By Donna Capurso

Insanity continues to remain alive and well in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as evidenced at the January 9 meeting at the Kootenai River Inn in Bonners Ferry. The KVRI agenda was amended to move the topic of the USFWS’s Caribou Critical Habitat presentation to the top as every seat in the KRI banquet room quickly filled with people and then every bit of standing room was taken up with an overflow that stood outside the double doors to listen to the proceedings. 

The public in attendance obviously wanted answers but only received rhetoric and ambiguous statements from the USFWS. They either would not or could not even provide an accurate count of the supposed caribou other than they “believed” there were about 45 caribou.  One gentleman in attendance presented information on the caribou census count from 2000 to 2010 that countered the USFWS numbers, and I have verified the information through IDFG census reports.  The highest count during this ten year span was 3 in the United States; the lowest was 1.

What was probably most unsettling to me was the disdain and contempt that I felt the USFWS showed towards the public that pays their salaries.  The only ones allowed to ask them questions were the KVRI board members.  When the citizens in attendance realized that their questions and concerns were blatantly being ignored, tempers understandingly started to flair.  When Susan Burch from the USFWS stated that they knew the numbers of caribou have been decreasing but they just couldn’t understand why, there was a shout from the public that was almost in unison, “It’s the wolves!!”

So, let’s take a look at just a few of the accomplishments that can be attributed to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service:

·        The grizzly bear became an “endangered species” in 1975.  Starting in 1999, the USFWS began their plan to distribute grizzlies in the Selkirk Mountain Range recovery zone as an endangered species.  I’m sure everyone  remembers this past August when Bonners Ferry resident Jeremy Hill was arraigned on federal charges for shooting and killing a grizzly while protecting four out of six of his children and faced a year in prison and a $50,000 fine if he had been convicted.  After major pressure from this community, those charges were dropped as long as Jeremy paid a $1,000 civil fine.  Can you say extortion??  And when did a bear become more important than a child?  If you are not familiar with what would have been a travesty of justice, go to: www.BoundaryCountyRepublicans.com and click on “Chairman’s Corner” for that story.

·        Back in 1995, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service introduced 35 Canadian Gray Wolves into central Idaho and 35 into the Yellowstone area of Wyoming.  Since then these wolves have multiplied and are now roaming in huge packs with counts varying from 800 to 2000 in Idaho alone and it has been estimated that they increase their numbers by 30% yearly; it’s time to get your calculator out if you want to see what is in our future thanks to the USFWS.  These Canadian Gray Wolves grow to enormous size, up to 180 pounds.  Unlike the smaller timber wolves that used to be native to our area, these giant wolves have been decimating the elk herds in Idaho as well as other wildlife, ravaging farm animals all over the region and have been attacking humans with increasing frequency.  These Canadian Gray Wolves are considered killing machines and will kill just for the sport of it.  Biologists call this “sport-reflex killing” or “lustful killing”.  www.idahoforwildlife.com.  What chance do you suppose one or two caribou that might wonder down from Canada to Idaho would have against a pack of these USFWS imported wolves?

·        These imported wolves also carry Hydatid Disease, a parasitic disease that affects both humans and other mammals, such as cattle, sheep, dogs, rodents and horses.  Basically, this parasitic disease is a tapeworm that is transmitted to intermediate hosts that are usually herbivores, such as sheep, cattle and wildlife via the ingestion of eggs garnered from the feces of the Canadian Grays found on the plant life that the mammals ingest.  Humans function as accidental hosts because they are usually a 'dead end' for the parasitic infection cycle as the eggs are transmitted to definitive hosts (i.e. humans) by means of eating infected, cyst-containing organs.  Liver and onions anyone? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Echinococcosis   

·        The USFWS has the Canadian Lynx and Wolverine on their agenda to set on us next.  Let’s travel back to the year 2000 when seven government employees (three from the U.S. Forest Service, two from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and two from the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife) planted at least five separate samples of Canadian lynx hair on rubbing posts in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, the Wenatchee National Forest and the Mount Baker/Snoqualmie National Forest in Washington state. The workers then arranged to have the hair samples sent to a laboratory as evidence of the rare wildcats inhabiting those areas.  Unfortunately for the perpetrators, laboratory analysis showed that one of the samples of fur they sent matched DNA of an escaped pet lynx. Two others matched the DNA of a lynx living comfortably in an animal preserve.  What happened to those dishonest employees who came very close to impacting the economy of an entire region in order to justify the banning on federal lands of off-road vehicles, snowmobiles, skis and snowshoes, as well as livestock grazing you might wonder?  They were “counseled” and taken off the Lynx study project.  So much for credibility and integrity.  http://www.cfif.org/htdocs/freedomline/current/in_our_opinion/lynx.htm

