Posted on September 6, 2013 by Austin Hill
Sen. Jeff Siddoway, R-Terreton, says gray wolves recently stampeded 176 of his ewes and lambs, costing him $35,000 in lost livestock.
“When
I was young, I would have never envisioned that we’d be in a position
like we’re in now,” said Sen. Jeff Siddoway, R-Terreton, in rural
Jefferson County. “I’ve seen the evolution throughout the years and
we’ve tried to fight back as an industry and as individuals to turn the
ebb back, but we certainly have not been able to do that.”
In
an interview with IdahoReporter.com, Siddoway described how a business
that has been in his family for 127 years spanning five generations is
now threatened by gray wolves, which are officially regarded by the U.S.
federal government as an endangered species.
“Because
of those federal rules and regulations, it just puts the anxiety level
way up over the top,” he said. According to him, the Siddoway Sheep
Company has lost an average of between $30,000 and $50,000 a year for
the past several years rendering his business unprofitable. He said that
his company recently sustained an attack of gray wolves that led to the
deaths of 176 lambs and ewes when they were stampeded over a cliff.
Officials
with the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) report the
majority of the sheep suffocated. A number of others died while being
trampled in trying to escape. According to the USDA, fewer than 10 were
bitten and only one was partially consumed. Each sheep was valued at
$200, thus making the loss to the Siddoway ranch approximately $35,000.
“When you’ve had an attack by wolves, you don’t know if they’re coming back the next night,” Siddoway commented.
Siddoway’s
concerns come at a strategic time. Earlier this year the Idaho
Legislature voted to begin a process of investigating whether Idaho
should seek to take control of the roughly 63 percent of the state that
is currently under federal control. If the state were to obtain control
of the lands, it could then more effectively control the populations of
wolves and protect farm and ranching animals more effectively, some
legislators said in supporting a pair of resolutions aimed at the state
taking control of the federal lands in Idaho.
Noting
that an interim committee of legislators has been considering how the
state might move forward with the idea, Siddoway acknowledged that there
are unknowns involved with the prospect of Idaho controlling the
federal lands, but he nonetheless supports the idea.
“I’m
supportive of that,” he told IdahoReporter.com. “I know there are a lot
of unanswered questions there, but I truly believe that if Idaho had
control of its lands we would be much more productive and we would
ultimately end up making money and saving money in the long run.”
A complete discussion with Siddoway can be heard HERE.
Jim Beers Commentary
At
great risk of sounding like an “extremist” or ideologue, I would
suggest that this Idaho Senator/Sheep Rancher is on to something.
Wolves
have been forcibly introduced into areas of the United States where
federal “ownership” includes very high percentages of the land within
the state. Whether it is National Wildlife Refuges and National Forests
for “red” wolves in the Carolinas and Virginia; or National Forests and
National Parks in the Great Lakes states; or the National Forests,
National Parks and Bureau of Land Management landholdings in Rocky
Mountain States and the Southwest: federal lands have evolved to be
considered inviolate lands somehow outside state authorities. As the
federal estate has grown annually (purchase, condemnation, easements,
Critical Habitat Declarations, Historic Classifications, Scenic
Classifications, trades, expanded federal water authority, seizures,
Trusts, money entanglements with NGO’s like TNC, etc.) in large chunks
that are nowhere summarized and made available: state and local
government authority and the taxes they collect have dwindled. Federal
attitudes and urban environmental/animal rights’ organizations have
simultaneously grown in power and fund-raising as they lobby federal
lawmakers and bureaucrats to protect wolves; expand grizzly bear
numbers; destroy farming (e.g. Klamath, San Joaquin); destroy ranching;
eliminate grazing permits; close off water access; destroy hunting
(Rocky Mtn. Elk, Minnesota Moose, etc.); expand Wilderness; Close
Roadless Areas; abandon timber and fire management; and generally
destroy American rural communities as economies, families, and human
safety are steadily jeopardized.
Consider
that Senator Jeff Siddoway is living with these federally-inserted and
federally-protected wolves. He is a businessman who has watched his
business being ruined by federally-inserted and federally-protected
wolves. He has lost his livelihood and rural America has lost and is
losing traditional human activities like sheep herding that provide
valuable products by the managed use of sustainable and renewable
natural resources. Rural cultural values diminish as well as taxes to
state and local governments. When he says, “we’ve tried to fight back
as an industry and as individuals to turn the ebb back, but we certainly
have not been able to do that” he confirms the sad situation found in
every state wherein State Governors and State Legislatures and their US
Senators and Congressmen, with few exceptions, have not and will not
stop this 45-year slide into either rural anarchy or rural tyranny by
wealthy urban political factions. Federal bureaucrats from Forest
Supervisors to Wildlife Endangered Species managers have, as a result,
come to consider rural Americans as so many ants in their ant farm
wherein they can do what they want with them.
