By Dana Brown
The Hamilton Spectator
(Dec 4, 2006) In another round of push and pull between Six Nations and Caledonia residents, OPP stepped in on the weekend to stop Canadian flags from being flown near the Douglas Creek Estates. About 30 people tried to mount the flags and big yellow ribbons just outside the disputed lands on Saturday morning, after starting the campaign in the north end of town. The group was informed by OPP they would not be allowed to hang flags so close to the estate site, as it could jeopardize their safety and fragile peace in the area. "I cannot believe that we cannot put up a Canadian flag in Canada in this spot right now," said Dana Chatwell, one of the people involved in organizing the event. "It's disgusting, I'm not even proud to be a Canadian." OPP in Caledonia issued a stern statement yesterday afternoon condemning actions on both sides of the dispute, calling them "juvenile" and potentially risky to the entire community. Native protesters have occupied the disputed land since late February, in a bid to reclaim what they say belongs to them. In June, the province bought the land and is in the process of negotiating a settlement. Chatwell said the group was not trying to stir things up by trying to hang the flags so close to the site, but Six Nations spokesperson Janie Jamieson questions why the group would pick that specific spot. "What is their motive for picking the location they did? ... It's an act of instigation." Jamieson said there's lots of Canadian flags hung up around Caledonia, which she has no problem with. Her concern is the potential for things to go wrong when tensions start to run high. "The truth is, every time they do take action there is always that opportunity for harm and to me I don't understand why they keep doing that." The group was able to hang flags about a kilometre and a half from the Douglas Creek Estates, Chatwell said. By yesterday, about 10 of the 30 hung up flags in the city had been ripped down. One of those trying to put up flags Saturday was arrested for trespassing after being asked to leave a neighbouring property and refusing.
Where Am I Now?
After an absence of three years, I have returned to my home country of Canada. It's no secret now that I have been living the past three years in the United States. Thecustoms agents at the border were not very happy to discover this, and have banned me from the country for ten years now as a result. Part of me could care less that I've been banned from a country that many of the Canadians I know would never want to visit in the first place. Were it not for Buffalo Field Campaign, I wouldn't want to be there either. I will miss the friends that I made there, and the opportunity to be involved in an important campaign. My impressions of the country during my stay there is that the people are essentially wonderful, but the powers that be are downright evil. The recent mid-term election at least reassured me that the American people are at least not totally asleep, and may actually be able to prevent another East Germany or Soviet Union style situation from happening in their country. Though a lot of damage has already been done, I fear. I got seriously paranoid at times during my stay in the states. I spent the majority of my time protesting the actions of the government and advocating for animal rights. In the wake of such government actions as the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act, and my own status an an illegal alien, I wondered whether I should be as open about my political beliefs in such publicly accessible places such as myspace. But I can't keep my mouth shut, and had I stayed in the US much longer, I know I would have eventually recieved a visit from the FBI. I look forward now to not have to worry about censoring myself. And I look forward now to not having to worry about publically stating that the United States and Canada were founded on genocide and slavery and that tradition continues today. From the slave using nations that we export our goods from to the wars that we support with our military and our foreign aid to the prison system, credit system and the institutionalized educational system, these nations have always been about making the rich richer at any cost, and we have blindly followed the whole time. Now we have the wild and the wild animals to add to that ongoing genocide, but I'm sure if we look back far enough we've been responsible for the extinction of life since long before these nations were founded. I had planned on finding a way to spend more time down in Montana, volunteering with BFC, but it seems I have to begin the process of rebuilding my life without Montana in the equation. The last three weeks Mary and I have been on a hitchhiking journey to Montana. We travelled east to Buffalo, and after a scary delay at both sides of the border, crossed over into Fort Erie, took the bus up to Toronto, visited some family and then hitched north to Orrilla. On our last day of hitchhiking we stood and walked for a few hours in a freezing rain storm. But that was not why we decided to take the bus the rest of the way. Mostly we had accomplished what we had set out to do as far as having an adventure, seeing new places and hitchhike in extreme whether. Seeing new places and meeting new people has been fun, but there just never seems to be enough time on this kind of trip to make real connections or get anything accomplished. We are looking forward to getting to Edmonton so that we can dumpster dive for more of our food, so that we can volunteer with whatever projects appeal to us, and so that we can check books out of a library, instead of trying to devour as much information as we can in however short a time we have in whatever town we happen to be passing through. I have hitched over 10,000 miles through the US in the past three years, in in the coming years expect to hitch thousands more. It is still my preferred form of travel. I am anxious to start the next phase of my life however. Anxious to see what Edmonton has to offer and what i might choose.
News round-up
Bison briefly escape quarantine facilityBy The Associated Press - 11/30/06 BOZEMAN (AP) — Eight bison briefly escaped from an experimental brucellosis quarantine facility near Yellowstone National Park on Monday, but they didn’t get very far.‘‘Three of them walked back in on their own and five were standing by the gate,’’ Keith Aune, a researcher for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks, said Wednesday.The bison escaped because a padlock didn’t fully latch, said Aune, who speculated the wind might have rattled the gate, opening the lock. Calgary will roll out 10-year plan to end homelessnessCalgary city officials and a cadre of social agencies are working on a plan to end homelessness in their Alberta city, with details to be released early in 2007. Calgary HeraldView Joint NGO statement on tigers presented to China's President Hu JintaoA dozen of international NGOs have issued a joint statement on tigers: Wild tiger populations are recovering in a few places, but most are in steep decline.
Chocolate and Child Slavery
Mary and I are hitchhiking across the US and Canada right now, and during this time we are freegan/opportunivore, meaning we will eat whatever we can get for free or have given to us. However, we also buy food, mostly seeds and fruit, and are very picky about what we eat when we are not traveling. We are vegans, though we eat wild game, and would prefer to eat as local as possible. The past couple months we've been trying to give a few things up, like coffee (successful) and sugar (still trying.) Health is a big factor in all this, but mostly it is political. The modern North American food industry is so corrupt it makes my blood boil. Now, we have a new concern. We just found out, though it is old news to many, that child slave labor is used to harvest cacao beans in Cote D'ivore (Ivory Coast). This country supplies 50% of the cacao beans to the chocolate industry. And the way these companies buy beans, you have no way of knowing, and can pretty much bet, that you are supporting child slave labor by when buying chocolate. Apparently, chocolate marketed with "fair trade" certification is safe, but Mary's opinion is that this is just a label. Who holds accountable the watchdog groups that hold the industry accountable? It's safest to just give up the chocolate habit, as hard as that may be for some of us. I didn't quote any websites or groups or what not because i want you to educate yourself on this if you don't believe me. just google 'chocolate child slavery' and see what comes up.
Iceland harpoons deep-sea protection (Greenpeace)
United Nations, New York, United States — The proposed moratorium on high-seas bottom trawling was harpooned today at the UN, as Iceland put the interests of their fishing fleets above other countries and scientific advice (sound familiar?). Even Canada and Spain gave in to common sense in the end. Today Iceland has single-handedly destroyed its own reputation as a nation with responsible fishing policies. Iceland has blood on its hands: the fate of 64 percent of the world’s oceans, and the food security of future generations. Karen Sack, our Oceans Policy Advisor, said after an all-night wait at the UN: "The final agreement has more loopholes in it than a fisherman's sweater, and it does nothing to significantly change the way our oceans are managed." That’s exceptionally bad news considering that a recent scientific evaulation has shown that if nothing changes, most commercial fisheries will have collapsed by 2048. Don’t blame Canada, blame IcelandThanks to Ocean Defenders, scientists, journalists and South Park fans all over the globe, as well as enthusiastic “squid” and “orange roughy” handing out leaflets to New York taxi drivers, even Canada and Spain supported strong action at the UN in the end. In the last two weeks alone, Canada and Spain have received 71,266 emails from Ocean Defenders! Other supporters included Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific Island States, the USA, Brazil, India, South Africa, Chile, Germany and the EU. However, their drive to win consensus at all costs has resulted in a weakly worded, useless piece of paper that will allow for the unregulated plunder of the high seas. "The international community should be outraged that Iceland could almost singlehandedly sink deep-sea protection and the food security of future generations. Iceland should be embarrassed as should all those states that did not stand up to them and fight for the future of the oceans,” Karen adds. Arrogance and ignoranceIceland and its fishing cronies, opposed to the UN moratorium on high-seas bottom trawling, should realize that for the sake of their own future industries, this cannot continue. The oceans are not a bottomless resource- as recent scientific reports have confirmed (not that Iceland apparently pays much attention to scientists, having just ignored 1500 of them). Economically speaking, the high-seas bottom trawl fleet would operate at a loss without the substantial subsidies it receives. Of course apart from just commerical interests, the as-yet undiscovered ecosystems of the deep sea are at stake.Iceland showed even more arrogance in asking why Canada and Spain had got all the negative press, according to UN sources. Perhaps because so far they have constantly insisted that they are supportive of well-managed fisheries. Today they showed their true colours. All is not lostAll of the countries that committed to supporting a moratorium now have the opportunity to protect vulnerable habitats from destructive fishing by tightening market access to bottom-trawled fish. These countries can also support the establishment of a global network of marine reserves across the world's oceans, and make sure that their nations are not involved in high seas bottom trawl fishing. They can also implement strong measures regionally to protect the deep-seas. Take action! Our guide to which fish are bottom-trawled can be found here. Avoid at all costs, and if you’re not sure, ask your retailers. We suggest also buying fish only from sustainable, well-managed fisheries and from countries that support such initiatives. Become an OceanDefender Get updates on how you can help do your bit to save the oceans.
Walk in park turns into wrestling match with deer
Associated Press SHEBOYGAN, Wis. - A walk in a city park turned into a wrestling match with an infuriated deer for three Sheboygan men who battled with the injured 6-point buck until police came and shot it. "I just grabbed the horns, which is pretty stupid," said Anthony Lee, 20, explaining that his first reaction was to protect his cousin's dog, which was closest to the rampaging deer. "That's where it all started," he said. He estimated the melee lasted about 20 minutes, as the three men hung onto the antlers, hit the deer with sticks and finally tackled the animal and held it down while calling police. Lee said the deer will be mounted on his wall. "It was very intense. ... This buck was just going crazy," he said. "It was tossing me around as if I were a kid or something. It just did not go down," said Lee, who weighs about 130 pounds. He was with his cousin, George Lee, 19, and his father Tou Moua Lee, 47, in Evergreen Park when the buck stepped onto the trail, blew air through its nose several times and charged. They later determined it had been shot with a gun and with an arrow. Wisconsin's gun deer season is on this week. At the start of the 911 call to police, George Lee can be heard saying, "I'm at Evergreen Park right now and there's a deer trying to attack us." "I've never heard of anything like that in my career ... (someone) holding a deer down," said police Lt. Jim Veeser. Dale Katsma, a wildlife biologist with the state Department of Natural Resources, said attacks like this one are a "real rare thing." He attributed the deer's aggression primarily to the mating season, possibly complicated by its injuries.
Mohawks take control of disputed property near Deseronto
cbc.ca A group of Mohawks has taken control of land previously slated for a housing development near Deseronto, Ont. About 20 Mohawks from the nearby Tyendinaga Territory held a demonstration at the property Wednesday alongside some supportive residents of the town of Deseronto, which is about 80 kilometres west of Kingston. Shawn Brant, as spokesman for the Tyendinaga Elders Council, said the demonstrators wanted to communicate to the government and the community their claim to the property. The Mohawks say they never officially surrendered the land to the federal government. "The message was clear from the community: not one more shovel in the ground until the issue's resolved," Brant said. A Kingston developer originally intended to start construction Wednesday, but that plan has been suspended indefinitely while the chief of the Tyendinaga Territory negotiates the land claim with Canada's minister of Indian and northern affairs. Norm Clarke, the incoming mayor of Deseronto, said he hopes the negotiations will resolve the situation quickly. "It has serious implications for Deseronto," he said. "If there's a holdup in development, that affects our being able to raise taxes." Brant said the Tyendinaga Territory Mohawks did not assert their claim earlier because Deseronto, a town of about 2,000, does not have a very vibrant economy and the Mohawks had never worried about construction on the property. But once the development was announced, Brant said, "we felt it was necessary to make it clear not just to the developer but to the community … that in fact they were living on and attempted to develop land that belongs to us." Thoughts of Caledonia Initially, the land claim dispute raised fears that the situation could escalate into one similar to that in Caledonia, Ont., where, since February, Six Nations protesters have occupied land that was also originally slated for a housing development. However, the Tyendinaga Territory's chief of police, Larry Hay, said peace will likely continue in Deseronto, provided the federal government works quickly toward a resolution. He added that Wednesday's demonstration, which began mid-morning, was mostly uneventful except for a brief period of time in the early afternoon when a Canadian Forces convoy approached and demonstrators mistakenly thought it was targeting them. "Members of the community surrounded the vehicles," Hay said, but he said tensions subsided quickly when the demonstrators realized the convoy was part of a military training exercise. "It was a brief interruption of traffic. That was very quickly resolved."
