Making a mockery of hunting or I have a conscience

Those of you who know me know that I am still plugging away at the job search. Seems I am overeducated, undereducated, or underabled for most of the things out there. Maybe part of my trouble stems from an overdeveloped conscience. Earlier this week a career counselor told me that Halliburton is hiring, and I said I could not possibly work for Halliburton if it was the last corporation on earth! However, there are plenty of other places like that.
Today I was considering working at a place in Texas as a fawn caretaker. With the location in there, I was suspicious, went to the website, and had my suspicions confirmed. The 'farm' genetically modifies deer so they have bigger racks, the kind macho Texas hunters want on their walls. My job would be to get the fawns comfortable with humans, presumably so they won't have to be tracked. The 'farm' offers 'hunts' for corporations, individuals, and 'handicap' hunters. (Honestly, you'd think that even Texans value good grammar. The phrase is handicapped hunters! Handicap hunters has a different meaning altogether.) So basically, the idea is for lazy, city-dwelling hunters to shoot a deer that can be easily baited in because they know that if they went on a real hunt by themselves they wouldn't get anything. But what can we realistically expect from Texas hunting programs? This is the same state that for a time allowed handicapped veterans to point and shoot live ducks on a computer, and then didn't even go out to retrieve the meat! I guess all it takes to be really macho is to go out and shoot something.
I have little sympathy for the kind of hunter who would resort to canned hunting, even if that hunter is handicapped. Being handicapped myself, I have had to realize that there are a lot of things that I might have been able to do in other circumstances that, things being what they are, I can't. It has been a long, slow process that is still going on. I don't have anyone catering those might-have-beens to me.
The more I think about it, the angrier I get, but then, what did I really expect from a deer 'farm' in Texas? That's a pretty sad commentary on Texas.

Cap and trade

A lot of environmentalists are pushing cap and trade on carbon emissions. The idea is that all companies get a cap on the amount of carbon they can emit per year, and if some companies go over that they can buy unused carbon credits from companies that don't emit as much. I am afraid I see little environmental benefit in all this. What it essentially says is that big companies can go on polluting as they have been for years, provided they have enough capital to pay other companies for their unused credits. Sure, it might be great economically, but where's the environmental benefit? The obvious argument is that if all companies are given a limit on how much carbon they can emit, even with the trade provision we can limit how many tons of carbon dioxide go into the air. It's a sight better than what we have now, I suppose, but why not just cap the carbon emissions and insist that all companies meet them? Why only shoot for better when we can shoot for ideal? Because for some reason America isn't ready for ideal yet, at least not environmentally, that's why. We've been going back and forth on this for years now, and somehow we're still not ready. Why must environmental crisis always be the prime motivator?

Treat the cause

My environmental groiups have been going nuts about the Obama administration following the same "disastrous" policies on the polar bear as the Bush administration did. I believe they need to be a little less reactionary. First of all, the polar bear is not yet endangered. We are anticipating that they will become endangered in the near future because of global warming. Don't get me wrong; I think we should do everything in our power to protect the polar bears and the other species that already are endangered or may become endangered due to global warming, say, the ribbon seal. The trouble with using the ESA to push climate policy is that the ESA was not set up to deal with climate change and it is already a hated piece of legislation. Using this as a vehicle to push climate is a little like trying to get a rider on a bill that has already been passed.
This is not to say we shouldn't do anything about climate. President Obama has endorsed stronger limits on carbon emissions. Climate change is eventually going to threaten everything, not only the critters on the ESA. So we are doing something about the polar bear, although it has been a long time coming. Once we get a handle on carbon emissions, though the threat to the habitat will still be a problem for a while, THEN we can worry about disastrous policies. The thing that is threatening polar bears is habitat loss from global warming. Global warming is the symptom, and we are working on treating it. In the meantime, it doesn't help the environmental community's image any to be so alarmist.

