Monthly Archives: January 2023

By John W. Cox, MFA

A Short Synopsis

“Archaeological finds, including one at Oregon’s Fort Rock Cave (13,000 B.P. Klamath Knot et al.) on the periphery of the Great Basin show us (i.e. 9-digs indicate that humans first entered the greater Pacific Northwest during the late Pleistocene), when glaciers still covered some of the mountainous country of the PNW interior, and the conifer-islands, dominated by forests and wildlife alike, represented over half of this land mass, wildlife flourished.

Before the dramatic warming of the climate between 11,000 and 9,000 B.P., wildlife included the giant ground sloth, the giant bison, the camel, and Wild Horses and pygmy mammoth present in North America – and many other grazers’. They all intermingled with present-day animals, such as antelope, deer, mountain sheep, and a variety of bird life. And the survivors, the Wild Horses and all the others we see today, “survived” the Pleistocene Era quite well – no information/evidence exists to the contrary. And here they are, right here today – no mystery, just blatant ignorance to ignore what is right in front of many people’s eyes.

My point here is the fact, when ambiguous, or those who lack knowledge of the truth (i.e. from bias or ignorance), people state 10,000 to 13,000 years ago the Wild Horses went extinct, and yet many digs show that 10,000 to 13,000 years ago not only were there wild horses roaming our planet in the Pacific Northwest, but many other animals also. True enough, much of the wildlife at that time not here today because they did go extinct. The Wild Horses are here today, because they not only did not go extinct, or magically disappear from the face of this planet, but thrived very well. Just as the deer and other animals survived – healthy grazers.

Humans just started to come into the Plasticine Era PNW during this time. As many scientists are starting today, not only was the Plasticine Era, or the Ice Age, not as harsh as everyone thought, but there is no evidence to show there was a “human involved kill-off of Wild Horses”, specifically. No evidence!

The fact that during modern times, and after the Spanish horses arrived, which were at that time comparable to the Volkswagen in the sixties and seventies and a good utility horse to own, were simply left to roam the countryside, and did intermix with very few Wild Horse herds. Also, due to the irresponsibility of the ranching industry at that time during the old Western days, many mixed breeds of ranch horses did enter into and onto public lands. Here we do not debate those issues, because we still find during eDNA and mDNA process and procedures, the X factor of the original Wildhorse survivability is and always has been within the dynamic of that process. Many bands across public lands currently reflect this situation, not just as theory, but as a reality.” – John W. Cox, MFA

1. For a brief account of the Fort Rock and other Northwest archaeology excavations, see L. S. Cressman, The Sandal and the Cave: The Indians of Oregon (1962; Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 1981).
2. This reference is to the physiography region that embraces the present states of Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, northern California and Nevada, western Montana, and southern British Columbia. The greater Columbia River system also provides a definitive outline for the region.
3. C. Melvin Aikens, Archaeology of Oregon (Portland: Oregon State Office, U. S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Land Management, 1986), 9-10.

(This is not to be shared in parts, but in its entire context, and plagiarism and taken in part, without reference, will be considered illegal, unless permissions from the author given)

Field Notes by John Cox, MFA

Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country,” as President John F. Kennedy stated, and challenged every American to contribute in some way to the public good. We have gone off-track, and need to get back our ethics, our responsibility in government and the way they operate, and too respect our lands and laws . . .

Today Field Notes take into consideration the ongoing irresponsibility and actions from our lands-based government agencies, and their management — or should I say, “. . . lack of management,” in the matters of managing America’s Federal-Lands appropriately.

The necessity of understanding the concept of our “human – connection” with our natural resources, wilderness, wildlife, and in reality, all that surrounds us, remains very significant. Today our natural environment is communicating with us quite well. In another words, the things our government agencies are doing in areas that are out of sight to most Americans, is devastating to our wildlife environments, our terrestrial environments, and our natural resources that supply 1/3 of Our Nation’s food chain supplements.

