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A Modest Wilderness Proposal
(Note: Hogwash and balderdash! "A Modest Wilderness
Proposal" http://www.tonydean.com/issues.html?sectionid=5082 --
there's no such thing. There's nothing "modest" about
what Tony Dean would have you believe is a human user-friendly
"wilderness proposal." He's no naive kid, and for all his
suave talk about hunters, gem hunters, etc., ad nauseam, he knows
full well about The Wildlands Project, and deserves his comeuppance
for daring to ill-define "modest wilderness proposal". As
he well knows, much "wide open space" is ranchland and
farmland, and not all of it -- or even most of it -- is plowed. This
is far from being the first time that Mr. Dean has penned such a
Trojan Horse of language deception, all the while lulling his
readers into the idea that he thinks they will continue to have
access to areas that are daily being gated/locked away from human
access. The Official Policy of all National Wildlife Refuges, for
example, is Closed Until Open. That's not poppycock; I have it right
here in a hard copy of a "Draft Environmental Assessment"
for the area of rural Ohio in which I live. Here, the recreating and
hunting/fishing members of the public were promised access, even
when they could read the documents that said all lands and
waters that were "critical habitat" or "possible
habitat" for "threatened" or "endangered"
species -- one of which, the Scioto Madtom prehistoric fish, is
EXTINCT -- were to be closed because of the "human
threat" to remaining "population segments" of
whatever "endangered" or "threatened" species
was the current "Poster Species of the Month" at USFWS.
The major muzzled media continued to talk about our Amish and
Mennonite farmers, here for 200 years, "plowing" up to the
streambanks, when the Truth is that we have the highest percentage
of "no-till" acreage in Ohio, AND our farmers don't
make money with the "Conservation Reserve Program" or
"Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program" because the
only way to make money from that is to be using land that's already
too close to the stream. Our farmers know that all land is not
cropland. They also know when a "false prophet" is in
town. What's the difference between that arm of the Department
of the Interior, its other agencies and The Wildlands Project?
Nothing but scope. The Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, now taking
up eleven million acres in both Alaska and Canada, is also --
coincidentally? -- a United Nations Biosphere Reserve. The National
Park Service is busily terrorizing those private landowners and
homeowners -- known as inholders -- that dare stay within the
"wilderness boundaries"! http://www.WildlandsProjectRevealed.org
and http://www.cowboysandcattlecountry.0catch.com --
both these websites provide the truth about such buzzwords and
language deceptions as "threatened,"
"endangered," "at risk," "critical
habitat," or those famous nebulous button-pusher words
like: "could," "may," "might," and
that phrase known for its ability to fool people: "Studies
show." Tony Dean knows what he is doing. He cares about Tony
Dean, but not about those rural folk that provide homes and healthy
"habitat" for both domestic and wildlife, human and plant
life, and the REAL diversity that "The Wildlands Project"
scorns. He is not trying to make readers feel "warm and
fuzzy" without having his agenda firmly in place and the ink
dry on his "conservation" partners and their
arrangements. He is not trying to tell his readers the truth -- that
these lands he so blithely seeks "wilderness status" on
are already "protected" Federal lands. There is a Plan
here that has nothing to do with the suave tones of surface talk,
and everything to do with the cessation of cattle and sheep-raising.
It has nothing to do with having a place for hunters to go where
they need not "fear" encountering an ATV -- and everything
to do with gutting America of her responsible resource providers.
How often does Tony Dean tell folks how wonderful cattle and sheep
are for reducing the very real risk of fire? Right now there is a
Plan afoot to remove all sheep -- by not renewing the grazing
permits -- on lands of the Absaroka/Beartooth now-known-as
"Wilderness Area" Beartooth sheep kills won't
be paid: Defenders of Wildlife stops paying ranchers is the
title of the article, but it's about removing all domestic grazing
-- and thus, all farming and ranching.
http://www.billingsgazette.com/index.php?display=rednews/2004/05/17/build/local/34-sheep-kills.inc There
can only be two sides in this issue: either you're a REAL
environmentalist, also known as a responsible resource
provider/farmer/fisherman/logger/miner/rancher, or you're a
self-proclaimed "environmentalist" or "conservationalist"
-- whichever is currently better perceived by the public. The
second category would define for the public what it wants the
public to think a "modest proposal for wilderness" is. I
leave it for the reader to arrive at which of these two categories
Mr. Dean falls into.)
