Environment and Property Rights

Re: 2011 House Bill 2214 (Concerning the regional management of mammalian apex predators)

avocats — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 18:40:41 GMT

If the state is serious about endangered species, it only makes sense to parallel the species declared endangered by the feds. Why exactly do we as a state need our own special list? And why go on and on with "endangered," "threatened," "species of concern"? It's ludicrous--if it's a problem, get it listed.

Re: 2011 House Bill 2214 (Concerning the regional management of mammalian apex predators)

ispeakthetruth — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 16:04:36 GMT

Just another ignorant reply to your uber-intelligent positions. Rightie or not, you spout the conservative mantra of only caring about protecting species of animals that make economic sense to save. Hence you work to restore habitat for a few species that you and other hunters like to kill You are 100% correct about pianoman and his ilk. you see these people want to conserve wildlife just so they can shoot it. They are anti-wolf extremists who are anti-predator. They hate predators and they don't like when predators eat the animals they want to kill.

Re: 2011 House Bill 2214 (Concerning the regional management of mammalian apex predators)

ispeakthetruth — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:58:50 GMT

pianoman9701 (John vanderhage) is an anti-wolf extremist that posts on a popular hunting website called hunting-washington.com. The website promotes poaching and eradication of wolves. A commenter on the website just yesterday made a comment that wolves should be eradicated from the lower 48. This is how extreme some hunters in WA are. Pianoman and his crew of anti-wolf radicals did not like that the wolf management plan was based. It was based on science, but pianoman and his crew claim it wasn't because the plan doesn't support their anti-wolf agenda. Guys like him, Al Stover, Dale Denney, etc are extreme radicals who want to see wolves go extinct in WA. Piano man does not care about the wildlife, only shooting it.

Re: 2011 House Bill 2214 (Concerning the regional management of mammalian apex predators)

pianoman9701 — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 23:42:53 GMT

Actually, my reply has facts and yours has none. Yours has only venom and accusation. Chinese water torture, really? Who's being ignorant, Jag? I donate money too. Go out a do some work in the woods, Jag. The animals could use your help. Good luck with your facts problem and your rants.

Re: 2011 House Bill 2214 (Concerning the regional management of mammalian apex predators)

jagjudge — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 23:34:49 GMT

Just another ignorant reply to your uber-intelligent positions. Rightie or not, you spout the conservative mantra of only caring about protecting species of animals that make economic sense to save. Hence you work to restore habitat for a few species that you and other hunters like to kill. But would you do the same thing to preserve the rat that you denigrated the state for protecting? What about the spotted owl? What about an endangered fish that only exists in a few small streams? I seriously doubt that you would even think many such species are worth saving - and certainly not if there was a competing interest of the landowner on whose land the endangered fish, toad, dragonfly, etc., happen to reside.

On the other hand, I happen to believe that ALL species are worth protecting and saving. Furthermore, unlike many of my conservative friends who advocate the unfettered depletion of a species until it is just barely viable and only then is it worthy of state action to protect it, I am of the view that we need to act much sooner to ensure the viability of each and every species.

I am sick and tired of the conservative "chinese water torture" tactics to try to undo years of progressive legislation on all fronts. This piece of legislation just happens to deal with protecting wildlife, but the constant drip, drip of conservative carping against everything they happen to despise is getting old.

Oh, and by the way, I contribute a significant amount of money every year to help preserve the environment against the constant assault from the right (or if you prefer, the conservatives), and I frequently can be seen cleaning up wetlands in my neck of the woods to ensure I do what I can to clean up after uncaring hunters who leave trash, spent shotgun shells, etc., behind. Yeah, you really gotta love those "conservation" minded hunters don't you.

Re: 2011 House Bill 2214 (Concerning the regional management of mammalian apex predators)

pianoman9701 — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 22:53:34 GMT

First of all, I'm not a rightie. I vote independent and it's fairly equally split between R and D. Not even close to being a Tea Party'er. Secondly, name calling is adolescent and unecessary. Give me some facts, Jag. But calling me righty and my ilk isn't debate. It just indicates ignorance on your part.Try harder to sound intelligent.

