The Free Issue. Wyoming Wildlife Grizzly Bear Issue

Hideous example of European Americans hatred of nature. . . oh wait . . charming example of interaction with wildlife.  Mescalaro Apache, 1880s.

You really should read it.

Wyoming Wildlife

We've subscribed to Wyoming Wildlife, the excellent magazine of the Wyoming Game & Fish Department, for decades.  It's a great magazine.

This issue, as far as I'm aware of, is the first free issue they've ever produced.

And that's because this is the first openly lobbying issue that they've ever produced.

The topic is the delisting of Grizzly Bears as an endangered or threatened species.  

The Endangered Species has been a huge success in regard to grizzly bears, as well as wolves.  The fact that grizzly bears remain on the list in Wyoming even after twice the number needed for recovery has been long obtained and after their range has grossly exceeded what was originally set is a tribute to that fact.  Their numbers are still growing, and truth be known the Game & Fish is being conservative about their numbers and range. It's probably somewhat higher in terms of numbers than the Game & Fish states and the range definitely exceeds what this issue declares it to be.

The only reason that the bear remains on the list are due to the facts that: 1) the ESA is a complicated act and the procedure for desisting is accordingly complicated and: 2) the stupidity of our Federal Court system allows the remote D.C. Circuit to hear cases that have nothing whatsoever to do with Washington D. C. as a territorial jurisdiction; and 3) environmental groups don't give a rats ass about people who live in the state.

Some of that is a harsh opinion, but it's all correct.

Indeed, back in the 80s and 90s Wyomingites, and by that I mean the people who are really from here, not those who come in for work and stay awhile, found themselves under a sort of odd academic assault from those who openly advocated for turning much of Montana and Wyoming into a giant park. Their position was that these regions were losing population (which they were at the time) and living here was passé. Never mind that what was really going on was an petroleum contraction and those employed outside of that industry, particularly the natives, weren't going away at all.  Related to that way, although not organizationally, are the efforts of the bear's extreme advocates who view the entire state as essentially bear territory.

Truth be known, most Wyomingites, again those really from here, might be accepting of that view if the Game & Fish could manage them, which would mean allowing their hunting.  Otherwise, however, humans are put in the freakish position of being held to be out of nature. There's never been a period in which humans haven't been able to hunt a healthy bear population for legitimate reasons, except for the current ones.

The lawsuits that keep this idiotic situation going are always technical in matter and pretty much simply designed to throw a wrench in the works. They're always filed in the District of Columbia which, in a jurisdictional system that made sense, would never have jurisdiction over matters like this.  This means they're always heard by judges who don't have to live with their decisions in any real sense, and they're always heard by Federal judges who are part of a system which keeps them on the bench unless they commit a crime as long as they can breath.  

All of this points to several things.  The most important thing is that its time to delist the grizzly and let Wyoming manage it.

It's also time to enormously restrict the territorial jurisdiction of the D. C. Circuit down to something rational.