Damn Sierra Club

A friend from Kona sent me this. It's a good read.... Wednesday, February 03, 2010 Web Site SearchFront PageSearch ArticlesAbout HFPCurrent Articles | Archives | Search Thursday, August 07, 2008Sierra Club: Fence Mauna Kea, kill animals
By Tom Lodge :: 994 Views :: Big Island News, Big Island Politics, Hawaii State News, Hawaii State Politics by Tom Lodge
Earthjustice Lawyers representing the Sierra Club and Hawai`i Audubon Society on July 31 charged that the State Department of Land and Natural Resources (DLNR) is not obeying a federal court order to eradicate all sheep and goats from areas of Mauna Kea comprised of dry Mamane-Naio forest. The lawyers claim ongoing counts of the endangered Palila bird are falling because sheep and goats are harming habitat. They are demanding that all of fencing on Mauna Kea be repaired by October or they’ll sue again.
Their claims presume those actually studying the Palila which include the USGS Biological Resource Division, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the DLNR and others got the numbers right to start with. But many observers believe the numbers are questionable and the court ordered fence-and-eradicate plan has failed.
According to the Hawai`i Tribune-Herald August 1, Palila numbers estimated by the DLNR dropped from 5,354 birds in 2003, to an estimated 2,237 birds today, a “64% drop”. No one seems to question the numbers. Meanwhile thousands of acres are taken out of traditional public use.
Going from 5,324 birds to an “estimated” 2,237 birds today (3,117 birds) is a drop of 58%, not 64%. The Palila program has been a dismal failure and all the Sierra Club can do is blame sheep for it, which they have been relentlessly eradicating from the mountain. The latest demands deflect attention from the possibility that the Sierra Club and their entire support cast may have got it wrong for the last 30 years.
The core assumption behind the entire eradication program is that sheep were overgrazing Mauna Kea and this “necessarily” would harm the Palila, a pretty and noisy Mamane-seed-eater. So in 1980 when Palila numbers were about 3200 birds, the court-ordered eradication of feral sheep and goats began, with helicopter borne shooters slaughtering rams, ewes, and baby lambs. By 1981, the numbers of Palila rose to over 6,000, while the sheep slaughter continued. Earth Justice Lawyers and the Audubon want the public to believe that eradicating sheep made a big difference. But by 1982 the numbers of Palila had dropped again to about 3100 birds, and fell precipitously to 1300 birds in 1985.
The fluctuating numbers by themselves discount any linkage between any currently grazing sheep and Palila populations. With their concocted science not holding up, their new crisis and cry of alarm is that the birds could be extinct in 2013.
They want taxpayers to pay more and surrender the right to use more public lands. They are now demanding that the DLNR repair fencing around the entire mountain, 80% of which probably hasn’t seen a Palila for a hundred years. We need to take care of where the Palila are, not where the Sierra Club, Earth Justice, or most surprisingly the Audubon Society seem to think they can wish the Palila to be.
A 1986 federal court order in the same ongoing suit resulted in a decision to expand feral sheep eradications to include Mouflon sheep, yet Palila numbers continued to rise and fall. In 1990 the DLNR estimated about 5,000 birds but in 1992 they plunged to 1300 again. By 1995 Palila numbers grew to an estimated 3700, doubling their population in 3 years. In 1999, the Palila numbers soared to near 7,000--but what was it about the year 2000 that caused their numbers to plunge to 3,000? By 2002 they recovered again to 5,354 in number and predictably started a decline again to 2,237 in 2007.
Claims of impending extinction are strictly a sensational scare tactic used to promote symbolism over substance in order to generate grants and continued spending of our hard earned tax dollars and close off even more public use lands. Sheep eradication has failed at affecting Palila numbers—but it sure has killed a lot of sheep.
Sheep eradication has turned Mauna Kea into a weed patch, with alien grasses, German Ivy and who knows what else now competing with native Mamane and Naio trees. If no one had done anything, Palila populations would likely still be fluctuating up and down as they always have done.
Instead all they know is fence and eradicate. If they insist fence and eradicate it would be far wiser to fence only the area where Palila actually reside. Palila relocation efforts--moving birds to where the “scientists” thought they wanted to be--have a nearly 100% failure rate. Many relocated birds have died. Anybody else killing that many endangered birds would likely be in jail now.
The ongoing federal court suit (based upon these hypothetical claims of environmentalists) has driven actions for 30 years. These actions have failed to produce any kind of desirable result. The Palila have managed to average 3,200 birds for 27 years, exactly where they are today, exactly where they were in 1980. The repeated Doomsday cry of the environmentalists is becoming pitiable.
Tom Lodge is the President of the Hawai`i Hunting Association and may be reached at: sunrisearchery@hawaiiantel.net

