WEASELS AND LYNX

Sent: Tuesday, December 18, 2001 2:53 PM
Subject: REFERENCE - Letter from Congressman McInnis to Norton re: Lynx

    Dear Secretary Veneman and Secretary Norton:

    We were alarmed and outraged by the findings of a recent Forest Service investigation regarding the lynx recovery survey, which concluded that hair samples from Canadian lynx had been illicitly "planted" on three known occasions by officials in the Forest Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife. While we commend the Forest Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service for investigating the matter and bringing it to Congress' attention, be believe the investigation's findings raise other elemental issues and questions that have not yet been satisfactorily answered. Notably, it calls into question the very credibility and integrity of the broader Canada lynx survey. Given the extraordinary impact that the lynx recovery program will have on the management of national forests throughout the West and around the nation, the Forest Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service should immediately resolve these outstanding matters.

   First, we believe that simply reassigning culpable individuals is a grossly inadequate punishment given the magnitude of this offense. While the investigation may in fact be correct in concluding that these incidents do not rise to the level of criminality - a finding we reserve judgment on until we have the opportunity to more thoroughly review the facts and relevant laws - these offenses minimally amount to professional malfeasance of the highest order. Whatever the reason, these individuals appear to have knowingly and willfully planted false evidence that, if unexposed, would have had immense implications on any number of management decisions.

   Even if not criminal - again, an issue we reserve judgment on this unethical behavior runs afoul of even the most lackadaisical standard of professional conduct. As such, we believe these individuals should be terminated immediately if their guilt is verifiable. We have every confidence that if a federal employee buried or otherwise concealed legitimate evidence pointing to the existence of a lynx on a national forest, their termination would be swift and sure. This incident should be treated no differently. Federal land managers simply cannot be allowed to obstruct a process of this size and consequence with relative impunity.

   Second, we believe the nature of these improprieties dictates an immediate and thorough review of all the data. acquired during the course of the lynx survey. A December 13 Forest Service memo to Congress detailing this incident asserts that "survey coordinators feel the integrity of the overall lynx sampling effort is being maintained," but the memo offers nothing to support these "feelings." Has the Forest Service attempted to independently verify the scientific authenticity of previously identified lynx samples found in other Regions? Can the Forest Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service say with any level of certainty that other lynx samples were not "planted" in a similarly surreptitious manner? If the answer to either of these questions is no, how can the Forest Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service guarantee Congress and the public that the national lynx recovery effort is grounded in science, rather than in the fraudulent behavior of unscrupulous field officers?

   Ultimately, the credibility of the lynx survey is now hanging by a thread. The Forest Service and the Fish and Wildlife Service have an obligation to demonstrate the propriety of other samples before it uses the lynx survey to make sweeping land management decisions.

   As your internal audit of this situation moves forward, we intend to ask the General Accounting Office to conduct its own parallel probe of these incidents. In addition, at this time we are planning on holding oversight hearings before the Forests and Forest Health Subcommittee early next year to ensure that this unfortunate occurrence is satisfactorily remedied.

Sincerely,

Scott McInnis
Chairman

Subcommittee on
Forests and Forest Health
Committee on Resources

Jim Hansen
Chairman Committee on Resources

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Don't try to tell me that the Natural Resources Defense Council wouldn't
have used the indications of lynx, planted by state and Federal
bureaucrats, to stop a new ski run construction or a new road on Federal
lands or bobcat trapping or a host of other things. Don't try to tell me
that the Wilderness Society or the Sierra Club wouldn't have mentioned it
in one of their lawsuits to force more areas off limits to human uses,
ranching, logging, or a host of other traditional and lawful means for
men to feed and support their families.

Don't try to tell me that letters of reprimand were sufficient and that
privacy concerns bar revealing the culprits in this saga. For nine years
these Federal Agencies have forced retirements on biologists who
championed proactive management and sustainable uses of natural
resources. For nine years these same Federal agencies have abused,
mistreated, and forced to quit motivated and concerned employees whose
only offense was not doing the illegal and wrong things that the new
managers wanted done quietly. Just ask me, ask Bonnie Kline, ask the
fishery biologist who tried to stop all the diversion of Fishery funds to
Endangered Species, and ask the accountant who tried unsuccessfully to
complete the first comprehensive audits of state Fish and Wildlife
agencies' use of P-R and D-J funds in over 15 years. Finally ask the
accountant they are currently trying to force out for trying to complete
those same audits after the Fish and Wildlife Service fired the audit
contractors before they could complete audits documenting over $100
million in questionable P-R and D-J expenses. The audits are required by
law to be completed every 5 years but FWS and the International
Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies are burying the audits like
they buried the auditors and any employees who understand what is
happening.

These tufts of hair aren't about wild animals or the environment. These
tufts of hair are the latest currency of power accumulation by the
Federal government. For the past ten years and for the next few years,
the printing office for this currency of power is the US Fish & Wildlife
Service and their green lobbyist pals working in cahoots with politicians
who want to create a socialist state wherein the central government
controls everything and they control the central government.

List the lynx, for example, on the endangered species list and (voila!)
you drive more recreational users off Federal land; you drive ranchers
and loggers off Federal lands; you can keep more energy from being
developed; you further restrict any proactive management of any renewable natural resources and that is just on public land. On private land you can suddenly tell the "owner" (soon to be an archaic term) he can't build a house or a road or cut trees or trap bobcats or run dogs and all
without paying for it as that "old" Constitution once said was required.

