Grizzly Delisting: First as Tragedy, Now as Farce

Grizzly Delisting: First as Tragedy, Now as Farce

Editor’s note: Grizzly bears weigh around 700, the female up to 800 pounds according to the National Wildlife Federation. In contrast to what one might think they are omnivores and eat insects, grass, berries, roots and other plants in addition to animals like salmon, moose or deer.

“Grizzly bears are large and range in color from very light tan (almost white) to dark brown. They have a dished face, short, rounded ears, and a large shoulder hump.” The hump “gives the bear additional strength for digging” after food or their dens.

Their Latin name reveals what humans have thought about them for a long time – Ursus arctos horriblis. They are perceived as horrible, like a monster. But humans should actually carry that name: homo horribilis, if you think about what chronic harm they do to beautiful wild creatures.

And the bear should be called sapiens (wise) in order to honor them for their wisdom on how to contribute to thriving ecosystems.


Say NO to blood money for the state

By Steve Kelly/Counterpunch

Human intolerance, malevolence and habitat destruction spanning two centuries has caused the extermination of grizzly bears over 99% of its historical range.

Grizzly bears were finally listed as a threatened species in 1975 under the protection of the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA).

Dark and deadly forces have gathered political momentum and vow to delist grizzly bears, turning management over to the states. By removing ESA protection, states could sell hunting licenses to trophy hunters. Ranchers could shoot without fear of serious legal repercussions.

Large, relatively secure core landscapes like national parks, designated Wilderness areas and de facto wilderness (“roadless areas” on federal, public land) provide grizzlies the greatest chance at long-term viability.

For decades state and federal bureaucrats, extractive industry lobbyists, and anti-environmental politicians who dominate the Washington gerontocracy have fiercely resisted grizzly bear recovery efforts.

The purpose of the ESA as it applies to grizzlies is to protect the imperiled remnant population and fully recover and maintain healthy, self-sustaining populations in the coterminous 48 states.

Much more action is needed to protect, restore, and reconnect the fragmented ecosystems upon which grizzlies depend so they can re-occupy a significant portion of their original range. Of course, this is far from the real, on-the-ground situation grizzly bears find themselves in today.

Delisting is premature, by a long shot. States lust for blood-money (license fees).


Sign the Change.org petition to stop delisting the bears!

HELP NOW
Take Action for Endangered Wildlife
Become an endangered species advocate by emailing your legislators, signing petitions, and more. https://civicshout.com/p/tell-the-biden-admin-to-keep-grizzly-bears-protected

 


It’s hard to imagine a more ludicrous conceit than delisting grizzly bears, who hang onto life by a thread on 1% of their original range. Colonization of the Northern Rockies is a continuation of the same empire-expanding activities of the 19th Century. We have not yet entered America’s post-colonial era.

Grizzly bears will never genuflect to the absurd quasi-Christian cognitive theories of Old-Testament dominion and chosen-people doctrine. The millennia-old institutionalized religious discrimination that inflames our world today also drives the infantile theatrics of indiscriminate harm to wildlife. “Wasting,” or “smoking” wildlife is adult psychopathy growing in popularity.

Grizzlies meaningful for themselves and ecosystems

Popularity and ‘success,’ which fuels modern moral relativism and situational ethics has turned our world upside-down. Even so, what moral imperative or social norm can one cite to justify killing a grizzly bear and selling its parts?

Radical, ‘literalist’ religious doctrine has abandoned the search for truth and moral tradition in exchange for financial favors from the ruling elite. The age-old ideology of rationalization is used to justify personal and societal indulgence in certain kinds of pleasure – in this case the commercialization, torment, and slaughter of God’s divine creation

Video on efforts to recover grizzly bears

Tearing up wildlife habitat and domesticating Mother Nature’s gifts traces back to the vulgarization and distortion of ideas advanced by the great philosophies of Hagel, Nietzsche and Marx that encouraged reactionary pre-WWII European forms of nihilism and fascism.

From whence will the promise of wisdom emerge to fight the foolishness of ‘white’ onslaught bent on engulfing and uprooting the grizzly’s ancestral birthright?

