bioweb.usu.edu/tag - a gateway to somewhere else

a letter of interest from the Cougar Fund:

Dear Friends, Members, and Supporters of The Cougar Fund,

We thought you would be interested in the following opinion piece, which is a response to David Baron's book, "The Beast in the Garden". Over the last few years, some journalists have sensationalized the danger cougars pose to the public and preyed upon people's fears and ignorance.

While it is true that more and more people are moving into and recreating in cougar habitat, attacks remain rare. Only 18 people have died as a result of a cougar attack since 1890 while annually, domestic dogs kill 20 people, bees kill 40 people and lightening kills 80 people. Furthermore, common sense precautions will significantly reduce the chance of an encounter (http://www.cougarfund.org/safety.php).

Fear of the unknown, which includes the mysterious and elusive mountain lion, is understandable. This is why we must focus our attention on education. Cougars are also known as "ghost cats" precisely because for most of us, they are left to our imaginations. They are not often seen and researchers have found that they typically avoid interactions with humans. To move from fear to understanding, all of us must educate ourselves, our children and our neighbors with the facts about cougar ecology, and learn how to live and recreate wisely in habitat where wild animals exist.

We encourage you to read this article and forward it anyone you know who lives in or visits cougar habitat.

Thank you,

Melinda

Melinda Binks
Program & Development Director
The Cougar Fund
PO Box 122
Jackson, WY 83001
307-733-0797 phone
307-733-6184 fax
mel@cougarfund.org
www.cougarfund.org

The author's response to Wendy's article:

MOUNTAIN LIONS
Beware knee-jerk environmentalism

Wendy Keefover-Ring of the carnivore protection group Sinapu made false and misleading statements about my book, "The Beast in the Garden," in a recent guest opinion ("Book overstates lion dangers," Feb. 5). I wish to respond.

Keefover-Ring disputes my contention that mountain lions were widely killed in the Boulder area in the late 1800s, grew scarce in the early 1900s, and returned to abundance by the late 1980s. She calls these "unsupportable historic claims." Not so.

Anyone serious about the history of Front Range lions can do as I did — go to Norlin Library and read old newspapers on microfilm — and find ample evidence of how locals treated cougars in the 19th century. Here's a sampling: "A big puma (mountain lion) was strychnined ... this side of Sugar Loaf" (Boulder County News, July 17, 1874); "Mountain Lion shot ... on the Magnolia mountain" (Boulder County News, Nov. 19, 1875); " ... a young mountain lion, which was killed near Boulder ..." (Rocky Mountain News, Nov. 19, 1869); "A mountain lioness ... around Longmont ... has at last been killed" (Rocky Mountain News, Feb. 9, 1885).

Why do I conclude that Boulder's lions became scarce by the early 20th century and later rebounded? Brownlee Guyer, the state game warden for Boulder County from 1938 to 1970, knew of just three lion sightings in his district during his three decades on the job; in Boulder County today, it's not uncommon for the Division of Wildlife to learn of three lion sightings in a week. One can also logically infer that few cougars lived in Boulder County 100 years ago because their primary prey — deer — had been killed off by market hunters. The return of deer since then has allowed lions to return.

This historical fact — that lions have returned to Boulder in recent decades — runs counter to Sinapu's political agenda, which is to convince the public that cougars are on the decline statewide. Hence the organization's campaign to denigrate my book.

Keefover-Ring complains of "an anti-predator bias" in "The Beast in the Garden," yet — despite its focus on a fatal lion attack — the book is not really about the threat posed by cougars (which is, admittedly, minuscule). It is about the danger posed by knee-jerk, simplistic notions of environmentalism that fail to incorporate the role of people in the natural world. The book's ultimate message is one of environmental stewardship, a message one might expect Sinapu to embrace.

DAVID BARON
Boulder

And the Cougar Fund's Response:

LIONS
A good story, but not good science

A published book does not a fact make. David Baron, in his book "The Beast in the Garden," does what any royalty-seeking, well-intentioned writer (with an extensive background, not to mention valuable connections at NPR) would do: Research a fabulous news story, inject a dramatic narrative arc, and then draw conclusions.

The facts about Boulder's cougars are murky at best, and may be argued ad nauseam. The same goes for Boulder's cougars 100 years ago (imagine what archivists in 2105 would make of our time if they relied on present-day media headlines to extrapolate historic fact).

