Environmental Theater

Environmental Theater

Faux Prairie League

Woof!

By Stephen L. Wilmeth

            Three days this week were spent in anticipation of a phone call.

            The call was supposed to come from a Santa Fe New Mexican reporter tasked with writing a pincer article drawing attention to the use of cyanide capsules for coyote control. The effort was reportedly driven by the need to objectively assess the use of the approach on the basis of ethical predator control.

            The call never came.

            If there was another rancher who talked to the reporter, he didn’t come through an industry source. Forgive this moment of cynicism, but the New Mexican didn’t want a rancher’s voice. No, the marching orders were given by “dozens of environmental groups and scientists” who are maneuvering in a coordinated attack to eliminate any and all predator control. They didn’t need or want a front-line voice to respond to the issue.

            Their goal is much larger than an ethical use of any tool.

            No, the end game will be reached in snippets and stepwise successes. Any wholesale elimination is still too controversial and unpopular. Big numbers of potential supporters are still too intimately involved in the blood sport aspects of the cause, but the steps are clearly illuminated if the viewer is the least objective.

In New Mexico, the effort has been seen in the foundational skirmishes of attempting to halt trapping through legislative efforts. It was also seen in the outlawing of coyote hunting contests where hunters shot themselves in the foot through Pleistocene displays of lust by piling their targets in gut heaps and posing with all their latest gear in outrageous and nonsensical public displays. It was offensive and it served to whittle public opinion into legislative antagonism against the hunters.

The same thing is in the offing with cyanide capsules for legitimate, necessary, and most ethical predator control. All that is needed is the support of public opinion.

That comes through theater.

Environmental Theater

Environmentalism is proving to be the brashest, endless form of theater.

It comes replete with targeted, sympathetic victims, demonstrative and courageous protective warriors, and evil antagonists. It is the ultimate political prop. Solved problems don’t get out the vote, and American politician’s first pledge is their own perpetuation through the next election cycle.

The big E stablemasters know that. In fact, that has become their lifeline. The case in point, a more mature predator story, is the next act in the wolf drama.

This week’s press cycle saw the headline Groups: Saving Mexican wolves requires new approach. The justification of the effort was set forth by claiming that dozens of environmental groups and scientists are now demanding a new approach, new rules, in the management of the free rent reestablishment of the endangered Mexican gray wolf. Of course, the dozens of groups weren’t named (and it could have been even more effective to suggest hundreds of environmental groups), but the point was made.

The environmental elite have declared the wolf must be saved regardless of the economic and societal cost to the rural communities affected by the wolf frenzy. The truth is any affected citizenry sympathy is past the monologue stage. Their unfortunate plight has been dismissed and any suggestion by token political rhetoric to the contrary is now ineffective.

The theater masters, the Faux Prairie Leaguers, have put that little problem to bed. If you don’t believe that, you must ask yourself why we find ourselves at this juncture of starting over with absolutely no gain.

Woof!

So, the complicit wildlife managers of the Fish and Wildlife Service are tasked by the courts to start afresh and figure out how to establish a viable, self-sustaining population of intermediate predators that have been rendered obsolete by evolutionary forces while, at the same time, their little cousins, the coyotes, have run circles around them in deafening crescendos.

The obvious question is where are the real scientists who should be rejoicing that Darwin was right in his assessment of evolutionary tracts? At the same time, they should be pursuing the original program demand of habitat and prey studies that will likely conclude the Mexican wolf cannot be established on self-sustaining basis under the changed conditions of its original range no matter how much money is poured into this debacle or how much of the customs and culture of southwest New Mexico and eastern Arizona is destroyed.

The latter is brought clearly into view in the article noting that more can be done by managers and ranchers to ensure protection of livestock which has always been a point of conflict in the reintroduction effort. How that demand dovetails with all the suggestive science leaves local communities in jeopardy.

What the hell is more?

The growing truth is the issue has evolved to the point of a legal stranglehold. That is set forth in the article with a comment by the former  recovery program director who declared … follow the law, follow the science, and push back on the political interference which has led to flawed decisions that jeopardize the very existence of the iconic lobos.

With this stepwise progression toward a cultural Armageddon, locals are going to find their very existence will be illegal, and here are the anticipated steps. The wolf program will not gain sustainable footing, and the growing call for removal of cattle will gain momentum. The resident evil antagonists will be blamed, and their farting cows must be eliminated. Of course, that won’t fix the problem because their departing livestock and water system maintenance and investments will place huge pressures on the remaining and declining wildlife numbers.

Somebody else must then be blamed.

Hunters will emerge as the evil antagonists and the resolute call to end all blood sports will be sounded. At that point, the legal framework will force the end game to be revealed.

Rewilding is the epilogue.

Stephen L. Wilmeth is a rancher from southern New Mexico. “Always remember the initiators of rewilding stated civilization will be reduced to islands or eliminated completely.”

The enviro letter referred to can be found here. 

I am getting sick of the word "iconic" which now seems to be applied to every species or piece of land the enviros seek to control. First it was collaboration, then robust, and now iconic. 

---Frank DuBois