One bill in Congress, the Northern Rockies Ecosystem Protection Act (S-1531), would significantly improve the level of habitat protection needed to maintain grizzly viability throughout a significant portion of its range.

S-1531 is a science-based bill that would designate 23 million acres of roadless, ecologically important public lands in the Northern Rockies bioregion. It designates much needed biological linkage corridors, reconnecting core habitat areas.

Americans are overwhelmingly supportive of the ESA. It’s time for family, friends, local conservation groups and your Senator to STOP grizzly bear delisting, and support S-1531.

Steve Kelly is an artist and environmental activist. He lives in Bozeman, Montana.

Photo of grizzly bear mom and baby by jdaypix from Pixabay


More on the impressive bears and their story here:

Debunking the delisting of grizzlies

90-day finding on grizzly-bear delisting petitions

 

Stop State Grant for Copper Mining Porcupine Mountains

Stop State Grant for Copper Mining Porcupine Mountains

Editor’s Note: This is an update to a story that we published about the proposed copper mining in Porcupine Mountains. Michigan Strategic Fund is considering a grant for the Copperwood project – a project that will destroy the natural habitat in the Porcupine Mountains. This is an urgent call for action, you can find the original piece here.


URGENT: Michigan considering $50M grant for Copperwood

We are writing today with an urgent action request that needs to be completed as soon as possible. If you care about the health of Lake Superior and about the wilderness quality of the North Country Trail and Porcupine Mountains State Park, now is the time to fight for it.

An article released on January 30th reports that the Michigan Strategic Fund is currently considering a $50 million grant for the Copperwood project. This money would more than double Highland Copper’s bank account, but more importantly, a State endorsement would provide a massive boost in momentum and be used as leverage for future funds from grants, investors, and loans. To quote Highland Copper’s CEO Barry O’Shea: “I can tell you with certainty that an award of this nature will move the needle significantly in terms of how our debt providers and our equity investors look at our company. It’s not only a large financial boost for the project, but it is a true endorsement.

Fortunately, a few of the MSF board members have expressed doubts regarding the necessity and wisdom of the grant, and the decision has been deferred to subcommittee for expedited consideration. We don’t know the timeframe in which a decision will be made, which is why it is crucial we act NOW.

We are asking you to write a message to the Michigan Strategic Fund board members who are deliberating over this grant as we speak. Their emails are provided below. We have already sent them a thorough elaboration on all our key arguments, so you only need to follow up with a few short paragraphs or even a few sentences. Write about whatever points resonate personally with you, but keep in mind, these are businesspeople who are interested mainly in the soundness of their investment.

Here are a few points to inspire your pen:

General Arguments

  • Are they aware of this petition with over 11,000 signatures opposing Copperwood’s development? 11,000 is more than the populations of the closest three towns to the Mine combined (Wakefield, Bessemer, and Ironwood). Contrary to what they have been told, social license for this project is far from universal.
  • The board members are likely not familiar with this area— remind them that this is not “the middle of nowhere”: the juncture of Porcupine Mountains Wilderness, the North Country Trail, and Lake Superior is one of the most spectacular outdoor recreation areas in the country.
  • Outdoor recreation contributes over $10 billion to Michigan’s economy annually; mining, around $1 billion. An operating mine would disrupt this thriving outdoor recreation area with noise pollution, light pollution, subterranean blasting, and heavy industrial traffic.
  • Copperwood would be the closest sulfide mine to Lake Superior in history. Copper sulfide mines always contaminate and tailings dams are far from invincible.
  • Inform them that, despite what they may have been told, copper is NOT a critical mineral and therefore there is no urgent need to fund this project.

Specific Economic Arguments

  • Highland Copper is a foreign company, largely funded by foreign investors;
  • The copper will be transported to Canada for processing, meaning a great many of the highest-paying jobs will go to foreigners. See the 2023 Feasibility Study:

P. 1.18 states concentrate to be shipped by a trans-load facility in Champion, MI to have access to Canadian National Railway networks (CN).
P. 19.2.1 discusses the need for downstream refining and smelting: “Several smelters could receive concentrate with the nearby candidates being the Horne smelter located in Noranda, Quebec or the copper smelter in Sudbury, Ontario. Other alternatives include seaborne export to Asia or Europe.”

