Field Notes

On the heels of the Yellowstone grizzly bear delisting, which was touted by many as proof of the Endangered Species Act’s efficacy, Rebecca Clarren of the online magazine Salon.com reported Tuesday that a leaked Bush Administration draft proposal recommends sweeping changes to the landmark 1973 law that would radically curtail it’s powers to protect imperiled fish and wildlife.

Clarren broke the story as follows:

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is maneuvering to fundamentally weaken the Endangered Species Act, its strategy laid out in an internal 117-page draft proposal obtained by Salon. The proposed changes limit the number of species that can be protected and curtail the acres of wildlife habitat to be preserved. It shifts authority to enforce the act from the federal government to the states, and it dilutes legal barriers that protect habitat from sprawl, logging or mining.

"The proposed changes fundamentally gut the intent of the Endangered Species Act," says Jan Hasselman, a Seattle attorney with Earthjustice, an environmental law firm, who helped Salon interpret the proposal. "This is a no-holds-barred end run around one of America's most popular environmental protections. If these regulations stand up, the act will no longer provide a safety net for animals and plants on the brink of extinction."

With everyone from major news outlets to bloggers picking up the story, headlines, updates, spin, and even accusations are flying. On the more inflammatory end, there’s this characterization from Scienceblogs.com:

Actually, "gut" really isn't descriptive enough to do justice to what [the Bush Administration is] getting geared up for. They are getting set to completely eviscerate the act. Basically, their plan is to take the thing, slit it up the middle, dump all the internal organs onto the ground and jump up and down on them. Then they're going to stuff the carcass of the Endangered Species Act with straw, and drag it around with them in a Weekend-at-Bernie's-esque attempt to maintain some sort of environmental credibility.

On the other side of the coin, most mainstream reports include perspective from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service personnel, including from NPR:

"It's really a starting point, a beginning of a process," [USFWS director Dale Hall] says. "It's not one that represents any of the latest thinking that we have."

And from the San Diego Union Tribune:

“We haven't made any secret about our desire to make some improvements,” said Chris Tollefson at the Fish and Wildlife Service in Washington, D.C. “What we tried to do in the last couple of months was get our senior staff to . . . look at what we could do as an agency . . . to really move forward and make progress. . . .
“We are not going to try to sneak anything under the radar,” he said.

Needless to day, these explanations are disputed.

So what do you think is going on? Is the Bush Administration trying to pull a fast one? Is the media blowing it out of proportion? Maybe a little of both? Write your comments below.

In a House Natural Recourses Committee hearing entitled "Access Denied: The growing conflict between fishing, hunting and energy development on federal lands,” conservationists and labor leaders testified Tuesday that energy development on public land is failing wildlife and squeezing out hunters and anglers.

From The Casper Star-Tribune:

"Energy development is not being done right on the public lands in the West," said Rollin Sparrowe, a Wyoming resident and board member of the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership and former supervisor of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service research programs on Rocky Mountains wildlife. . . .

Sparrowe noted that oil and gas leasing has accelerated since the November election. "People want to get as much leased as they can under the current administration before it's too late," he said.

Representatives Stevan Pearce (R-NM) and Don Young (R-AK) argued that the amount of land affected—“less than 5 percent of BLM” parcels—doesn’t justify all the fuss. Young added that, “If we continue down this path of not developing energy, you won't have any freedom in this country.”

Where do you stand on the topic?

Since the last time we asked if you would vote for presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani, a number of videos of the former New York City mayor detailing his policy on gun control have popped up on the internet.

Check out these from You Tube.

Do they change or galvanize your opinion of the candidate?

Yesterday, we linked some of the so-called educational material disseminated by New Jersey state officials in support their push to explore non-lethal methods of bear control. Today, we have a very timely story from The New Jersey Herald that may shed some light on how that new strategy is working so far:

A large black bear which tried to break into a home several times looking for food was shot and killed by a wildlife control officer over the weekend.

