More on Worldwide Wolves KINDRED CONCEPTS
by Jim Beers, USFWS retired biologist 11/5/06

There are remnants of Finnish communities all across the North Central United States from the Upper Peninsula woodlands of Michigan, through the Glacial Lake country of Minnesota, and out onto the arid and windy plains of North Dakota. Years ago when I worked in those areas I was struck by the ability of so many European immigrants to America to find and settle into areas much like their homeland to live and love and raise families and die, here in their adopted country.

The Finns I have known seemed to almost always share two distinctive qualities. First, they are often quite aware of and proud of their classical music heritage from great Finnish composers. Second, they are often practical and knowledgeable outdoorsmen whether fishing for walleyes, cutting pulp logs in the winter, or working in the taconite mine country of Northern Minnesota.

So it was with this background that I recently had the pleasure of an extended phone conversation with a citizen of Finland last week. This man is well known here and in Finland for his laser-like devotion to the truth and history of the interactions between men and wolves in Finland over the past 300 years.

Our conversation covered a wide range of the aspects of this issue from biology and history to the concept of nationhood and rights guaranteed in our individual Constitutions. Ultimately we wound up discussing the similarities between our governments and the human activities and beliefs that are driving this issue of wolf reintroduction and protection here and in Europe.

As someone that has fought with European Union (EU) bureaucrats driven by the same international Non-Government Organizations (NGO’s) and their lobbyists that cause so much trouble here in the US and at the UN, some of what I learned from this man was not surprising. Some of the things I mentioned to him about US environmental and animal rights activities seemed to be helpful to him. Some other things he told me were astounding and thought-provoking, to say the least. It is mainly because of the latter that I am hereby attempting to share with you some of my notes from that conversation about wolves in Finland, the US, and Russia; and the one species, Homo sapiens, which they all share in common. Here are some highlights from that conversation:

- An EU Directive that dictates that you may not harm a wolf actually elevates concern for a wolf above human safety. (How like the US Federal government mandates about wolves to ranchers, hunters, farmers, and other US rural residents.) - People and organizations in European cities and countries without wolves claim that wolves are not dangerous and that concerns about wolves killing people or livestock or wildlife populations are merely myths and fairy tales from an ignorant past. (How similar to Federal and NGO propaganda being fed to the media and schools here in the US.) - Wolves were purposely (because of human safety and rural economics) eradicated throughout much of Europein the early part of the last century (just as in the US) with good reason and not because of any myths or fairy tales. - A Finnish Museum Director that questioned the “scientific” claims and rationale behind allowing wolves to spread and multiply and become habituated (by government enforced bans on harassment or killing) found his life “pestered” so much that he and his family have left the country. (As one who has experienced a good deal of “pestering” for questioning government wildlife and property policies here in the US (although I do not intend to emigrate) I related personally to this situation and I know many of you know about others similarly “pestered” in this country. - Before 1721 when much of Finland was under the Swedish King Gustavus III there were few wolf problems because people were free to kill them when they were causing problems or threatening human life or rural villages, especially in winter. After 1721 when Sweden turned this area over to Russia, the Czar prohibited forestry and eliminated the public right to hunt or even pick berries or mushrooms but homemade guns and peasant determination to control wolves were generally ignored and thus wolves were kept in check. In 1868, hunting became tied to land ownership complete with “hunting seasons” (for the rich and powerful) and serious government restrictions on peasants and wolf control allowed wolves to increase and increasingly become habituated to people and their communities. Soon enough, CHILDREN BEGAN POPPING UP ON WOLF “MENUS”. Since that date 110 deaths of children, in Church records alone, have been recorded in Finland. These horrific incidents began 9 years after the bans (1877) when three children were eaten. A similar upsurge in deaths of children and old people occurred in Russia from the Finnish border to the Pacific shores. Various Russian authors (Pavlov, Kirov) have written about this phenomenon. During WWII when Russian men were fighting and many women and children were resettled behind the Urals, wolf attacks made a big upsurge when they moved into parks in large packs like dogs and attacked children and old people at will. Similarly India has documented the deaths of 40 children from 1989 to 1995 alone. (What exactly is “it” that wolves “provide” the environment that might offset the terrible likelihood of children or old people being killed? How do men, women, children or communities “benefit” from the presence of wolves? How can so many American citizens cower in fear of a neighbor with a pit bull dog or a pack of free-roaming dogs and simultaneously send money to NGO’s and vote for politicians that impose and protect wolf packs on rural communities and rural residents nationwide? Why are there, rightfully, no excuses (legal or otherwise) accepted when MY dog attacks YOUR dog or a CHILD or Grandmother while simultaneously government imposes wolves on communities and evades ant responsibility for their actions? How did we come to the point where government tells people to “watch their kids and keep their dogs inside and to not ranch or farm where families have ranched and farmed for generations because the government has decreed that protected wolves are to live there? Why don’t courts accept the argument that the grandmother or child attacked or killed by a privately owned dog didn’t “behave properly” or “caused the attack by running” or “didn’t belong there” or “the dog was sick or lame” while simultaneously accepting those very arguments for government mandated wolves or grizzly bears that kill or attack people, pets, or livestock? If I am responsible for my dog, why aren’t government bureaucrats and politicians and NGO’s that insert and protect wolves responsible for the wolves (or bears) create? How many children, or adults for that matter, must die before wolves are considered “too expensive”? Think about the common motivations and similarities between Czars and Kings and Communist Commissars and bureaucrats that serve them compared to our own increasingly centralized government and lifetime politicians and pampered bureaucrats and the servile courts that do not serve the Constitution but only those political agendas they expect to profit from or that they share with the “elites”..) - As EU membership has spawned EU mandates that seek to eliminate things like Finnish wolf control and bear harvest (sound familiar?), Finns have been forced to question who is in charge and who “looks out for them”? Since there is no EU Constitution (it has been defeated but like so many bad ideas in the US it will probably be reintroduced until passed or until some “High Court” simply mandates it’s existence) Finns have been attempting to motivate their own Finnish government to reassume and maintain the management of these wildlife species for Finns and their best interests. (Does this sound familiar? Like Montanans trying to get their State government (like Wyoming’s) to stand up to the Federal government whose wolves are ruining big game hunting and ranching? Or how about Oregonians trying to get their State government to protect rural interests from the approaching Federal wolves? Finns understand what Wisconsinites and Arizonans do not: kowtowing to these interests and their proffered money by acquiescing to their lies is a fool’s errand. Only when such evil (trading the lives of children and the old for imaginary environmental chimeras and specious ecosystem “needs” is evil to be sure) is faced up to and opposed, like any radical extremism, can the common good - the ONLY true purpose of government - be achieved.) - Reasserting Finnish authority, given EU power growth and claims as with similar Federal growth in the US, is difficult. Newspapers, like here, only mention the environmental propaganda dimension. A recent exception was the woman chased into her home by wolves in early October. Wolfpacks are getting bigger and bolder (i.e. more habituated) and incidents are rising accordingly. All this has made appeals to the Finnish government to enforce the Finnish Constitution RIGHT TO HUMAN SAFETY a potential means to spur government creation of necessary wolf control policies. However, there is a long way to go due to the fog of years of lies and half-truths swirling about Europe like the US. The Finnish Forestry Ombudsman has been pressured to set some small quotas for taking. One or two brave politicians have spoken out for the need to protect human safety. When I asked how wolf taking (killing) was done since this can be very problematic in woodlands and vast open spaces of America: he said wolves are so habituated that one tag (when many more needed to be issued) was filled within an hour as the packs were roaming back yards where people could no longer let children or pets go outside. - When he asked if we have a “Right to Human Safety” in our Constitution, I had to answer no. In fact, I told him, that while our Declaration of Independence began with how “All Men are endowed by their Creator with certain Unalienable Rights and among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” we have large secular factions and legal organizations like the ACLU that work to deny that those words have any relevance or authority today. This, even though the Founding Fathers had stated and utilized that concept as a given in everything (Constitution, Bill of Rights, State Constitutions, etc.) that followed. I mentioned how abortion was legalized in this country at the same time (35 years ago) that these laws that authorized wolf introduction and protection were passed. How during this period, animal protection and introduction of wolves and authorized sacred status of everything from marine mammals (Marine Mammal Protection Act) to woodlands (Wilderness Act) likewise has increased. So too have these past three decades seen abortion “rights” expanded, partial birth abortions authorized, and consideration of killing young children with disabilities, mercy-killing the aged, and government health system mandates for withholding treatment of the sick and infirm and aged and disabled being proposed and expanded. Also at the same time we have seen the Constitutional authority over wildlife and forestry and Natural resource management and harvest taken from State and Local authorities to be placed more and more at the Federal level and even at the UN level. As worship of and status of animals have increased, human value and status have decreased. - He pointed out that the “Right to Human Safety” in Finland means that it is a Constitutional priority that public powers be directed to protect humans but that by ignoring the need to defend humans against wolves, this government responsibility is being generally eroded. I mentioned that our 2nd Amendment was similarly being eroded as urban centers like Washington, DC deny gun rights and cities like Boston and New York and Chicago force their State governments to deny gun rights and activist courts and judges ignore the wording in the Constitution to allow this denial of this right. Simultaneously certain Federal politicians try to pass Federal laws to eliminate this Constitutional right. He observed that the elimination of all guaranteed rights is the objective of every dictatorship. Interestingly, to me, was his observation that Finns are better off in his mind with the Constitutional right to public safety than we are with our various rights, including gun rights, that really skirt that issue of government responsibility for human safety. - When I mentioned how the UN Conventions and Treaties are used in this country (based on our Constitutional language misapplied by courts to equate true “Treaties” with these UN “agreements” that are at best policy agreements and NOT TREATIES) to legalize takings and Federal quantum power increases, he saw paralells with Europe. That these new laws in turn do things like implement “Listing” jumping mice to stop development in places like Colorado: he laughed and quickly mentioned that flying squirrels are used the same way in Finland. - When he mentioned how various laws and government changes had effected wolf increases and behavioral changes like attacking people and eating children; I mentioned a Doctorate I read years ago that looked at historical attacks on people by alligators in the South. Similarly it was found that after periods of war (when men were gone and/or very busy) and after periods of alligator hide market collapses, alligator population increases and attacks by alligators on children (swimming or playing near water) and adults bent over (in gardens or performing some task near water) or old people (too slow to run or sitting low as on a log) became more and more common as habituated alligators viewed the old and young and slow as food rather than a threat. - We both agreed that there are larger hidden agendas and powerful forces driving all these things both in Europe and the US. We also agreed that the US and European experiences have much in common and that sharing our successes and failures and cooperating where possible is in our mutual interest. Finally we agreed that there is much to be done and there is a lot of work ahead of all of us.