  • If this project is such a slam dunk, why haven’t they been able to procure funding after over a decade of scrambling?
  • And why did their CEO step down just a few months ago?
  • This study on the economic impact of mining shows that only 25% of mines lead to long-term economic benefit for communities, with half of those coming from before 1982, and most of those being new coal strip mines out West; in other words, it is an exceedingly small fraction of mines which will lead to meaningful economic revitalization.
  • The study specifically cites the issue of “flickering“— the tendency for metal mines to close and re-open, again and again, as the price of a mineral fluctuates above and below the cost of operation; this creates much uncertainty in the lives of workers. Flickering is what has defined Copperwood’s entire nonexistence thus far: the flickering of funding, the flickering of proposed start-up dates, the flickering of CEOs. Highland Copper has stated again and again that, in addition to awaiting the necessary capital, they are awaiting a surge in the price of copper to make the project viable— Great… but what happens if the price plunges after the mine begins operation?
  • This is a big chunk of change for a project that will only last 11 years;
  • Since HC’s market cap is only $43 million — well short of the $390 million in startup capital required — MSF would be investing in a company that likely will be taken over by a larger partner at some point before the mine is up and running;
  • Interim CEO Barry O’Shea said, “I can tell you with certainty that an award of this nature will move the needle significantly in terms of (how) our debt providers and our equity investors look at our company. It’s not only a large financial boost for the project, but it is a true endorsement.
    In other words, he has stated explicitly that they want to use an official State endorsement as leverage to win over more outside equity investors and bank loans— a pretty suspect use of Michigan taxpayer money, don’t you think?
  • Finally, Highland Copper no doubt touted their “resolutions of support” gathered from area townhalls. Keep in mind, those resolutions were agreed upon by no more than two or three dozen people. Meanwhile, there is a petition with over 11,000 signatures opposing the Mine.

 

Now, without further ado, the details of the action:

  1. Firstly, please submit your short message via this online form (allows for limited length )
  2. Secondly, send that same message, or a longer version, to the e-mail addresses below— you may copy and paste the entire list directly into the CC: field of a new email. These addresses comprise ALL the Michigan Strategic Fund board members, plus a few more of special relevance:

You can also call the office of Quentin L. Messer, Chair of the Michigan Strategic Fund:

517-241-1400

Again, this is our most important action to date, and the clock is ticking!

Thank you for your help, everyone! Remember, ProtectThePorkies is not an organization, but a movement, comprised of anyone who feels a connection to this area and a desire to fight for its wellbeing! Take care!

Emissions Accounting System Favors Imported Goods

Emissions Accounting System Favors Imported Goods

Editor’s Note: We all know that globalization can never be sustainable. Localization is imperative for a just and sustainable world. Yet, proponents of globalization have created an emissions accounting system that argues that importing goods is better than sourcing locally. Sector-based accounting calculates the carbon emissions caused by a product in the given area. So, for example, if you are consuming a product that was produced across the world, sector-based accounting would only calculate the carbon emissions in your area, so excludes the production process and transportation. Here is a video about how our “stuff” is produced in a globalized world. It gives a fair idea of what a sector-based accounting system fails to account for.

The following is a piece about the implementation of sector-based accounting in Vermont.


Emissions Accounting System Favors Imported Goods

By Steven Gorelick/VT Digger

Now that the COP28 climate change conference has concluded, it’s time for a quick climate change quiz. See if you can identify the climate hero in the scenario below:

Jared and Annette arrive at a potluck, each bringing a mixed salad with the same ingredients. By a strange coincidence, they’re also wearing identical Christmas sweaters. They compare notes, and it turns out that Annette’s salad ingredients were all bought from Vermont farmers, while Jared’s are supermarket ingredients shipped here from California, Mexico and Chile. Annette’s sweater was knit by a local craftsperson using Vermont wool. Jared’s came from Walmart, and was produced in a Chinese sweatshop using electricity from a coal-fired power plant.

Question: Which one is doing their part to lower their greenhouse gas emissions?

Answer: Jared.

