Connecting the Dots in the Case of the Missing Canadian Lynx

I promised a Part 2 in "The Case of the Missing Canadian Lynx." Well, the story has turned into a full-blown investigation because of the amount of information I have received.

After my last piece, "The Case of the Missing Canadian Lynx, Part 1," I heard from officials in Washington, D.C., and Washington state. Suffice it to say, this is a real, live detective story. It may not be as glitzy as the Enron case, but it has all the elements of the Enron story and then some.

The honesty and credibility of federal green agencies is in question and needs scrutiny that is unbiased and objective. Such scrutiny is sorely lacking.

The REAL problem is that Congress and the various investigative agencies are intimidated by or in total agreement with a movement that has grown so powerful, and has infiltrated government agencies so thoroughly, that it has almost become a government entity unto itself. Congress has dropped the ball on this development – in many cases it has promoted it.

What I am discovering is that dishonesty and conflict of interest reaches from the elected Congress to appointed bureaucrats. The discovery involves federal "scientists" who, instead of acting as real scientists, have become agents of the environmental movement's most radical elements.

As a retired biologist for the Fish and Wildlife Service told me recently, "The employee sees it day in and day out. It's a top-down culture and the top people encourage it. ... The environmentalists started off well-intentioned, but grants and big money corrupted [the movement]. As for the federal government, the scientists hired were not qualified, and since the early '80s they had an agenda that did not favor natural resource users."

It is becoming more apparent to me that over the last 25 years or so a grab bag of green activists and quota employees have become the heart and soul of these federal green agencies. Their loyalty is not necessarily to truth-seeking or science, but rather to promoting certain interest groups' agendas.

As they have been expanding budgets, turf and personnel, private property as well as federal lands have been adversely and unfairly administered.

The case of the "missing" Canadian lynx is only a small part of the total picture of what has gone wrong.

It should come as no surprise that all this grew worse, much worse, under Bill Clinton and his secretary of the interior, Bruce Babbitt. However, the sad fact is that the politicization and infiltration of the agencies by agenda- and philosophy-driven greens began long ago.

In the '60s, a confluence of disparate elements in the environmental movement allied itself under the banner of "ecology."

That term first came into use in 1866 when German philosopher, zoologist and evolutionist Ernst Haeckel coined it. Ecology refers to his belief that nature is an organic whole.

The idea is not original; it goes back to Plato, and Herbert Spencer later gave it a political twist.

Dr. Alston Chase is an environmentalist with a background in philosophy and science. He has taught at Harvard and Princeton. His book "In a Dark Wood" is considered a classic and the best investigation into how the spotted owl controversy began and the nature of the philosophy that fueled the listing of the spotted owl and closed down an entire industry.

As Dr. Chase puts it, "Society itself was a kind of biological organism where the WHOLE was more important than the individual parts."

The new "discipline" or "science" of ecology received legitimacy when attempts to clean up our environmental act turned into one crisis scenario after another.

When government grant money came into the picture, that was the end of objective science and probably the end of balance regarding the environment and government. Government unions, agencies and the powers that be had discovered an entirely new area for budgets and recognition and power.

The problem was that these agencies were also allowed to be driven by those with an elitist green agenda.

However, it was the idea that the ends justify the means that suited the Clinton years to a T. When Bill Clinton came into office, the questionable, controversial and political "biocentrist" approach to the environment was adopted.

At the heart of biocentrism is the notion that man is no more important in the scheme of things than a pig, a dog, a fairy shrimp or a spotted owl.

Dr. Chase maintains that "the biocentric ideal ... confers equal importance on all living things, from elk to beetles. ... The new science [ecology] seemed to say that conditions were good so long as ecosystems kept all the parts and remained in balance."

As air and water improved, the environmental movement began looking for new challenges and new problems to solve. It grew so large and well-financed, so addicted to big money and grants, and so politically adept that it was not only activist about nature, it became a political powerhouse.

Coddled and unquestioned by the media, protected from oversight, funded by high-profile Hollywood stars, major capitalists like Ted Turner and George Soros, and major American foundations, year after year it added new dimensions to its sacred-cow status.

But in the bargain Americans didn't just get cleaner air or sensible policies about water, air and the environment. Rather, we were run over by a belief system that had redefined nature into a philosophical construct.

