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Article 7/03/08 |
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Op-Ed:
Cattlemen: Stick to what you know (Michael Scott)
Bozeman Daily Chronicle
7/03/08 |
Before
the U.S. Cattlemen's Association from California announced
that it knows how to manage western wildlife better than
those of us who live, work and play here, perhaps the
group should've checked with the West's governors.
Last week, the Western Governors Association
convened in Jackson Hole, Wyo., and emerged with a bipartisan
and unified credo: that wildlife is critical to the integrity
and spiritual health of the West, and that habitat and
historic migration corridors are crucial to the integrity
and health of wildlife.
The governors' heartening recognition
that wild animals cannot be constrained by political boundaries
imperiled by other human intrusions
sharply contrasts with the cattlemen's outlandish recent
suggestion that elk and bison populations be
dramatically reduced and confined to Yellowstone and
Grand Teton national parks.
How the USCA would make this happen
should be of acute interest to all of us in the Northern
Rockies. Perhaps the cattlemen would distribute maps to
all critters living inside Yellowstone and Grand
Teton with a warning that those who leave will be shot
on sight.
Fortunately, wiser heads here in the
region appear to be prevailing, even within the cattle
industry. They recognize that forcing a choice between
livestock and wildlife is a losing proposition for whoever
embarks on such a misguided path, given that we value
both here in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem.
The governors' commitment to preserving
critical habitat and historic migration corridors comes
none too soon.
Pressure to drill for oil and gas in
southwest Wyoming threatens one of the most prolific pronghorn,
elk and mule deer routes between summer and winter
ranges in the Lower 48. With more than 1,000 wells already
sunk and another 4,000-plus on tap for the Pinedale Anticline,
animals already squeezed into a bottleneck might soon
be prevented from finding their way to forage needed for
winter survival.
At the WGA meeting, one presenter showed
a slide outlining the traditional migration corridors
from Grand Teton National Park to the sagebrush Red Desert
south of Pinedale. When he produced an overlay showing
how energy development is already squeezing migration
paths down to the thinnest of threads, and then followed
with the proposals for a new oil and gas assault, the
bi-partisan crowd emitted an audible gasp.
In the nation's rush to drill, it was
ominously clear to those in attendance that
we are putting our region's cherished
wildlife heritage at increasing risk.
Another factor pointing up the importance
of maintaining and enhancing habitat and migration routes
is climate change. As the planet continues to warm, the
alreadyfragile ecosystem will be challenged even further,
likely necessitating escape routes to such places as central
Idaho and the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness, as suitable
habitat for grizzly bears, pronghorn and moose potentially
shrinks.
And of course, residential development,
with fences surrounding 20-acre ranchettes and subdivisions
rising up in the middle of historic migration corridors,
is further fragmenting the private lands so important
to the overall health of this ecosystem.
Wildlife are given the freedom to roam
in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem because that
is what they do, and because we value wildlife as essential
to the integrity of this extraordinary place we - and
they - call home.
Many of us are here because they are
here, and because of what the presence of these majestic
creatures on the landscape represents. Confining them
to national parks would not only require yet another wasteful
government tax-and-spend program, it would be an intolerable
affront to our unique Western heritage; wildlife would
no longer be wildlife.
A Rocky Mountain West without free-ranging
elk, bison, bears, wolves and moose would be like Florida
without oranges, California without beaches and Oregon
without salmon.
The U.S. Cattlemen's Association, which
presumes to know how best to manage our wildlife all the
way from California, clearly didn't do the legwork to
understand this.
Fortunately, those of us who live, work
and play here - including our Western governors - understand
it perfectly.
Michael Scott is executive director
of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition in Bozeman.
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