Category Archives: Uncategorized

Written by John Cox, M.A., Trail Rider Cascade Mountains

In North America, there have been only 2 fatal wild wolf attacks — i.e. human involved, in the past century. In the lower 48, there have been 0 fatal wild wolf attacks in the past century. ​In North America, there have been only 22 nonfatal wild wolf attacks in the past century. Four were rabid.

FEAR! Advertising dollars, and taxpayer dollars, use the term quite freely these days, as well as the basis for large sales, or to manipulate the public into irrational disinformation campaigns too, for example, rid our Public Lands of Wild Horses, or Predators in our ecological habitats.

COUGAR — From 1890 until 1994, only “authenticated” 13 fatalities took place in North America. That number went up to 27 fatal attacks (i.e. 1890 to 2022) by 2022. . .

Indeed, we can look at Wild Horse Advocacy, and see it as well – the roundups conducted by DOI/BLM, the Fertility Controls for over-population scares, FEAR-BASED MANIPULATIONS – DISINFORMATION CAMPAIGNS conducted by DOI/BLM & Corrupted Non-Profits & USDA Wildlife Services, but in reality, simply do not exist. Politician’s use scare-tactics, or, misuse the term FEAR (similar to how Humane is used today = misused) to scare their constituents into believing they will protect them all from the dastardly (fill in here whatever the trend is for the day) _________________ , blah blah blah, and everything will be all right.

We see all of them misuse the term FEAR and HUMANE simultaneously, and often . . .

Riding trails a lot throughout the years, and I always run across questions about how often Bear, Wolves, Cougar, or other Apex Predators, attack us. When I tell people never, they just grin, and explain to me information they have heard from others, or, from ranchers, or, the government, or, Joe Scmoo the plumber and while at the bar last night. I then explain to them, that group where you got that information from are not, nor ever have been, a group of people to obtain good, nor truthful, information from. Information based upon FEAR, is simply irrational, and extremely out of proportion with any types of reality.

Last year, black and grizzly bears combined killed four people in Alaska and Canada, and in 2019, only 2 fatal bear attacks occurred. Between 2000 and 2015, grizzly bears killed a total of two dozen people in North America — Statistics suggest there have been over 180 fatal bear attacks in North America since 1784. While the majority of these fatal attacks have been carried out by wild bears, some are the result of bears held in captivity.

On the trails, we have more to fear from insects, bees, or the grasses the horses may graze upon (e.g. loco-weed et al.), or poison oak among other toxic plants that can make us sickly, if we do not avoid them. Traumatic Brain Injuries are by far something to be concerned about, to Horse-People, than being attacked from Apex Predators. The fact is, we can fear, by far, being on the mountain trails, or just in the mountains, from those who approach life with little to no common sense.

The resolution much easier, but not as dramatic, or worth telling a story-i.e. lie, abut one’s personal adventures in the mountains . . . Or, repeating misinformation, from those misinformed, or, those ranchers who receive government subsidies from Wolf Attacks when their cattle attacked and killed (most often statistics get in their way) supposedly by Wolves. . . The facts, or truth, directly conflict with both government, cattle ranching, and corrupted non-profits, when discussing Wildlife Management, or Wild Horse Management on Public Lands.

Or, when we look at the tremendous Taxpayer Expense, from these same lies after lies, about Wildlife Over-Populations, we begin to see a Truth — but not the expected truth . . . Fertility Programs and Experimentation on America’s Wildlife, are presumptive-only, with no data nor evidence to show the programs needed, or necessary.

We see government agencies and corrupted non-profits, together, both CREATING THE PROBLEMS, AND ULTIMATELY, ASKING TAXPAYER’S FOR MORE MONEY TO RESOLVE THE PROBLEMS THEY CREATED. When indeed, in most cases, as Evidence does show, consistently, if they had left the Wild Horses, or, other Wildlife alone, there would be no problem. Nature takes care of itself, when healthy and allowed to do so.