We cleaned up our fouled nest in pretty short order, but then we burned it and killed off or pushed the birds out of the nest.

Then we took the concept of nature and made it an end in itself. Along with that change in values, environmentalism morphed into a combination of a quasi-religion and a quasi-capitalist venture.

We got lost when sensible environmental goals became a "crusade" to save absolutely every bug, beetle, newt and weed on the planet. We expanded that crusade until it took over entire parts of the United States.

At the moment, 42 percent of this country is locked up in federal or state hands. Even more millions of acres are now in the hands of elite groups and special interests and individuals, from Ted Turner to The Nature Conservancy.

Government scientists and government-funded scientists, people who should have remained objective, did not. Instead, they were driven to do what they had to, to "further the cause." That was what was expected of them and that was what they believed in. Money and their livelihood were at stake.

Balance between what became two competing value systems was not well served by conflicted federal agencies, federal biologists and the many under-qualified government scientists who sought to "further the cause."

As one agent informed me, "experience was out, requirements done away with, a spoils system and quotas were part and parcel of the way things were. It was institutional and filtered down."

Federal green agencies have another serious problem that Congress does not seem to want to deal with. That problem involves grants given to the greens from the budgets of federal agencies themselves.

I have found that those grants are often used to promote the goals of the most extreme green agenda at the expense of the rural poor. Again, there has been no balance and certainly no congressional oversight to speak of.

I have discovered in speaking to Forest Service personnel, current and retired, that balance has not existed for over a decade. The grant-making process involving the federal green agencies is a scandal – that is their opinion, not mine.

Former federal biologist James Beers was driven out of the Fish and Wildlife Service when he blew the whistle on the grant-making. He refused to approve a grant and had to leave the agency. Not long ago, he won a suit against the federal government.

As a whistle-blower, he has been marginalized and vilified, by both federal agencies and the environmental movement, with untrue implications that he is a member of a militia or involved in some right-wing conspiracy.

From what I can tell, you don't do two things. You don't challenge the greens in any way, do not point out their inconsistencies or faults or wrong-headed thinking. Secondly, you don't pretend the federal government is seeking the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

Such grants include funds to groups like the Fund for Animals, a group immersed in radical ideas and agendas, in my book not a mainstream group.

But even if it were, green groups should not be receiving grants in order to promote a value system that will destroy a competing value system if fully implemented. Especially when that grant will be used to destroy entire sections of the economy and rope off entire sections of the country to public use.

There are plenty of investigations, but the connection between certain politicians and the greens is corrosive. Money and influence talk loudly in Congress.

The rural types lack the numbers, so their voices are seldom heard, let alone considered. The "hearings" on environmental issues, conducted in the hinterlands, are very often skewed and manipulated and turned to favor a radical green agenda.

An investigation into Bill Clinton's "road closure" uncovered so much collusion and corruption between the various government agencies, the White House, and Pew Charitable Trust, as well as the arrogance of the people involved, that it should have had a million people marching on D.C.

The House counsel who wrote the summary report wrote such a scathing condemnation of the entire affair, I was a surprised to see it all laid out in so many words. But nothing has come of it – yet.

What boggles the mind is how much "science" associated with federal agencies has been politicized. Studies are not pursued using the scientific method but rather are clouded by an agenda that is not a science or even a discipline, but a philosophy.

Whether it is the Canadian lynx, the wolf or grizzly, the results of those studies are often predetermined or skewed by manipulation of the "science" involved.

Also questionable are the scientific credentials of the "scientists." Many of our federal "biologists" are more politician than scientist. More environmental activist than careful and methodical researcher. They are more likely trained in systems management than biology.

But if they are smart, they know which way the wind is blowing and act accordingly.

The fact is that their world is more political than it is scientific. The fabrication of the lynx study is only a small part of it.

There is a conflict of interest, a one-way war between two value systems at the heart of the Canadian lynx case.

The problem is that the fabrication in the Canadian lynx study is not an isolated incident. Fraud and fabrication and manipulation are endemic in the entire house of cards that comprise the federal green agencies, the American foundations, and the green business and its friends in Congress.

I have discovered that federal and state elected bodies by and large pay attention only to the testimony of environmental groups and what they have to say.