The USFWS’s plan for the Caribou Critical Habitat in the Selkirks does not make any sense when you look at the onion as it is peeled back.  They have placed Canadian Gray Wolves in our Selkirk Mountain Range which are not native to this area, where they have proliferated beyond control and the State of Idaho had to declare an emergency due to this issue.  They have placed the grizzly bear in the Selkirks which are also predators to the caribou.  Cougars are also predators of the caribou.  The only predators to the Canadian Gray Wolves, the Grizzly Bear and the Cougar are man.  With the USFWS plan, man will not be allowed into the Caribou Critical Habitat of more than 375,000 acres, where these predatory species will proliferate unabated.  When there are no caribou, moose, elk, deer or any other food sources for these predators, they will migrate to locations where they can find food sources.  The wolves have already killed people and threatened others and this is with declared wolf hunting seasons.  There have been very few of the Canadian Grays eliminated.

Whether it’s in the name of the spotted owl which curtailed logging of old growth forests in the Pacific NW, the snail darter which stopped the completion of the $119 million Tellico Dam in Tennessee, or the lowly fairy shrimp which devastated housing projects in the San Luis Obispo area, real people are losing their homes, property and livelihoods in an abuse by the USFWS by what was intended to be a noble cause. The USFWS created a new endangered species in the San Joaquin Valley of California - farmers. Thanks to environmental regulations designed to protect the likes of the three-inch long delta smelt, one of America's premier agricultural regions became a drought ravaged area due to the mishandling of the ESA.  Were you aware that under a provision added to the Endangered Species Act of 1978, that after the snail darter fiasco, a panel of seven cabinet officials known as the "God Squad" is able to intercede in economic emergencies?

Besides the audacity of such a title, the problem here is that doing so would force the Obama Administration to acknowledge awkward questions about the role its own environmental policies have played in scorching the Earth. And the list goes on and will continue to as long as “We the People” allow this abuse of power of the federal government to rule our lives, our liberties, our freedoms and our future destinies.

So, what can we do? 

   1.      To start with, our county commissioners need to do what Bonner as well as other counties are doing by invoking their rights for coordination.  Coordination basically means that by federal statute the Feds have to coordinate with the counties.  Coordination is different from cooperation.  Coordination provides equal footing for a county entity with the federal gov’t on issues that affect the counties.  This insidious takeover of Boundary County is not about saving the Caribou, but rather it is all about the control and power of the federal gov’t over the citizens of not only our county and state, but our country.  I have provided our county commissioners with information on a Coordination workbook they can obtain to help them implement coordination and it is my hope that they will follow through.

   2.      Did you know that the sheriff is the highest constitutional executive authority in the county?  Very few people realize that the sheriff has the legitimate authority to prevent federal agents from entering the county – or the power to throw them out once they are there.  Some of the county sheriffs that are standing tall and taking the lead in enforcing the US Constitution:  Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio; Elkhart County, Indiana Sheriff Brad Rogers; Josephine County, Oregon Sheriff Gil Gilbertson; Sheriff Richard Mack, retired.  If you want to know more, just Google their names. www.cspoa.org.

   3.      I am but one person, one woman, one mother, one grandmother, and one resident of Boundary County,  but I will do whatever I can to keep the federal government from taking over our county, our property, our lives, our way of life, our independence and the very air we breathe.  It is time to draw a line in the sand and I ask every patriot in our county to join me.  This article, along with a “Call to Action," will now go to every Republican chairman of all the other 43 counties, Governor Otter, every Idaho Senator and Representative (both Republican and Democrat), and every U.S. Congressman to assist us with the challenge we are facing.  I will send this to every news media outlet I can find and email every contact in Idaho that I have.  Our Idaho legislature is now in session and they need to sponsor and pass legislation that will assert our Tenth Amendment rights and keep the Feds out of Idaho, starting with Boundary County.

Idaho needs to manage our own land, our own forests and our own wildlife, not the federal government. Our four US Congressmen need to stand up for Idaho.   Now is the time to take responsibility for ourselves in order to preserve any kind of future without federal domination over our county.

To contact our Idaho legislators:  http://legislature.idaho.gov/howtocontactlegislators.htm

To contact our US Representatives:  http://www.house.gov/

To contact our US Senators:  http://www.senate.gov/

Will it take time and effort to make all these contacts?  Absolutely.  It will also take courage and moral fortitude to defend the US Constitution, particularly the Tenth Amendment, to follow the rule of law, and to stand up for our rights as Idahoans and American citizens.  We, as those citizens, need to keep aware and informed, to not be afraid to inform others and to keep our elected officials accountable and if they are not up to this task, to take action at the ballot box.  We as a community will need to stand up together and tell the Feds, “NO MORE!”  Is saving our county worth the effort?  Only you can answer that question for yourselves.

"For evil to flourish, all that is needed is for good people to do nothing."  

Edmund Burke