The fact is, and was, THERE CONTINUES TO BE NO OVER-POPULATION OF WILD HORSES NOR WILDLIFE OF ANY TYPE, WHAT SO EVER. AS A MATTER OF FACT, JUST THE OPPOSITE EXISTS, IN TRUTH.

Editorial — Written by John Cox, M.A., Comm.

“All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” – George Orwell, Animal Farm

This sentence is a comment on the hypocrisy of governments that proclaim the absolute equality of their citizens, but give power and privileges to a small elite. In Animal Farm, it is the animals that take over a farm to escape human tyranny, but the pigs, who convinced the other animals of their honesty and virtuous interest in doing the “right things”, simply took over, then treated the other animals worse than the people did. A famous quotation from the book, and over time, remains a “standard” or an “analogy”, symbolic of how our government started, for a justifiable reason, but somewhere along the line of human existence, inferior humans took over.

Here we can start to understand the reasons why some of our history, and myth, simply “collide” into information that obviously developed into false-narratives; or, misleading events separate from any type of reality what so ever (i.e. the genesis of Wild Horses disappearing from Ancient North America, yet magically showing up later in history – still remains unexplained, and no evidence to show us they disappeared at all), to cover up the actual tragedy it may have been; as well as, the tragedy of those who appointed themselves as “above all else and all people”, and wish to keep the riches for themselves. Deception. We can also begin to understand the term, “Tragedy of the Commons”. . . as being the remainder of the animals on the farm, experience.

The Tragedy of the Commons refers to a situation in which individuals with access to history, and changing it, or, other available common information (also called a common), act upon it, i.e. changing history by false-narratives or misleading accounts of the history, for their own interests. But in doing so, ultimately deplete the resource, or, in this scenario, the history changes, beneficially for themselves.

Within the short novel Animal Farm, we see it is not only those who place themselves above everyone else, which is a tragedy within itself, but those who want to become similar to them. This is where dubious individuals are, indeed, far more tragic within their very aggressive methods of false-information-management, and the “do-anything mentality to achieve their goals toward richness, and become involved in high-society. Which is also nothing more than a “perceptive” false-motivation directed mostly to the ignorant or extreme bias, based upon false-narratives and dubious story-telling advertising.

These are the people, who escalate the false-narratives from the “commons” to create outright lies – in order to climb the social-ladder of supposed “success” . . . The “climb to riches” simply formed from piles upon piles – humans’ and animals’ alike – from deceit, outright destruction, and even the death of much of our wildlife today. The Excuses piled just as high as the piles of deceit, of misinformation, and deceptions . . .

Fertility Controls referred to as a Humane-Tool to control Wildlife Over-Populations that does not exist at all, remain as an obscure and deceptive Wildlife and Wild Horse Management scheme, based upon false-narratives that Pesticides, et al., save lives – “Reality” opposes and outright conflicts with these false-narratives directly. This is the “real-life” and ongoing tragedy we see daily.

And this is what we see in Wild Horse Advocacy of today, as well as Wildlife Advocacy. The dubious tragic and outright deceptions often create nothing more than a tragic depletion, or death, of not only our Wildlife and Wild Horses, but our Public Lands, as well.

Aristotle pointed out, in his book “Poetics”, that tragedy within books plays are simply a reflection of real life. Unfortunately, or fortunate — within plays, an “emotional catharsis” develops in the tragedy, which, essentially puts to rest, in the resolution of the story = Problem Solved, and life goes on. It then becomes a life experience learned and dealt with, then comes to an end. In real life there exist serious consequences to these types of actions of outright deceptions, lies, and wrongdoing, to our wildlife and our lands, and as mentioned above, the beauty of our lands and the nature itself, our wildlife — depleted – tragically and continuous.

Nothing comes back from Extinction. It is gone, forever.

Ultimately, this is where dubious and corrupt individuals use the terms “being successful” or worse “being humane”. . . Which, as we see today are simply more lies to cover up previous lies. Always interesting, the fact corruption is so obvious, yet, ignored most often, as if a reality (an inferior drama) . . . and this is what we see in both government and non-profits, when it comes to Our Natural Resources, Our Lands, and Our Wildlife.