When the Canadian lynx investigation took place in Washington state, the only testimony heard by the investigating committee was from one Forest Service supervisor, two Washington state supervising biologists and THREE spokesmen for environmental groups.

As far as I can ascertain, there was no testimony from anyone who had done an outside peer review of the science regarding the lynx. Nor were the "scientists" who had fabricated the data allowed to testify.

There was no outside audit or oversight of any of the state or federal agencies in the conduct of the matter. There was an internal investigation and that was that. Case closed.

Names in the Forest Service report on the lynx case were redacted, blacked out. The Forest Service says it was to "protect the privacy" of the "scientists" involved. I did manage to find out the names of the two Washington state scientists, but as far as I can tell, they aren't talking.

Although State Senator Robert Morton did his level best in seeking an honest investigation, he and a few other "bravehearts" were stonewalled.

Sen. Morton's district would have been severely impacted by the results of the lynx study, and even he was not able to find out the names of the Forest Service "scientists" involved in the fabrication.

Stonewalling seems to be a full-time occupation on many levels of government these days. So what else is new, hey?

The scandal in all this is not isolated to the Canadian lynx debacle as uncovered by the Washington Times. Small newspapers in Washington state and newsletters had been talking about it for some time before it broke nationally.

The real scandal is the fact that an agency of the federal government, with the power to close entire "ecosystems" to human use, has no real auditing or outside oversight system over its own actions that are worth a damn.

When the Forest Service says the Office of Inspector General is investigating wrongdoing, don't be impressed. Such investigations should be conducted by outside agencies, not another agency of the federal government.

Just as Arthur Andersen was a lousy auditor of Enron, there are too many ties and too much covering up and too many careers and lives at stake. In both cases it was the fox guarding the hen house or the wolf guarding the sheep.

The recent lynx scandal may also be connected to another instance of questionable science and "tainted" data.

In the Oregon case in 1999, Dr. John Weaver was doing a study on numbers of Canadian lynx in a potential "wilderness" area in Oregon. He is the man who developed the scratch-post tool as a method of finding out how many animals live in a potential '"wilderness" area.

Weaver admitted that his lynx study was tainted. That case was never fully resolved, and it was business as usual. One wonders if the forensics lab in both cases of "tainted" science was the same lab. All sorts of other unanswered questions and unsolved mysteries pop up because no one is demanding the answers.

However, it goes further than that. It extends all the way into Canada. The Canadians had similar problems with a grizzly bear study between Jasper and Banff. Again, scientists with an agenda were set loose as they attempted to close off the Bow Valley to all but minimal human activity.

Accusations of "tainted" evidence and manipulated science were discussed by Canadian scientists who saw a decision being made using a contaminated chain of evidence. A "study" that was not helped by the "scientist" in charge of the grizzly study. A scientist who had previously stated that he would do what he had to "for the cause."

In the case of the grizzly, that cause was an endangered listing and a wilderness designation that would have ended most human activity in large areas between Banff and Jasper.

As someone who sees the bigger picture in all this, what this is really about is instituting the Wildlands Project one study, one park, one "corridor" at a time.

That Wildlands Project, which came out of the radical Earth First! environmental group, is now considered mainstream.

The biologists and scientists involved in this effort would hardly be considered not to have a political agenda. It stretches credulity to think that they are objective. They can't be, because as "systems" biologists they don't see anything but furthering the benefits of the "system."

These scientists don't just study a condition, animal or situation, they already know that this is about proving the need to create a system that includes corridors thousands of miles long. They are only trying to prove that the corridor is necessary to "save" an endangered species. This is not science – this is philosophy.

The fact is the environmental movement does not want any activity on federal lands. No logging at all. No compromise at all, no balance at all. Time and time again spokesmen for these groups say they don't want any money to be made off of federal lands.

Recently, Fox News Cable had a segment on timber salvage sales in Montana. The biggest complaint of a young man from a major environmental group was that someone might make money off the sale.

There was no statement at all about whether or not that sale would benefit both the environment, the forest and the people.

It was just one of many instances where environmentalists' biggest complaint was that money was in the deal. They did not want the caulk-booted loggers driving their pickups to make a dime off such a sale.

If that is not a conflict of values, nothing is. To me it reflects the fact that basically the greens are purists. They think the only reason that natural resources or "nature" exist is as a value apart from what they can do for man.

