Q: I don't understand why the Fish and Game is so unretractable concerning
ferrets.
A: To be able to change your mind, you must first have a mind to change.
The CaCa Fish and Gestapo is much like the National Forest Service, and
National Park people. They get a lot of different people to gether and
creat a series of "plans" which become a bureaucratic version of the 10
commandments. They simply cannot see past the ink on the rule book.
In reality, these groups might communicate, but thay appear to have their
own agendas. But HOW they respond to very similar. Not one of these groups
understand the concepts of evolution, history, nor ecological base. This
problem is so bad my committee chair, R. Lee Lyman, a zooarchaeologist by
trade, is finishing a book about the forest service and the mountain goat in
Washington. I've started to pen an article about the misuse of scientific
papers by government agencies, using the ferret as an example. I personally
know or have come into contact with several other people doing the same
thing as Lyman or myself, but in other states and with other species.
Some examples. The California F&G misunderstands ecological priciples,
ignores the history of the ferret in the USA, and can't even make reliable
identifications. Their position is so tenuous that they resort to invention
and misrepresentation of data in order to "prove" their position. I posit
that if their position was solid, the data would support it without
unethical misrepresentation and duplicity.
Take the black-footed ferret at another example. I've never heard of a
program that historically attempted to eliminate the ferret, such bounty
programs for cougar, bobcat, coyotes, wolf, etc. However, their has been
the concerted effort to eliminate prairie dogs, which has been very
successful. The black-footed ferret is a specialist carnivore; it not only
eats prairie dogs, but also lives in their burrows. When the praire dogs
go, or when their territory is so small that it limits the black-footed
ferrets to nonviable populations, the ferrets go extinct. So you have one
agency helping people cleat the land of prairie dogs, and another agency
trying to save the black-footed ferret. I hate to point this out, but
humans have caused some species to go extinct, true, but it is a spit in the
ocean compared to the number of species that have reached extinction during
the history of this planet, which has been almost all of them. Like the
California Condor, the Black-footed ferret may have moved toward extinction
all on its own, when it decided to specialize in a single source of food.
Specialists, like the saber-toothed cats, always end up extinct; its the
generalists that survive environmental change, like rats, cockroaches, and
humans.
Another example is the park service what wants to restore the parks
ecosystems to those 500 years ago, before people. Now either the park
service thinks the Native Americans never impacted the ecosystem, or they
don't believe Native Americans exist. Human beings have been living in
North America for at least the last 12,000 years, and during that time they
have been killing and eating anything they could catch. Also, they were
everywhere, including where the parks now exist. Now I don't want to get
into an argument about if hunter-gatherer groups are actually as
ecologically aware as modern myths tend to paint them, but anyone who has
ever studied the archaeological record can attest that was not the case.
The only way the park service can justify their position is by ignoring the
truth, ignoring Native Americans, and ignoring history.
The California Fish and Game is no exception. I can't tell you exactly why
they are against ferrets, but they are, and they have done everything EXCEPT
research to justify their actions, including the invention of data,
misrepresentation of facts, and plain out-and-out lying. I am currently
obtaining copies of EVERYTHING they have ever cited in their ferret bashing,
and an interesting pattern is emerging. To inflate the number of ferret
attacks reported, they include aggressive actions, such as lunging and
"attacking" without biting. In other words, everytime someone sees a ferret
at play, they can define the action, if the play is directed towards a
human, as an "attack." These are lumped with bites during play, bites from
fear, and authentic attacks for data purposes. Another way of inflating the
data concerning feral populations within California, is to assume all
reported sighting are true, and include in the reports sightings of lost or
strayed pets. No effort has ever been made to authenticate sightings, test
the observer's ability to differentiate ferrets from mink or weasels, or to
trap the area in order confirm local populations. By F&G standards, there
are millions of feral cats, dogs, goats, sheep, cows, horses, chickens,
ducks, albino rats, rabbits, and Guinea pigs. It is an old research trick;
if the data don't fit your results, redefine the parameters until they do.
These are just two examples of the convoluted misreprentation that the F&G
(and associated agencies) resorts to in order to support its position.
There are more.
The bottom line is, once one of these agencies desides something, they
rarely change on their own. From a historical perspective, they will never
change, and I think the Californian tactic of going to the lawmakers is the
best bet. I'm more of a Patrick Henry than they are, and advocate sueing
the domestic burro bustards individually and collectively, but if their
tactics work, then nothing is lost, and if they don't work, then lawsuits
are still an option. Ultimately, the feret will become a legal pet in CaCa
land, no matter what the Fish and Gestapo has to say.
Bob C and the 17 Bustard Eaters. "Give Me Ferrets or Give Me Death!"
[Posted in FML issue 1908]
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