The shooting came after officers tried for more than a week to capture the bruin in live traps. "The bear eluded the traps and eluded capture,'' said Darlene Yuhas, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Environmental Protection. When the efforts at a live capture were unsuccessful, officers set up along a route the bear was believed to take as he searched for food.

The bruin weighed a hefty 532 pounds.

Paul McMullen told the court he never set out to kill fox. But at the end of the day, having spent some £12,000 to bring the prosecution, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (RSPCA) took down their quarry. McMullen was found guilty of violating Britain’s controversial Hunting Act and ordered to pay £750 in fines and £5,000 in reparations. Here’s the latest.

By now you know that New Jersey’s new governor and DEP commissioner yanked a hard-won black bear season away from the state’s hunters last year. Now, in their effort to explore non-lethal methods of bear control, the state is disseminating so-called educational material. But some of it smells a little like propaganda.

For example, check out the linked document from the state’s Division of Fish & Wildlife entitled “Questions and Answers About NJ’s Black Bears.” To the question, “Weren't black bear numbers kept low in New Jersey through extensive hunting?” the following answer is given:

No. The population remained small throughout most of the 20th century due to limited amounts of suitable habitat. There were legal hunting seasons for black bear in New Jersey only in the years 1958, and 1962 through 1970. The limited hunting season during those 10 years resulted in only 46 bears being harvested, indicating a relatively small population. This prompted the Division, the Fish and Game Council and the sportsmen of New Jersey to close the season in 1971.

This answer conspicuously omits the fact that during the state’s two recent bear hunts in 2003 and 2005, sportsmen took a whopping 626 bears. What’s more, a chart that follows this excerpt shows that bear complaints went down precipitously immediately following the 2003 season. Yet, in the section that discusses management tools and bear-control options, hunting is not even mentioned.

So what do you think? Are New Jersey wildlife officials giving the public the bear facts—or their own spin on them?

Since Katrina and the subsequent well-publicized gun seizures, New Orleans resident are not just re-arming, they’re applying for gun permits at double the pre-Katrina rate. Check out this Associated Press story, which begins:

Sixty-four-year-old Vivian Westerman rode out Hurricane Katrina in her 19th-century house. So terrible was the experience that she wanted two things before the 2006 season arrived: a backup power source and a gun. "I got a 6,000-watt generator and the cutest little Smith & Wesson, snub-nose .38 you ever saw," she boasted. "I've never been more confident." People across New Orleans are arming themselves - not only against the possibility of another storm bringing anarchy, but against the violence that has engulfed the metropolitan area in the 19 months since Katrina, making New Orleans the nation's murder capital.

Like many of us, you may dream of taking a bear and making a rug for hunting camp. But until you get your bruin, why not start with a Gummy Bear rug. I’m sure you wouldn’t catch any flack from your buddies. Read more here.

Handfishing for catfish is legal in some states and a misdemeanor in others. And may soon become the latter in Missouri, where the practice has been allowed on an experimental basis for the last couple years.

Here’s the latest from an Associated Press story in The Joplin Globe:

Citing renewed threats to breeding-age fish, state conservation officials are no longer issuing permits to fish for catfish by hand, a practice known as noodling. The suspension could be made permanent as soon as next month.

State law allows those who fish using lines, jugs or rods and reels to catch and keep up to 20 catfish daily. Noodlers are asking the state to allow hand-fishers to keep only five fish each season — compared with the experimental limit of five each day.

What do you think? Should the state grant the noodlers’ request? Do you think noodling in general should be legal or illegal?

You might think a big buck or brown trout makes a wily, worthy adversary, but when was the last time any of these critters escaped your capture three times in a row, stole your dentures, and taunted you about it afterwards? Judging by the ordeal described in this Associated Press story, anyone who wants a real challenge needs to start chasing mice. Here’s a little snippet:

"We moved the bed, moved the dressers and the night stand and tore the closet apart," he said. "I said, 'I knew that little stinker stole my teeth' - I just knew it."