Fish and Wildlife Service Listing Politics

The Fish and Wildlife Service of the USA is so polluted with politics these days it is hard to tell what they believe. I expected the USFWS to attempt to delist the Yellowstone Grizzly and they did. I am hopeful that their is a groundswell of support for Endangered wildlife within the working USFWS. Though this administration is on some other planet when it comes to Endangered Wildlife my hope is that the nameless bureacrats who work for our Nations premier wildlife agency, the USFWS, are saying enough of that, let science and reason mixed in with passion, reign for wildlife. I can have only wishful thinking for Endangered Wildlife for now. I have to remember that in my world John Craighead, Bart Ogara or Maurice Hornocker came from the USFWS and Turner, of the same ilk as Cheney and Bush, was the USFWS director in better days for the Agency. I have a good friend in the USFWS now, and do not want to identify him , but I know his heart is in the right place.

Matt

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My writing on this laptop computer is very clumsy now and my desktop is temporarily out of commision. I like to get on, then off. I feel somewhat vindicated to myself , if there is such a thing, when persons are going insane, and innocent people and animals are being killed. What I am talking about, is Rwanda, Africa. Now I am talking about the  Congo and the Mountain gorillas in the Virunga Mountains of Africa.

I voted for Clinton twice because I thought he was best for the environment and education. Dole and Perot and Bush one; I think not!!! But the large black eye of the Clinton era was what to do about the killing fields in Rwanda? It is happening again in the  Congo and in Sudan. People are dying, in part we are hopeless under this administration, in the US.

Mountain gorillas survived, but as I predicted to myself, not if the Congo goes. That may come to pass. In yesterday’s Washington Post is a front page article entitled, In an Eastern Congo Oasis, Blood Amidst the Greenery , by Stephanie McCrummen. It is sad and a call for our help, but we are bogged down occupying Iraq. What a complicated continent Africa is.

Global Warming Threatens the Chesapeake Bay Region

I have been going to the Bay since I was young, and back then D.C. and the area was quite different, for better and worse. I was gone when most of the area changed. But I care about the Bay, where I went to summer camp as a child and birded extensively as a teenager. It distressed me to read in several local papers that the Bay was threatened by Global Warming if nothing is done to curb local emmisions. Downtown Annapolis could, as well, be underwater.

 The Chesapake Bay Foundation has a scary report that writes about the consequences of Global Warming in the Bay Region in the next several years if we do not do anything to stop it.

Small Glaciers

Small glaciers: these may ultimately be the Glaciers that are important in  the rise of sea level. These Glaciers are melting  at record rates and may be more important in the short-term to sea level rise along places like the US coastline, where a lot of persons live, than the Greenland Ice Cap and the Western Antartica Ice Cap. Glaciers, in such places as Glacier National Park, are melting.

Larger Glaciers, like those in Alaska, in the Wrangell- Saint Elias Range will melt at a slower rate…but they will melt sooner than later. That will have major conseqences over the next  50 years. Can we change our ways that fast?.

More Clues to a Rising Sea in the Post

The Washington Post has an article by Juliet Eilperin called. Clues to Rising Seas are Hidden in Polar Ice. This is a meaty article in July the 16th  Washington Post. If the Greenland Ice Cap melts sea levels will rise and  Millions of Americans will be homeless or dispersed away from the rising sea levels Washington Post. If the West Antartica Ice Caps melt, tack on another 16 feet of seas. An astronomical number of Americans will be inpacted by this; even if it is a third true. These predictions, if anything, are off to the side of faster impacts. Should we be preparing for the worst case now?

For the Policy Wonks

Today’s Washington Post has a comparison of current Senate Bills that will effect the Warming Debate. This should be read by all Global Warming officionados. I was thinking how the legislation for Global Warming will get more complicated as Bush leaves office and the oil companies learn how to make money on alternative forms of energy.

I am a wildlife biologist so I am sceptical of any form of Wind Energy and because I am a human I worry about Aomic Energy!!!Should I look at the tradeoffs, says a political, pragmatist side of me?

Read Mufson’s Very Excellant Article

Mufson wrote a great Global Warming article in today’s Washington Post on the front page. He talks about a game invented, by accident, by two esteemed Princeton Scientists about how to”put the breaks on Global Warming”. It is complicated and has to be now. I suspected this much!!!

More Goodies on Global Warming

Todays, July 15th, Washington Post has a special section on Travel, by William Booth. The special is on the front page and the Travel Section. For D.C. area persons it is in your Washington Post today. Look on line and in small town stands on Monday Morning. One of the articles is subtitled, Alaska’s Icy  Bay where Glacier’s come to die and Kayakers Come to Watch.

Icy Bay is near Yakutat, Alaska  and the Glaciers are receding, so are those in Glacier National Park in Montana. I have known about Global Warming and the Greenhouse Gas Effect for twenty years or more, during that time I have seen Glaciers recede in Icy Bay and Glaciers leave, literally, in Glacier National Park, Montana.

I suspected Global Warming but did not want to be viewed as a crazy…Gore does not care,  and neither should have I.

I have seen many polar bears in Churchill, Manitoba, and was not aware at the time, of the relatioship between polar bears and Global Warming. It does not take a rocket scientist to see a possible relationship between the two. I sure do, and if the Post Reporters deserve credit for their reporting on this all consuming problem that we created, they get credit from me.

I have little, or no time, for Global Warming critics. I believe global warming critics have an agenda…and it is usually easy to see. I just do not want to look for it because I believe the time is NOW!!!!for Global Warming’s impacts on the human race and the planet!

A Dangerous Animal Indeed

 In today’s Washington Post, July 15, is an article about a black bear that has been sighted in Rockville and in Northern Bethesda for the past two weeks. There are a lot of complaints about the police doing nothing. How many black bears have they had in their life, up in Bethesda. The answer is 0.

The black bear may be more dangerous than a Rotweiller or Pit Bull but it, by behavior, seems more docile. If the Black bear is fed, or the black bear is harrassed it will be dangerous to young children it might come across in its wanderings. The bear is a dispersal young male and may end up in more Western Maryland, but the longer it is in Bethesda it will stay. It should be helped in making up its mind to leave.

 Maryland DNR knows more about this bear and have more control over it than  a Bethesda police officer. This bear is more dangerous than a non rabid coyote, any day of the week. But the police are right that the bear is considered one of those interesting things unless it does some harm and the longer it is in Bethesda it is bound to. The bear is wild and simply does not know what is expected of it.

More Post

Please read the Washington Post the article is Report Warns of a Much Warmer Northeast by Marc Kaufman. This was in the Friday the 13th Washington Post and it is an excellent article that is either archived on line or in the paper in small towns. It is  spot-on so I do not need to analyse it at all, besides I find that the keys are harder for me now!!!