Farmers hoping to help out buffalo herd
From CBC.ca There is a home where the buffalo roam and it belongs to Gordon Vaadeland. He's one of a number of farmers southwest of Prince Albert National Park who wake up some mornings to find dozens or even hundreds of Plains bison rooting through their fields. The bison, sometimes called buffalo, were reintroduced to an area north of the park in 1969 as big game for First Nations people. The bison soon wandered into the protective confines of the park and the herd grew from 50 to about 400 animals. Now, they're wandering onto cropland, sometimes in large numbers. "We've counted as many as 200 … 300 on a group of fields at one time," Vaadeland said. "So yes, they do wander out, especially this fall. They were out in great numbers." However, they're not considered nuisances, Vaadeland said. Although the bison nibble on crops, Vaadeland said he and his neighbours realize how unique the situation is and want to help the herd. They've formed a group, Sturgeon River Plains Bison Stewards, that's trying to find ways to manage the bison that meander into farmland. One of the ideas his group is looking at is planting crops, such as alfalfa, that the bison don't particularly like. Meanwhile, according to conservation biologist Dan Frandsen, the herd has a unique distinction: it's Canada's only free-ranging herd within the historic Plains bison range.
First nation curtails caribou hunting
By STEPHANIE WADDELL WHITEHORSE STAR ONLINE
Hunters are not allowed access to Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation land along the Dempster Highway.
Chief Joe Linklater announced the move by the Vuntut Gwitchin government Thursday afternoon. The decision, which took effect immediately after it was made public, comes over concern about the herd’s numbers.
Information from the Alaska Fish and Wildlife Board has put the number of Porcupine caribou at an estimate of between 78,000 and 110,000, Linklater said in an interview.
“Either number’s not good,” he said, adding that overall, caribou herds have shown a decline in numbers since about 1987.
Doug Larsen represents the Yukon government on the Porcupine Caribou Management Board (a group of first nation and government officials from the Yukon, Northwest Territories and Ottawa). He said the estimate is based on a 2001 count which showed there were 123,000 caribou, including calves.
Officials haven’t been able to do a count since. The 78,000 figure is an estimate of the herd not including calves.
The management board needs clearer numbers to come up with a plan on how to proceed based on that count, Larsen said.
A harvest management strategy protocol agreement was also finalized at the board’s most recent meeting with signatories given a deadline of Jan. 15 for signing.
What comes out of a harvest management strategy will depend largely on the count.
“Let’s put the brakes on until we can find out the numbers,” Larsen said.
Once a herd’s number gets to 100,000 or fewer, it is harder to sustain the herd.
“Then there’s no stopping it,” Linklater said.
The first nation has two sections of land along the Dempster: one which sits adjacent to the Eagle Plains Lodge and the other near the Oglivie River. Signs posted at the start and end of the sections note it is Vuntut Gwitchin land.
Linklater said closing off the land is a move the first nation can do while more long-term plans are developed for the herd across the North.
“Everybody’s saying this is a good move,” said Linklater.
The first nation may send its natural resource officers down to the Dempster at some point during the hunt, but conservation officers from the Yukon government will be monitoring the area.
Both Linklater and Larsen commented in separate interviews that the one thing that can be done to help the population is dealing with the human hunting of caribou.
“There’s an awful lot of pressure on the herd right now,” Linklater said.
Climate change and predators are all taking their toll on the animals. It was also noted at a recent meeting of the management board the declining numbers of Bluenose caribou in the Northwest Territories could put additional hunting pressures on the Porcupine herd.
Along with the most current hunting policy, the Vuntut Gwitchin is also making conservation efforts which include hunting bulls only, placing a 500-metre road corridor on roads within the first nation’s land and a seven-day harvest closure after the first caribou is spotted.
First nation governments in other regions have implemented similar initiatives, Larsen said.
“I’m glad to see they’ve taken a very strong (role in conservation),” Larsen said of the Vuntut Gwitchin.
Six Nations occupation in Caledonia digs in heels for winter months
Protestors in southern Ontario reflect on ten months of fighting for disputed landBy Adrienne Klasa
News Writer  | Bob Smith of the Local 1005 Steelworkers Union demonstrates in solidarity with Six Nations protesters at the Douglas Creek blockade near Caledonia, Ontario.
Charles Mostoller / The McGill Daily archives
|
The protestors intend on “maintaining a presence on the occupation site through the winter,” said Six Nations spokesperson Hazel Hill.
They began occupying the land bordering the Grand River in southern Ontario last February, to protest the federal government’s sale of what they claimed was their land to a real estate developer. At the beginning of the month, the government announced its position on the ownership dispute: according to the minutes of a set of documents from the 1840s, the Six Nations surrendered the land long ago.
However, negotiations continue, as many Six Nations people deny that the records are valid.
“These are documents made by a discredited agent,” said Lynda Powless, editor of the Turtle Island Newspaper. “The government discredited [Samuel Jarvis, an “Indian Agent”] for...stealing funds and absconding. They are fully aware of this situation.”
Six Nations spokesperson Jaqueline House went further, claiming the documents are forgeries.
“Signatures are in calligraphy, which our chiefs would never use,” she said. “Or else they have Xs on them...and you can see where they started cutting and gluing those on all over the place.”
Hill described the current occupation site as “quiet” as the protesters prepare for colder months and continuing negotiations. The summer months had been more exciting, with international visitors from other indigenous communities showing up in support of the land claim, said Powless.
However, House stressed that the dispute is less about land than about countering the racism and oppression that the Six Nations people continue to face.
“For a long time we blamed ourselves...for losing our culture, our language,” she said. “But it’s not our fault.... Now, we are fighting diplomatically for our dignity. I don’t want my children to grow up hating or being hated.”
The land-claim dispute has been marked by racial tension and violent incidents, including an April police raid on the reclamations site at four in the morning when protestors were sleeping. Both House and Powless said that many of those arrested over the past months, with charges ranging from robbery to attempted manslaughter, are still awaiting trial and have not had bail hearings.
Other violent run-ins have been with media people and neighbouring residents. Powless said that most of the racial tension in Caledonia comes from new residents who have moved to the area from larger cities and “have no clue who their neighbors are,” while House cited media misrepresentations.
“[People] come and make racial slurs and throw rocks all the time,” she said. “If one of our guys throws one back...all of a sudden [people think] the natives are attacking.”
Oilsands activity threatens water supply in Sask., NWT: study
from: cbc.ca
Voracious water consumption by Alberta's oilsands threatens the quality and quantity of water available to Saskatchewan and the Northwest Territories through the Mackenzie River system, according to a study released Monday. Oilsands operations draw most of their water from the Athabasca River, a tributary of the Mackenzie, and most of the water used is not returned to the river, says the study by the Sage Centre and World Wildlife Fund-Canada. The study, which was released at the United Nations climate conference in Nairobi, Kenya, uses the Athabasca River and Great Lakes as case studies to project what faces Canada's freshwater supplies in the years ahead. Oilsands use more water than Calgary Water allocations by Alberta to oilsands projects on the Athabasca River now add up to 359 million cubic metres per year, twice the amount of water required for the city of Calgary. A further 50-per-cent increase in water requirements from the Athabasca is expected when currently planned oilsands projects proceed. The Athabasca is already losing flow due to the effects of global warming, and its summer flow at Fort McMurray declined almost 20 per cent from 1958 to 2003, says the study. "The combined impacts of water withdrawals from oilsands projects and climate change will have serious consequences beyond the area of the projects themselves." Urgent need for water-sharing deals The study says provinces and territories around the Mackenzie basin should urgently negotiate binding water-sharing agreements, such as already exist for the Saskatchewan River system. "The projected rate of water use from the Athabasca River, in the oilsands projects, is unsustainable. "Flows will be insufficient to satisfy the needs of oilsands production, as well as other industrial, commercial, agricultural, municipal and environmental users, including the biologically rich Peace Athabasca Delta." At risk is Wood Buffalo National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site located in the delta. Water polluted in extraction process The study says that strip mining in the oilsands requires two to 4.5 cubic metres of water to extract one cubic metre of synthetic crude oil. The water becomes heavily polluted in the process and only 10 per cent is returned to the river, with the rest held in huge storage ponds that are among the largest manmade structures on Earth. "These environmental damages related to bitumen production … could eventually affect an area about one-fifth the size of Alberta, or about the size of England or Greece, since this is the extent of the deposits," the study says. Saskatchewan stands to be especially affected. "Saskatchewan borders on Lake Athabasca affected by Athabasca and Peace River flows. In view of increasing withdrawals of water in Alberta, combined with the effects of climate change, a firm agreement between the provincial and territorial governments is urgent," the study says. It recommends a moratorium on further oilsands projects until the water problems can be solved. The oilsands yielded more than one million barrels of oil per day in 2005. However, the study suggests the oilsands may be exhausted of oil by mid-century. © The Canadian Press, 2006
The Bison Of Custer and Wind Cave Parks
Our buffalo journey from West Yellowstone across South Dakota and beyond has been successful so far. Only three bison spotted near the south trailhead of the Centennial trail in WCNP, (There are 350-400 buffalo in the park.) but...this afternoon, after having camped in Wind Cave NP for a couple nights we were picked up hitchhiking by the Operations Manager of Custer State Park, who told us a bit about the park's annual bison round-up that will happen this coming Saturday. The current bison population in CSP is around 875 animals, which is lower than most years due to six years of drought. Currently 250 buffalo are residing in a coral near the boundary of CSP and Wind Cave National Park, having been held there waiting for auction since Oct.1. Every year beginning around Labor Day the park begins rounding up all the buffalo (using horses and pick-up trucks), putting microchips in the new calves (300-450 a year) and coraling buffalo over 10 years old, which they will test for brucellosis and tubercullosis before auctioning to the highest bidder in November. We were informed that due to the fact that there were no buffalo left in the park over ten years old, the natural mortality rate was about zero. Very rarely, we were told, would they ever find a dead buffalo in the park. CSP bison and WCNP bison are kept separate by a fence and cattle guards, and though they are not completely bison proof, only a few old bulls have been known to cross the boundary over the years. When asked what happens to them, we were informed that WCNP would likely shoot them. We asked if this was due to the fact that the CSP bison carried cattle genes (which WCNP bison do not), to which the Operations Manager (Reid, he said his name was) responded that the genetic status is a matter of current dispute and that nothing has yet been proven. We were also told that the buffalo hardly ever left the park if at all. Once again, maybe a few old bulls have tried it once or twice. Each year, according to an article in the Rapid City Journal, the surplus bison are sold to the highest bidders, with the average price being around $650. (Though last year a two year old bull sold for $1950). The vast majority of bison sold are used for breeding stock, though a few go straight to slaughter. This auction, combined with 10 hunting permits and some bison harvested to supply meat for the park's resort restaurants, brings in around $250,000 in revenue. According to Reid, the Custer State Park bison are not fed at all, and the range is managed so that there are only as much bison in the park as the forage can accomadate. Custer State Park has been brucellosis free since the 80's, yet each bison captured for culling is tested twice for brucellosis and tuberculosis before being shipped out of state. This is likely the second and last herd of bison that I will get to visit in this country before heading north to Canada. I had hoped to see more, and ask some more in-depth questions, but there has not been enough time. It appears that whatever I am able to write about wild bison will most likely be centered around the Canadian herds. This South Dakota expedition has not been fruitless, however. I feel it provides more context for my own understanding of buffalo management in North America. And seeing bison in 'the wild' is always a thrill.
Latest News on Caledonia Six Nations Occupation
McGuinty demands feds take over lead role in talks to end native occupation MacLeans.Ca Oct.31,2006 TORONTO (CP) - The eight-month-long aboriginal occupation of a disputed housing project in Caledonia, Ont., won't end until the federal government "steps up to the plate," a frustrated Premier Dalton McGuinty said Tuesday.Six Nations protesters have been occupying the disputed land since February, and McGuinty told reporters the Ontario government doesn't have the power to settle the issue.
Enforce Laws at Caledonia:Ontario Provincial Police Commissioner
Toronto Star Oct.31,2006
ORILLIA—Newly minted OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino says he will keep the peace in Caledonia but don't expect him or his officers to resolve the Six Nations land claim dispute."The police are there and will be there to preserve the peace but beyond that the resolution of this is beyond the police ..." Fantino said yesterday.
MPs Duck and weave over Caledonia Issue
Toronto Star Oct.25,2006 When it comes to the Caledonia issue, Premier Dalton McGuinty is an exasperated man, as well he should be.It is now 240 days since the beginning of the occupation by native people of a development site in Caledonia, on the edge of the Six Nations reserve, and there is no end in sight. Despite the provincial treasury spending large sums — $55 million, according to an opposition estimate — and the devotion of countless hours by provincial police and bureaucrats, tension remains high in the area and McGuinty's courage is being questioned."When are you going to show some spine?" asked Conservative Leader John Tory in a question to McGuinty last week about Caledonia.
Six Nations to present evidence of land ownership in CaledoniaFirst Perspective Oct.23,2006 Six Nations officials have said they will present evidence very shortly that will prove they never surrendered land that is in dispute in Caledonia. The evidence will be presented at a public forum in early November, according to one media report.
Earth First!er/Indymedia Journalist Killed in Oaxaca
I never met Brad Will, but he was a brother in solidarity with many of the same causes I support, and we share mutual friends. My thoughts and prayers go out to all who knew him. In Brad's memory we will continue the fight. RESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
October 28, 2006, 12:40 a.m.
