OPINION: Politics trumps science, but that has to change
Managing Editor Frank Miele published his best Sunday Daily Inter Lake front page ever, June 14, 2015, when he ran two different stories about two wildlife biologists: Rick Mace, retiring MFWP grizzly bear specialist; and Kent Laudon, MFWP wolf specialist transferring from Montana to USFW in Arizona.
They, along with many other local scientists, find it beneath their dignity and in violation of an unwritten strict code of ethics they adhere to, and so limit themselves to only: Study wildlife and climate change and document research results and do scientific lectures open to the public but NEVER do political advocacy to “save” wildlife. How do I feel about that? I am conflicted, at best.
On the one hand it leaves the door open for people like me to do the political advocating for the wildlife we love, in order to fill the void. But on the other hand, those scientists repudiate us out of jealousy for doing what they are not doing and then ostracize us for doing what they will not/cannot do.
We cannot win for losing with those scientists. Yet the job MUST be done… even if we do not have their “scientific credentials” in doing it. The general public needs to be informed on the considerable value and applicability of the sciences involved and not only hear negative politics from deniers of climate change and animal rights.
Politicians can do and say whatever they want with impunity against scientists and never be answered back by them. So, once again, it is left to people like me to fight the anti-environmentalist politicians in order to “save” wildlife, as stand-ins for the politically disengaged scientists… who never say “thank you” to us.
This leaves the door open for entrepreneurial environmentalists to create non-profit organizations with large paid memberships, and individual wildlife biologists to become paid consultants, to counterbalance the political foes of the scientists’ work (and those scientists’ upper management who do play politics), and fight them intellectually, and litigate against them in court if need be.
The lawyers have a field day. Their representation is needed by the government organizations (MFWP, NFS) favoring hunting and trapping and timber interests and motorized vehicle recreational use over wildlife habitat (with legal fees paid for by our tax dollars); lumber industries wanting to cut down trees for profit that wildlife depend on for their homes; motorized recreational vehicle organizations wanting ever-more access deep into the forest home of wildlife; and the environmental groups and other individuals defending wildlife against all of them.
The scientists working for the government organizations, as well as the wildlife themselves, suffer the consequences. The scientists must remain silent and not politically advocate for wildlife for fear of risking their research funding or losing their jobs from adverse politics, even though it is “we the people” who are paying their salaries and research funding through our tax dollars and want them to speak out on behalf of wildlife. And the animals can lose their very lives if no one advocates for them. What to do?
I personally like Kent and Rick and wish them well in their next endeavors. I will continue to condemn their boss at FWP, Jim Williams, for his role in “managing” (killing) wildlife. Also, Joe Krueger, of the Forest Service, “manages” (harvests) the cutting of trees in the wildlife forest habitat. It is in conflict with and contrary to my life’s mission/objective to “save” wildlife and their habitat. It is a dirty, difficult, volunteer job I took on, but someone has to do it. In the past politics has always trumped science but, somehow, that has to change… soon.
Baum is a resident of the Badrock Canyon.