Do you not think that the ESA is enough protection for endangered animals? It's the standard the country has been using for 40 years. If not, which standard should we use? It's a fair question. Not having a standard would be chaos or no protections for endangered animals at all. We should have a standard and stick to it.

Whether you want to admit it or not, hunters are responsible for the safe returns of hundreds of species since the beginning of the 1900s through hunter-sponsored acts like the Lacey Act and the Pittman Robertson Act, both of which eliminated commercial hunting and the government-backed slaughter of wild animals like the buffalo. Pittman Robertson imposes an 11% tax on all licenses, guns, ammo, and hunting equipment to pay solely for habitat restorations. To date, over $20 billion dollars have been paid by hunters soley for habitat restoration. The Lacey act makes it a federal crime to sell wild game or transport it across state lines. So when you say I'm all for extinction of species, it's just not true. That's a ridiculous statement. This past year, I've personally spent 30+hours of my time working on habitat restoration projects out in the woods to make animal populations helathier. Have you? If you have, great. But I must say that I rarely ever see anyone out there in the woods planting trees or pulling Scotch Broom who isn't a hunter. If hunters were all about making animals extinct, we'd have not gone through the efforts of the last 100 years to restore wildlife populations and I wouldn't volunteer my time. I've helped make WA wildlife abundant. What have you actually done for wildlife other than call people names? Fair question.

Incidentally, wolves were wiped out by government-supported hunters and government sponsored bounties. I believe wolves have a place in our eco-system. But I also know that their population growth is up to 50% per year and they're big; they eat a lot. In Alberta, the provincial government has just announced that they'll need to kill 6,000 wolves over the next 4 years to keep the population in check. Wolves are starving to death in Alberta. Is that your intention?

I love that you're passionate about nature. I would encourage you to do more to help it directly, instead of slinging barbs from your computer - putting your words into action in the woods is something few environmentalists actually do. I would welcome you on any of the work parties I take part in. You would see that hunters are about way more than hunting and we actually do something about conservation.

Re: 2011 House Bill 2214 (Concerning the regional management of mammalian apex predators)

jagjudge — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 22:11:22 GMT

You righties always whine the same old song - Agencies (such as DFW) have too much power and the exercise of that power in a way that you righties don't like always "stifles the economy and hurts business," etc. Let's be honest, you righties won't be happy until the Endangered Species Act has been repealed, and this legislation is your attempt to chip away at the authority of the state to protect any species, endangered or otherwise, that the state decides is in need of protection. You would give landowners priority consideration to do whatever they want with their property if you just happened to not agree with protecting an endangered animal that you assert has no economic value. Accordingly, you denigrate the state's protection of an endangered rat. Your ilk would not bat an eyelash at the extinction of any species of animal that you consider to be economically worthless. Fortunately for the society at large you righties do not get to insist upon "market" analysis for every issue facing our society. Some things are just too important to leave to the monied interests to exploit, use and abuse at their whim. Protecting our wildlife from the ravages of free market forces is one such compelling interest.

Re: 2011 House Bill 2214 (Concerning the regional management of mammalian apex predators)

