Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Predator derby is thoughtless


With so much knowledge and information readily available today, why, oh why can't we humans come together to protect this planet Earth, our only home? We must act before it is, quite literally, too late, and life is no longer viable for any plant or creature?

Setting aside major threats like climate change, here is just one awful (local) example of our activities: I was cautiously cheered to read that a judge in Montana was considering restoring the Endangered Species Act to protect wolves in Idaho, Wyoming and Montana, some 500 having already been slaughtered for the entertainment of sportsmen in 2009. But then, I learned of the "Predator Derby" scheduled in Twin Falls for Saturday, Jan. 9. For a price of $50, the members of the ironically named Idaho Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife will receive prizes not only for killing as many wolves as they can, but also coyotes, foxes and bobcats.

Do these men with guns have no concept of the delicate, closely woven, interdependent web of life linking all these species—and us to them? Are they unaware, or don't they care, that unlike their fellow "sportsmen," who best enjoy killing fine trophy specimens in their prime, wolves keep elk and deer herds strong and healthy by taking out the sick and the old? Or even that without coyotes, whose main food is rats and mice and voles, those among them who are farmers and ranchers would lose their free pest control?

Every time we humans thoughtlessly disrupt the natural world—with every felled tree, dammed river, obliterated species—we push over another domino. We've all marveled at those ingenious, harmless cascades of real dominoes. Every 'sportsman' with a so-called predator in his gun sight is helping to set off another, far graver domino effect. We are the biggest predators of all, and time is running out for us. And maybe that is just as well.

Diana Fassino

Ketchum




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