Right on for posting this upfront Ive been folwing this for a while this is not the only one I will try and post more the fact is none of this fencing has worked Its a knif in our back and they love twisting it it's all about the dollar these laws are being made by pepole who know nothing first hand they only know the information some weed hopper told them they saw these pepole have big money the fedral goverment funds the humane sosiatiy to the tune of 120 million dollars to stop hunting thats right stop hunting WERE NOT ALONE


Don’t Allow Radical Animal “Rights” Interests to Infiltrate North Dakota!

North Dakota sportsmen should be aware that a group cleverly calling itself North Dakota Hunters for Fair Chase is circulating petitions for signatures to place an anti-hunting initiative on the 2010 General Election ballot. Make sure that you and your family and friends do not contribute to this misleading, anti-freedom effort by signing these petitions!


Initiatives pertaining to hunting laws, by their very nature, politicize the state’s wildlife management policies. This is contrary to the North American Model of Wildlife Management that has made North Dakota’s wildlife populations and rich ecosystems the envy of the world. Laws related to hunting and wildlife management strategies should be firmly rooted in science, not driven by a wealthy few who can produce the most emotionally-appealing 30-second television commercial during an initiative campaign. For this reason, NRA has always opposed “ballot box” wildlife management.


This initiative effort is supported by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), a Washington D.C.-based lobbying organization that spends $120 million a year in an effort to end all hunting and animal agriculture in the United States. Here are just a few quotes from Wayne Pacelle who serves as President of HSUS:


“If we could shut down all sport hunting in a moment, we would.” - as quoted by the Associated Press in Impassioned Agitator


“Our goal is to get sport hunting in the same category as cock fighting and dog fighting. Our opponents say hunting is a tradition. We say traditions can change.” - Bozeman Daily Chronicle


“We are going to use the ballot box and the democratic process to stop all hunting in the United States… We will take it species by species until all hunting is stopped in California. Then we will take it state by state.” - quoted from a first hand account of a speech to an outdoor ethics conference in Florence, South Carolina in the magazine Full Cry


The proposed initiative would ban private big game hunting preserves in North Dakota, a long-standing tradition in the state. This violates basic American principles of private property rights and sportsmen deciding for themselves how and where to hunt. Hunting ethics should be decided by each individual hunter, not by politically-motivated laws supported by radical animal “rights” interest groups. Further, the group behind this initiative falsely advertises preserves as a very small pen or cage, when most preserves amount to thousands of acres.


This effort threatens to establish a precedent in that will allow Wayne Pacelle and others to further pursue their ultimate agenda of banning all hunting. These anti-hunting radicals are learning how to circumvent the standard policy-making system that has stymied them through the years and will be emboldened to further utilize deceptive 30-second sound bites to advance their radical agenda. Please work to inform your family, friends and fellow sportsmen in North Dakota that they should not sign these anti-freedom petitions now being circulated!


For more information, please go to http://www.ndpropertyrights.com/.