Well, it's happened again

Wolves are set to again lose protections except for those in Wyoming. Remember how that went over last time? The Center for Biological Diversity is set to sue. It will be interesting to see if that accomplishes anything. Meanwhile, wolves are being shot from airplanes in Alaska, and with the promise of the illustrious Butch Otter, governor of Idaho, that he will be the first to purchase a license, I rather doubt that we can expect a different outcome from last year. I'm all for population control, but when the animal is so hated that it may very well be hunted to extinction (again, though I'm fully aware of how odd that sounds in the context of extinction) there have simply got to be some better controls. What those should be, though, I have no idea. There doesn't seem to be much deterrent to poachers, especially if they are well able to pay the fine.

And now, for an interruption

I swear I'll get back to environmental blog posts at some point, but right now things are absolutely crazy! I got to Chicago on Sunday, and I started my new job yesterday. There has been very little time for research or even just spouting opinions lately, and I'm sure my readers would like my opinions to be at least semi-informed. Also, there is no Internet access at the house where I am staying, so I must hie myself four miles to Panera whenever I want/need to use the Internet. Lastly, has anyonbe else experienced pain in the mid-thigh area from pressing on the gas pedal too long?

You own this, but not this

Land ownership has been chopped into some really funny-looking parcels. With surface land it is usually pretty easy to tell who owns what; all the fences along the roads saying "Fill-In-The-Blank" Ranch. However, a foot below the ground a completely different company may own the minewral rights. I first ran into this concept in graduate school, and it took me some time to get my head around it. Raymond Firestone had sold the land to Bath Township to turn into a nature preserve, but the Firestone family retained the mineral rights. The most frustrating part was that an oil pipeline ran right past my research field, and when it burst the university had a heck of a time getting the company to do anything about it.
If I eventually figured out the difference between surface rights and mineral rights, I'm sure the ranchers out here understand it. However, to throw a monkey wrench into the proceedings, all wildlife, no matter where it is, is owned by the state. In other words, all wildlife found in New Mexico belongs to New Mexico. It seems that some ranchers have yet to grasp this statute. There are a couple around who don't like us to trap and radio collar lesser prairie chickens on their land because they don't like those unsightly collars on "their" chickens. The excuse has been that they weigh too much (the heaviest collar we have weighs about 3 grams).
I think it's a power play. "We're the landowners, you have to keep us happy, so therefore we can use whatever crazy reason (if any) we want to make you do our bidding." And generally, we will. When I hear that talk about wildlife on their lands being "their" wildlife, I just bite my tongue for the good of the organization. I hope a day comes when offending someone else is not a concern in the biological community because while some things may make a few people mad, they need to be said.

Bioenergetics

There are big predators and small predators, and the size food they can accomodate varies with it. Shrews are predators; they eat insects. Lions are predators; they eat zebras and gnus, sometimes even elephants! Even voles can be considered predators, though few people have ever heard the term 'seed predator.'
Unfortunately, the term predator comes with a lot of stigmatization. There was a bobcat in these parts a year ago, and the ranchers were convinced it was killing and eating their cattle. A bobcat is a little bigger than the average housecat, and incapable of delivering the kind of force it would take to kill a full-grown cow. Even so, someone shot the bobcat. I have no idea whether it cut down on livestock deaths, but I doubt it.
When I was in graduate school one of the things I looked at was seed predation by voles and what size seeds they ate. Not surprisingly, my results suggested that they ate the seeds that were smaller or had papery seed coats, and the larger seeds or seeds with thick coats stayed in my petri dishes. Caloric expenditure may be desirable for a lot of humans, but for a rodent that may not encounter food for several days it has significant detriments. If it takes more energy to get to the food than are given by the food, the rodent, wolf, moose, deer, etc. will be no better off for having taken the gamble. Some animals do, and may well die if it doesn't pay off. That's why a lot of predators prefer to pick off the sick and the weak rather than attacking a healthy animal that is well-equipped to defend itself. By picking off those animals, voila! The rest of the population is healthier.
Being a predator is not a bad thing, at least not if you don't have stock to protect. But in protecting that stock ranchers need to realize which predators are a threat and which aren't. It will take a lot of worry out of the ranching process.