Contact:
Beka Economopoulos, (917) 202-5479
Brandon Jourdan, (646) 342-8169
Eric Laursen, (917) 806-6452
WILLIAM BRADLEY ROLAND, U.S. JOURNALIST/CAMERMAN,
KILLED BY OAXACA PARAMILITARIES KILLER ID'D - ACTIONS BEING PLANNED IN U.S.
William Bradley Roland, aka Brad Will, a U.S.
journalist and camerman, was shot and killed
yesterday in Oaxaca, Mexico, by paramiliaries
affiliated with the PRI, the former Mexican
ruling party. Will was in Oaxaca covering the
continued resistance of teachers and other
workers against the PRI-controlled government of
the State of Oaxaca. According to reports from
New York City Independent Media Center and La
Jornada, Will, 36, was shot at the Santa Lucia
Barricade from a distance of 30-40 meters in the
pit of the stomach by plainclothes paramilitaries
and died while enroute to the Red Cross.
Centro de Medias Libres (http://vientos.info/cml)
in Mexico City reports that from Will's recovered
videiotapes, they have identified his killer as a
paramilitary named Pedro Carmona, ex-president of
Felipe Carrillo Puerto de Santa Lucia del Camino, a colonia in Oaxaca.
At last report, Will was one of five people who
died in the last day, along with 17 wounded, as
paramilitaries and federal police poured in to
retake the city, according to Centro de Medias
Libres. The city had been in the hands of the
workers for five months. Will is the first
American to be killed in the months-long
confrontation. A longtime journalist and
activist, he covered land occupations in the
Pacific Northwest of the U.S., direct actions and
rebellions in Argentina and Ecuador, land
occupations in Brazil, and anti-privatization
struggles in Bolivia. He was a much-beloved
figure in the global justice movement in the U.S.
and leaves behind many grieving friends.
Friends of Brad in the U.S. will be calling
actions in the next day to demand that the U.S.
State Department press the Mexican government to
investigate Brad's murder and address the
terroristic regime that made it possible.
Additionally, they will press for solidarity in
the U.S. with the Mexican movement for social
justice that Brad gave his life to document in Oaxaca.
Some Good News for a Change
BFC issued a press release this week to announce that the campaign had purchased the property that our headquarters are located on. This article was sent to us by the Island Park News today.
Buffalo activists have a permanent homeWas a Native American prophecy fulfilled? By ELIZABETH LADEN The Buffalo Field Campaign recently announced that they have purchased the Hebgen Lake property they have been renting for 10 years to use as their headquarters. Located on 10 acres of Hwy. 287 near Hebgen Lake, the property includes the old Hebgen Lake Lodge and cabins the group has uses as housing and offices. In the mid 1970’s, a group of young Californians purchased the property in hopes of making a fortune when nearby Hebgen Mountain, in the Gallatin National Forest, was developed into a downhill ski resort. Hans Geier from Lake Tahoe called the project Ski Yellowstone. Conservationists fought the resort because the mountain was, and still is, prime grizzly bear habitat. During the fight, the town of West Yellowstone was bitterly divided between people who thought the project would boost the area’s economy and those who wanted to preserve the lake area’s natural resources. The National Forest Service ruled against Ski Yellowstone’s application for a special use permit to develop the resort on Forest Service land, because of its value as grizzly bear habitat. The California group operated a popular bar and restaurant on the highway that hosted some pretty cool bands, including the reggae great, Bob Marley. Then all but one of the original California group sold out and went on to other pursuits. BFC was known as the Buffalo Nation when they set up shop at Hebgen Lake. Since many natives believe that they are the Buffalo Nation in spirit with the buffalo, the group, out of respect for the natives, changed its name. Then, last spring, when the BFC group was coping with the worst buffalo slaughter in its history, members learned that the property was going on the market, with the possibility of being subdivided for trophy homes. “Not only would the planned subdivision and trophy homes forever destroy critical deer, elk, and bison habitat, but it would leave BFC without a base of operations from which to carry out our critical work for the buffalo,” said a BFC spokesperson. “Thanks to the amazing generosity of some of our key supporters who wanted to protect habitat and keep the Buffalo Field Campaign strong and in the field, we were able to enter into negotiations with the property owner, reach an agreement to purchase the property, and come up with a considerable down payment. After working all summer to conduct our due diligence, we recently closed on the property, guaranteeing a BFC presence — and a small but important bison safe zone —in the Yellowstone Ecosystem for as long as we need to be here with the bison,” said a published announcement. “The property is in the heart of the bison and elk migration corridor between Yellowstone Park and the lush Madison Valley, and is essential to the mission and purpose of BFC, which is to stop the slaughter of Yellowstone's wild buffalo herd, protect the habitat of wild free roaming buffalo and native wildlife, and to work with people of all nations to honor the sacredness of wild buffalo,” said the announcement. When the ski resort proposal was still in the works, a group of native Americans from the Crow Tribe in Montana and the Sho-Ban Tribes in Idaho held a sacred land protection ceremony on Hebgen Mountain, asking the Great Spirit to preserve the area for the bear and other species. “Hearing that the BFC headquarters is now in good hands is just as good as the day we learned that the ski resort would not be developed,” said Coyote Little Deer, who was at the ceremony and who now lives in New Mexico. “I would like to think that our ceremony did cause the area to be protected by drawing people like the BFC group there. We connected to the Spirit of the place and felt that it would be taken care of, although it was in a dark place at the time.” Bison seem to like the area, too, and to recognize its power. Last winter, five separate groups of bison walked past the property, seeking lower elevation habitat. One group of more than 30 spent the night there. including the Lee Metcalf Wilderness. Six small cabins are part of the purchase, in addition to BFC's main lodge and media and office cabins. The group plans to convert some of these cabins for use as additional office space, a video editing suite, housing for BFC coordinators, a bison resource library, and cozy accommodations for supporters who wish to experience firsthand the beauty of the Yellowstone Ecosystem, the powerful presence of America's only continuously wild bison herd, and the important work of the Buffalo Field Campaign. “Purchasing our headquarters is the first step in BFC's new Habitat Protection Project, aimed at identifying, prioritizing, and permanently protecting, through conservation easement and outright purchase, critical habitat and migration corridors within the Yellowstone Ecosystem. The announcement states, “With the purchase of the property BFC further establishes itself as a long-term presence for the buffalo. Even after we stop the slaughter and help to earn the buffalo the tolerance and respect they deserve there will be a need to continue to educate people from around the world on the importance — historical, cultural, and scientific, of this unique species. There is no better place to carry on this work than from the heart of their habitat. “Entering into property ownership is a huge step for BFC, and while there is no question that it was a right and necessary step that will exponentially increase our effectiveness, the purchase and related costs will also have a significant impact on our expenses. Please consider making a contribution today in support of this new and exciting phase of our tireless work on behalf of the wild bison. Please contact us for more information or make a secure online donation by clicking Donate Now at the Buffalo Field Campaign Web site.” For more information or to volunteer for the BFC, contact buffalo@wildrockies.org ; (406) 646-0070.
Minister of the Environment Responds to Bison Slaughter Protest
Earlier this year I started a campaign to raise awareness to the renewed suggestions that Canada slaughter the entire Wood Buffalo National Park (alberta and NWT) bison population. I created a website called Save The Wild Bison Canada and urged people to send letters and emails to the Canadian Minister of the Environment, letting her know how valuable this population of bison is. I sent my own email to the Minister and just received this response. Dear Kalanu, The Office of the Prime Minister has forwarded to me a copy of your e‑mail of April 13 regarding the wood bison in Wood Buffalo National Park of Canada. I regret the delay in responding. Please be assured that there are no plans involving the extermination of the wood bison herd. A workshop held last fall examined the technical feasibility of eradicating bovine brucellosis and tuberculosis to allow for a healthy and viable herd in the Park and surrounding area. The workshop was not intended to make recommendations on any future course of action or come to any final decisions on the management of this issue. Any decisions or future plans with respect to disease management in wood bison will include the involvement of Aboriginal groups, stakeholders and other government departments. I appreciate your concern and trust that this information is helpful. Yours sincerely, Rona Ambrose Now is the time however, to continue to let the Minister know how important these buffalo are. They are the only continously wild bison in the country, and the most genetically valuable.
Listen to my interview on GoVegan Radio this Sunday
I was interviewed about the buffalo and our efforts to defend and protect them yesterday by Bob Linden of Go Vegan radio. It will air in L.A. (on an Air America Affiliate) and San Francisco and I think in a few other markets in the US, but you can listen to it as it airs on the KTYM AM 1460 webpage www.ktym.com at 1:30pm (Pacific time) Sunday October, 29. If you miss it it will soon after be archived on the go vegan website. www.goveganradio.com I believe they are a week or so behind in archiving, so keep checking.
British Columbia May Kill Cougars, Wolves for Caribou Recovery
(from the EN newswire) What an asinine plan. Thursday 26 October 2006 A new government plan to save British Columbia’s threatened mountain caribou involves moving some predators and killing others. Critics say the government is scapegoating predators and a moratorium on logging plus habitat restoration in clearcut areas would do more for caribou recovery. A team of scientists recommends killing the predators. In a provincial government Mountain Caribou Recovery Plan released Tuesday, the scientists suggest "more liberal hunting of cougars and wolves, as well as black bears. The targeted removal of individuals [cougars] or packs [wolves] would also be required in some areas." The recommendations are the result of nearly two years of research on mountain caribou in British Columbia by a team of independent mountain caribou experts from BC, Alberta and Idaho. "Based on the results of the independent science team's research, we believe we can successfully recover mountain caribou to sustainable numbers in British Columbia," said provincial Agriculture and Lands Minister Pat Bell today. Candace Batycki of ForestEthics, a nonprofit environmental organization with staff in Canada, the United States and Chile, told ENS today that Bell is scapegoating predators instead of protecting habitat. "The minister seems not to listen to what his own scientists are telling him," said Batycki. "The solution lies in habitat protection, not blaming other animals." Wildlife biologist Andy Miller of the Western Canada Wilderness Committee agreed, saying, "It is ironic that the BC government is going on a predator-killing campaign when the reason predator numbers have increased is because of clearcut logging." "Clearcutting creates temporary habitat for deer and moose. Predators follow them, and sometimes create problems for caribou as well," Miller said. "The way to deal with predators is to stop blaming them, and instead restrict the logging of low elevation caribou habitat," he said. "As clearcuts decrease, so will the deer, moose and their predators." Miller said the worst part of the recovery plan is that no habitat protection is advocated for any of the caribou herds in southern British Columbia. "This plan has little to do with science, and a lot to do with doing favors for the unsustainable logging and motorized recreation industries," said Miller. The Wilderness Committee advocates a moratorium on all logging in mountain caribou habitat, and restoration of former caribou habitat in clearcut areas. In September, ForestEthics was among five British Columbia environmental organizations that released a map showing that up to three million hectares (11,583 square miles) need to be protected. The information for the map, said Batycki, came from BC government scientists and was intended for the provincial government’s mountain caribou science panel. "They seem unwilling to address the habitat protection issue," said Batycki, who also questioned the makeup of the government’s list of stakeholders interested in mountain caribou recovery. They include a heli-skiing tour company, the Council of Forest Industries and a tourism society. "There’s a clue in the fact that the stakeholders have financial interests," said Batycki. "These are public lands, so why are economic issues represented among stakeholders?" The mountain caribou, Rangifer tarandus, is among the most migratory of all animals. These caribou feed on lichens, mushrooms, grasses, sedges and other green plants in the summer and twigs, horsetails, and willow in the winter. They are great swimmers and run at speeds of up to 50 miles per hour (80 kilometers per hour). Mountain caribou are found in the east of the province from as far north as the District of Mackenzie down through the Kootenay mountain range and into the United States. A decline in numbers over the past century has left BC’s mountain caribou population at about 1,900. This population was designated nationally as threatened in 1996, which means the province of British Columbia, a signatory to the federal-provincial 1996 Species-at-Risk Accord, is obliged to protect them and to develop recovery strategies. To this point, those strategies do not appear to have been enough. Citing statistics that show that from 1996 to 2002 the caribou population dropped 17 percent, the the BC government’s independent watchdog for sound forest practices, the BC Forest Practices Board, said in September 2004, "The substantial and continuing decline in the mountain caribou population is serious and requires urgent government attention." "Government will need to make difficult decisions in the short and medium term on issues such as habitat conservation, predator/prey management and recreational access to demonstrate a serious commitment to mountain caribou recovery," the Board advised. Bell said Tuesday’s findings demonstrate that recovery of mountain caribou in British Columbia is possible over the long term. "Now we need the input and support of environmentalists, First Nations, industry, tourism operators and communities to develop and implement a recovery plan in 2007," the minister said. The science team divided the mountain caribou habitat area into 11 planning units based on geography. The team found that a minimum of 75 to 100 animals are required in a planning unit in order to maintain a resilient population. Currently, only six of the planning units have herds greater than 75, with the largest herd containing about 717 mountain caribou. Each of the remaining five planning units has up to 37 animals. According to the science team's research, potential recovery actions could include removing predators such as cougars and wolves that are known to kill mountain caribou. Removal of other ungulates such as deer and moose from mountain caribou habitat is also recommended as well as more protection of core mountain caribou habitat from logging. Further management of recreation activities in mountain caribou habitat, plus translocation of mountain caribou from larger to smaller herds, are also suggested. "We're pleased to see the provincial government take the next steps in the caribou recovery program," said Dave Butler, director of land resources with the heli-ski tour company Canadian Mountain Holidays. The company is listed among stakeholders with an interest in mountain caribou recovery. Butler pledged, "We're committed to working with them to ensure our operating practices are effective in preventing mountain caribou displacement in all areas of mountain caribou habitat." http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/oct2006/2006-10-25-02.asp