But for Baron to brand Wendy Keefover-Ring's fair questioning ("Book overstates lion dangers," op-ed, Feb. 5) of his methodology — if one could call it that— "knee-jerk environmentalism" (Open Forum, Feb. 10) ignores that fact that Sinapu, along with the Colorado Division of Wildlife and many other groups, are working to solve the big unknowns regarding Colorado's cougars. And in the scientific arena — which must stand up to peer review, stakeholder interest and the impact of financial repercussions of animal-related damages on the state's dime — this means more than just drawing loose conclusions and weaving a good yarn.

Together, and spearheaded by realistic concerns of habitat loss and a growing human impact on the Front Range, these entities have committed millions of dollars to seeking solutions for the long-term survival of this crucial keystone species.

Baron is in the catbird seat. But will his book change policy? Unlikely, given its paucity of scientific rigor and the fact that the DOW has commissioned a decade-long cougar study that will find the elusive beginnings of an answer to the basic questions surrounding the state's cougar population; they also reduced the cougar kill quota by 30 percent in the fall of 2004.

And will the book make the world a better place? The answer to that one lies in the heart of Baron himself and his readers.

CARA BLESSLEY LOWE
Co-founder, The Cougar Fund
Jackson, Wyo.

Please join the Cougar Fund - tell them I sent you! There is a link to it below... -Tim

Loving America

If you listen to a lot of conservatives, they'll tell you that the difference between them and us is that conservatives love America and liberals hate America. That we "blame America first." That we're suspicious of patriotism and always think our country's in the wrong. As conservative radio and TV personality Sean Hannity says, we liberals "train our children to criticize America, not celebrate it."

They don't get it. We love America just as much as they do. But in a different way. You see, they love America the way a four-year-old loves her mommy. Liberals love America like grown-ups. To a four-year-old, everything Mommy does is wonderful and anyone who criticizes Mommy is bad. Grown-up love means actually understanding what you love, taking the good with the bad, and helping your loved one grow. Love takes attention and work and is the best thing in the world.

That's why we liberals want America to do the right thing. We know America is the hope of the world, and we love it and want it to do well. We also want it to do good.

When liberals look back on history, we see things we're very proud of. And we also see some things, which might have seemed like good ideas at the time, but turned out to be mistakes. And some things we did, well, they were just bad. That doesn't keep us from loving our country - it's part of loving our country. It's called honesty. What do you think is more important to a loving relationship: honesty or lies?

-Al Franken
From "Lies & the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A fair and balanced look at the right" Plume, New York, 2004.

the world's view?

GOD HELP AMERICA
Nov 5 2004

THEY say that in life you get what you deserve. Well, today America has deservedly got a lawless cowboy to lead them further into carnage and isolation and the unreserved contempt of most of the rest of the world.

This once-great country has pulled up its drawbridge for another four years and stuck a finger up to the billions of us forced to share the same air. And in doing so, it has shown itself to be a fearful, backward-looking and very small nation.

This should have been the day when Americans finally answered their critics by raising their eyes from their own sidewalks and looking outward towards the rest of humanity.

And for a few hours early yesterday, when the exit polls predicted a John Kerry victory, it seemed they had.
But then the horrible, inevitable truth hit home. They had somehow managed to re-elect the most devious, blinkered and reckless leader ever put before them. The Yellow Rogue of Texas.

A self-serving, dim-witted, draft-dodging, gung-ho little rich boy, whose idea of courage is to yell: "I feel good," as he unleashes an awesome fury which slaughters 100,000 innocents for no other reason than greed and vanity.

A dangerous chameleon, his charming exterior provides cover for a power-crazed clique of Doctor Strangeloves whose goal is to increase America's grip on the world's economies and natural resources.

And in foolishly backing him, Americans have given the go-ahead for more unilateral pre-emptive strikes, more world instability and most probably another 9/11.

Why else do you think bin Laden was so happy to scare them to the polls, then made no attempt to scupper the outcome?

There's only one headline in town today, folks: "It Was Osama Wot Won It."

And soon he'll expect pay-back. Well, he can't allow Bush to have his folks whoopin' and a-hollerin' without his own getting a share of the fun, can he?

Heck, guys, I hope you're feeling proud today.

To the tens of millions who voted for John Kerry, my commiserations.

To the overwhelming majority of you who didn't, I simply ask: Have you learnt nothing? Do you despise your own image that much?