Maybe so. But when that attitude makes the environment worse off, in addition to not being a benefit or money maker – it's flat dumb.

The purists think "nature's way" is the only way. Thus, they would rather see a forest burn than to put in roads or water resources or to clear-cut sections to prevent catastrophic fires.

God forbid some poor guy in Smalltown, Oregon, should make a dime cutting trees they are willing to see burned. NO BALANCE and certainly no fairness to those who have placed nature over God and man.

Yet these same purist groups accept grants, aid and political favors, will tell half-truths and encourage the fudging, if not outright fabrication, of data to accomplish their purist ends. The same groups have won millions in litigation that they engage in at the expense of the environment and the taxpayer.

The end game is to get rid of those who seek to make any use of federal lands. Not just logging, but also small mining or large mining, grazing, off-road vehicles, snowmobiling, hunting, fishing, and yes – even tourism.

Oddly, these various groups of federal lands users can be set one against the other. The various groups don't notice as they are flimflammed into believing they have special status in how the use of federal lands is divvied up.

News for those folks – hang together or hang separately. The environmental movement and the federal green bureaucracies are not happy with controlling over 42 percent of the land – they want total control over private property as well, and they want everyone off that land.

Since the bogus, and I do mean bogus, spotted owl controversy, logging on federal lands has dropped 89 percent.

The greens state that the federal government was losing money on it anyway. That is an outright lie. It is not even a half-truth – it is pure and simple a lie.

The fact is the federal government DOES make money on logging. What it doesn't make money on are the stuff like public relations work, the interpretive girlies they send into the woods to spout the green doctrine, and sundry side efforts and administrative costs involved in lawsuits.

But the scandal is that the grants given to green groups take a big chunk of the budget as well. On one hand, the feds nearly move heaven and earth to kill off a lucrative relationship while on the other hand promote another that will mean that federal agency loses money.

Meanwhile, certain members of Congress and their families, friends and contributors have made out like bandits in land swaps, sweetheart deals and outright gaming the system.

I take that back – it should have an outside investigation and an auditing, because otherwise when the lynx controversy blows over, it will be same stuff, different day.

As in all things – follow the money. As usual, "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

If I were a congressional committee I would get that redacted Forest Service report on the internal lynx investigation. I would find out who was involved. Then I would begin to seriously look into the connections between federal agents and radical or not-so-radical green groups.

Even the Sierra Club and Audubon Society don't have clean hands or an unpoliticized agenda. They want the lynx listed and they want more wilderness and they want the loggers, miners, ranchers and others off of what they consider "their" land.

The actions they have taken in the past against individuals and industries, mostly small, tell me that they will scream bloody murder till they get their way.

The fact is all the double dealing and back scratching are costing the taxpayers and the rural areas of America jobs and livelihoods, and in fact do not do the environment a bit of good.

All of this has cost major bucks, meanwhile, because of poor management. Forests continue to burn and critters die, and the purists think that is fine and dandy.

They would rather see entire areas go to hell or up in smoke than have one single soul making a buck off harvesting of trees, minerals, grass and, more often than not, the enjoyment of nature itself.

The honest people in the Forest Service and other federal agencies, the ones who seek a balance between "preserving" nature and human use of natural resources, are marginalized or kept out of the loop or pushed out. Because of the incessant barrage of lies, half-truths and lawsuits used against federal agencies by the green groups, the federal agencies have begun to capitulate to the intimidation and threats.

These litigious green groups are more often than not mainstream environmental groups that make millions off these lawsuits. Meanwhile, the species and the environment they say they want to save go begging because there is no money left to "save" them.

Over the next several columns I am inviting you on this investigation. Like the TV show "Unsolved Mysteries," I am asking for your help.

As I am discovering, "The Case of the Missing Canadian lynx" is not unique. The tainted study is not the first act of corruption and obfuscation by federal employees and their associates in the environmental movement. It reaches from the states to D.C.

It has got to be dealt with and soon, before government is corrupted any further and before we lose what freedoms we have left.

No that's not the REAL problem. The real problem is that the Constitution forbade the government of the United from owning property or taking its use without just compensation. It forbade multilateral treaties whose terms can change after ratification. It forbade administrative law pursuant to those unconstitutional treaties. In short, the real problem is political control of property. It's a systemic evil that induces government to operate in an interest adverse to its citizens reflecting instead the narrow interests of the politically dominant.

