N.D. Sen. Dorgan Asks DOI Appointee Salazaar To Let Hunters Think Elk Herd

Apparently it matters not who sits in the Department of Interior’s Chair, North Dakota U.S. Sen. Byron Dorgan has sought out Obama appointee to head the Interior Department, Colorado Sen. Ken Salazaar, to consider letting volunteer hunters thin a bulging elk population in Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

In July, 2007, Dorgan approached Interior Secretary Kempthorne with the same issue but of late, the Park Service is opting to use volunteers to kill the elk and then the meat will be donated to the hungry. Dorgan says it’s crazy to spend money to thin the herd when it’s not necessary.

“Why on earth would the federal government spend money to thin the elk herd when qualified volunteers would accomplish the same result without spending a dime?” Dorgan said in a press release.

According to the Grand Forks Herald, Salazaar said he would look into it.

Tom Remington

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How Much Is A Lot Of Money?

I recall as a kid finding a penny was a windfall. Of course, nobody had even created the word windfall back then. I grew up in the country and a penny in the pocket most assuredly meant a trip on my bicycle to Maggie Newton’s Store down the road a piece - about 4 miles. I could buy two mint juleps for a penny or maybe some shoestring licorice or candy dots on paper.

I recall a time in my life when I discovered my father got a raise at work (telephone company). His weekly salary was bumped all the way to $40 per week. Gasoline was in the ballpark of around $.25 per gallon. A bottle of Coke was 5 cents and you got 2 cents refunded when you returned the bottle.

There was a brief moment in my life when I fell asleep at the wheel and found myself involved in Amway. Oh, don’t tell me you don’t know about Amway? Don’t get me wrong. I believe Amway is a great company and an opportunity for the right person, of which I was not.

For those who have some assorted memories of Amway, might recall the infamous drawing of circles? That’s when you had to learn to make a presentation to friends and family and eventually to strangers about the benefits of selling soap. That’s how you really made money. I’m making this story long.

I believe it was my first time sitting through a “circles” presentation and the moron drawing the circles, who is probably a multi-millionaire now, told all of us there that by the time we got into the 1990s the average price of an automobile was going to be around $15,000.00. This guy was insane. You could buy a brand new Ford Pinto for $1995.00! I decided then and there not to have anything to do with someone that stupid.

I remember easily when the Stock Market Dow Jones Industrials went over the 1,000 mark for the first time. Millionaires were a rare breed and it was a once in a lifetime opportunity to feast your eyes on a one-hundred dollar bill. (We still valued a penny.)

Our federal government used to talk in total budget figures of millions of dollars and programs were funded with thousands of dollars. It didn’t take long before millions became billions. How much it that anyway?

The word definition that told us where the decimal point would go and how many zeroes on either side of it, became just another word. Most people in the country will never earn one million dollars before they die, so what does billion mean?

A billion here. A billion there and now you have several billion. So what.

We bounded into the 21st century and within a matter of days it seemed we had already established that a trillion dollars was just a few more billion, which means nothing.

Sometimes it takes a certain something to make reality sink in. My heart told me a trillion dollars was obscene. My mind toiled with trying to fathom. Today, I read an article I found in the Wall Street Journal - “Feel Like a Trillion Bucks”. Here’s what I found that really helped me put 1 trillion in perspective.

The human mind is not well equipped to fathom a number that large. A check for $1 trillion — a million million dollars — would have 12 zeros to the left of the decimal point. Homo sapiens hadn’t evolved a trillion seconds ago: 31,546 years in the past, Neanderthals were still trying to make fire.

Are you kidding me?

Tom Remington

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Humorous Headlines

Spotted this headline this morning:

“A giant of an elk taken in Utah breaks record with its antlers”

I wonder if the record the elk broke was still in the jacket, on top of the record player or just laying out somewhere?

Sorry! My bad!

Tom Remington

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“I Left My Heart In San Fran…..” A Car Wash?

The owner of Soapy’s Car Wash in Paw Paw, Michigan found a heart in the corner of one of the car wash bays back in mid December. It turns out the heart belonged to a deer. I wonder if it misses it?

Tom Remington

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Snuggle Up With A Polar Bear But Avoid Your Dangerous Dog

A polar bear walked into a bar……..no, wait! Wrong beginning to this story but just as asinine. According to Animal Planet, polar bears are safer for humans to be around than dogs.

I was sitting in my favorite chair last night waiting impatiently for the Fiesta Bowl to start. (In need to move out West so that I don’t have to stay up so late watching live sports broadcasts.) So, I’m flipping through channels and I come across Animal Planet and they’re talking about polar bears. I pause.

