Hal Herring exalts Sportsmen for Fish and
Wildlife (SFW) and contends that sportsmen alone should be given
the credit for wildlife protection because they paid for wildlife
management “through the decades into a variety of revenue
streams.” That logic is flawed for two reasons.
Herring glides over the fact that during the last century many
Americans contributed towards public-lands creation and/or the
costs of maintaining public lands where wildlife live. Historian
Carolyn Merchant credits over a million women who between 1900 and
1916 engaged in national efforts for forest conservation, river and
harbor cleanup, and bird preservation. Furthermore, citizens pay
federal taxes that fund the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and
other agencies that conserve species.
Second, while
hunters and anglers pay for the lion’s share of Western
states’ wildlife budgets, it does not follow that these
agencies have well-managed wildlife-conservation plans. Under
states’ care, many species (i.e., wolverine, lynx, river
otters, prairie dogs, swift and kit foxes, and bison) have been
driven to extirpation or even extinction. State wildlife agencies
are notoriously biased towards conserving “game”
species that generate revenue. State agencies also support
destructive management practices that benefit the livestock
industry (i.e., in 2006, the Colorado Wildlife Commission approved
the “rodenator,” a device designed to blow up prairie
dogs in their burrows).
Wildlife-watching tourism has
greatly benefited communities around Yellowstone, the Grand
Staircase-Escalante National Monument, and in western Colorado.
Wildlife watchers wield economic might that state wildlife agencies
have generally failed to harness. Despite Herring’s
unsupported assertions that wildlife watchers are late to the
species conservation game or are somehow tacitly responsible for
the failed re-enactment of the “hugely popular”
Conservation and Reinvestment Act (CARA), a careful analysis does
not uphold his argument.
Herring argues that in Utah,
“wildlife and wildlife habitat were in trouble” before
SFW came along. He quotes SFW founder Don Peay, who said that
biologists “are full of bullshit” because they make up
“convenient lies” such as, oil and gas
drilling/exploration harms wildlife. The inconvenient truth is that
SFW maniacally promotes trophy hunting — whether ungulate or
predator — for themselves, never mind “for the
environment.” Herring’s outing of this group of
predator haters only steels the steadfastness of their opposition.
Wendy Keefover-Ring
Director,
Carnivore Protection Program, Sinapu
Boulder,
Colorado
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline We shall overcome.
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