May 17, 2004
By Tony Dean
Tony Dean Outdoors Conservation Issues
1013 North Grand
Pierre, SD 57501 605-224-5104 Fax: 605-224-2977
Aldo Leopold wrote that wilderness is the artifact from which Man
has hammered civilization. And there is certainly, within most of
us, a need for wide-open places. Thus, I appeal to my fellow
sportsmen to work on behalf of some modest proposals for what I
would term, a modest proposal for wilderness in South Dakota.
I am a hunter and sense a need for places back away from the road, a
place where you can find a mule buck with antlers wide enough to
span a yardstick. I want to be able to stalk that magnificent
creature without the fear of someone blundering between us on an all
terrain vehicle (ATV).
ATV’s are not evil, and there are times and places when and where
their use is appropriate. I would not hesitate to use one to tote my
ice-fishing shack across a frozen lake. But darned if I can find a
legitimate use for one in hunting, other than to help haul out a
critter when the hunt is done…and where such use is both legal and
appropriate. Besides, when I hunt, I am seeking more than a dead
animal. The death of a creature is a necessary part of hunting but
it is but a small part of a hunt. In fact, a complete hunt is made
up of much more of everything that leads up to squeezing the
trigger. The use of an ATV or 4-wheel drive truck adds not a whit to
the quality of said hunt.
Some will say, but what about senior citizens? Well, I qualify.
I’m a year shy of drawing full social security benefits, what’s
left of my hair is gray, and though I’m in reasonably good shape,
each year, such a hunt grows more difficult. But I have had my time.
Today belongs to the next generation of hunters and I can only hope
they will find as much as I did. No, this is not about you and I as
much as it is the kids we once were.
And what of gem hunters? Well, what about them? Assuming they have
the proper permit, why can’t they walk too? Is it written anywhere
that the hunt for gems must be done on four wheels? And it seems to
me that it’s a lot easier to pack out a pocketful of rocks than a
big buck.
Instead of talking about what is not allowed in wilderness areas,
let us talk about what is:
Hunting…high quality hunting.
Horseback riding, fishing, hiking and camping.
Livestock grazing where previously established including rancher
access.
Mining on pre-existing claims.
Rafting, canoeing, guiding, outfitting.
Scientific studies, educational travel.
Control of wildfires, insects, and disease outbreaks.
Some folks in western South Dakota have concluded there’s no place
for wilderness in our state. They are wrong! The States Attorney in
Fall River County, and others, for whatever reason, have been
traveling around, doing their best to scare the hell out of people
about the evils of wilderness. They’ve even succeeded in
convincing some county commissions to pass anti-wilderness
resolutions, and in many of those cases, the commissioners have been
acting on either poor, faulty or no information.
These wilderness proposals will have no effect on private land. All
are proposed on certain tracts of public land, which does not belong
to individual ranchers, county commissioners, you, or I.
Collectively however, it belongs to all of us, and I am offended
that some county commissioners have become arrogant enough to think
they can tell any of us how federal, public lands should be used.
They should be worrying instead about county business.
These separate tracts of proposed wilderness include names like Red
Shirt, Indian Creek, Cheyenne River and Black Canyon. They feature
wind-swept table tops, sheer cliffs, stark buttes and a seemingly
endless supply of grass. And what sets them apart from other
wilderness areas in America is the fact that these will be the only
grassland wilderness areas.
That is important, and I think that if you traveled around South
Dakota and neighboring states, you would realize that our prairie is
disappearing. Most of it has been plowed and what remains are under
threat of plowing. And most important, grassland wilderness areas
are an important legacy to leave our children of the prairie.
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