New Blog about Macho B

Ya'll remember Macho B, right? The second-to-last jaguar seen north of the U.S. border and subsequently killed by Arizona Game and Fish Department, et al, and their lethal combination of incompetence, malfeasance, and high self-regard.

Janay Brun, who was the whistleblower who first admitted that the whole shindig wasn't exactly an accident, has started a blog to uncover and reveal the whole story. Called, "Whistling for the Jaguar," it's well worth focused readers' attention.

Keep up the good work, Janay.

The difference?

Freedom costs A Buck O' Five, but feeding yer cow's gonna cost ya a teeny bit more

Amazing, astounding, and very welcome news from the Obama Administration's proposed budget: The BLM is going to start charging an extra dollar per cow/cow pair per month to cover the administrative costs of the grazing program. Hot damn. You'd think there was some kind of effort underway to get the dems to balance the budget or something.

Not the way the ranchers whine about it. Nope, to them, this "tax" on their $1.35 fee is going to ruin. the. world. An assault on ranching! Heavens no! (Seriously. From the same people gunning for wolves, spreading poison for predators, and ultimately slaughtering their beloved "pets," you'd think they have a more accurate definition for "assault.")

These folks expect their asses kissed and to be paid for the privilege of doing it apparently. The "tax" has been unfairly passed on to the taxpayers for decades, with subsidies in the range of $500 million/annually coming out of the federal budget to support the failing program.

Cry me a river, boys. We'd pay more than $2.35 each month just to get our forest back.

Valentine's Day for Voyeurs

Of all the kinky things to do today, why not take a peek at this Wolf Cam and check out what this breeding pair of red wolves is up to at the Wolf Conservation Center? (scroll down)

A recent post from WCC identified ways to do it "wolfy style."

Great ways to show your love ...

* nuzzling
* "prancing"
* wrestling
* parallel walking
* mounting
* rear sniffing
* tandem urination - this is true romance!

Thanks, but we'd rather send a donation to show our affection.

Really? A buck thirty-five again? Is that all?

Goddamn this grazing fee thing pisses us off! Once again the BLM and the Forest Service are going to sell out our public lands at a debt to taxpayers by charging the ranchers $1.35 per month per cow/calf pair or 5 sheep.

$1.35

What can you get for $1.35 these days? 800+ pounds of native vegetation, the privilege to degrade streams, destroy soils, displace native wildlife, slaughter predators, and thwart legislation, that's what.

It's a downright bargain for the 18,000 Americans and corporations lucky enough to have inherited or bought a public lands grazing permit.

It's theft from the rest of us who care more about ecosystem integrity and watershed health.

Grrr....

SOTU SNAFU

"I'm directing my administration to allow the development of clean energy on enough public land to power three million homes." - Barack Obama, January 24, 2012.

Translation: Fuck you, desert tortoise, golden eagle, bats... we're gonna give it all away.

In which we publicly thank the Arizona Game and Fish Commission

Dear Arizona Game and Fish Commissioners,

Thank you for coming to your senses and backing off the ridiculous policy of opposing all new releases of Mexican gray wolves until the recovery plan is complete. When you approved that in December, you looked like idiots. Now, however, you look more like rational human beings. Congratulations. We know it can't be easy to unanimously do something that's actually good for the environment and wildlife, what, with the composition of the Commission and all. (Nice hat!)

But, thanks. Replacing wolves lost to natural or illegal causes is the only way to de-incentivize the bad behavior of the wolf killers. We personally think it should be a 3-to-1 replacement rate to de-incentivize it even more, and we'd like you to consider 'evolving' your position even further.

We're so glad that the new year brought an about-face on this issue.

Sincerely,

The Landscapes

Even a Broken Clock is Right Twice a Day

Obama bans uranium mining around Grand Canyon

The Obama administration banned new uranium mining claims around the Grand Canyon for the next 20 years, a move hailed by conservationists on Monday as key to the president's environmental legacy...

Yes. It is true. President Obama banned uranium mining in the Grand Canyon. But let's not forget that his legacy includes expanded offshore drilling, the BP oil spill, imprisoning a young activist seeking to disrupt improper mining projects, massive industrial solar development in western deserts, and probably, the Keystone XL pipeline. (We'd love to be wrong about this last one. UPDATED 1/18/12: Looks like we are wrong! Yay Obama!)

So when you are sending your little "thank you note" to Cowboy Ken, you might consider amending the text to read, "The Grand Canyon is one our nation's most beautiful and priceless treasures and deserves to be protected for future generations to enjoy. Ditto for the rest of America's public lands. Ahem."

Three hundred reasons to release more Mexican gray wolves

While we are still struggling to understand exactly what happened with F1105, the Mexican wolf who was killed last week in New Mexico, we just keep thinking that the answer is to release more wolves into the wild. The blow of F1105's death wouldn't be quite so tragic if there was a robust wild population, and if it hadn't come on the heels of three other deaths in the last two months. (More here and here; all three are suspicious in our opinion.)

From the comments on our previous post about F1105's death,

There are only about 50 Mexican gray wolves("lobos") in the wilds of New Mexico and Arizona--not enough to ensure their survival. More than 300 lobos are in captivity, waiting to be released into the wild as part of a reintroduction program. Releasing wolves directly into New Mexico--where the best remaining unoccupied habitat exists--is critical to quickly boosting numbers and gene diversity in the wild population, but for bureaucratic reasons the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) won't do it, citing an outdated rule that prevents direct releases into New Mexico. The FWS could easily change this rule by issuing an Environmental Assessment and putting it out for public review, but it refuses to do so. Tell the FWS to take action before it's too late for Mexican wolves.

