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ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS
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October 2005
Wildlife Services toll soars
WASHINGTON D.C.––USDA Wildlife Services, the official hit men for the Cabinet-directed Invasive Species Council, in 2004 killed one million more animals than in 2003, according to data released on September 9, 2005.
“Wildlife Services killed more than five animals per minute,” observed Wendy Keefover-Ring of the Colorado predator advocacy group Sinapu to Associated Press Writer Libby Quaid.
The Wildlife Services toll came to 2.7 million lives, including 2.3 million starlings, 10,735 Canada geese, and 3,263 double-crested cormorants.
Other targeted species were killed at rates that have been more-or-less normal in recent years. Among them were 75,674 coyotes, 31,286 beavers, and 3,907 foxes, whose killing by paid government trappers belied fur industry claims that wild pelt demand is strong. Wildlife Services also klled 397 black bears, mostly suspected of raiding homes or otherwise menacing humans, plus 359 pumas and 191 wolves, chiefly suspected of killing livestock.
Additional bird victims included 143 feral or free-ranging chickens and 72 wild turkeys, apparently just for being alleged neighborhood nuisances.
Starlings have been increasingly aggressively targeted under the George W. Bush administration because of complaints from “red state” farmers and ranchers.
Deliberately introduced to the U.S. in 1890, just as passenger pigeons were disappearing, starlings quickly expanded into the vacated habitat niche. Instead of following the migrating bison herds north and south, picking insects and undigested grain out of bison manure, starlings followed domestic horses and cattle––and unlike passenger pigeons, were considered too small to hunt for the table.
Giant non-migratory Canada geese were introduced across the U.S. by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and state wildlife agencies as part of a 50-year effort to increase the abundance of geese for hunters.
Double-crested cormorants are particularly hated by fish farmers and recreational fishers, who blame them for raiding ponds and allegedly depleting “sport” species, especially around the Great Lakes and in the Mississippi River drainage basis.
Both non-migratory Canada geese and double-crested cormorants were formerly protected under the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act. The act did not distinguish between the wild migratory Canada goose variety and the non-migratory population, bred by crossing wild geese with domestic geese.
Following more than a decade of administrative efforts to exempt non-migratory Canada geese, cormorants, mute swans, and other “nuisance” species from the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, U.S. Representative Wayne T. Gilchrest of Maryland in November 2004 added a rider to an omnibus spending bill that legislatively removed more than 100 species from protection.
The rider on June 15, 2005 forced U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan to reverse his own previous ruling and reject a petition on behalf of mute swans filed by the Humane Society of the U.S. and the Fund for Animals. More than 4,000 mute swans are now slated for extermination around Chesapeake Bay, where they are blamed for harming sea grass beds. Other mute swan populations are to be targeted as rapidly as possible around the nation.
Wildlife Services culling of Canada geese and cormorants had already accelerated.