On the TV screen is the film of a polar bear standing on its hind legs with front legs and paws on one of those tundra buses, that schlep tourists out into the “wilds” to see bears, looking in. The narrator says something not exactly in these words. “The polar bear is just as curious about the people in the bus as the people are about the bear.”

Great! But then he goes on to say that as a matter of fact polar bears are safer to be around than your neighbor’s dog. Then begins the ridiculous citing of statistics. Something like, “As a matter of fact there have been only 9 deaths associated with polar bears in Northern Russia where polar bears are plentiful.” This is followed by some obscene number of deaths associated with dog attacks worldwide.

So let’s see. I think I read recently that worldwide there are something in the order of between 20,000 and 30,000 polar bears. Help me out here if you can. How many of those polar bears live near civilization? By civilization I mean around more than a handful of people and we don’t count tourists.

Not even considering the fact that polar bears and humans never see each other - when’s the last time you encountered a real live polar bear outside of the zoo? - Consider this and again help me out here.

There are somewhere between 6.5 billion and 7 billion humans on the earth. According to Wikipedia, there are 400 million dogs in the world. Assuming that 400 million dogs, of which I think 300 million of them live in Florida alone, is referring to pet dogs, I think the odds are quite a bit higher that I’m going to encounter several hundred thousand dogs long before I run into a polar bear.

Do people not understand the absurdity when animal lovers spew these sorts of distorted, finely spun “facts”? Don’t get me wrong, I think them cute little buggers make nice Coca-Cola commercials. Which reminds me. I don’t recalling seeing any during the Christmas holiday period.

Polar bears are a fascinating animal. The little ones are cuter than the dickens but you would be making a big mistake if you decided to approach a polar bear in the wild because you were told you are safer around a polar bear than your neighbors dog.

Tom Remington

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Programmed Failure In Wolf Relisting

One all too frequent aspect of government initiatives is that they often are doomed to failure from the get go. The design is such that the planned action is guaranteed to fall apart sooner rather than later and never achieve the putative goals. I call that “programmed failure” and the examples are numerous, from affirmative action to welfare. The cases are so numerous and ubiquitous that programmed failure might be said to be the principal function and overriding style of our modern Federal and state governments.

Programmed failure is abundantly evident in the latest “relisting” of Rocky Mountain wolves. The manner in which the US Fish and Wildlife Service put wolves back on the Endangered Species List is so fraught with contradiction and legal screw-ups that it cannot stand the light of day.

Some background: Years ago the USFWS released Canadian wolves into Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming in a (misguided) attempt to “reintroduce” the species. The wolves multiplied to huge (but expected and predicted) numbers. Over the last few years the burgeoning wolf population has decimated deer and elk herds, and wolves have taken to slaughtering sheep and cattle on private ranches. The situation is out of control.

Read the rest at Western Institute for Study of the Environment.

Tom Remington

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A Chilly Homer, Alaska

Tom Remington

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NWTF Founder, Tom Rodgers Dies

A man with a vision passes on. Someone we’ll all miss.

Tom Remington

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Environmentalists Don’t Care About Your Safety

By now most of you have heard about the city of Seattle’s choice to stop using salt on icy roads because it damages the environment. Perhaps, but the alternative is much more costly in both human lives and the economy as is pointed out by Floyd and Mary Beth Brown in Townhall.

These environmentalist fanatics prefer people lose life and limb rather than damage a blade of grass or an insect. But like much government decision-making they are actually harming the environment more by choosing sand over salt on roads.

But don’t expect this kind of thing to get any better. Barack Obama has named Lisa Jackson, Chief of Staff for New Jersey governor Jon Corzine and former New Jersey head of the Department of Environmental Protection, to head up our nation’s Environmental Protection Agency.

Jackson, under the direction of Gov. Corzine, abandoned all concerns for public safety and property damage in forcing their anti-hunting ideals down the throats of New Jersians. Bears are multiplying rapidly in parts of the Garden State with human conflicts with bears at an all time high.

It has gotten so bad in some places that state legislators are beginning to demand the governor do something or face the fact that he may become personally liable due to his ignorance of the matter and lack of any substantive action to reduce incidences and increase public safety. Garbage proof cans and educational pamphlets just isn’t getting the job done.

With the ice and dangerous roads situation in Seattle, bears in New Jersey and a list that will certainly grow in the coming months, some common sense and a realization about the facts behind these decisions must be better considered.

Tom Remington

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Not Being Apologetic About Hunting

Doug Giles is at it again!

They screech, “You hunt? Oh my Gawd!” (Usually followed by putting one hand over their mouth and one hand on their hip, followed by putting both hands on their hips and then to their final resting place in the disapproving arm cross. At least that’s what the guys do).