While I appreciate your energy and enthusiasm, please, you would go a lot farther if you didn't talk down to the rest of us. This isn't exactly the first or the worst such misrepresentation of fact to result in massive regulatory takings.

why don't you submit an article to Newsmax?

I was just a little annoyed at the repetitive "I am discovering" nature of the article. Wayne Hage wrote a book on corruption in environmental laws going back 130 years! Ron Arnold wrote two books on it. Diane Alden wrote a book on it. Peter Huber wrote a book on it... It's a long list.

I spent $300,000 and three years of my life at 90 hours per week on it writing and publishing ANOTHER book on this same topic of environmental corruption. It not only details the nature of this problem (and far more about its causes); it defines a whole new architecture for a privatized free-market in environmental management and proposes workable solutions and an implementation strategy.

There are plenty of investigations, but the connection between certain politicians and the greens is corrosive. Money and influence talk loudly in Congress.

Besides the low numbers, most of us have little time or money to spare to counter the enormous clout the watermelon agencies and their funding 'charities', and as a result the politicians who are supposed to represent the interests of their constituents are instead bought off. I am sure my Rep won't do much, as his emphasis is on the military-industrial complex, and how he can keep their support to their sites within his district and state; his vote on most western matters is traded for support for his pet projects with little regard for the long-term consequences even if they impact his district.

Just for reference, here's a list of some of the sites I've gleanrd over the past few months; most against the green agenda, but some for opposition research.

ActivistCash.com
American Land Rights Association
Conservation Biology Institute
Citizen Review Online - Wildlands Project Step By Step
Eco Home Page
Forest Guardians: Gallery of Maps
Freedom.org
Natural Process
Parkway New River Friends for Responsible Economic Development
PennPIRG
Pennsylvania Grange
The Pennsylvania Landowners' Association Homepage
PERC: An Environmental Think Tank Promoting Market Approaches to Environmental Problems
Property Rights Congress of America, Inc.
Property Rights Foundation of America, Inc
Roadless Area Conservation - USFS
Save Our Dams
SaveTrailsEnd.org
Search the EWG Farm Subsidy Database
Stewards of The Range
Still Waiting for Greenhouse
Stop Federal Land Grab Org.
U.S. PIRG Home
Western Shoshone Defense Project

Enjoy.

The type of logic that I do not comprehend is where a group wants to keep American citizens out of our forests. They don't want any roads in the forests and say how sad it is when we have forest fires that burn for weeks killing animals, trees and clogging the creeks with ashes.

Trees are not rocks, they will grow old and die. They become infected with insects and diseases. An old forest has many less mammals and birds in them than a younger growing forest. Trees provide homes and food for animals, wood for building homes, paper to write upon, jobs for many trades.

What is the purpose behind keeping people out of the forests? There has to be a substantial reason why someone would lie in their research reports.

Please don't go off into a reply about overuse, this is something that can be repaired because trees do grow.

"What is the purpose behind keeping people out of the forests? There has to be a substantial reason why someone would lie in their research reports.

B4R, The same "reason" as in the time of Robbin' Hood. To keep people from being able to wander off godgov's "plantation". To keep people from discovering independence and FREEDOM!!! Peace and love, George.

LONG LIVE THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
CONSTITUTION
WITH ITS ATTENDANT AMENDMENTS

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I am impressed and look forward to reading your book, (NATURAL PROCESSES.) That you separated yourself from UCSC says a lot.

Marty Moore, Ph.D. Land Use Planning, Executive Director, Eastern Arizona Counties Organization:
This book is an important contribution to a growing new environmental movement. Its ideas appear sound, and lay the groundwork for a coordinated, private sector approach to environmental management that may prove to be an effective alternative to failed government practices.
Howard Hutchinson, Executive Director, Coalition of Arizona/New Mexico Counties:
Many of us have stumbled over the question of how we can manage our natural resources without government regulatory schemes and agents. Don't we have to have some central control over our air, water and land? Well the answer that we knew was there but could not put into words or action is now revealed in Natural Process by Mark Edward Vande Pol. A whole new concept of environmental management awaits your tour. Just this brief glimpse will set your mind reeling with new possibilities. You will find yourself asking, "How could we have been so blind?"

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