Help The Elders of the Lakota Oyate - From Keith Rabin
My friends, Mitakuye Oyasin You would not be getting this email if you were not part of my list of friends. Fall in Colorado means numbing cold on the Pine Ridge Rez. It is again my job to bring this need to your thoughts. It is a good feeling to help in saving lives and thats what in fact I am asking you to do. With the holidays coming up and the season of giving right around the corner. Im asking you to help in supporting me supply propane, electric and firewood to the Elders of the following areas. Pine Ridge Reservation, Cheyenne River Reservation, Crow Creek Reservation, Lower Brule Reservation, Rosebud Reservation, Sisseton-Wahpeton Reservation, Yankton Reservation, Flandreau Santee Reservation The least amount the propane companies will take to each customer is 100.00. Depending on the size of the family and the weather this will last about a week. Although any donation is welcome, I wanted you to have a real time feel of what we are trying to do. If you cant justify 100.00 can you help with 50.00 or 25.00. We are expecting 160 new applications from just one small area of Pine Ridge Rez this fall. How many more will come for help. On top of our existing numbers we are feeling overwhelmed and need to ask for your help. Please pass this email on if you will, please consider the first nations people in your giving this holiday season. What better gift than a warm place to live. To survive and enjoy the Creators gifts. Thank you for your consideration. If you received this and wish to be removed from my email list, please reply with remove in the subject line. But I ask you to consider this a dire emergency, other wise I would not ask. Information on the program is here, please scroll down. he-c'e-tu-yelo [so be it] In Peace keith rabin native american landscapes,inc. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Link Center Foundation An All-Volunteer Colorado Non-Profit Organization Application for 501(c)(3) Federal Tax Exemption Pending (Rev.) Audrey L. Link, Founder and President P.O. Box 2253 ~ Longmont, CO 80502-2253 Phone: 303-554-5363 Voice Mail ~ 888-220-1653 Office Email: linkcenterfounda@earthlink.net Website: www.LinkCenterFoundation.com Utility and Heating Assistance Program For the Lakota Siouxan Elders, the Disabled or the Sick Who Live On the Reservations of South Dakota 8 Siouxan Reservations in South Dakota Pine Ridge Reservation, Cheyenne River Reservation, Crow Creek Reservation, Lower Brule Reservation, Rosebud Reservation, Sisseton-Wahpeton Reservation, Yankton Reservation, Flandreau Santee Reservation Among the poorest indigenous people in the United States Over 60% of the homes are severely sub-standard, many without running water or electricity Average income on the Oglala Lakota Sioux Pine Ridge Reservation is only approximately $3500.00 per YEAR while unemployment hovers around 85% on this 2.7 million acre Reservation housing app. 40,000 people Winter low temperatures in South Dakota average 9* F (November through February)Made worse with bitter wind-chill factors and Record Temperatures reaching -44* below 0*F (1996) Lakota have died from hypothermia due to inability to pay for heating The majority of funding goes to help the Elders only. However, there are those occasions when the disabled or sick are in crisis situations and critically in need of heat. Even though they may not be actual Elders, Link Center Foundation finds it cannot, and will not, turn away from them. Therefore, this project will now also include those rare and reasonable instances of severe need by those who are disabled and/or sick. Help Us Help the Elders, the Disabled and Sick! All applicants screened and documented Payments made directly to utility, propane, wood, or heat equipment companies Donations carefully tracked and accountable Note: As with all Non-Profits, your donations are tax deductible to the extent allowable by law. Please consult your tax advisor. Please mark your check: "Utility and Heating Fund" Otherwise, all donations will be placed in the General Operating Fund which supports all projects of the organization. Please send donations to: Link Center Foundation P.O. Box 2253 ~ Longmont, CO 80502-2253 or donate online @ line www.linkcenterfoundation.com
Coming in December
 Sacred Beings in Motion:
Connecting Corridors
In Case We Disappear
Who knows how worried we need to be about the latest developments in the American Senate and Congress. The constitution is being thrown out the window in order to 'protect' America against the terrorist threat. The potential fir serious abuse of power has been opened wide up. Will this administration stick it's hands in? In Case I DisappearBy William Rivers Pitt; Friday 29 September 2006 t r u t h o u t | Perspective I have been told a thousand times at least, in the years I have spent reporting on the astonishing and repugnant abuses, lies and failures of the Bush administration, to watch my back. "Be careful," people always tell me. "These people are capable of anything. Stay off small planes, make sure you aren't being followed." A running joke between my mother and me is that she has a "safe room" set up for me in her cabin in the woods, in the event I have to flee because of something I wrote or said. I always laughed and shook my head whenever I heard this stuff. Extreme paranoia wrapped in the tinfoil of conspiracy, I thought. This is still America, and these Bush fools will soon pass into history, I thought. I am a citizen, and the First Amendment hasn't yet been red-lined, I thought. Matters are different now. It seems, perhaps, that the people who warned me were not so paranoid. It seems, perhaps, that I was not paranoid enough. Legislation passed by the Republican House and Senate, legislation now marching up to the Republican White House for signature, has shattered a number of bedrock legal protections for suspects, prisoners, and pretty much anyone else George W. Bush deems to be an enemy. So much of this legislation is wretched on the surface. Habeas corpus has been suspended for detainees suspected of terrorism or of aiding terrorism, so the Magna Carta-era rule that a person can face his accusers is now gone. Once a suspect has been thrown into prison, he does not have the right to a trial by his peers. Suspects cannot even stand in representation of themselves, another ancient protection, but must accept a military lawyer as their defender. Illegally-obtained evidence can be used against suspects, whether that illegal evidence was gathered abroad or right here at home. To my way of thinking, this pretty much eradicates our security in persons, houses, papers, and effects, as stated in the Fourth Amendment, against illegal searches and seizures. Speaking of collecting evidence, the torture of suspects and detainees has been broadly protected by this new legislation. While it tries to delineate what is and is not acceptable treatment of detainees, in the end, it gives George W. Bush the final word on what constitutes torture. US officials who use cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment to extract information from detainees are now shielded from prosecution. It was two Supreme Court decisions, Hamdi v. Rumsfeld and Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, that compelled the creation of this legislation. The Hamdi decision held that a prisoner has the right of habeas corpus, and can challenge his detention before an impartial judge. The Hamdan decision held that the military commissions set up to try detainees violated both the Uniform Code of Military Justice and the Geneva Conventions. In short, the Supreme Court wiped out virtually every legal argument the Bush administration put forth to defend its extraordinary and dangerous behavior. The passage of this legislation came after a scramble by Republicans to paper over the torture and murder of a number of detainees. As columnist Molly Ivins wrote on Wednesday, "Of the over 700 prisoners sent to Gitmo, only 10 have ever been formally charged with anything. Among other things, this bill is a (Cover Your Ass) for torture of the innocent that has already taken place." It seems almost certain that, at some point, the Supreme Court will hear a case to challenge the legality of this legislation, but even this is questionable. If a detainee is not allowed access to a fair trial or to the evidence against him, how can he bring a legal challenge to a court? The legislation, in anticipation of court challenges like Hamdi and Hamdan, even includes severe restrictions on judicial review over the legislation itself. The Republicans in Congress have managed, at the behest of Mr. Bush, to draft a bill that all but erases the judicial branch of the government. Time will tell whether this aspect, along with all the others, will withstand legal challenges. If such a challenge comes, it will take time, and meanwhile there is this bill. All of the above is deplorable on its face, indefensible in a nation that prides itself on Constitutional rights, protections and the rule of law. Underneath all this, however, is where the paranoia sets in. Underneath all this is the definition of "enemy combatant" that has been established by this legislation. An "enemy combatant" is now no longer just someone captured "during an armed conflict" against our forces. Thanks to this legislation, George W. Bush is now able to designate as an "enemy combatant" anyone who has "purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States." Consider that language a moment. "Purposefully and materially supported hostilities against the United States" is in the eye of the beholder, and this administration has proven itself to be astonishingly impatient with criticism of any kind. The broad powers given to Bush by this legislation allow him to capture, indefinitely detain, and refuse a hearing to any American citizen who speaks out against Iraq or any other part of the so-called "War on Terror." If you write a letter to the editor attacking Bush, you could be deemed as purposefully and materially supporting hostilities against the United States. If you organize or join a public demonstration against Iraq, or against the administration, the same designation could befall you. One dark-comedy aspect of the legislation is that senators or House members who publicly disagree with Bush, criticize him, or organize investigations into his dealings could be placed under the same designation. In effect, Congress just gave Bush the power to lock them up. By writing this essay, I could be deemed an "enemy combatant." It's that simple, and very soon, it will be the law. I always laughed when people told me to be careful. I'm not laughing anymore. In case I disappear, remember this. America is an idea, a dream, and that is all. We have borders and armies and citizens and commerce and industry, but all this merely makes us like every other nation on this Earth. What separates us is the idea, the simple idea, that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are our organizing principles. We can think as we please, speak as we please, write as we please, worship as we please, go where we please. We are protected from the kinds of tyranny that inspired our creation as a nation in the first place. That was the idea. That was the dream. It may all be over now, but once upon a time, it existed. No good idea ever truly dies. The dream was here, and so was I, and so were you.
Weekly News Round-up
Here's some news stories that caught my interest this week that I thought I would pass along. I will be adding more stories as the day goes on, so check back Monday for the full post. WILDLIFE/ENVIRONMENT/ANIMAL RIGHTS Grizzly Bears Spotted Near Independence Pass, Colorado It has just been reported that 2 hunters who are experienced with the visual differences between black and grizzly bears say have seen three grizzly bears near Independence Pass, Colorado. Grizzlies are thought to be extinct in Colorado, with the last killed in 1979 (even though it was thought to be extinct in the state then). Owner of Escaped Idaho Elk Arrested BOISE, Idaho -- An eastern Idaho man whose farm-raised elk escaped in August near Yellowstone National Park has been arrested after a confrontation with state Department of Fish and Game officials who were hunting the wayward animals on nearby private property. Fate of Nunavut Caribou Being PonderedDespite years of work and millions of dollars in consultations and studies, the Nunavut government and the territory's land claims organization are still at odds over the Peary caribou. There are about 1,000 animals in the High Arctic herd which some consider to be endangered. Judge Bans Snowmobiles to Protect Endangered Caribou in Northern IdahoSPOKANE, Wash. — A judge has declared nearly 470 square miles of national forest land in northern Idaho off-limits to snowmobiles in an effort to save the last mountain caribou herd in the contiguous 48 states. U.S. Says Will Pull Alaska Wetlands from Oil DrillingWASHINGTON — In a win for environmentalists, the U.S. Interior Department says it is willing to withdraw sensitive wetlands from a large area in Alaska's western Arctic region that it wanted to open next week to oil and natural gas drilling. Take The Eat Local Challenge"A diet favoring local produce from farmers' markets and community-supported agriculture helps reduce transportation costs, boosts area businesses and requires less packaging, processing and preservatives. It's fresher, healthier and safer, advocates say, especially in light of concern over spinach trucked 1,800 miles here from California." BFC Volunteer Draws Bison Hunt Tag
More than 100 draw tags for bison hunt
By SCOTT McMILLION Chronicle Staff Writer
A total of 124 non-tribal hunters have beaten the odds and drawn tags in the second, and larger, year of Montana's bison hunt.
The number includes 119 residents, five nonresidents, and one member of the Buffalo Field Campaign, a bison advocacy group that opposes the hunt.
Everybody faced uphill odds of more than 50-to-1 in drawing a tag.
Another 16 tags will be issued to Montana's eight Indian tribes. Chairmen of those tribes will decide who gets them.
One of the tags was issued to Jesse Crocker, a member of the Buffalo Field Campaign, a bison advocacy group. BFC spokesman Dan Brister said he did not know Crocker's plans. Crocker is on the West Coast on BFC business, Brister said, and did not respond Wednesday afternoon to an e-mail requesting comment.
Last year, several BFC members applied for tags with the intention of not filling them.
This year's regulations say that all tags must be paid for and claimed by Oct. 20, and the people drawing them must finish an orientation class.
If those requirements aren't completed, the tag will be given to someone else.
Tags cost $125 for residents and $750 for nonresidents.
Theoretically, hunters can spread out on 460,000 acres near Yellowstone National Park this year. However, only a fraction of that land is likely to produce any bison.
"There are about 60,000 acres where bison do go," said Mel Frost, spokeswoman for the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks.
About 26,000 of those acres are in the Eagle Creek/Jardine area northeast of Gardiner and the rest are in the West Yellowstone area.
Managers hope that, as the years progress, bison will begin to wander further from the park into areas where there are no cattle, Frost said.
Last year, tribal and non-tribal hunters filled 40 of the 50 tags issued.
All 34 non-tribal hunters filled their tags and six tribal members filled theirs. Tribes holding 10 tags chose not to participate in the hunt, which is often controversial.
In addition to making the hunt larger this year, FWP has introduced some other changes.
Of the total tags, 95 allow the taking of either male or female animals. The other 45 allow the taking only of adult females or calves.
