SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE WESTERNER

True colors

by Larry Gabriel

Just like the trees they so admire, the "green" movement is finally showing its fall colors.

After thirty years of endless debates and litigation about rare bugs, snails, rodents, birds and fish, we are finally hearing the real bottom line of what they want.

The line was clearly drawn in a recent Casper Tribune story about the Biodiversity Conservation Alliance's success in halting thinning projects on 50,000 acres in the Black Hills last year. They stopped these projects because they believe most areas of the public forests are best left to "natural processes".

Jeremy Nichols of the Alliance had the courage to come right out and say what many have known for twenty years. They want no management on most of our forests.

We have all seen the "zero cut" and "no cows" symbols of the movement, but they display no "zero management" symbol (at least not yet).

Nels Smith, a Wyoming rancher on the Black Hills Advisory Board, showed similar courage in calling the tactics of Biodiversity an abuse of the process that will produce a "biological desert".

Actually we could refuse to manage our forests, but many have warned that one cannot accumulate excess fuel for fifty years and let it burn without creating a black-glass wasteland.

If the federal government is not going to manage its forests, it certainly has no need of a Forest Service. We could give these lands to the National Park Service, abolish the Forest Service, and save billions.

But, what about the premise of Biodiversity's argument? Does "Mother Nature" really know best?

If she does, New Orleans should remain a swamp.

If she does, the homes built in the Mississippi drainage should wash into the Dead Zone of the Gulf of Mexico each spring.

If she does, no crops should be cultivated.

If she does, the horse is an invasive species and does not belong in America.

If she does, we don't need indoor plumbing.

If she does, we don't need houses and should stay outside when it rains.

If she does…never mind.

All of us with "enough sense to come in out of the rain" know the answer.

Larry Gabriel is the South Dakota Secretary of Agriculture.


Camouflage is ‘in” for another season

By Julie Carter

There was a time when garments dyed in splotches of green, brown, tan, and black so as to make the wearer indistinguishable from the surrounding environment were either military issue or seasonal garb for the civilian wildlife hunter.

Since the U.S. military forces became the focus of the mass media through the war on terrorism, camouflage has become a standard clothing choice for the world in general. But in my world at this time and place it is still mostly about hunting.

By the very definition, you are not supposed to be able to see camouflage. The dictionary says it is “concealment by disguise or protective coloring.”

I can see it. I see it everywhere I go and most prevalent at the sporting goods check out line in Wal-Mart. I see it at the filling stations, motels and restaurants in town. It is once again hunting season.

The word “season” would lead you to believe there is a beginning and end to this vision of green garb. There does not seem to be a definable period of time for “hunting season” as those dedicated sportsmen can find something to hunt just about every month of the year.

The fall months bring out the masses of them seeking trophy antelope, deer, elk. They drive into town in big powerful and very expensive vehicles pulling heavily loaded trailers full of all the essentials for a successful hunting camp. This would include at least 17 gigantic coolers filled with plenty of fine camp fare including t-bone steaks and cold beer, a selection of brand new ATV’s and camp trailers that completely take the “camp” out of camping.

While I tend to mock the current state of the sport of hunting, it is not foreign to me and mine. I come from a long line of meat hunters who indeed hunted first for sustenance for the family and then later as a simple sport. I have a son who wore his first camouflage as a toddler. I would pretend I couldn’t see him when we passed and would bump into him. He found no amusement in my entertainment at his expense.

He is now twelve years old and the lure of hunting has only grown with him. He is a stick hunter (archery) as well as rifle and is learning to do a little winter varmint trapping on the side. The highlight for him this fall was the discovery of marketed “scents” to disguise his people smell while sitting in an archery season elk hunt blind. Somehow the idea of wearing “elk urine” scent on his clothing was completely entertaining and delightful to him at an age when anything gross is absolutely hysterical.

Camouflage as a verb is “to conceal, usually through misrepresentation or other artifice.” That perfectly describes me and my magic drawer of makeup. The purpose of my camouflage is for it to conceal those very things one has come to know as camouflage--the green, tan and brown splotches of color. Although for me there is a definite upgrade in my choice of scents.

Color and smell. Most definitely beauty is in the eyes and nose of the hunter.

© Julie Carter 2005

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