Tag Archives: United States Fish and Wildlife Service

What Excessive Government Looks Like

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If you own an outdoor cat, you understand that property lines and boundaries don’t hold a lot of meaning for these animals. As the owner of two indoor cats, I can say from past experience that there are some cats that are simply not capable of being indoor cats. That being said, I am here to inform you about the war on pet cats that is currently going on in Florida (Doesn’t the government have better ways to spend its money?).

Last Wednesday The Daily Signal posted an article about the war on pet cats that is taking place in Florida.

The article reports:

In 2014, the Fish and Wildlife Service implemented a pest management plan designed to trap cats that the agency perceived as a threat to the Key Largo woodrat. The furry targets of this sting operation were accused of trespassing on federal land, which is a woodrat habitat, and doing what cats do best: hunt and kill rats.

Instead of focusing only on the large swaths of feral cats that pose the primary threat to the rats’ survival on the island, the Fish and Wildlife Service went overboard. Resident cat owners complained that agents set baited traps adjacent to the private property of the owners who live next to the federal park.

Then, Fish and Wildlife Service agents trapped Rocky, a pet cat to Spencer Slate, a Key Largo businessman who runs a scuba diving center. According to Slate, the traps “were all about 50 feet from [his] property” when Rocky was lured in one night. As a result, Slate said that “Rocky’s face was so bloodied by the trap’s spring-shut door that he did not recognize his pet.”

Slate discovered this after a Fish and Wildlife Service agent showed up at his business to serve him with a written citation threatening jail time for allegedly allowing Rocky to enter federal land. When delivering the citation, the agent neglected to return the captive kitten, instead depositing Rocky at an animal shelter nearly 15 miles away.

Thank goodness a federal judge dismissed the citation.

The article further reports:

As Mark Miller, managing attorney for the Pacific Legal Foundation’s Atlantic Center in Florida, explains, “when [Fish and Wildlife Service] agents prowl off of federal land to trap private citizens’ cats on private land, these agents’ actions implicate a number of constitutional clauses” that could make the agents’ actions unlawful.

Furthermore, the fact that Slate was threatened with jail time for the instinctive response of his baited cat is a gross misuse of government power. This tactic represents the phenomenon of overcriminalization, the use of the criminal law and penalties to punish every mistake and to solve every problem—including a pet cat wandering around Key Largo.

Someone should point out to the Fish and Wildlife Service agent that cats perform a service to humans in keeping the population of rats and other vermin under control.

This is not about cats–this is about government over-reach and bullying private citizens. Cats are not known to respect property lines and the cat may not have read the sign explaining that he was about to enter federal land. This was a waste of time, energy, and money on the part of the government. This kind of abuse of power needs to end.

A Guess It’s Okay To Kill Birds As Long As You Do It With Green Energy

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One of the supposed reasons for the rejection of the Keystone Pipeline was its supposed negative impact on the environment. Those objecting to the Pipeline chose to overlook the fact that pipelines have a better safety record than the trains currently transporting the oil. (Not to mention that the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad, owned by Berkshire Hathaway, owned by Warren Buffett, a friend of President Obama, is currently transporting the oil). At any rate, the Keystone Pipeline was rejected due to a claimed negative impact on the environment.

Fast forward to 2016. Fox News reported yesterday that the regulations surrounding wind farms have been revised by the Obama Administration.

The article reports:

The Obama administration is revising a federal rule that allows wind-energy companies to operate high-speed turbines for up to 30 years, even if means killing or injuring thousands of federally protected bald and golden eagles.

Under the plan announced Wednesday, companies could kill or injure up to 4,200 bald eagles a year without penalty — nearly four times the current limit. Golden eagles could only be killed if companies take steps to minimize the losses, for instance, by retrofitting power poles to reduce the risk of electrocution.

Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe said the proposal will “provide a path forward” for maintaining eagle populations while also spurring development of a pollution-free energy source that’s intended to ease global warming, a cornerstone of President Barack Obama’s energy plan.

Ashe said the 162-page proposal would protect eagles and at the same time “help the country reduce its reliance on fossil fuels” such as coal and oil that contribute to global warming.

First of all, for the truth about global warming see the website wattsupwiththat. It posts the latest scientific information on the global warming hoax. You can also use the search engine on this website to look up previous articles on the subject.

The article further reports:

Under the new proposal, companies would pay a $36,000 fee for a long-term permit allowing them to kill or injure eagles. Companies would have to commit to take additional measures if they kill or injure more eagles than estimated, or if new information suggests eagle populations are being affected.

The permits would be reviewed every five years, and companies would have to submit reports of how many eagles they kill. Now such reporting is voluntary, and the Interior Department refuses to release the information.

Companies would be charged a $15,000 administrative fee every five years for long-term permits. The fees would cover costs to the Fish and Wildlife Service of conducting five-year evaluations and developing modifications, the agency said.