Hunters had to choose whether to hunt the West Yellowstone or Gardiner areas, which of four time periods they preferred, and whether they wanted an either sex or cow/calf tag.
The hunt begins Nov. 15 and ends Feb. 15.
Brister said he expects BFC members will be in the field documenting and photographing the hunt, as they were last year.INDIGENOUS RIGHTS Public Forum Held in Caledonia Re:Six Nations OccupationChemical Waste Dump Proposed for Indigenous Mexican LandGreenAction and the O'odham Youth Collective are organizing a protest at the mexican consulate in phoenix to oppose a chemical waste dump to be built on Traditional O'odham land in Quitovac(keythovoc). Nearby villages,families,schools,farmers,and other indigenous people will be affected by harmful substances such as Eskorbutos, Organ chlorydes, Human waste, Sewage waste etc.etc..... As of right now, the CEGIR/Centro de Gestion Intergral de Residuos S.A. are not listening to the indigenous people and are not taking into consideration to what the company is doing wrong.This is another form of systematic genocide! WE OPPPOSE THAT THIS CHEMICAL WASTE DUMP TO NOT BE ESTABLISHED!!! we are asking our supporters to come and help demonstrate and take action on Oct.12 Indigenous peoples day:Anti-Columbus day at the mexican consulate in Phoenix and voice out for our elders,our children,our him'dak, our traditional way of life! This will be a peaceful protest and please! NO DRUGS! NO ALCOHOL! NO VIOLENCE! if you want to know more info or help organize, drop us a line. In Solidarity! letter statement written by a represenitive from the O'odham Voice Against the wall: ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Greetings, In understanding the O'odham and their culture, the statement of the Mexican government of relocation of the chemical waste site is not an option. The government does not "see" the O'odham out there on the lands. They see lands that are not in their control and they see lands that look barren. These lands are sacred to us, the Creator did not mandate the O'odham to build massive constructions and overpopulate the areas, but the Creator did mandate that we live off the land and along with all the plants and life that is in there natural environment. It is justifiable that the government own up to their mistakes and correct these mistakes and we hope to receive a public announcement of this action. Personal communications unless we announce this mistake will not hold these governments accountable. We want a full announcement of this mistake and miscommunication and also the announcement that the project will not go forth. As the O'odham in Mexico Communities we will continue on our scheduled agenda, to demonstrate at the local Mexican Consulates in continued opposition to the chemical waste dump with all our supporters. We will be holding a meeting in Quitovac(Keythovoc) to bring solidarity in our efforts and support to our lands. We will continue until the Mexican government and the companies ancounce that the project is stopped. Ofelia Rivas, O'odham Representative
Reducing Consumption and the Importance of Activism
Our collective consumption of resources (North America and the Western World) is exacting an incredible toll on the world's soil, water, air and diversity of life, so much so that many scientists forsee a near future where our ecosystem is almost completely uninhabitable. Our industrialized lifestyle also makes necessary a great deal of social injustice and inequality and has been responsible for the subjegation and genocide of hundreds of millions of people world-wide. (The above premises are beyond debate in my mind, and in the minds of a great many people. If you have issue with these statements, we would be happy to point you to some well substaintiated facts that are available for anyone to see.) To say that consumption in the western world is excessive would be an extreme understatement. To downplay the effects of this consumption is to ignore not only the obvious deterioration of the planet's soil, water and air, but also the suffering of BILLIONS of people on this planet who lack access to even the most basic necessities and whose environments we have destroyed to meet the needs of our economy. The forces that have driven us to this time of crisis have been in motion for thousands of years. The last two hundred years of industrialization have simply hyper-excellerated this crisis. It has become a matter of debate in the environmental community as to whether it is even possible to overcome the entrenched forces of greed and ignorance through the use of democratic elections and the legislative process. The current administrations in Canada and the US (Uk and others too) seem intent on destroying every law and protection that has been put in place to preserve natural spaces and prevent ecosystems and communities from being ravaged. Where our elected officials should be rolling up their sleeves to deal with the dire problems that affect not only our countries but the habitability of the planet itself, they are undoing all that we have fought for, and in effect are hastening global catastrophe. Meanwhile, the masses are opiated with junk food, televison, movies, music and pharmacueticals; oblivious to their situatiion and scornful of the 'doom and gloom' perspective of environmental and social justice activism. There are even those who are aware of the destruction and injustices that are being committed in their name, but are resigned to an uncontrollable fate at the hands of a too-powerful ruling elite. That powerful ruling elite is not only no longer pretending to listen to the will of the people, but has a staggering collection of weaponry that it does not hesitate to put to use when someone dares to challenge it's wisdom and authority. One of the latest, most shocking and revealing instances of this is the convictions of the SHAC 7, a group of activists who ran a website supporting the actions of people damaging property belonging to a criminally abusive animal testing labratory. (Huntington Life Sciences) These six people were not charged with any violent actions themselves, but with ideologically supporting direct action on the internet. They were never implicated in any crimes, yet these young people are spending 1, 3, 4, and 6 YEARS in prison. This happened in America, where freedom of speech is supposed to be one of the country's founding principles. Regardless of how you feel about using animals for scientific research, or the animal liberation movement, you need to understand that people in this country are being imprisoned solely for their beliefs and their words. The following poem is inscribed on the New England Holocaust Memorial in Boston: They came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up. Perhaps the small minority of us who would rather sacrifice the comforts and luxuries of this society for the chance to preserve nature, wilderness, biodiversity and a planet with clear air, water and healthy soil may not have a chance against the power and weaponry of those who value profit over life. But if we don't speak up, if the people who didn't bring these injustices to our attention didn't speak up, then imagine how many more people will never realize the destruction and injustice that continues in their name. (Though many don't really want to know) If there is a chance we can turn things around and avoid the future that many of us fear, we're going to need as many people as we can get. Ours is not a benign society, and it never was. Defeating Hitler and Stalin did not give us the moral high ground, and being the world's police force does not mean our society has ever been lawful. For the time being at least, we have access to information and methods of communication that previous generations never thought possible. Some of us are using this access to gain a new perspective on history and our role within it. Our very use of this technology itself necessitates energy consumption, representing a sacrifice we are asking of the earth and of the humans and other life that is intertwined with the mining industry and the other industries that make electronics possible; a sacrifice we give them neither a chance to accept nor deny. It's a tough choice that digital activists have to make, knowing that silence could mean the ultimate price for the lives of many beings, but that our very ability to speak out against this suffering requires the suffering of others. Which requires those of use who choose to speak out to speak as loudly as we can to as many who will listen in a way that will be heard and will lead others into effective action. Which begs the question, which actions will be effective, if any at all? It makes sense to me that if we are to ask anyone to make changes in their lives that we should at least be making those changes in our own lives. And also that way, even if we don't reach anyone or don't compel anyone to action or change, we've at least reduced our own impact on the earth. So the next step in all this is, what changes have I, can I, and will I make in my life and ask others to make as well? The very first thing I have endeavored to do is reduce my consumption. In future blog entries, I will go more into detail about the ways I am reducing, working to reduce, or striving to reduce my consumption. Managing our waste is a part of reducing the impacts of our consumption too. Us wilderness freaks always like to tell people that lessons abound in nature if you can just be quiet and pay attention. For instance, nature doesn't produce waste. Everything breaks down and cycles back into the ecosystem. Humans however have gotten into the habit of creating things that take ages to break down, like plastic and styrofoam, or that never break down, like mercury. The poop and carcasses of wild animals replenishes the soil and keep the cycle going, while humans flush their poop out into the ocean where it causes algal bloom which chokes off aquatic plant life, and they bury themselves in sealed caskets, thus breaking the cycle. But like a said, that's another blog entry In the meantime, the message I hope to leave you with here is that one of the most important things we can do right now is reduce our consumption. It may not be THE most important thing, and it is by far not the only thing, but it is VITAL to all of us who have grown up and live in the consumer culture, even the poor among us. Something to think about, hmm.
Two (and possibly three) Buffalo Sent To Slaughter Today
Yesterday was a tough day for us in the field, as we witnessed the first bison capture of the season. Our patrol day began at 8:30am, when we arrived in Yellowstone Village on Horse Butte to find a Department of Livestock truck unloading two horses. We found two bulls not very far up the road, and they were among the most beautiful buffalo we’d ever seen. The larger of the two was a deep black, with a shiny coat and thick fur on his front legs. They were both wonderfully healthy; in their prime. And they held their ground firmly. It was hours before the agents were able to get the bison out of the subdivision. Eventually, the buffalo reached the property adjacent to the capture facility, (a safe zone where agents are not allowed to harass them), and began to graze peacefully, as if they hadn’t just been chased eight miles through thick forest. After a few minutes of waiting impatiently, the livestock agents pulled out their ATVs and began circling the property, hooting and hollering and making as much noise as they could. When that didn’t work they took out the cracker rounds and began shooting them off, hoping the noise would cause the buffalo to move. When that didn’t work, they pulled out even louder cracker rounds that exploded with deafening booms that must have been heard for miles around. That got the buffalo going, and once they were on the property that the trap is on, the agents began chasing them towards the park. We had been told earlier that the plan was to chase the bulls into the park, but as they reached the entrance of the capture facility, the agents on ATVs sped past the buffalo, turned, and began to chase them away from the park. That’s when we knew we had been lied to and the agents were intending to capture the bulls. After about 10 or 15 minutes of chasing the buffalo in circles around the trap, they were captured, the gates closed, and their fates were sealed. We stood stunned on the opposite shore of the creek overlooking the capture facility. This was the first capture that any of us had witnessed, and one of us was a brand new volunteer that had just arrived today. Welcome to West Yellowstone. We sat watching the capture facility for five hours after that, waiting for the transport to arrive that would bring these magnificent creatures to their deaths. But it never came. The sounds of these buffalo kicking madly at the walls of their prison were the only clue we had that they were still alive as we left our positions at sunset. Though we knew that some of us had to get up well before sunrise for this morning’s patrol, we had a difficult time getting to sleep, and we stayed up late talking about buffalo we had known and loved; honoring the spirits of these two doomed brothers. At around 7am this morning the report came in over the radio from the patrol on duty that the two bulls had been loaded into a trailer and shipped north out of town. The Department of Livestock won’t answer our questions about what they plan to do with these bison, but they are no longer in this area, and there’s only one place they can be heading from here. Ironically, it was their tenacity; their strong will to resist the force of the agents that the state vet blamed on their decision to capture them. He called the bulls ‘Fractious’, meaning hard to manage. But that’s just the kind of quality that I expect in a wild animal, and strive for myself. May we forever fight these attempts to domesticate us, cage us and turn us into slaves of commerce, as these buffalo help us remember the wildness of our souls. Today I honor these buffalo as my heroes, and mourn them as my brothers. Peace. (Note: After I wrote this and sent it off to be included in todays BFC Update From The Field, a volunteer returned from patrol and reported that a second trailer left right behind the trailer carrying the two bulls, and it held a third bison. His footage is inconclusive, and it's not that I don't trust one of our own, but as a media organization, without more witnesses or footage we will be waiting to hear back from the Department of Livestock before we report this as fact. Though I do believe him, and another volunteer, who saw the second trailer but not the contents, reported seeing fresh tracks near the area.)
Two Bull Bison Captured Today
If you'd like to read a more in-depth account of yesterday's events, or would like to see how a piece of my writing evolves, check out the above posting, but in it's longer, un-edited format at MoreKalanu.
Rewilding
Well, if you've been following this blog over the past week or so, you'll see that I have been giving a great deal of thought to ideas that have been refered to sometimes as being part of 'Green Anarchy' and anarcho-primitivism. The term rewilding is one I've come across many times in my explorations, but one I have not given as much thought to as I should have, seeing it it fits well with the ethic on which I am trying to live my life. I once thought of it to apply to the act of planting wild grasses on former agricultural land and other projects like that which would return human-trashed areas back to wilderness, but I am learning it is a much deeper concept than that, and I am feeling more drawn to it the more I explore it. Here is a definition from the website Green Anarchy Infoshop :"For most green/anti-civilization/primitivist anarchists, rewilding and reconnecting with the earth is a life project. It is not limited to intellectual comprehension or the practice of primitive skills, but instead, it is a deep understanding of the pervasive ways in which we are domesticated, fractured, and dislocated from our selves, each other, and the world, and the enormous and daily undertaking to be whole again. Rewilding has a physical component which involves reclaiming skills and developing methods for a sustainable co-existence, including how to feed, shelter, and heal ourselves with the plants, animals, and materials occurring naturally in our bioregion. It also includes the dismantling of the physical manifestations, apparatus, and infrastructure of civilization. Rewilding has an emotional component, which involves healing ourselves and each other from the 10,000 year-old wounds which run deep, learning how to live together in non-hierarchical and non-oppressive communities, and deconstructing the domesticating mindset in our social patterns. Rewilding involves prioritizing direct experience and passion over mediation and alienation, re-thinking every dynamic and aspect of our reality, connecting with our feral fury to defend our lives and to fight for a liberated existence, developing more trust in our intuition and being more connected to our instincts, and regaining the balance that has been virtually destroyed after thousands of years of patriarchal control and domestication. Rewilding is the process of becoming uncivilized."