pianoman9701 — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 20:13:59 GMT

Here's a couple of wolf facts for you guys. Facts: 1. All mammalian apex predators are on the rise in the west and have been for decades. Not one Mammalian predator is on the decline anywhere near us. 2. Wolves have been delisted by the federal government for protection because the federal government believes their recovery is complete in the No. Rockies and the eastern 1/3 of WA. 3. HB 2214 was sponsored by Republican AND Democrat legislators. 4. Montana and Idaho are both experiencing decreases in some of their elk and deer herds of up to 90%. 5. Idaho declared a state of emergency 2 years ago while the wolves were still federally protected, because of the damage, ungulate loss, loss of tourism dollars, and livestock and pet losses across the state. 6. Wolves are still federally protected in the western 2/3s of WA. This legislation would not change that. The feds would have to delist there, too for this legislation to affect the wolves in W.WA. The point of this legislation is not about the wolf plan, although the wolf plan is quite flawed. The point is that the state DFW, using the same science that the feds used when they decided to remove protections, seeks to act as its own Endangered Species Act (ESA). You may think that's good. But this power means they can do that with any animal for any reason, without proper scientific evidence or regard to economic ramifications to the contrary. Under current law, the DFW could enact species protected status on a common house cat. The Endangered Species Act is very restrictive. Landowners have been forced to stop building houses because a certain listed rat is found on their property. Entire businesses have been shut down because they lost contracts on land that is found to have an endangered species. So, any animal that the US Fish & Wildlife Service deems as endangered gets protected status under the ESA, like the gray wolf used to. Now why, if the federal government, the same government who initiated the wolf recovery program, says that the wolf is no longer endangered, can our state, using the same scientific data, say "no", we're still going to protect them? Because the state DFW has too much power and this power could easily stifle our economy with restrictions that hurt business and cause damage to our other wildlife herds, requiring more expensive and comprehensive management. This is good safeguard legislation.

Re: 2011 House Bill 2214 (Concerning the regional management of mammalian apex predators)

ryansilva — Tue, 27 Dec 2011 09:51:19 GMT

ICAREANDVOTE:

These bozos do everything they can to get around wildlife management and protection laws at the request and direction of a few resource extraction Neanderthals. How can wildlife be managed on a regional basis when most apex species have already been extirpated from many regions? How is the viability of a species determined on "available" information when information just isn't available? You can play with words all you want but dwindling numbers of apex species due to continued habitat loss as a result of resource extraction (where have all the trees gone?) and human encroachment; and lack of law enforcement, will leave us without an issue sometime in the near future. With the brilliant leadership we have coming from Olympia, I expect the state's wildlife to reach the tipping point so, if we have not passed it, and bozos like Chandler can go home and watch TV. I, for one, don't want our state to be known only for its airplanes, war machines, and nuclear waste. Somehow our timber and wildlife resources work to balance the nastier image of this state. Are we to be the New Jersey of the west coast? It's time to get a grip and pay attention to what these guys are doing. It's time to clean out the capitol!

Correct! We need to do something to save our wildlife resources not only for maintaining the nastier image of our state but also for the sake of being a human being and we just cannot let the wildlife diminish.

Re: 2011 House Bill 2214 (Concerning the regional management of mammalian apex predators)

ICAREANDVOTE — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 20:34:14 GMT

These bozos do everything they can to get around wildlife management and protection laws at the request and direction of a few resource extraction Neanderthals. How can wildlife be managed on a regional basis when most apex species have already been extirpated from many regions? How is the viability of a species determined on "available" information when information just isn't available? You can play with words all you want but dwindling numbers of apex species due to continued habitat loss as a result of resource extraction (where have all the trees gone?) and human encroachment; and lack of law enforcement, will leave us without an issue sometime in the near future. With the brilliant leadership we have coming from Olympia, I expect the state's wildlife to reach the tipping point so, if we have not passed it, and bozos like Chandler can go home and watch TV. I, for one, don't want our state to be known only for its airplanes, war machines, and nuclear waste. Somehow our timber and wildlife resources work to balance the nastier image of this state. Are we to be the New Jersey of the west coast? It's time to get a grip and pay attention to what these guys are doing. It's time to clean out the capitol!

Re: 2011 House Bill 2214 (Concerning the regional management of mammalian apex predators)

jagjudge — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 18:53:11 GMT

So typical of Republicans. Attack all regulations they do not like by trying to prevent the agency (or commission) responsible for managing the subject matter from being able to act at all. At the federal level the right-wingers are attempting the same trick with the EPA and other agencies. Hopefully Democrats and reasonable, rational Republicans will see through this shell game and not allow this piece of cow dung legislation to make it out of committee.

2011 House Bill 2214 (Concerning the regional management of mammalian apex predators)

admin — Mon, 26 Dec 2011 18:47:47 GMT

Introduced in the House on January 9, 2011

Click here to view bill details.