Tom Remington

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Al Gore Should Apologize For “Biggest Whopper Ever Sold”

Not only is the world beginning to fully realize what a farce they have been dealt concerning global warming but we are finding stuff printed in liberal rags as well. Consider this article found suspiciously buried deep in the Huffington Post.

Mr. Gore has stated, regarding climate change, that “the science is in.” Well, he is absolutely right about that, except for one tiny thing. It is the biggest whopper ever sold to the public in the history of humankind.

Tom Remington

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Fight Global Warming With Man-Made Global Cooling

Honestly! You can’t make this stuff up!

Tom Remington

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Wildlife Pro Network To Host Live Podcast And Benefit Auction For Injured Hunter

Nick Pallo was involved in a tragic accidental shooting while conducting a night fox hunt on Dec 17, 2008. In short he needs extensive surgeries and most of all a chance to regain eyesight in his left eye.

The Wildlife Pro Network is doing a benefit Auction Online. Any vendors who want visibility for their products are encouraged to make a donation and allow us to auction off your item, presently we have 17
items for sale that may interest anyone here. The auction will start Sunday at 12 Pm and run through Jan 11, 2009. You can view what we already have on hand now at the auction site at
http://www.wildlifepro.net/group/wpnauctiontobenefitnickpallo

On Sunday, January 4th, at 8pm EST, The Wildlife Pro Network will again host its Live PodCast called Night Predator Hunting & Calling.

The PodCast can be heard at http://www.talkshoe.com/tc/16456/ and you can join in by calling 724-444-7444 and entering the pin “1 #”.

Nick Pallo, will have a chance to explain his story in his own words and talk about how the accident affected him, surgeries he expects to have in the next few months, and get an update on the efforts made and amounts raised to date.Nick will also take part in the main show.

Brent Saxton of Kees Productions and Ron Jones of Redneck Pride, Calls & Scents. are two well spoken speakers in the trapping & game calling industry and always put on a well informative show. They will join in on Nick on Night Hunting safety and cover all topics related to Hunter Safety,the proper use of calling techniques and the use of scents. The show will last from 8 PM-10:00 PM and is definitely a show not want to be missed. Sponsors: Kees Productions , Rednecks Pride Call and Scents, & Skinny Moose Media.

[So far I have raised $803.33 for Nick pallo and have a goal of $5000
by 12 PM, Jan 11, 2009]

Robb Russell
www.wildlifepro.net

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Hasn’t Science Become Lost In Wildlife Management?

It’s easy to talk about how looking out for wildlife is accomplished through wildlife biology, a science, when in reality, science plays a very small part these days. Administration of the Endangered Species Act is a prime example of this.

I tend to be an analytical thinker, not caring to be bogged down in discussions laced with subjective material. I grew up in a small town that each and every summer would host the National Training Laboratories, a Washington, D.C.-based organization that offered educational seminars and symposiums to help people become better at such things as interpersonal communications and human interaction - YUCK!

I grew up a country boy who learned early on that interpersonal communications meant a trip to the woodshed for an “attitude adjustment” when circumstances required it. I can vividly describe my “human interaction” when I got my father’s belt laid across my backside.

Over the course of human events, I found myself often mired in the doldrums of listening to people talk about “feel good” things. Example: A group of us were gathered a someone’s lake house one summer evening. In this group were three women visiting from Ireland. As the evening turned cool, we all migrated into the cottage and gathered around the kitchen table. This is when discussions got bad.

I weathered most of the conversation until I heard one person say, “If you were an animal, what kind do you think you would be?” And with that I promptly left the kitchen and went outside and sat on the dock looking at the stars. I was soon joined by the three Irish belles of which one made the comment that Americans were weird people (I won’t use her exact words as they wouldn’t be appropriate here.).

But let’s face it, sitting around talking about facts is boring, unless you’re a scientist, compared to the thrills people find in discussing subjective material. Both have their places for sure and neither should be introduced into the atmosphere of the other. Nothing will kill a discussion about what kind of animal you might be quicker than presenting scientific fact about that animal. On the same token, there’s really no place for subjective thinking in dealing with scientific fact.

A friend sent me an email the other day that contained an article written by Walter E. Williams. I later found the article at Townhall.com. The article, “Teaching Economics” is about how some professors in our education system these days use their position to proselytize their students. Williams further explains that in his classroom, he is there to teach them economics.