Conflicts of interest and illegal activities

I speak about the $512,000,000,000 subsidy-payouts to those participating in our government’s Grazing Permit Programs, quite a bit. The evidence for the situations and payouts over the past 19-20 years, are from government records as well as documents from government files, that are available to the public.

Now we find further abuse of our Public Lands, in particular in 6 of the 11 Western States, that Public Lands are dominant. There are ‘ranching operations’ ongoing, on our Public Lands (i.e. not next too, but on them, precisely – Our Public Lands and without authority or law) — that the ranchers actually live upon.

These are not homesteading situations, nor are they situations of grazing permit programs that are isolated living situations of crews taking care of cattle or sheep. These are situations that are people, Americans like you and I, that actually live and ranch, quite profitably I might add, and pay no rent, no lease, and pay no taxes, on the land they have lived upon for the past few decades, some less than . . .

When asked about the situations, the prevalent response from a few, is there remarks, “. . . we pay our grazing permit fees, so we find nothing wrong with this.”

I must say, the average American finds a lot wrong with this. Upon further perusal, I find the Bureau of Lands Management is very aware of these living arrangements – i.e. people they are related too, or, from the same Church Organization, for example

Many of us have also found evidence of severe conflicts of interest within the hiring practices of private contractors, as well as unqualified employees obtaining jobs within the DOI/BLM. We find many relatives, unreported to the Human-Resources section of the DOI/BLM, in both areas, both private contractors and as government employees.

Many of us have also found evidence of severe conflicts of interest, within DOI/BLM attachments to local and state Cattlemen Association’s, as well as other groups — for example the pesticide manufacturing industries, and hunting groups and organizations that promote special-interest agendas and the management-development of such, forced upon our Public Lands. This sacrifices too much for special-interest groups, inclusive of much of our terrestrial and wildlife environment, inclusive of wild horses, as well as ignoring the harmful effects of pesticides, insecticides, and herbicides, used on America’s Public Lands.

This is also disrespectful to the Taxpayer’s of America, who basically have no say in these $-Billions of dollars of Taxpayer money spent, and nothing to show for it . . . Exception: our lands and wildlife being destroyed, and we are lied to about these subjects, a cover-up in totality – In America; whereby, Taxation without Representation and facts to the Taxpayer’s, is Illegal, via Our Constitution and governing Laws.

Many of us have also found these activities to be illegal, unethical, as well as neutralizes and conflicts with proper lands management decision-making. These management situations are disguised as proper solutions or resolutions, placed into action-based ideologies, upon our Public Lands, yet destroy our Public Lands.

We find many of our Public Lands on the verge of non-useful destruction, or destroyed in total and currently unuseful. We find our water systems and natural watersheds to be compromised. We find the use of pesticides to be irrevocably-irresponsible, in particular on wildlife. We find these organizations and people that use the pesticides, and wildlife sacrificed for their use, to be irresponsible in total. These organizations scapegoat other wildlife, for example our Nation’s Apex Predators, which are inclusive of cougar, coyote, bear, wolves, and create a disturbing kill-off, irresponsibly and with prejudice, bias, and special-interest appeal the main motivating-circumstances.

Irresponsibility in Government

All of this I mention within these field notes, are simply the tip of the iceberg, on what is ongoing on our Public Lands today. It is an understatement to say we need more transparency of these government agencies that are working “out of sight” and within a total irresponsible work ethic. Lands are destroyed, and wildlife kill-off takes place from both unavailability of healthy ecology — as well as toxic chemicals (i.e. critical-mass dirt pollution) and less land for them for surviveability.

There is no doubt that our government legal entities should be investigating all of this, and yet, they do not do so. Our responsibility as American citizens remains, to be a voice for the voiceless, and ask our government and politicians why nothing is being done about any of this. The evidence is there. They are the managers of our lands, we should not have to say anything, nor should we have to demand honesty, ethics, and for government agencies to obey the laws that are in place, to avoid conflicts of interest and this type of illegal behavior. – 1/20/23 John Cox, MFA