Prohibition Against Remote Handgun Ammunition Purchase Coming Soon. Assembly Bill AB962 to me is just another one of those bills that make politicians and activists feel good, but aggravate the law abiding consumer without preventing criminal minds from getting their illicit ammunition – remote or via direct purchase. I have always been dumbfounded by the apparent inability of politicians, activists and law enforcement to see and understand that a criminal mind does not adhere to laws in the first place – or they would not be criminals. You can not prevent a determined criminal to get something or do something simply by prohibiting it. And just in case you are thinking of the silly law as a measure against terrorist: They are getting their arsenal of weapons and destructive materials on the world's unpoliced gray markets not in local gun store.
Most European countries control handguns very strictly, sometimes making it nearly impossible for a citizen to acquire one. Yet, there are great numbers of handguns in European countries. The infamous German 'Bader Meinhoff Gang' did not have any problems whatsoever to acquire their 'weapons of mass destructions' (submachine guns). None of the many laws has proven effective in preventing the availability of handguns on the gray market.
AB962 is just another 'feel good' law that allows politicians to demonstrate their resolve to protect us citizens from criminal elements and terrorists.
In fact, I have my doubts that its true intent really is to make it difficult for scoff laws to acquire ammunition. Rather it is only one in a long line of laws passed or still to come that use a 'worthy cause' to limit the rights of citizens and hunters. First there was a law to make shot used on migratory birds lead free in order to prevent ill effects on humans and birds alike. Then we got the condor law to get lead out of condors by preventing them from consuming lead infested carrion. (Forget about the other dangerous metals used in lead-free projectiles). Protecting the Desert Tortoise requires yet another prohibition and on and on it goes. The overall goal is to limit possession of weapons and to eliminate hunting completely.
As I said, this movement is worldwide and it is not going away anytime soon.

The NRA has a petition drive going. You find the details on their website or on the Custom Cartridge website http://www.customcartridge.com. An on line version of the petition is here: http://www.calnra.com/petition.

I like reading this sort of stuff but this article is part of a game being played between warring factions of the conservation community. I shake my head at lawsuits; there are better ways to get things done.

Overpopulation of non-native animals, their direct browsing and their synergistic effects with alien weeds could threaten the Naio-mamane forest, biodiversity, and our resources. The palila is just the charismatic posterchild for an entire forest ecosystem. Palila numbers fluctuate for various reasons so basing anything off them is not the best idea and lends to a lot of criticism. Fountain grass is promoted by the natural geology but also by long term canopy thinning if sheep numbers are too high in a forest. I read that they in fact were too high. Fountain grass promotes fire, which would be a death sentence to the entire forest. Fire promotes fountain grass, etc. Fountain grass is not as palatable to sheep or pigs as native plants and therefore has a selective advantage (as less-palatable plants do in any browsing regime). You will never here me say that sheep supress fountain grass. It doesn't take a genious to see that they don't and by supressing forest regrowth, they actually promote the weed. I say the DLNR has been doing a somewhat decent job in managing this resource. I have only heard past sheep levels and have seen other hunting areas on Kauai crash in recent years (southwest Waimea Canyon + portions of unit-G) because of overpopulation. Now these areas have lost the carrying capacity and support fewer game animals. Resources were permanently degraded over large areas. My point to the last few sentences is that there are situations where public hunting is failing to balance browsers with forage, whether native or non-native, and the changes that result are not good for hunting, biodiversity, or watersheds. From what I hear, even with aerial shooting going on, there is still plenty of game to hunt. Periodic "culling" isn't popular but has many positive effects on habitat. It allows for those palateable plants to recover when overbrowsed. More food=fat animals.

There are ways to encourage the public to take more animals to maintain a healthy balance such as improving access, opening up bag limits, and attracting more hunters to remote areas by what somebody described to me recently as “improving the hunting experience”. Build some smoke houses, shelters, and improve access- the hunters will come.

Build some smoke houses, shelters, and improve access- the hunters will come. Well said Nic, I like that idea.