Learning how to think straight, as opposed to what values and opinions to hold, is the crucial part of education. Part of that learning is to be able to understand the distinction between subjective statements, for which there are no commonly accepted standards of proof, and positive statements for which there are.(emphasis added)

Some would see danger in this manner of instruction, perhaps fearing that if not influenced in some other way, a student may grow up and learn the truth, which might run contrary to one’s ideals and values. Williams, I assume, must be a man of great self confidence and faith in how the truth shall set one free as he shares this at the end of his article.

Personally, I want students to share my values that personal liberty, along with free markets, is morally superior to other forms of human organization. The most effective means to accomplish that goal is to give them the tools to be tough, rigorous, hard-minded thinkers and they will probably reach the same conclusions as I have.

How sweet it is!

How this relates to the loss of science in wildlife management is simple really. If you believe in science, that is real science, the kind that is an evolution into the discovery of facts, we can determine what is real and not real. To become educated as a scientist you need not know of the teachers values to become a good scientist. You need to know what kind of critical thinking, rooted in proven and unproven evidence directs you toward conclusions. What can be better than scientific fact?

I’ll admit I’m not the best at articulating what I’m thinking but I try anyway. I’m not afraid of science and in the discovery of truth. Take man-made global warming for instance. If science can prove it’s real, then I don’t have a problem with that but nobody has been able to convince we that it’s real. One of the reasons being was that as soon as I heard Al Gore and his flock of sheeple saying the science was “settled”, I knew somebody was hiding something.

Getting back to wildlife a bit more directly, I don’t want to see the spotted owl disappear or the polar bear or any other species for that matter. The problem that is occurring is that we’ve walked away from science as a determining factor for the protection of wildlife, say nothing of common sense.

Of Mice and Caribou (and Men and Wolves) tells this whole story far better than I could create it from my keyboard. The Western Institute for the Study of the Environment uses the work of scientists to make a grand statement that real science has been abandoned and in its place subjective theories thrown into the administration of the Endangered Species Act in order to accomplish special interest goals.

The ESA has spawned a massive bureaucracy however, and given rise to dozens of new species of government functionaries, regulations, taxes, takings, exactions, and entirely new branch of law, and courts, lawyers, judges, and advocates, as well as inflicting economic hardships nationally and worldwide. And contrary to the best intentions, “implementation” of the ESA has damaged ecosystems and extirpated species via “scientific” research.

Not only has the ESA given birth to what’s described above, but it has been allowed to sculpt out species that are not really species, once again in order to fulfill agendas.

Since regular, recognized species are not actually going extinct, the apparatchiks (agents of the apparatus) who make their livings playing the ESA game have invented a whole new world of partial subsets of species to get all exercised about (and to keep the gravy flowing).

These include: subspecies, evolutionarily significant units (ESU’s), evolutionary units, management units, metapopulations, distinct population segments (DPS’s), experimental populations, subpopulations, ecotypes, stocks, substocks, herds, pools, and gaggles (well, maybe not gaggles, but who knows when that will happen?)

W.I.S.E. does a great job explaining how the creation of all of the above are nothing more than subjective differences. As I pointed out in the beginning of this piece, good science as described by Williams is understanding the difference between subjective matter which provides no proof and a fact or positive statement that does. Being allowed to inject subjective topics into what is intended to be a scientific administration of a law to actually protect wildlife, yields an undesirable outcome - at least to those interested in scientific truth.

The art of creating subspecies, etc in the many ways it has been done is the equivalent of declaring my wife’s chocolate cake in danger of going extinct because I ate it all. First I have to convince someone that my wife’s chocolate cake is an “evolutionary significant unit” because my wife’s chocolate cake is different than any other (subjective and can’t be proven, even in taste tests). Once this is accomplished I can further manipulate the poorly worded ESA to achieve my goals, which in this case would actually be to keep everyone away from MY chocolate cake.

This is all inane discussion but hopefully it will help drive home the same inane point to which the ESA has morphed. There’s no science of proven standards we can rely on anymore. This is a game of manipulating words to achieve goals, none of which involve saving species.

But isn’t this only typical of big government, creators of the laws that ultimately strip Americans of their freedoms and then never watch over the execution of the orders they’ve given? Perhaps if enough of us begin speaking up and becoming better watch dogs we can begin to straighten the mess out.

It won’t be easy but we must be vigilant.

Tom Remington

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Arctic Sea Ice Is Melting. Wait A Minute….No It’s Not

This past June a “science editor” for a UK newspaper wrote that by the end of this year, 2008, we would be able to sail across the North Pole through open waters because global warming would for the first time in recorded history, have melted all the ice away.

Ringing in the New Year, real scientists have just concluded that the Arctic sea ice is where it should be and hasn’t really changed any since they began measuring it back in 1979.

Read about “Globaloney” at Newsbusters.

Tom Remington

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