Crazy? Indeed. But if you read Environmental Action Network’s(EAN) “Annual Progress Report on Emissions” you’ll discover that Vermont’s emissions are counted in a way that makes Jared the environmental hero, while Annette just isn’t “doing her part.”

That’s because EAN uses what’s known as “sector-based accounting” to tally our emissions. Emissions from various sectors of the Vermont economy are added up, and that’s our total. Anything produced in Vermont — like Annette’s sweater and the ingredients in her potluck dish — add to that total, but emissions from goods that came from outside Vermont are ignored. So by EAN’s accounting, Jared’s supermarket and Walmart purchases — though loaded with greenhouse gas emissions — add nothing at all to Vermont’s total.

The emissions embedded in a sweater or salad may seem trivial, but even in a small state like ours they’ll be multiplied by nearly a billion. Consumer spending in Vermont amounted to $31 billion in 2019, most of that for out-of-state products. Consider everything Vermonters bought at chain stores — Walmart, Dollar General, Target, Home Depot, 7-Eleven, etc. Add to that all the fast food purchased at McDonalds, Burger King, Pizza Hut and Wendy’s, and all the coffee sold at Starbucks. Add in all the purchases from Amazon, eBay, and other online sellers. Few if any of these goods were produced in Vermont, and so the emissions from producing them and transporting them here are absent from EAN’s tally. The same illogic applies to most of the food in Vermont’s supermarkets: zero emissions, no matter how many tons of CO2 were emitted to grow, process, and transport it to Vermont.

It’s hard to see how intelligent climate policies can be crafted using an emissions accounting system that implicitly favors imported goods over locally produced goods. Even local food – which should be embraced as a climate strategy because of its lower food miles and reduced need for packaging — is a loser according to sector-based accounting.

There’s an alternative accounting method that does incorporate consumption, and not surprisingly it’s called consumption-based accounting. For Vermont, it would mean tallying up the emissions from everything we consume — no matter where it came from. (The emissions from Vermont exports would be excluded because those emissions are the responsibility of an end consumer elsewhere.)

Consumption-based accounting makes it clear that the best way to reduce emissions is to reduce consumption, period. By forcing us to take responsibility for our emissions, it’s a first step towards meaningful climate action.

Governments avoid consumption-based accounting, perhaps because it challenges the bedrock belief that economies should grow forever. Most mainstream non-profits don’t use consumption-based accounting either — maybe because their donor bases hope the climate can be “fixed” while leaving the growth-driven consumer economy — the source of their wealth — intact.

In any case, EAN and its “network members” – including the Vermont Natural Resources Council(VNRC), Vermont Public Interest Research Group(VPIRG), and other large Vermont environmental NGOs — are among those groups that ignore consumption. Instead, they see climate change as a problem for which technofixes are the solution. And with sector-based accounting there’s a technofix for every sector: industrial “renewables” for the electricity sector, EVs for transport, heat pumps for thermal, etc. These technologies don’t require changing our consumer-based economic system; on the contrary, they represent huge profit-making opportunities for corporations and wealthy individuals. As one prominent renewable energy advocate put it, climate change is “the largest wealth creation opportunity of our lifetimes”.

Some will argue that asking citizens to rein in their consumption would be unfair to the many Vermonters who already live with little. But the upper-income levels are where reductions are most needed. A recent Oxfam report titled “The Great Carbon Divide” reveals that a “polluter elite” is responsible for a huge share of global emissions: “it would take about 1,500 years for someone in the bottom 99% to produce as much carbon as the richest billionaires do in a year.”

Low-income Vermonters aren’t chartering private jets out of Burlington’s airport, nor do they have second and third homes with heated swimming pools and three-car garages.

The EAN report calls to mind a line from Mark Twain: “there are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and statistics”. EAN’s report is loaded with creatively presented statistics, but it omits one of the most important statistics of all — consumption. In that way, EAN’s report serves to maintain the growth of an economic system that is literally killing the planet.

