appeal requirements of section 322 of the Department of Interior and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 1993,(public law 102-381; 16 U.S.C. 1612 note); or
(B) judicial review in any court of the United States
Notice this doesn’t say “judicial review in any administrative court”; it says “in ANY court of the United States”.
Apparently dismayed at the ongoing obstacles presented by private citizens who attempt to use the courts to fight against federal and state government encroachment and corruption,
Representative Tom McClintock, (R) CA-4, has decided it would be best to just do away with those pesky individuals. His bill H.R. 3188 makes clear that the input of the public is neither desired nor appreciated.
Therefore, Representative McClintock made sure the public has no access, no input and no say in what happens to their resources.
Louie C
March 25, 2014 at 6:25 am
GROUP SUES US FOREST SERVICE OVER WILD HORSES
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CA_WILD_HORSES_LAWSUIT_CAOL-?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
ALTURAS, Calif. (AP) — Animal advocates have filed a lawsuit to prevent the U.S. Forest Service from rounding up many of the remaining wild horses in California’s Modoc National Forest.
The plaintiffs said in a statement Monday that the government agency’s plan to eliminate about 40 square miles of territory and reduce the horse population by 80 percent could lead to the sale of horses for slaughter and could endanger the long-term genetic viability of the remaining population.
Louie C
March 25, 2014 at 6:29 am
Mesa Verde urges horses to leave, citing damage to park
http://www.cortezjournal.com/article/20140324/NEWS01/140329900/Mesa-Verde-urges-horses-to-leave-citing-damage-to-park
Louie C
March 25, 2014 at 6:31 am
Wild Horses a problem, but oil and gas leases are not?
Feds to re-offer oil and gas leases near Mesa Verde National Park
http://www.bizjournals.com/denver/blog/earth_to_power/2013/06/feds-to-re-offer-land-near-colorados.html?page=all
Energy Inc., powered by the Denver Business Journal, features in-depth industry reporting and analysis from our energy specialist, Cathy Proctor, with the latest oil, gas, wind and solar energy news from across Colorado.
Jun 28, 2013, 1:36pm MDT Updated: Jun 28, 2013, 2:01pm MDT
Louie C
March 25, 2014 at 6:01 pm
Sue, I was posting the article and the link to the article that stated those numbers in order to show how the media is perpetuating the “overpopulation” myth. You see comments posted by so many people who believe it because they don’t know the truth.
Louie C
March 25, 2014 at 6:09 pm
I should have use quotation marks in order to clarify. The “69,000” projected population count was stated by the author of that article, which was published in the Elko Daily Free Press.
The rest of us know that our Wild Horses and Burros are in imminent danger of being wiped out altogether.
Louie C
March 26, 2014 at 5:58 am
Sue, I was posting the article and the corresponding link so that readers might comment. There were only 3 comments and one suggested that hunting licenses be issued.
They really need to hear from all of us there.
This is the original article was written by Thomas Mitchell and was published in Elko Daily Free Press.
http://elkodaily.com/news/opinion/commentary-tale-of-two-species-on-western-rangelands/article_7e1b3b88-af0e-11e3-bffd-001a4bcf887a.html
Commentary: Tale of two species on Western rangelands
Thomas Mitchell
“Sometime next year the free-roaming wild horse population is expected to hit 69,000. The BLM already has 47,000 wild horses warehoused in corrals”.