More Escaped Elk News
For those of you not yet aware of this issue, here's a quick run down: Last month 200 domesticated elk escaped from a hunt ranch ten miles from the YNP boundary in Idaho. This escape was not reported for a couple weeks after that, and once it was, all sorts of acusations flew as to the health and genetic make-up of these elk and the potential effects that their mingling with wild elk would have on the Yellowstone herd. (It's rut season right now, so there was no worse time for this to happen.) Some say these elk might be diseased. Some say they may be cross-bred with an exotic species: Asian Red Elk. The ranch owner says they are healthy and genetically pure. The Idaho Fish and Game have declared open season on the elk and have shot 14 or so, the owner has rounded up a couple dozen more and accuses the Fish and Game of making it harder for him to round up the rest, and says he will sue the state of Idaho. So it's quite a soap opera, and those of us who livein the greater Yellowstone and take an interest in the wildlife here are watching it very closely. So here are the lastest articles. Idaho Hunters Going For ban on Canned Hunts - New West Escaped Farm-raised Elk May Never Be Found, Idaho Officials say - Twin Falls Times-News And here are some of my previous entries on this subject: Sept. 16Sept. 11Sept. 11Sept. 9
Buffalo Time Again
Here it is September feeling like winter is already here. The snow that covered the mountains around us last week is slowly melting off and the temperature jumped from 21F at 7am this morning to 49F at 11am. And the Montana Department of Livestock have started to become a regular presence around here, keeping their eye on 2 or 3 bull buffalo who have decided to visit Montana. There have been hazes the past two Thursdays, and one of the Livestock agents has justtold one of our volunteers that they will be hazing on horseback today. We have two patrols out today, waiting to document the MDOL in their wasteful attempts to haze these bulls who, as we've said a thousand times, can't even transmit brucellosis. According to residents out on Horse Butte, DOL agents have been rather aggressive lately, and complaints have already been filed with all participating agencies and the governor by these residents. The Yellowstone Village subdivison on Horse Butte has legal covenants banning these agents from hazing in the area, which the DOL has refused to recognize several times this summer already. So it looks like it may shape up to be another interesting season. The only other buffalo news I've been able to find in the last few days was regrading some 27 escaped domestic bison from a ranch on Cape Breton Island, Nove Scotia. From the Halifax Chronicle Herald
Anti-Poverty Activism
Just wanted to add this link to a group who has been doing a lot of positive work over the years on a crucial issue. Ontario Coalition Against Poverty - "OCAP is a direct-action anti-poverty organization based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. We mount campaigns against regressive government policies as they affect poor and working people. In addition, we provide direct-action advocacy for individuals against eviction, termination of welfare benefits, and deportation. We believe in the power of people to organize themselves. We believe in the power of resistance."
Six Nations Solidarity
Ok, so I found the contact info of the people at the Six Nations Caledonia blockade, who are badly in need of food and building supplies to continue their righteous occupation. Here it is: "We would greatly appreciate your making donations to the Six Nations through the MNN Mohawk Nation News website www.mohawknationnews.com at the "Donate" link using PayPal; or send checks to Janie Jamieson, RR#6, Hagersville (Ontario, Canada) N0A 1H0; or deposit directly into Bank of Montreal account: transit #3752 Account #3011-285. Contact Hazel at thebasketcase@on.aibn.com 519-445-0719, 519-865-7722, 905-517-7006."
It Snowed Today
Here it is Sept. 16 and we are already getting snow. I had to move back into the cabin, and today we turned the propane on in the office so that we can start using the heater. I had been staying in cabin six, which is unheated, but I had enough of that. It is a big cabin and with just two chairs and a coffee table in there it felt very lonely. And it was so far away from the main cabin and office that it felt very isolated. So I am back in the cabin and I feel warmer already. Funny how those things can affect a person's mood.
When The Levees Broke
Normally I don't talk about this kind of pop media thing, but from what I've seen of this film so far, it's worth watching, and best yet, for the time being, (until it gets taken down cause I imagine it's breaking some copyright laws) the whole thing has been posted on Youtube in 26 parts. Spike Lee's Documentary on the Katrina Disaster. Check it out. http://ticklebooth.com/2006/09/spike-lee-joints-on-youtube/(Update: I only got to see 7 of the 26 chapters before HBO made YouTube take it down. This is my fault, and Boingboing.net's fault, and the other blogs who talked about it. It was up for 15 days!!! I should have stayed up late watching it last night, damn it! Now I have to rent it if it ever comes out.)
White Buffalo Calf
The mainstream media is just beginning to pick up on the story of the white buffalo calf that was born in August. 'Miracle's Second Chance', the ranchers were considering calling it (though the latest article says he is unnamed), was born on the same Wisconsin farm where another famous white buffalo calf: 'Miracle', was born in 1994. Several other white buffalo have been born in the United States, but Miracle was considered by some to be the sacred white buffalo of a 2,000 year old Lakota prophecy. The keeper of the sacred pipe handed down through the generations from White Buffalo Calf Woman is Chief Arvol Looking Horse. I just found an article from 1994 about the first 'Miracle' in which Chief Arvol Looking Horse, confirmed that this was the white buffalo calf of the prophecy. So I want you to read his words about this prophecy and what it means, and what the birth of the last Miracle meant. Whether the media has contacted Chief Arvol Looking Horse about this yet or not, I don't know, as I have not found his name in any of the articles out there. He would be the one I would want to hear explaining the signifigance of this latest white buffalo calf. Here is a statement from Chief Arvol Looking Horse from 1991 about 'Miracle'.
The Future of Biodiesel
I have seen the future, and it is microalgae. In the decades leading up to the mid 1990's, the US Department of Energy had a program called the Aquatic Species Program, in which they studied the use of algae for fuel. Towards the end of the program, the focus was on biodiesel. Theoritically, some species of microalgae (of which there are tens of thousands known) can be up to 50% oil per volume. We already know that that oil can be used for biodiesel. If one can extract 80% of that oil, than algae can produce up to 20,000 gallons of oil per acre. That compares to canola, which yields 127 gallons per acre, and soy, with 48 per acre. Furthermore, algae can grow where nothing else can, using only waste water and sunlight as inputs. That means that not only is the amount of land necessary to provide a feedstock for fuel reduced, but it can be produced at abandoned open pit mines, or even in rooftops. The government appartently ceased their project because they couldn't get the lage to grow fact enough. Hardier species of algae produce less oil, and the species that produce the most oil are more difficult to cultivate. But the DOE was looking at mass production on a level needed to supplant fossil fuel, and as such were using a less expensive method of cultivation; an open pond system where it was not possible to control the elements that contribute to mortality of the algae. Scientists and tinkerers now have moved on to photobioreactors; closed systems that allow for the cultivation of higher yield strains. Several companies have now begun commerical production of algae biodiesel, with one claiming that it had made it's first batch in May. However, because there is money involved, no further information is available to the public about their process. However, algae cultivation is not a new science. Algaculture is already a small industry that brings us Spiralina. And the biodiesel community is by and large open source driven. Of late the number of people working on ways to cultivate, harvest and extract oil from algae. Whether we can reach the theoritical limit of 20,000 gallons per acre (a range of 5,000 to 20,000 is often cited) remains to be seen, but even if we don't, as long as low-tech solutions are created that come in below the current consumer cost of petroleum, it becomes (in my mind a viable option for larger non-profit co-operatives (such as a Indian Reservation.) where commerical viability is not a concern. Eventually, with new research, it seems the cost will drop to around that of soy and canola based biodiesel, but in the meantime, here is an option that does not involve diverting food (or cattle feed, the diversion of which affects food production) crops into fuel. This is the lowest impact way to fuel out vehicles, and the potential is mindblowing. Learn more: Wikipedia Entry on AlgacultureOpen Source Wiki Based Experimentation ProjectPress Release from New Zealand Compnat Producing Algae BiodieselAn extremely innovative idea to grow algae in transparent sloar collecting roofs.
Bison News From Around the World
This first story is a month and a half old, but I don't ever get to read enough Canadian bison news, so I thought I'd share it. Bully Bison Plague Northern Town - Aug.1 CBC Here's that Wild Beasts Trust that I mentioned a few days ago that wants to reintroduce bison and wolves back into Scotland. Police Investigate Plot to Release Wolves Back into The Wilds of Scotland - Sept.12 Scotsman.com Another white buffalo has been born in Wisconsin, an article on LiveScience.comSome domestic Buffalo escaped in Ontario, Canada Police Go on Buffalo Hunt - Sept 12 Cambridge Times
Latest Escaped Elk Update
A small amount of progress is better than none at all.. Elk Update -KPVI TV Idaho Fish and Game Kill Eight Elk - KIFI TV
Sure, hate the Carni-vegan...
I am sick to death of all the whole vegan/carnivegan/omnivore/vegetarian thing. In the winter-time here we usually have vegan, vegetarian and meat-eater options. Lately some of us have become what we like to called 'Carni-vegan' though that term is used tongue-in-cheek for other purposes. I don't know what you really call it. It's such a fringe diet, but the one that makes the most sense to me. All the meat we consume here is wild game; elk, deer and moose. To make a long story short they were hunted locally, and we butchered them here in camp. I can't think of a lower impact source of food. Consider how many animals get run over by the trucks the bring our vegetables to us, the wildlife habitat that has been replaced by organic farms, etc. I agree with vegans that factory farming of meat and dairy is horribly cruel, and so I don't support those industries. Yet humans have hunted forever. To say this is wrong is to say that First Nations cultures have always been wrong, and that doesn't seem like the right attitude for a group as pro-Indian as we claim to be. Whatever though. I'm not interested in forcing my opinions or lifestyle on anyone, and I don't give militant vegans or beef eaters grief, as much as I disagree with them. However, now that Dru (who is a complete vegan, and I still love him) has gone camping for a few days, the remaining volunteers, who are unrepentant meat and dairy eaters, are demanding milk in their mashed-potatoes and eggs for breakfast. Anti-vegan revolt night, they are calling it. I feel ganged up on. Fuck it. If this carries on they can take over the shopping and cooking. It's not like I don't have enough to do already. I can see where the militant vegans are coming from sometimes. But it's an on-going thing for me. Our activism for the buffalo involves driving around in our fossil fuel consuming vehicles, documenting the action on plastic cameras with plastic video-cassettes, etc. Our dollars are our power, and we spend it on fossil fuel, fossil fuel based products, coal powered electricity, etc. If you think too much about it you can go mad. Sometimes I think all activism is futile because we consume so many resources trying to get our message across that we just make things worse. You see where my head is at lately? Very conflicted about my role on this planet.
Caledonia Six Nations News
The Six Nations people occupying the land in Caledonia that was stolen from then in the 1800s are in desperate need of money to maintain their occupation and to finish the construction of some half-built homes on the land. I'm having trouble finding their website to find out where to send money. The Caledonia Six Nations Resource Page seems to be down. Hmmm, some kind of government monkeywrenching? Maybe you'll have more luck than me getting onto the website. Here is a media article: Six Nations Protestors Calling For Donations to Make It Through the Winter
Personal News
Realizing that I spend way too much time in the office sitting in front of the computer, Dru and I cycled the 33 mile round trip yesterday into West Yellowstone to buy tortilla chips and rent V for Vendetta. Halfway into town I found myself saying 'I should have done this a lot more this summer. Maybe I'll do it once a week until the snow comes.' Halfway into the ride home, my thighs were completely cramped up and I found myself saying 'I really should have stretched first.' I do think I'll do it again next week. We spend way too much on gas here. We did a recon today on our way to return the movie, and didn't see a single buffalo. Which is not surprising. There seems to have been a couple out of the park all summer, but they tend to keep out of sight. One of them was hazed back into the park last week, and the other one is still out there somewhere. The MDOL, NPS and FWP bent some rules during this last haze. Several of the properties out on Horse Butte where this haze took place have Buffalo Safe Zone signs (provided by BFC) and agents are forbidden from hazing buffalo off these properties. Several times during this last haze the buffalo decided to stop and rest at a Safe Zone. Tired of waiting, the agents started to make loud noises from the other side of the property line in an attempt to get the buffalo back onto public lands. Of course, our volunteers were right there warning the agents that they were being filmed and they weren't likely allowed to use such tactics. The agents radioed in to their supervisior, who told them they should just stick to 'talking loudly.' and refrain from other noises. That worked for them, and you already know how it ended.
