Befuddled bureaucrats trying to play God with our money

“Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit? There is more hope of a fool than of him.”

— Proverbs 26:12

Economist F.A. Hayek called the efforts of central planners to create a more efficient economy than the free market could: “The Fatal Conceit.”

So perhaps the efforts of federal bureaucrats to better control nature than nature can should be called: “The Futile Conceit.” They are bound and determined to play God if it costs the last shekel of our money.

Nevada may well be the laboratory or the crucible in which the futility of this experiment is proven.

Federal agencies have spent untold millions in taxes and fees extorted from land developers trying to keep the desert tortoise from becoming extinct, only to recently announce a sterilization program because there are too many in backyards. And of course the 20-year-old, 220-acre Desert Tortoise Conservation Center will close at the end of the year, when its funding runs out.

Mulitmillion-dollar minnow being “preserved” in a $4.5 million aquarium. (R-J photo)

Meanwhile, researchers admit they have no idea how many desert tortoises there were in the wild 20 years ago when they were declared “threatened” nor how many there are now or what the proper, sustainable population should be.

In 2008, when 770 desert tortoises from Fort Irwin were released into the open desert in California, the project was promptly suspended because 90 percent of the transplants were devoured by predators, mostly ravens.

Speaking of ravens, it should be noted that these same federal agencies are hell bent to preserve the greater sage grouse — by shutting down economic activity such as mining, drilling, farming and ranching — while at the same time its principle predator, the raven, is protected by a migratory bird treaty.

Then there was the plan to increase the population of wild turkeys in Great Basin National Park. The birds — with few natural predators and hunting disallowed in the park — have taken over the Lehman Caves Visitor Center, roosting in trees at the center’s entrance, befouling lawn and sidewalks with copious droppings.

“Wild” horses being preserved in pens. (Photo by Jo Mitchell)

As for wild horses, there are now more being held in holding pens around the country than in the wild, and those in the wild are so overpopulated that they are stressing the water and grazing availability.

Then there is the granddaddy of species preservation conceit, the champion of profligate expenditures: The Devil’s Hole pupfish preserve in Amargosa Valley, which were placed on the endangered species list in 1967.

Its pond is surrounded by a chain link fence topped with barbed wire, surrounded by cameras and alarms, linked by microwave to security 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

After spending millions of dollars in a futile attempt to preserve this iridescent minnow, the population has fallen to less than 100. So, sort of like the wild horses, the federal government built a $4.5 million, 100,000-gallon aquarium that mimics the temperature and all aspects of the tiny Devil’s Hole.

Like the horses, pupfish are being reserved by removal from their natural habitats.

They could more cheaply seine out a couple dozen minnows and ship them to an aquarium and let the remainder fend for themselves in what we like to call “nature,” where some species are fit enough to survive and others are not, through no fault of mankind.

Our representatives in Washington should turn off the spigot of our money being wasted on futile efforts by bureaucrats to play God.

Time for the states to fight back against ‘sue and settle’ environmentalists with their own litigation

Perhaps it is time for Western states to take a page from the tactics of environmentalists — namely, sue and settle.

Over and over, federal land agencies are eagerly caving in to radical environmental groups seeking to block just about any human endeavor that in anyway comes anywhere near any animal, bird, reptile, bug or minnow whose population is even marginally in decline.

A Mono Basin bi-state sage grouse

This past fall, the the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service designated as threatened — under the terms of the Endangered Species Act — the bi-state greater sage grouse found along the northern California-Nevada border, supposedly a distinct population segment of about 5,000 remaining birds, even though the birds are legally hunted in both states.

That decision followed an October 2010 lawsuit filed by the Western Watersheds Project challenging grazing permits granted by the Bureau of Land Management.

Lesser prairie chicken

This past week the FWS designated as threatened the lesser prairie chicken, which are found in Texas, Oklahoma, Colorado and New Mexico and Kansas.

Wild Earth Guardians sued the FWS in 2010 demanding rapid action on the listing status of 251 species. FWS agreed to determine whether to list the lesser prairie chicken by March 31. That is now a done deed.

Under the settlement, FWS must decide whether to list the greater sage grouse, which are found in 11 Western states, by September 2015. What do you think the odds are?

Kansas and Oklahoma plan to sue the FWS over the listing of the lesser prairie chicken.

Greater sage gouse

Though the lesser prairie chicken population dropped about 50 percent from 2012 to 2013, Jim Pitman, small game coordinator for the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism, says the drop was largely attributed to drought.

“The important thing is the grassland is still there,” Pitman said. Once the grasslands regenerate from wet weather, the bird population will also increase, he said.

Among the topics of litigation the states should pursue are: Are the species really endangered? How scientific are the surveys? Have the federal agencies followed the law in deciding the listing or have they rushed to judgment? Has human activity in any way contributed to population decline or is nature merely taking its course?

Many of the causes of Western species decline have nothing to due with farming, ranching, oil and gas exploration or recreation, but with incompetent land management by the federal agencies, which have ignored fuel management practices and allowed vast wildfires to ravage the ranges. Additionally, there a lack of predator control, one of the biggest problems for most of the species in question, but a factor ignored by the feds.

Would you trust these people to save a species?

Then there are the multimillion-dollar efforts by federal bureaucrats to save species that nature would have let expire long ago, such as the Devil’s Hole pupfish. These minnows have been so managed, so manipulated that they can no longer truly be said to exist “in the wild.” The federal government even built a $4.5 million aquarium for them that matches the Devil’s Hole environs. Why not just put a couple in a fish tank and let nature take its course with the rest?

The 40-year-old Endangered Species Act is less about saving species than it is about building a huge bureaucracy of overseers. Less than 2 percent of listed species have been delisted. Once on the list they are on the list forever.

Of course the feds are not really serious about restoring species to their natural habitat. They may reintroduce wolves to Yellowstone but they’d not think to reintroducing them to Central Park in New York City.

What about herds of bison roaming eastern Colorado?

Jurassic Park anyone?

There is no balance, no logic, no rationale to the way feds are handling this law. There needs to be cost-benefit-ratio analysis used to determine when the harm to farmers, ranchers, oil and gas exploration and recreation outweigh the fleeting and futile salvation of a few birds, reptiles, rodents, bugs, weeds and minnows.

In fact, there appears to be a violation of the First Amendment Establishment Clause. The established federal religion is now the worship of Gaia.

Gaia