Please tell US Fish and Wildlife Service: Release Mexican wolves into New Mexico before it's too late. Sign our petition at http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/tell-us-fish-and-wildlife-service-release-mexican-wolves-into-new-mexico-before-its-too-late/

Thanks, Anonymous, for alerting our readers to this opportunity to weigh in. Now, Dear Readers, please do!

Another blow to a stable wild populations of Mexican wolves

This sad news from yesterday: Environmentalists troubled by shooting death of female Mexican wolf in southwestern New Mexico. Turns out this lonely female wolf started hanging around houses, attempting to get close to other canids after a long solo year. And who can blame her, really? Wolves are intensely social and she was prime breeding age. Anyway, the feds were called in and shot her to death. It's a crying shame.

The usual suspects blame the wolf and try to portray her as a child-eater, again. In the comments of the above story, notorious wolf hater Laura Bryant Schneburger has this to say:

Two babies playing in the yard while mom unloads groceried, she comes out wolf is in yard with babies. F1105 nearly gets elderly woman bucked off while working heifers, f1105 stays at house and breeds with dog that is just her past year.

We personally love the one about the elderly woman "nearly" getting bucked off- like she somehow did it on purpose so she could eat the old lady. (Why not blame the horse?) These are the folks with the bus shelters, remember. They have an agenda to make wolves seem as menacing as possible.

We have no idea what F1105 was doing and maybe we would have felt threatened, too. Would we have called for her death? No. And the greater issue is that the ongoing hysteria and resistance to a biologically-sound recovery program and recent opposition to new releases isn't making things better for the project. Unless the project can get new wolves on the ground to form healthy packs in the wild, we're going to see a lot more unhappy endings.

It's creepy and wrong how much these guys like their job.

Probably most folks have already seen this post over at The Wildlife News. The photo is of a government plane marked with pawprints to indicate aerial wolf kills. There are really no words to describe how angry and sad this makes us. Who are these people? Have they no shame? No respect for life? It's sick and it's a sickness.

Reminds us of that Ed Abbey quote: "Whenever I see a photograph of some sportsmen grinning over his kill, I am always impressed by the striking moral and esthetic superiority of the dead animal to the live one."

More about the story behind those photos in the LA Times.

Up against it: Funding the resistance

(Via)

It's that time of year where you are being asked for your checkbooks every time you turn around, whether it is families in need or families in "want." To boot, every NGO sends out year end appeals for funds, the tax benefits of which are minimal unless your checks are maximal. But we good people of the world know that these groups need our support to keep doing what they are doing.

So here's one near and dear to our hearts: The Sierra Club Borderlands Campaign. If the border infrastructure ain't a symbol of what's wrong with this country, we're not sure what is. It's the habitat fragmentation of demarcated landscapes writ large. It's short-sighted posturing at the expense of the environment like few things are. The Sierra Club's Borderlands Campaign is the ONLY staff person of any environmental organization in the country working full-time on border issues. Isn't that amazing?

Please support this campaign by getting in touch with dan.millis@sierraclub.org or sending a check to 738 N. 5th Ave, Suite 214, Tucson AZ 85705 made payable to "The Sierra Club Foundation" with "Borderlands Program" written in the subject line.

Obama No!

We admit we were wrong about President Obama at the outset of his candidacy. We were speechlessly happy. We were stoked.

And we were quickly disappointed. Again. And again. [The list is lengthy and we'll spare you the repetition.]

So when Mrs. Obama's little holiday card/campaign fundraiser came in the mail today, it was all we could do not to barf. Not only will we not be giving money this year, Michelle, we won't be giving your dearest Barack our vote next November either.

Seriously, with announcements like these, you're asking us to donate?

Uh-uh. We'll be sending our year-end donations to groups that fight back against the Obama Administration. It's a sad fact that they have to.

Yes, it makes a sound, and we hear it

The documentary, "If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front" is not just a compelling tale of environmental activists frustrated by traditional methods to thwart (usually unsuccessfully) the destruction of the living planet, but also an exposé of the ratcheted up government response to what was really just property damage. (See: "Eco-terrorism.")

There are two kinds of brutality shown in the film. The first, short clips of oil spills, smokestacks, logging, slaughterhouses and mountain top removal mining. The second, law enforcement's excessive force against protestors, including direct application of pepper spray in the eyes of non-violent resisters, billy-club beatings, etc. Both of these are hard to watch.

A third kind of violence was depicted: that of black block protestors smashing store windows at the "Battle in Seattle," of unoccupied buildings burning, and similar actions. Even a sensitive viewer can watch these without visceral empathy, compassion, or despair. And for us, that's the difference. One thing causes economic pain; the other true, physical suffering. The slaughter of a whale, or a wolf, or a mountain is considered a legitimate transaction; an attempt to harm a corporation's bottom line is a federal crime. It's a fucked up world.

And speaking of suffering, Daniel McGowan is [one of many environmental activists] still in prison. He is the tree that they tried to chop down; let us be the forest that continues to resist.