More Elk News
So it appears the escaped elk are proving difficult to round up, and the ranch owner claims that the state of Idaho is making even more difficult. In another twist, the rancher claims that his elk are 'genetically superior' to the park elk and originate from YNP stock. This contradicts earlier reports that the elk were Asian Red Deer, an exotic species capable of cross-breeding with elk. Escaped Idaho Elk Prove Elusive for State Hunters - Salt Lake Tribune Elk Ranch Owner Says He Might Sue - KIFI TV Idaho Sportsman Vs. Game Farmers - Blame Abounds After Elk Escape
More Anarchy
Here's an interesting little essay entitled 'Anarchy not Anarchism'
Book: Endgame
Yesterday, over at MoreKalanu, I ranted a bit about Green Anarchy. Well, if you've been to the Wikipedia article I pointed you to and are ready for more homework, or just want something to read that doesn't involve staring at a computer screen, then Derrick Jensen's latest use of several hundred acres of trees is just for you. Jensen is a near-god in the anti-civilization scene that is growing in popularity with so many eco-terra-ists. His latest offering is a two volume set of large books that set out to explain that civilization is a plague on the planet and needs to go, basically. They are title Endgame; Volume One; The Problem of Civilization and Volume 2;Resistance. He begins with several premise, including, Premise 1: Civilization is not and can never be sustainable. this is especially true for industrial civilization. Premise 3:Our way of living - industrial civilization - is based on, requires and would collapse very quickly without persistant and widespread violence. Premise 11:From the beginning, this culture -civilization- has been a culture of occupation. Etc. Jensens' style is very personal. These books are so thick because they are filled with personal stories and feelings and other things that some people love and some people hate. Jensen believes that the sooner civilization is brought down, the more salmon and buffalo and other wildlife and plantlife we'll have left. Sure, this may be true, but we're out on the fringes here now, the fringe even of the envronmentalist and anarchist crowd. Anti-civ will never be a popular movement, and all it's associated acts of SUV burnings and what not are not bound to turn the tide much. Jensen talks about giving up hope in the sense that we hope for things that are beyond our control, and that we need to stop hoping for an end to the madness and start acting and believing.I myself think we need to give up hope and belief. This particular culture is terminal. If our overconsumption and violent disregard fro the environment continue, life as we know it is bound to get a whole lot scarier. I don't see a way to stop that, and it seems to me a waste of time to focus my energy on toppling civilization, as much as I agree that it is a plague on the planet. The purpose of the kinds of books and philosophy I'm talking about here is not to create a mass movement to save the world, but to understand that a crash is coming, whether through the coming industrial collapse, or the catastrophic climate change that many feel is inevitable. Somewhere between hope and utter nihilism is a new way of thinking and being. What that is, I couldn't say, but the sooner we give up all illusions of stopping the death machine, we can get down to planning our future. That's a tough thing, I know. Right now many of the anti-civ people I know are convinced they can somehow put a stop to civilization, and I think they are just afraid to admit to themselves that we are on a runaway train, the damage has been done, and at least some of the doomsday scenarios are coming to bear very quickly. And besides 'bringing down civilization' would require the killing of millions of people, which I would in no way ever support. And then you would need to convince the majority of survivors to adapt to primitivist lifestyles, which brings coercion back into the picture, which is one of the elements of civilization that we abhor. The way I see it, Anarcho-primitivism, if it is to be 'applied' at all, would need to be applied at an individual level. (Otherwise it wouldn't be anarchy if it involved organizing, influencing, coercing, controlling, etc.) I'm an anarchist in the sense that I try to live my life by my own rules, and I'm a primitivist in the sense that once the inevitable crash happens, I would like to seek out a hunter/gatherer lifestyle, if at all possible. You and the rest of the world can do what you want, and you will. Whether we have 6 billion or 1 billion people, there will be a variety of ways that people live out their lives and interact with the natural world around them. Civilization will very likely recover unless serious earth changes such as floods, earthquakes, etc. wipe out all but a few million people. And even then, people will find a way to control and coerce. Learning to survive without fossil fuels and all it's byproducts is crucial from here on out. Forming the communities that will be around after whatever the hell is coming, weaning ourselves off the many addictions of society. Green Anarchy and Anarcho-primitivism certainly include elements that ring truer than a lot of philosophies, especially in regards to the uselessness of government and mass society and the advocacy of a return to more primitive ways of living. Civilization is a problem, most definitely, and if I truly believed I could bring it down for good I would still be very reluctant as it would constitute an act of mass murder in the extreme. I don't believe my activism will bring down the death machine, and I don't advocate a utopian anarchist world. More to the point, I believe in freedom, much more than our so-called leaders who claim to be fighting for it. I believe we are of this earth and a part of it, and that mass society has lost touch with that, with catastrophic consquences. We stepped off the path long ago, and it may very well have been when we decided to control nature through agriculture and animal husbandry. I believe a life lived in harmony with nature is one lived a lot more primitively, and that we should have the choice to return to that, on our own accord. I believe my activism is more about helping people to understand how we have been domisticated and what the options are for breaking free of the madness. Not that I claim to have the answers. Just that there are a lot of lies out there that we have to begin to see for what they are, and begin to discuss frankly what we are doing here and what is possible.
Book: The Long Emergency
Right now I'm in the middle of 'The Long Emergency' by James Howard Kunstler. The topic of this book is peak oil production. The basic premise is that once world oil production reaches a half-way point, it will start to get more expensive toextract it, until the point where it costs over a barrel of oil to extract a barrel of oil. According to a lot of experts, we are either at that point, or just past it; we won't be able to tell until a few years after it has passed. So even though we have only extracted about half of the world's oil, most of what is left is due to stay in the ground forever, as it is just not worth it to extract after a certain point. So this is a kind of doomsday scenario, as our entire civilization right now revolves around cheap oil. Kunstler points out it's like all of us having several hundred slaves working just for us. The post-oil age, which he sees coming very shortly, will not be pretty, and there is just no possible to replace cheap, abundant, versitile oil with alternative energy. It's a pretty convincing read. Not a new idea for me, though. This is one of many Peak Oil books out there, and really, one just needs to do some rational thinking about the way we consume this planet and ask themselves how sustainable it is. And if you believe oil is just something that will just keeping gushing out of the ground forever, then you're probably one of those people who only reads glossy Hollywood magazines, because no one tries to get away with that arguement anymore, not even the oil companies. Kunstler maintains a blog at Clusterfuck Nation.
Domesticated Elk Escape Near Yellowstone
This is probably the most shocking thing I have heard in weeks. This has the potential to destroy the genetic purity of the wild elk herds and could likely be the most catastophic things to have ever happened to this much-mismanaged herd. Domesticated Elk Escape Near Yellowstone Park - Billings Gazette Idaho Elk Escape Worries Wyoming - Casper Star Tribune Idaho Takes Aim at Elk - Jackson Star Tribune Idaho Let Elk Breeder off the Hook in 2002 - Jackson Star-Tribune Wyoming Wardens Gun For Idaho Elk - Casper Star-Tribune
Green Anarchy
Sometimes I feel compelled to just ramble on about a certain topic, or just share some personal thoughts and feelings. However, I like the format I have going on here today with a lot of short entries, geared towards those of us with short attention spans. So I've created another blog, this one with no more of a creative title than the first; More Kalanu. today I rant about the concept of Green Anarchy or Anarcho-primitivism and what I find appealing about it.
A Trip To Minnesota
So I have decided to take a small vacation awat from BFC for a couple weeks in October. My plan as it stands now is to volunteer with the White Earth Land Recovery Project on the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota. This project was founded by Winona LaDuke (former Vice-Presidential candidate w/Ralph Nader whose environmental advocacy has included work with BFC, though I have never met her) in 1989 as a land reclamation project, and has expanded to include advocacy and support of tradtional means of acriculture and food harvesting. One of their main projects is a wild rice co-operative. Up to 80% of the people on the reservation harvest wild rice; the ONLY wild rice left in the country. (Other wild rice is cultivated.) The Save Wild Rice campaign is also working to fight genetically modified cultivated wild rice in the area that could contaminate the wild crops and destroy this traditional food. Please visit their web site and support them in any way you can.
British Conservationists Want to Bring Back Bison, Bears and Wolves
A conservationist group in Scotland known as the Wild Beast Trust has proposed the reintroduction of a wide variety of extirpated animals to the British Isles, including the bison and the grey whale. An article from icwales.co.ukI wish I could find the blog they refer to, bit alas...
Yellowstone Releases Summer Bison Count
Here are an article related to the release this week of the bison population estimates in Yellowstone National Park. Yellowstone Bison Rebound - Jackson Star Tribune
Wildlife News Blogs
Here in Yellowstone Country the critters are constantly making news. Buffalo, bears, and wolves, especially are constantly under attack from small-minded humans. And then there's this whole escaped elk thing (don't get me started on that.) Luckily for those of us who like to read about our critter neighbors, there are a few good sites that cover these things. One that I go to a lot is Ralph Maughan's Wildlife News, where Ralph has been kind enough to gather all these stories together. That is his new blog, and all the older stories are archived at his older site. BFC is partnered in the Yellowstone to Yukon Initiative. Their website publishes the Y2Y Conservation News update, featuring stories relevant to this important international wildlife corridor. Let me know if you know of any more relevant sources.
Educating Oneself Online
I wanted to alert you to a new project just off the ground that has great potential for self-educated people like myself. Wikiversity is an open source project aimed at creating free collaboratively created learning resources. A very similar project, using the same Wiki concept is the Global Text Project, aimed at creating free electronic text-books for use in the Third World. Also very similar, and the inspiration for the above project is WikiBooks, a collection of free open-editing textbooks. I'm a big fan of this Wiki software, (I use it for my Wild Bison Reference Project), and if you want to know more about it, look it up on Wikipedia, the online colloborative encyclopedia project that is the grandaddy of all Wiki projects.
Bison Repels Grizzly Attack
This is not a new thing. I saw this on a poster in a bookstore in Gardiner, Montana (where it turns out the photographer lives.) Check out his wild photos at www.miketercek.com
Killing Wildlife - A National Pastime
I spend my days here in Montana fighting against agencies that kill wildlife to appease the livestock industry. Most people don't even know that the Yellowstone bison are being slaughtered at all, let alone that 947 were wiped out this winter. A more widely covered issue is the state sanctioned killing of predators, such as wolves, also for the purpose of protecting the livestock issues. I'm not anti-hunting. Few of us working on the bison issue are. Hunting has it's place when managed properly, but when wildlife is killed by the millions in this country in order to reduce conflict with farmers and ranchers, and the farmers and ranchers have no obligation to reduce this conflict, it amounts to a shit-load of needless suffering. Just what is the level of destruction that our government is inflicting on wildlife populations? In 2005 the federal government spend $100 million on predator control. Wildlife Services, the department of the USDA that implements these lethel programs, claimed responsibility for the death of 82, 891 predators in 2004. Another 2.7 million nuisance animals were also killed in that same time period. This number includes birds, squirrels and racoons. I got those numbers from the following link, http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/3183.So the bison aren't alone in this situation. Predator conservation groups have been taking on the livestock industry for decades overthis issue. What is it about beef that allows us to subsidize the hell out of the industry, not just with our tax dollars, but also our wildlife, our water, our soil, our native plant life, and everything else that is destroyed to feed one of the most wasteful and inefficient industries? I've travelled a great deal among the National Forests of this country, and the impacts of public lands grazing are obvious and devastating. Disgusting, even. Why should we continue to allow these cattle to devastate these lands? Here are some facts--taken from Jason Clay's book "World Agriculture & Environment" that may make you reconsider your next steak dinner: (via rustletheleaf.typepad.com) USE OF PASTURE - Globally, the largest environmental impact of agriculture in general is the use of land for pasture. More pasture is used for cattle than all other domesticated animals and crops combined. WATER CONSUMPTION - Dr. Jim Oltjen of the University of California at Davis and Dr. Jon Beckett, formerly of UC-Davis, found that, including direct consumption, irrigation of pastures, and crops and carcass processing, it can take as much as 500 gallons of water to produce one pound of boneless beef raised in the U.S. In addition to total water use, there is increasing concern about water pollution, especially the harmful effects on surface water and groundwater quality of pesticides used to maintain or improve pasture areas or to increase feed grain production. Many people living on cattle farms in the U.S. cannot safely drink their own well water. DESTRUCTION OF HABITAT - (Note from me: Every wonder why all that Brazilian rainforest is being stripped bare? It isn't just for the wood. Read on.) Some 80% of the cleared areas of the Brazilian Amazon and the cerrado (the savanna and forest-covered tableland that lies between the coastal forest zone and the Amazon) has been converted to pasture. Creation of these pastures has resulted in the increased siltation of streams and rivers. SLAUGHTER AND TANNING - The waste from both slaughterhouses and tanneries is rich in organic matter and hence poses serious public health concerns if discharged into the environment without appropriate treatment. In the United States more than 20,000 cattle hides are tanned per day. Some 23.5% of these are processed with vegetable tannins. The remainder is tanned with chromium, a pollutant categorized as a heavy metal. GREENHOUSE GAS - Beef production has a considerable effect on global warming due to the emission of greenhouse gases such as methane, nitrous oxide, and carbon dioxide. Methane is released from the cow's rumen and manure. Nitrous oxide is released from the soil by the microbial decomposition of manure and artificial fertilizers. A FINAL NOTE - Here's a little fact from the U.S. Department of Commerce: In the United States, 56 million acres of land produce hay and grain for livestock. Only 4 million acres produce vegetables for human consumption. Let's think about all those acres being fertilized and sprayed for pests. The billions of gallons of water that are being diverted for crop irrigation, and then contaminated with agricultural chemicals, have a direct impact on every one of us.