After I hung up, I was thinking about how much better off the people of Finland and their natural resources would be under their own control and how that could still allow for an effective EU that provided mutual defense and improved their common commercial interests much like the Founding Fathers originally designed this nation “to provide for the common defense” and “to regulate interstate commerce”. The challenge then as now was how to restrain the Federal government from becoming tyrannical or establishing a dictatorship. Then I thought about the first time (I was in my 50’s then) that I was told that “Methodists” were named that because their founder sought to establish a “methodical” approach. Though I had seen that name “Methodist” a thousand times, the word “method” had never occurred to me. The same sort of blind familiarity occurs here with us regarding our name “The United States of America”. Think of it, “United” States. How more and more remote that concept becomes as we build one strong and all-powerful government with state and local governments little more than vassal remnants. How to balance the advantages of cooperation and common defense with that dictatorial tendency to concentrate power and then wield it over all people for the benefit of the powerful: that is so often the recurring chorus of history. These environmental and animal rights current concepts are a dangerous juggernaut moving us in a bad direction toward societal disaster.

I hope this has helped you understand more of this very important issue. I say “important” because so much more (individual and group rights, government magnitude, bureaucratic power, local control of communities, and the gauge of human worth plus things like property rights, rural lifestyles, rural economies, and the cultures and traditions that make our communities who they are) than some obscure ecosystem claim is being destroyed or spawned because of it. Wolves, like environmental mandates, forest fires, commercial fisheries, Wilderness, animal rights laws, and the centralization of power are but a few examples of one thing that springs from the environmental and animal rights agenda. This must be understood to be opposed, and must be opposed to be defeated. This article is hopefully one helpful step in that direction.

Jim Beers
29 October 2006
(Key West, Florida)

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- This article and other recent articles by Jim Beers can be found at http://jimbeers.blogster.com (Jim Beers Common Sense)

- Jim Beers is available for consulting or to speak. Contact: jimbeers7@verizon.net

- Jim Beers is a retired US Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife Biologist, Special Agent, Refuge Manager, Wetlands Biologist, and Congressional Fellow. He was stationed in North Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York City, and Washington DC. He also served as a US Navy Line Officer in the western Pacific and on Adak, Alaska in the Aleutian Islands. He has worked for the Utah Fish & Game, Minneapolis Police Department, and as a Security Supervisor in Washington, DC. He testified three times before Congress; twice regarding the theft by the US Fish & Wildlife Service of $45 to 60 Million from State fish and wildlife funds and once in opposition to expanding Federal Invasive Species authority. He resides in Centreville, Virginia with his wife of many decades.


posted on November 5, 2006 1:16 PM ()

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