If an oil spill killed this many birds, there would be a very loud outcry. This is ridiculous. The other thing to remember here is that in its current state, wind energy will never fully replace carbon energy–it is not as reliable and cannot be depended upon to generate electricity 24 hours a day. If you only want electricity a few hours a day, it might work, but I can’t imagine most Americans accepting that. I would also like to remind people that in 2013 the Town of Falmouth Massachusetts held a vote to remove its windmill because of the problems it was causing (low pitched vibrations causing headaches, sleeplessness, and other problems) See article posted here.

We don’t yet have the technology for efficient green energy. The government needs to stop subsidizing and let the free market take over. If the solution is out there, the free market will find it. Until then, relax, global warming is a hoax to get more money from wealth countries into the hands of dictators in poor countries.

If You Misunderstand The Cause Of The Problem, You Probably Won’t Get The Solution Right Either

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I have been following the story of the California water crisis for about five years now (rightwinggranny), including posting vacation pictures of the destruction the environmentalists have caused to the Central Valley farmers in the name of saving the Delta Smelt. Well, today The Wall Street Journal posted a story about the Delta Smelt. The Delta Smelt is not doing well, despite the fact that in order to protect the smelt from water pumps, government regulators have flushed 1.4 trillion gallons of water into the San Francisco Bay since 2008.

The article reports:

The agency (the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) acknowledges that its “existing regulatory mechanisms have not proven adequate” to arrest the fish’s decline since its listing under the Endangered Species Act in 1993 and that “we are unable to determine with certainty which threats or combinations of threats are directly responsible.”

Let me get this straight–the environmentalists have dumped 1.4 trillion gallons of water into the San Francisco Bay since 2008 in order to save the Delta Smelt. The article reminds us that the amount of water dumped would have been enough to sustain 6.4 million Californians for six years.

The article gives a more plausible explanation for the decline of the fish:

The smelt’s decline might not seem such a mystery today had government regulators more closely examined the science. For instance, a 2008 study by San Francisco State University researcher Wim Kimmerer—a paper used by the Fish and Wildlife Service to support its pumping restrictions—found that the sporadic population losses attributed to pumping during the winter and spring when smelt are spawning failed to take into account “subsequent 50-fold variability in survival from summer to fall” when the young fish are growing.

Other studies have noted that the biggest driver of species abundance in the delta is precipitation, which may explain why the smelt population has plummeted over the past four years of drought after rebounding in 2011—a wet year.

California should be a case study of what happens when extreme environmentalists demand drastic solutions to problems they do not fully understand. The damage they have done to the Central Valley, the former breadbasket of America, may be permanent, and all Americans have been negatively impacted by higher food prices as a result of government policies based on false conclusions drawn by extreme environmentalists. As these same environmentalists declare that global warming is caused by man and is an immediate threat to all of us, we should remember how flawed their science was in regard to the Delta Smelt. It’s time someone stood up for people and their right to exist.

One Of The Problems With Solar Energy

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On August 19, Outside Magazine posted a story about the  Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System in the Mojave Desert.

The article reports:

When investigators visited the $2.2 billion Ivanpah plant last year before its February launch, they saw bird-based smoke plumes (known as “streamers” by employees) shoot through the air once every two minutes. BrightSource Energy—one of the companies involved in Ivanpah and spearheader of the proposed larger solar farm—estimates about 1,000 such deaths occur annually, but the Center for Biological Diversity says the carnage could climb to 28,000. Either way, investigators want the planned solar farm put on hold until a full year of bird deaths at Invanpah is tabulated.

We hear a lot about the ecological damage done by traditional energy plants, how much ecological damage does the death of 28,000 birds do?

The article explains the problem with the Ivanpah plant:

The desert gets some of the best solar radiation in the country, but Ivanpah is also the biggest solar farm to employ power towers—a system wherein 300,000 garage-door-sized mirrors reflect light on boiler towers that produce steam to rotate turbines. Like a lethal disco ball, the solar farm singes birds as it generates electricity for 140,000 homes. 

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officials reported this month that power-tower solar farms have “the highest lethality potential” of any California solar project. The new BrightSource farm would have a 75-story power tower and stand in the flight path of more than 100 endangered species along the California-Arizona border. Investigators say it would be four times as lethal as Ivanpah.

Unfortunately, animals and insects are attracted to light—and concentrated light just concentrates the problem. The investigators told the Associated Press that Ivanpah “might act as a ‘mega-trap’ for wildlife … with the bright light of the plant attracting insects, which in turn attract insect-eating birds.” Ivanpah officials think they can solve the streamer problem despite biologists saying there’s no known way to curb the deaths.

I think we need to do some more research before we attempt to convert to alternative energy sources. There is no way the Keystone Pipeline could cause this much damage, yet it is not being approved because of potential environmental damage.