While
familiarity is said to breed contempt: it is fair to say that desperate
times demand desperate actions. When Idaho legislators propose
“Earlier this year the Idaho Legislature voted to begin a process of
investigating whether Idaho should seek to take control of the roughly
63 percent of the state that is currently under federal control” they
are considering what others might call “extreme” but to those being
harmed is a perfectly reasonable alternative to a perfectly unreasonable
and desperate situation.
While
some State politicians worry about “losing” federal largesse, returning
federal lands to state authority would replace disappearing
Payment-in-Lieu-of-Taxes for which state and local governments must beg
like dogs doing tricks at the dinner table with stable and increasing
state taxes from growing economies. Local taxes would also grow from
their original land base utilizing natural resources and human ingenuity
instead of growing fire fuel amidst campgrounds infected with tapeworms
and hookworms from wolf feces and habituated bears roaming about
looking for ANY food. All but extinct “Revenue-Sharing” from federal
lands no longer managed to create “Revenue” would be replaced by steady
revenue from productive local business.
Some
state bureaucrats worry about being “forced” to be paid by and retired
on “only” state funds instead of the mix of state/federal funds and
retirement jobs with federal or radical organizations if federal lands
and federal influence over state policies is eliminated. Why their
dreams of no more hunting/fishing/trapping in vast federal wastelands
where state employees merely truck water out to federal bureaucrats and
professors with federal grants, all paid for by Washington might be
jeopardized. In truth most state bureaucracies are ill-suited to
helping their state government (their ostensible bosses) retrieve
federal land authority these days.
There
is one area of getting state lands back under State Authority that I
would suggest for the esteemed Senator/Sheep Rancher that is the answer
to wolf/bear destruction of livestock and rural economies – LOCAL
CONTROL.
If
the state regains authority over the current federal lands, local
communities and their elected local/state politicians can delegate
authority to manage and control Harmful, Injurious, Destructive, Predatory, Free-Roaming, Dangerous,
whatever-you-want-to call-them animals. Then Local elected officials
(Always far more responsive and accountable to local or rural voters)
can set the Ordinances and Conditions for capturing, killing,
controlling, managing, tolerating, etc. such animals. Those insisting
that the wolves or bears or “whatevers” are “theirs” would have to pay
fines to obtain release of captured animals as well as costs of
maintenance and providing proof of “shots”. Wolf feces, wolf saliva,
wolf mucus, wolf blood, and wolf body fluids transmit all the same
diseases and infections that endanger humans, dogs, livestock and
wildlife as do dogs.
Local
governments are charged with preserving the peace and tranquility of
local communities from wolf predation and bear attacks as much as from
free-roaming dogs. Wolves and bears kill and injure dogs owned and used
by rural residents. While urban environmental/animal rights’ radical
organizations and their political patrons go into paroxysms of
exasperation when told of cockfights or dogfights, the fact that they
simultaneously ignore and dismiss thousands of dogs killed and injured
by too-numerous wolves and bears should be no deterrent to Local
government Ordinances that protect the dog properly in the Local
community from death and injury.
Lastly
and most importantly, Local Ordinances enacted by local elected
politicians at the behest of local voters are the best protection of
local residents from the youngest to the oldest from wolf and bear
attacks and injuries. The 16-year old Minnesotan grabbed by the head in a
federal campground on a National Forest a month ago could have just as
easily been a 5-year old going to the biffy from his tent on a one-way
trip. The man attacked by a sow grizzly on an Upper Rocky Mountain highway
recently might just as easily have been an arthritic
old guy like me incapable offending off the attack.
Just as US sovereignty and US government of US citizens is never
enhanced by ceding jurisdiction and authority to the UN or some other
(North American Treaty, NATO,) higher government entity: so too is Local
community governance only jeopardized and suffocated by an all-powerful
State government and State government as we have seen repeatedly in
recent years is only diminished and gelded by an all-powerful federal
government. All such shifts of power, upward and away from the
individual and his family, start with high-sounding rhetoric that
creates power that succeeding rulers abuse more and more unless they are
constantly kept in check.
So
Good Luck Senator Siddoway and Idaho. Getting control back on Idaho’s
current federal lands and returning control of their daily lives and
surroundings to the local communities of Idaho is probably the first and
best step in restoring local community life, local economies and the
sheep, cattle, dogs, elk, moose, and peace of mind stolen from you by
federal interlopers using federal lands as a sort of “badlands” where,
for too long, righteous citizens were told they had no authority.
Jim Beers
8 September 2013Jim Beers is a retired US Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife Biologist, Special Agent, Refuge Manager, Wetlands Biologist, and Congressional Fellow.
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