Photo by Eric Chen on Unsplash

The ESA Is Not Protecting Wolverines

The ESA Is Not Protecting Wolverines

Editor’s Note: There are fewer than 300 wolverines in the contiguous United States. Wolverines were listed as a threatened species in the lower 48 states  under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) in November 2023. But there are still exceptions to the protection for the wolverines. The following is a piece written by Mike Garrity, the executive director of the Alliance for the Wild Rockies. He describes the legal situation regarding the protection of the wolverines. Finally the piece ends with a call for action to remove these exceptions.


Wolverines Protected Under the ESA. Here is the Rest of the Story

By Mike Garrity/Counterpunch

The Nov. 2023 issue of Scientific American reports that more than 1,600 species have been listed for protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), but less than 6% of species have recovered. We have to start recovering species and with wolverine, we need to start by protecting their habitat and outlawing trapping there with real protective administrative rules or regulations, not weak protections that place imperiled wolverines on the road to extinction.

After more than 20 years of advocacy and litigation by the Western Environmental Law Center for the Alliance for the Wild Rockies, Native Ecosystems Council, and other wildlife conservation groups, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined that wolverines warrant federal protection as a threatened species under the ESA.

Protects species and the ecosystems upon which they depend

The purposes of the ESA are two-fold: to prevent extinction and to recover species. It therefore “protect[s] species and the ecosystems upon which they depend.”

We are thankful after two successful lawsuits and court orders that the Fish and Wildlife Service finally came to its senses and protected wolverines under the ESA. But like everything, the devil is in the details.

Wolverines are now protected under the ESA but the next step is recovering wolverines and the ecosystems upon which they depend. The Fish and Wildlife Service does this through administrative rules to issue regulations that are necessary to protect and recover species listed as threatened and their habitat.

Exceptions

The proposed administrative rule for wolverines has exceptions that include:

(1) taking, or killing, wolverines due to scientific research conducted on wolverines by a federal or Tribal biologists,

(2) incidental take or destruction of wolverine habitat from logging for the purposes of reducing wildfire,

(3) incidental take or killing of wolverines from legal trapping consistent with state and Tribal trapping rules.

Before our court victory stopped recreational wolverine trapping in Montana in 2012, trappers killed about a dozen wolverines a year. Since then, 12 wolverines have been accidentally trapped in Montana, leading to three deaths. In Idaho, nine wolverines have been trapped resulting in two deaths that they know of since 2017.

Lose a foot

Assuming a trapper could even release an angry wolverine from a trap, most animals released after their blood circulation was cut off to a foot for several days in subzero weather end up with their frozen foot falling off, according to the Carter Niemeyer, a retired trapper for U.S.D.A.’s Wildlife Services. It is hard enough for a wolverine with four feet to survive. It is almost impossible for a wolverine to survive in the wild with only three feet. Therefore, the death toll on wolverines from accidental trapping is most likely higher.

Continued Destruction of Wolverine Habitat

The proposed administrative exception to allow the destruction or “take” of wolverine habitat for logging that pretends to fireproof a forest is an exception that swallows the rule. Almost every logging or clearcutting project on national forests in wolverine habitat is now for “fireproofing forests,” which is impossible to do and is just an excuse to mow down our national forests for private profit. We cannot help reclusive wolverines recover if we continue to bulldoze logging roads through all of their habitat and clear-cut forests.

What you can do

Please consider asking to the Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the exceptions allowing trapping, clearcutting and bulldozing logging roads in wolverine habitat by: going to https://www.regulations.gov. In the search box, enter FWS-R6-ES-2023-0216, which is the docket number for this rulemaking.

or

(2) By hard copy: U.S. mail: Public Comments Processing, Attn: FWS-R6-ES- 2023-0216; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; MS: PRB/3W; 5275 Leesburg Pike; Falls Church, VA 22041–3803. Comments are due by January 28, 2024.

Thank you for considering commenting on the Fish and Wildlife Service’s pathetic wolverine regulations, which won’t recover wolverines.

Banner: Wolverine on rocky ground. Photo: Public Domain

Hey y’all! FYI we had a glitch on our donation website for the last couple weeks, We encourage anyone to make any year-end donations they’d like to make using this link? https://givebutter.com/SA0iCU

Thank you very much! Happy solstice!