The Latest War On Nature

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2012-12-27_20-38-02_218This article is based on a story posted yesterday in the New York Times. I will admit that my reaction to the story is totally biased. I am the proud owner of two shelter cats. I fostered shelter cats for about a year and a half before I adopted these two. I also need to mention that my cats are strictly indoor cats. The shelter I worked with was a no-kill shelter that had a TNR (trap-neuter-return) program.

The article in the New York Times reports:

In a report that scaled up local surveys and pilot studies to national dimensions, scientists from the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and the Fish and Wildlife Service estimated that domestic cats in the United States — both the pet Fluffies that spend part of the day outdoors and the unnamed strays and ferals that never leave it — kill a median of 2.4 billion birds and 12.3 billion mammals a year, most of them native mammals like shrews, chipmunks and voles rather than introduced pests like the Norway rat.

Cats do kill birds and mice and other animals. It’s what they do.

The article further reports:

The estimated kill rates are two to four times higher than mortality figures previously bandied about, and position the domestic cat as one of the single greatest human-linked threats to wildlife in the nation. More birds and mammals die at the mouths of cats, the report said, than from automobile strikes, pesticides and poisons, collisions with skyscrapers and windmills and other so-called anthropogenic causes.

The article reports on the TNR programs:

The Washington Humane Society and many other animal welfare organizations support the use of increasingly popular trap-neuter-return programs, in which unowned cats are caught, vaccinated, spayed and, if no home can be found for them, returned to the outdoor colony from which they came. Proponents see this approach as a humane alternative to large-scale euthanasia, and they insist that a colony of neutered cats can’t reproduce and thus will eventually disappear.

Conservationists say that, far from diminishing the population of unowned cats, trap and release programs may be making it worse, by encouraging people to abandon their pets to outdoor colonies that volunteers often keep lovingly fed.

The problem here is not the cats–it’s the irresponsibility of the people who abandon them. The feral colonies will die out because of the TNR program. Looking into the future, I see myself needing cat licenses for my pets. I truly think this is ridiculous.

Just a note. As I stated, I have two indoor cats. Since they were rescued, they have not been outside or expressed any desire to be outside (they are a little more than a year old). However, the average lifespan of a field mouse that manages to get into my house is about 5 seconds. Hunting is a feline instinct, and cats should not be condemned for it!

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The Continuing Attack On Gibson Guitars

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Gibson guitar SG Standard 1969

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The Nashville Business Journal reported on Wednesday that federal authorities filed a complaint in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee that mirrors a 2010 action that sought official forfeiture of wood obtained in a 2009 raid of Gibson facilities. The latter of those cases has been stayed, pending the outcome of the most recent suit.

The article reports:

As has been the case in previous allegations, at issue is the classification of certain wood imported to the United States from India. Namely, a June shipment of 1,250 sawn logs was classified as “finished parts of musical instruments,” which is allowed under Indian law. In reality, according to the sworn affidavit of Fish and Wildlife Service agent Kevin Seiler, the wood was unfinished – a violation of the Lacey Act.

There are a few interesting facts about this action. First of all, the laws of India were totally complied with–the Obama administration is the problem. Second of all, the question is not the wood–the question is whether or not the wood is unfinished. Think about that a minute. If people in India do the job, it is okay with the government. If people in America do the job, the Obama administration raids their company. I thought the Obama administration was trying to keep jobs in America.

I am sure that it is simply an incredible coincidence that one of Gibson Guitar’s main competitors is a major contributor to Democrat Party coffers.

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Who Is Protecting Endangered Americans ?

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View On Black Bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis) ...

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Lincoln Brown posted an article at Townhall.com today about the impact of the lack of common sense in the Endangered Species Act.

Mr. Brown points out:

Despite the good faith efforts of wildlife officials in the State of Utah, members of the public, and even that evil moustache twirler known as the Energy Industry to improve Sage Grouse habitat, the bird may find itself listed as endangered in other states.

The unfortunate aspect of that is if it is listed as endangered in oh say Wyoming, it then becomes endangered everywhere, no matter what mitigation steps have been taken to upgrades its quality of life in Utah.

I had a conversation with one our county commissioners last week. As it turns out,. Sage Grouse and three obscure plants are just tip of the iceberg. I have been told that over the next few years, we can expect another 500 new species to become endangered over the next few years.

I am not in favor of putting animals at risk for extinction, but I would like to see some common sense in establishing what animals are endangered and exactly where they are endangered. Mr. Brown points out that in the western part of our country the Fur Fins and Feathers group routinely moves groups of animals around to balance animal populations. Bison, antelope and bighorn sheep are routinely located from areas that are overpopulated to areas the are underpopulated. It’s called common sense.

The danger in the lack of common sense in the Endangered Species Act is that the misuse of the act may prevent America from using natural resources that can be used without endangering any animals. We need to protect animals that are truly in danger, but we do not need to endanger Americans in the process.

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