Oh the power surge felt by high-powered bureaucrats, lobbyists, and
politicians who obtain more power than a Soviet commissar or a Chinese
bureaucrat! They (the Triumvirate) generate propaganda together to
maintain the urban supporters who are totally oblivious to and unaffected
by the conversion or rural America into an environmental commune for
absentee landlords.

The Endangered Species Act is illegal. The Constitution and 200+ years
of tradition placed legal authority and jurisdiction for all fish,
wildlife, and plants under the Governor of each state. High seas
fisheries and fisheries shared with foreign nations as in certain Great
Lakes were rightfully and historically Federal since they were considered
under the purview of the foreign commerce responsibilities of the Federal
government. Only a ratified Treaty like the Migratory Bird Treaty with
Canada or a Constitutional amendment can take this jurisdiction from the
Governors and place it under the Federal government. Since there has
never been such an amendment nothing other than Birds specifically
mentioned on ratified Treaties or shared species such as those in Lake
Erie or in the Oceans are Federal responsibilities.

The Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act were
MERELY laws passed by Congress declaring Federal jurisdiction overriding state authority whenever the Federal government listed a species. From there it was only time before it was subspecies, races, populations, and even population segments. It was only time before other Federal agencies used it to get more money and states began to get Federal money that they were soon dependent upon. It was only time before a rancher was driven out of business, then most west coast loggers, to telling an old man he can't build a first floor bedroom on his own home for his invalid wife
because of an eagle nest on neighboring property. It was only time
before the Endangered Species tail wagged the USFWS dog and state
agencies heeled for any and all available funding from the US Congress.

It was only a matter of time until Federal refuges, parks, and forests
became "sacred" places where no management or or inventory or development
was conceivable. All of this was was guided from behind the scenes by
the Washington interest groups like Burr Tillstrom juggling Kukla, Fran,
and Ollie. The law alone should have never been allowed to stand, but
like all "higher purposes" no one dared speak out.

Biologically, the law hasn't "saved" anything. There are lynx and wolves
all over the world in abundance. The amphipods in isolated springs or
the island species or the listed figments of biological fantasy are and
always have been in limited abundance. The only thing they do is give
the Federal triumvirate mentioned above more power over more land and
more human activities.

If anyone was truly interested in "more" amphipods or "more" bats or
"more" lynx they could lobby the US Congress to OFFER certain Governors
money to block off the spring or save the old house or cut more trees to
get brush for snowshoe hares to feed and increase lynx numbers. The
Governors are answerable to their residents and can be prevented from
eliminating citizen rights, property rights, and human dignity in the> name of "saving the environment". However, it never has been about the
critters: it has always been about POWER.

As you consider this situation about undisciplined Federal and State
employees planting tufts of hair think about:

1.) The message to other Bureaucrat activists about the lack of
consequences even if you get caught helping to reestablish "Pre-Columbian
Ecosystems".
2.) The consequences to citizens, landowners, businesses, and families
from this sort of governmental manipulation.
3.) The lack of any good to the animals purportedly being "saved".
4.) The increasing precedent of the Act being lawful and acceptable.
5.) The use of such data next year to justify "more" dollars and people
to save the suddenly ubiquitous lynx.
6.) Government employees working outside the laws and policies
established for their employment to manipulate processes having such
far-reaching and enormous effects remaining anonymous and going
unpunished.
7.) Finally, and undoubtedly most importantly, think about what this
continuous accumulation and concentration of power in the central
government is doing and where it is leading. Some of the finest kings
and emperors were succeeded by some of the worst characters in history.
The fact that the bad guys had the power available to them was not offset
by the wonderful guy that preceded them. Our Founding Fathers understood
this and accordingly established a system where only specific authorities
were "GRANTED" to the Federal government, certain other authorities
remained in the new states (the former colonies that agreed to the
Constitution) and everything else remained with "THE PEOPLE'. They
clearly made Congress and the Supreme Court checks on the President
precisely so no new "king" or Parliament, or Oliver Cromwell would emerge
with the power available to them of a Hitler, or Stalin, or Mao. What the
Endangered Species Act and the Marine Mammal Protection Act are doing to
individual rights, property rights, and our system of government should
be a cause for concern for every citizen.

When you see your governmental employees treat the expansion of their
authority at your expense in such a frivolous manner: when you see them
remain anonymous and receive only a slap on the wrist for something that
takes away from you more than the offenses of many convicted felons
sitting in prisons: when you see all this happening and you go on to
other things, you will surely get what you rightly deserve. Maybe, if
you are old like me, your children will pay your bill but pay it someone
will. It will be paid in the loss of the freest and most successful
society in the history of the world and the creation of something that
will have to be changed as surely as the Founding Fathers had to change
the rule of King George and the Parliament of the 1770's. When future
citizens look back on what they lost, they will be quicker to start to
get it back than the Founding Fathers who only hoped there was something
better and took years coming up with what we are losing. The tufts of
hair are clues to what is going on around us and we ignore them at our
own peril.

Jim Beers
1-1-02

"The links on this web page are provided for informational and educational purposes only, and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the Western Slope Libertarian Party."

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... Nothing was mentioned in the original letter sent to the senator regarding mainstream legalization of marijuana for recreational use, here is his reply ...

Senator Allard's actions apparently favor the maintenance of our robust organized crime industry, prohibition related violence, racketeering, millions of intrusive unconstitutional laws and a huge prison industry to accommodate violators. All of this is dealt with by heavily taxing the populous and maintaining corruptible militarized "law enforcement" squads who exercise -near absolute power.

His sluggish conservatism is meritorious in that he doesn't want to bring rapid changes in Second Amendment issues but constitutes dereliction in other areas where correction is needed. Is this his perception of Freedom?

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