Do you care so little about the world beyond your shores? How could you do this to yourselves?

How appalling must one man's record at home and abroad be for you to reject him?

Kerry wasn't the best presidential candidate the Democrats have ever fielded (and he did deserve a kicking for that "reporting for doo-dee" moment), but at least he understood the complexity of the world outside America, and domestic disgraces like the 45 million of his fellow citizens without health cover.

He would have done something to make that country fairer and re-connected it with the wider world.
Instead America chose a man without morals or vision. An economic incompetent who inherited a $2billion surplus from Clinton, gave it in tax cuts to the rich and turned the US into the world's largest debtor nation.

A man who sneers at the rights of other nations. Who has withdrawn from international treaties on the environment and chemical weapons.

A man who flattens sovereign states then hands the rebuilding contracts to his own billionaire party backers.

A man who promotes trade protectionism and backs an Israeli government which continually flouts UN resolutions.
America has chosen a menacingly immature buffoon who likened the pursuit of the 9/11 terrorists to a Wild West, Wanted Dead or Alive man-hunt and, during the Afghanistan war, kept a baseball scorecard in his drawer, notching up hits when news came through of enemy deaths.

A RADICAL Christian fanatic who decided the world was made up of the forces of good and evil, who invented a war on terror, and thus as author of it, believed he had the right to set the rules of engagement.

Which translates to telling his troops to do what the hell they want to the bad guys. As he has at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and countless towns across Iraq.

You have to feel sorry for the millions of Yanks in the big cities like New York, Washington, Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco who voted to kick him out.

These are the sophisticated side of the electorate who recognise a gibbon when they see one.

As for the ones who put him in, across the Bible Belt and the South, us outsiders can only feel pity.

Were I a Kerry voter, though, I'd feel deep anger, not only at them returning Bush to power, but for allowing the outside world to lump us all into the same category of moronic muppets.

The self-righteous, gun-totin', military lovin', sister marryin', abortion-hatin', gay-loathin', foreigner-despisin', non-passport ownin' red-necks, who believe God gave America the biggest dick in the world so it could urinate on the rest of us and make their land "free and strong".

You probably won't be surprised to learn of would-be Oklahoma Republican Senator Tom Coburn who, on Tuesday, promised to ban abortion and execute any doctors who carried them out.

He also told voters that lesbianism is so rampant in the state's schools that girls were being sent to toilets on their own.
Not that any principal could be found to back him up.

These are the people who hijack the word patriot and liken compassion to child-molesting. And they are unknowingly bin Laden's chief recruiting officers.

Al-Qaeda's existence is fuelled by the outpourings of America's Christian right. Bush is its commander-in-chief. And he and bin Laden need each other to survive.

Both need to play Lex Luther to each others' Superman with their own fanatical people. Maybe that's why the mightiest military machine ever assembled has failed to catch the world's most wanted man.

Or is the reason simply that America is incompetent? That behind the bluff they are frightened and clueless, which is why they've stayed with the devil they know.

VISITORS from another planet watching this election would surely not credit the amateurism.

The queues for hours to register a tick; the 17,000 lawyers needed to ensure there was no cheating; the $1.2bn wasted by parties trying to discredit the enemy; the allegations of fraud, intimidation and dirty tricks; the exit polls which were so wildly inaccurate; an Electoral College voting system that makes the Eurovision Song Contest look like a beacon of democracy and efficiency; and the delays and the legal wrangles in announcing the victor.

Yet America would have us believe theirs is the finest democracy in the world. Well, that fine democracy has got the man it deserved. George W Bush.

But is America safer today without Kerry in charge? A man who overnight would have given back to the UN some credibility and authority. Who would have worked out the best way to undo the Iraq mess without fear of losing face.

Instead, the questions facing America today are - how many more thousands of their sons will die as Iraq descends into a new Vietnam? And how many more Vietnams are on the horizon now they have given Bush the mandate to go after Iran, Syria, North Korea or Cuba...?

Today is a sad day for the world, but it's even sadder for the millions of intelligent Americans embarrassed by a gung-ho leader and backed by a banal electorate, half of whom still believe Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11.

Yanks had the chance to show the world a better way this week, instead they made a thuggish cowboy ride off into the sunset bathed in glory.

And in doing so it brought Armageddon that little bit closer and re-christened their beloved nation The Home Of The Knave and the Land Of The Freak.

God Help America.