Updates on Montana State Bison Hunt

Updates on Montana State Bison Hunt

Editor’s Note: The following is an update from Roam Free Nation on the bison “hunt” in Yellowstone National Park. You can find our original story here.


THE “HUNT”

The Montana state bison “hunt” began on November 15. Eight bulls, from the imperiled Central herd, have already been killed by state hunters near West Yellowstone, in the Hebgen Basin. Yellowstone National Park has been warning against killing any buffalo in the Hebgen Basin for many years now, because the Central herd – the truly last wild, migratory buffalo – continues to decline.

The Central herd migrates both into the Hebgen Basin (to the west) and the Gardiner Basin (to the north), so they are doubly impacted by mismanagement actions. In the Gardiner Basin, both the Northern herd and Central herd move into harm’s way. But only the Central herd migrates into the Hebgen Basin, so by refraining from killing there, at least some Central herd buffalo are protected.

These warnings by the Park’s bison biologists continue to fall on the deaf ears of both state and treaty hunters. However, due to the continuing decline of the Central herd, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks are proposing to reduce the number of state licenses for next year from 40 to 25 in the Hebgen Basin. It’s still 25 too many, but it’s something.

Winter has been slow to arrive. West Yellowstone (Hebgen Basin) is just now starting to get some snow. It may be a mild winter this year, and if so, it could ease human-caused hardships on the buffalo. But, just as we need the snow so the rivers will be full in spring, the buffalo need to roam, to express themselves upon the earth and heal the wounded land.

MEDIA TRACTION

There’s been quite a flurry of activity in the past couple of weeks. Roam Free Nation joined with our allies, the Alliance for the Wild Rockies (AWR), Council for Wildlife and Fish, and the Gallatin Wildlife Association in sending a letter to Gallatin National Forest Supervisor Mary Erickson, urging her to close the Gardiner Basin’s Beattie Gulch (“the killing fields”) to buffalo hunting.

We raised concerns about the serious public safety issues, and of course the buffalo suffer at this bottleneck migration corridor on the northern edge of Yellowstone National Park. Ms. Erickson is the perfect bureaucrat who responded with policy jargon that avoided the issue entirely.

To support our effort, Mike Garrity, executive director of AWR wrote a column, “Alliance Asks Forest Service to Close Bison Hunting Area Next to Yellowstone National Park Before Someone Gets Killed.” Soon after, Roam Free Nation’s latest op-ed started making the rounds, “Cease Fire! Yellowstone Buffalo Need to Recover“.

TAKE THE POLL! VOTE “YES” TO CLOSE BEATTIE GULCH!

Shortly after that, the Montana-based Bozeman Daily Chronicle began a poll asking if Beattie Gulch should be closed to buffalo hunting. We sent out a last-minute alert and so many of you responded! Thank you! As of this writing, the poll is still open to voting – so visit this link and make your voice herd now! The “yes” votes were up to 80.2% in favor of closing Beattie Gulch!

NEW BILLBOARD UP!

As all of this was taking place, our strong allies at AWR and Council for Wildlife and Fish, like last year, got some billboards in the works! They used Roam Free Nation’s image of a mom and baby buffalo, with the message: “Save Yellowstone Buffalo. Stop Buffalo Genocide.” There is currently a billboard up in Billings, Montana, and soon to be one in Missoula. We give thanks for all the support from AWR and CWF!!

THE HARD TRUTH

Just the other day, our friend and ally, Steve Kelly, of Council for Wildlife and Fish had a really powerful column published, “Stop Buffalo Genocide and a Repeat of History“, representing our billboard and urging folks to contact Gallatin National Forest Supervisor Mary Erickson to close Beattie Gulch to buffalo “hunting”. You can take that action right now by emailing her at mary.erickson@usda.gov.

KEEP RFN IN THE FIELD!

Roam Free Nation will soon be heading into the field to monitor the situation and defend our relatives, the buffalo. We need your support, however you can offer it. We give thanks to you and all of our allies for standing up for the last wild buffalo!

Wild is the Way! Roam Free!

More info on our website: www.roamfreenation.org/


Photo: Bison in Yellowstone by 12019/pixabay