Volunteering For the Buffalo
This March, when I returned for a second volunteer stint at Buffalo Field Campaign, I thought I would be here for two months, then head out for a summer job as a camp cook. As the winter turned to spring, and the date of my departure drew near, I had already begun to feel a loss for this land, for the buffalo, and for my fellow volunteers who have become like family to me. A great weight was lifted off my shoulders when I decided to cancel all my plans except for one; continue volunteering for BFC for as long as I can; for as long as it takes to see buffalo roam free perhaps. Only three weeks or so remain in this season, depending on when the buffalo decide to stay in the park for the summer. My plan now is to stay in the Yellowstone area and continue to volunteer for BFC. In the summer months the campaign sets up a table in the park and keeps tourists informed on the bison situation. I'll be here most of the summer, with the exception of a few hitchhiking trips to visit family. Next winter I'll be here for a whole season, helping to bring attention to the plight of the last wild buffalo. Keep checking back for updates. I'll try my best to convey what it's like to volunteer here. In the meantime, here are some links to articles about the campaign that you might find interesting. Buffalo Soldiers Mother Jones Nov/Dec 1999The campaign doesn't include as much civil disobedience these days. The focus over the years has shifted to documenting the actions of the government agencies involved, and helping to draft legislation and other public policy changes. Otherwise, things are pretty much the same. Buffalo SoldiersRocky Mountain Bullhorn May 24,2005A more recent article with the same name, documenting a rather confrontational day. It's not always like this...
Where buffalo roam: Activists make a stand for Yellowstone bisonBillings Gazette April 24, 2005Not bad at all for the Billings Gazette. The Killing FieldsHigh Country News Feb.6, 2006This winter BFC volunteers documented the first bison hunt in Montana since the campaign started. This is a well written article that describes some of those experiences. Guardians of the BuffaloA beautiful slide show by a BFC volunteer. This is my family;human and buffalo. We see some pretty horrifying things from time to time, but love for the buffalo and for each other keeps us smiling and laughing. A Webpage from a regular volunteer
The Proposed Slaughter of The Wood Bison of Wood Buffalo National Park
Words cannot describe the lunacy and corruption that accompany any news of a buffalo slaughter. Witness the actions of the Montana Department of Livestock and their allies in the on-going attempt to prevent the Yellowstone Park bison herd from making it's traditional winter and spring migration out of the park. The tireless efforts of the volunteers at Buffalo Field Campaign have brought this issue to international attention (www.buffalofieldcampaign.org) and momentum is building to bring a stop to the needless destruction of a national treasure. We in Canada have our own herd of wild bison, a group of magnificent animals that share a common heritage with the bison of Yellowstone National Park. The bison of Wood Buffalo National Park (WBNP), though supplemented with bison from Montana in the 1920's, have been free-roaming at the boundary of what is now Alberta and Northwest Territories for tens of thousands of years. All other wild herds in Canada have been reintroduced using bison from Elk Island National Park (east of Edmonton, Alberta). The current excuse for killing bison in Montana is disease management, despite the fact that not even science can back up any claim to real threat. The situation is near identical in WBNP. A number of bison in the park have been found to carry brucellosis and tuberculosis, and a 20 year plan to cull the entire herd (numbering over 4000) and replace them with disease free bison from Elk Island National Park has reared it's ugly head once again. This isn't the first time that such an asinine idea has been proposed. Canada came close to implementing this plan in 1990, but public outcry was so severe that all talk of it was curtailed. Now we have a new PM, and likely he just wants to appease the cattle industry, who (though they would rather claim some far-fetched disease management excuse) fear that free-roaming bison will compete with their cattle for food. I've compiled a collection of articles from the internet, chroniciling the past and current controversy. Please read through them, then contact the Prime Minister, the Minister of The Environment, Parks Canada and Wood Buffalo National Park, to let them know that Canadians will not tolerate the killing of these treasured buffalo. LATEST NEWS "Canada studies cull of its largest bison herd" April 6, 2006 http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N03190761.htm "Former park boss says go slow with bison problem" March 24, 2006 http://www.cbc.ca/north/story/bison-stewart24032006.html "Feds consider bison kill at Wood Buffalo park" March 21, 2006 http://www.cbc.ca/north/story/bison-kill21032006.html "Scientists hand Ottawa a blueprint for a mass cull of bison" http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20060321.BISON21/TPStory/National "Kill off most to save bison herd, researchers say" March 20, 2006 http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/news/story.html?id=e413fcdb-1542-4cb8-b3a2-14333704f439&k=57643 THE OLD NEWS "Where the scientists roam: Ecology, management and bison in Northern Canada" http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3683/is_200207/ai_n9098897 "This essay explores the historical role that scientists have played in the debates over bison management in Wood Buffalo National Park. It questions the philosophical assumption that science is inherently tied to the control and management of nature by state and economic actors." --A very long but very informative read. "The Rise and Fall of Wood Buffalo National Park" By Ed Struzik, Borealis Magazine, 1995 A look at what happened the last time we tried to kill all the buffalo WOOD BISON INFO http://www.speciesatrisk.gc.ca/search/speciesDetails_e.cfm?SpeciesID=143 CONTACT THE AUTHORITIES CHARGED WITH PROTECTING THESE BISON The minister in charge of the parks is the Minister of the Environment, Hon. Rona Ambrose Les Terrasses de la Chaudière 10 Wellington St., 28th Floor Gatineau, Quebec K1A 0H3 Tel.: (819) 997-1441 Fax: (819) 953-3457 E-mail: Rona.Ambrose@ec.gc.ca Wood Buffalo National Park Administration, Fort Smith: Phone: (867) 872-7900 Fax: (867) 872-3910 wbnp.info@pc.gc.ca Parks Canada National Office 25 Eddy Street Gatineau, Quebec Canada K1A 0M5 Rt. Hon. Stephen Harper Office of the Prime Minister 80 Wellington Street Ottawa K1A 0A2 Fax: 613-941-6900 email: pm@pm.gc.ca
Changes
In the past week Dreamer Propulsion lost a potential client; one who had taken two seperate days off work to wait for us to install a biodiesel processor kit for him. The confusion was mine, and like the experiences described in my last article, changes will have to be made in order to ensure that mistakes like this don't happen again. Starting now, Dreamer Propulsion will no longer actively advertise our services as installers. Despite our best efforts, and very much time invested in each installation, it has been obvious that we are not yet ready to contribute to the biodiesel community in this capacity. In addition to building and installing biodiesel processors, we manage a household of 7, own three vehicles that are all overdue for major repairs, work a variety of paid jobs to pay the bills, repair and convert the vehicles, pay loans and save towards travel and have artistic, spiritual and political pursuits and other projects that demand of our time as well. We are extremely overwhelmed and I personally am out of integrity with many of my commitments. I've even been trying for four weeks to finish the same batch of biodiesel. This winter in Yellowstone the Buffalo Field Campaign has been more in need of assistance than ever before due to the infuriating hunt and a plethora of dumbass political experiments threating the countrie's last wild buffalo herd. I have been too busy to go volunteer and too busy to write any letters to the editors or the dumbass politicians involved. So I hope to get back in integrity with that part of my life, writing more letters, spreading the word more and perhaps volunteering in the spring. I still enjoy playing with plumbing parts, and we've at least made kit making into a more manageable system for us. There are some changes we'd like to make in order to fill more of a niche in this small industry, and hopefully by managing our time in a different way we'll be able to create a product that can compliment what is already being offered out there. In the meantime, we would love to continue providing kits, we just won't be advertising outide the internet discussion forums. Thank you to all those who have supported Dreamer Propulsion, and heartfelt apologies to those who have been inconvienenced. Kalanu
Confessions
Well, here's the first news. Luna won't start. Now, we're not getting worked up about it yet. We're not ready to let the naysayers tell us they told us so about the perils of SVO. Luna likes WVO, and Luna's IP and injectors are strong and healthy. I confess. I got her started with a shot of ether. She drove great right away. Not like Sunny, who takes her time to start and warm up, but is at least starting right now. I tried once more after that to start Luna (without the ether). So there's a lot of diagnosis to try yet before it's blamed on anything. The cold weather is my number one suspect so far. She had less than a 1/4 tank of commerical B99, and maybe that's a problem, but I'll save my industry finger pointing for another blog entry. However, we filled it with dino-diesel and it still wouldn't start. But it could still be a case of gelled fuel. Another confession; my Sunpro temp. gauge, and my non-contact thermometer both confirm that the VO temperature has only topped 120F when I had a second VegTherm hooked up. I don't think I've ever mentioned this. I have told people that ask about my system that it was the bottom of the line newbie DIYer spare part job, that a Davco or a Vormaxx is a much better idea for a filter than my homemade copper wrap, that I use a 5 gallon unheated cubbee for a VO tank, and that a VegTherm Mega is a better deal, but I hope that no one has gone and copied my DIY system (without using a Temp. Gauge) in expectation that they are running 150F+ VO. I don't think anyone could ever figure out how to DIY a system based on one person's website, let alone mine, so I am reasonably unworried about this possibility. But I shall endevour to mention my errors more often. While I'm in the mood for confessions, I should talk about Dreamer Propulsion. I think I did a pretty good job on the website. It's not as professional as I'd like it to be, I'm not a professional. I never claimed to be, but I think sometimes people expect that I am, and so I've started to state, in our ads and on our website, that we aren't 'professionals' or 'experts'; we're enthusiast hombrewers who love to share. And while I'm confessing, we love that we've been able to make some money at it. Response to our ads has been better than expected. The sale of DIY kits and the processor installations we've done have been helping to pay for the money we sink into our own hobby and our own cars. We still work odd jobs to pay the bills. (We don't work steady jobs because we need more time for our hobbies, and honestly, we'd like to make biofuel a business that can support us. One of them at least.) When we started, we weren't making any profit. We charged $350 to install a kit that cost us $275 to put together and we drove three hours on $3.20 a gallon commercial biodiesel in a truck that only gets 10mpg to do it. But it was our first install, and we were willing to take the experience as profit. And we still are mostly. Our third install we did for a client who had responded to our ad back when we were charging $350, and although we were charging $450 by then, we did it for $350. And we drove the truck two hours to get there. Speaking of confessions, that install was a disaster. We spilled methoxide on the client's workshop floor, much to her shock and outrage. The plastic carboy we were using to demonstrate methoxide mixing 'the easy way' sprung a leak in the bottom and gushed toxic chemicals in the presence of the client and two of her friends, all who were without respirators, like myself. (And although it's said that respirators won't protect against methanol for more than 10 minutes or so, I agree with this client in that we were only exposed for a few minutes, which was theoretically long enough to be dangerous and not long enough to make the respirator useless.) I admit that I had not given safety the fullest consideration at that point, but am more vigilant now. If you are reading this, Irene, I apologize again. That was also the last time we did an installation and a tutorial at the same time. There just isnt enough time to set up a processor and start a batch the same day. We were foolish for trying, but we gave it a good try. Honestly, I haven't been 100% happy with any of our installations. After 5 installations, we are still learning. Only one of those installations did I remember to bring all the parts. At one of them I had forgotten to tell the client to have distilled water ready, and all he had was spring water when I arrived. Needless to say my attempts to titrate his oil failed. (I was using phenol red, which we probably should not have included in our kits, not when tumeric is so accessible.) I tried to titrate by test batching; my back up plan, but forgot to heat the oil, so that failed as well. I should have learned then, after spending eight hours in this person's backyard (plus four hours to get to Seattle and four to get home (I used WVO that time)) that we shouldnt be doing set-up and tutorial at the same time. I should also admit that I didn't allow my partner to contribute as much as I should have starting up. But allowing her to lend her organizing expertise has solved a lot of problems and diverted a lot of potential mistakes. Now she comes to every install, makes sure we dont leave the house without consulting our checklists, keeps me focused when we get there and makes suggestions for changes that are usually just what are needed. Last week, after we bought a utility trailer, we sat down and she did the vast majority of the work designing our new processor and making sure we could fit the whole thing on our tiny trailer. It was very impressive, and I am a very lucky man. One more confession, and this is something most dont learn right away, not because we are hiding it, just that we have never made it too clear on the website, but Dreamer Propulsion is just myself and Pantara. A friend we made on a install might become an independant contractor with us, but for the moment, we are a very small operation. Don't ask me how many batches of biodiesel I've made. The answer is too low. But I never said I was an expert...
Back To The Buffalo
I just received this email in response to a blog posting I put up last January regarding the Yellowstone bison slaughter. I thought I would share my response, as it is a very important comment that I have heard quite a bit…. “Having just read the interesting submission on this website about Walking Coyote's contribution to the survival of bison, there are some strong contraditions to your article. According to the Walking Coyote story "Pablo and Allard also bought 26 buffalo from C.J “Buffalo” Jones, a rancher from Kansas who had achieved fame as a buffalo hunter and hunting guide, and who would go on in 1902 to become the game warden in charge of the Yellowstone herd. It was also in 1902 that Yellowstone Park acquired 18 buffalo cows from the Pablo-Allard herd. These buffalo, along with three bulls donated by Charles Goodnight from Texas," On this basis, the 'domesticated' bison on my own farm are of the same background as those you refer to as 'wild' in Yellowstone Park. I would also challange you that there is no such thing as a 'domesticated' bison. Do not underestimate the spirit and heritage of bison - it will take far more than a fence and a little food to alter the independent nature of bison that thousands of years of freedom has bestowed on them. The buffalo is the true spirit of America Carol Klein Oakcreek Buffalo Ranch Missouri" The 'wildness' of the Yellowstone Bison herd is a subtle distinction, but an important one nonetheless. In all honesty, a case CAN be made against calling this herd wild. The wildness of the Yellowstone herd has been compromised over the years and continues to be compromised. The invisible boundry that they are chased across and slaughtered for transgressing is in effect a fence. The management of this herd has been heavy-handed since the creation of the park, and back in the day the herd was even hand-fed by park staff. One of the things that I belief draws the line between domesticated and wild bison is whether or not they are able to exist without the support or hinderance of mankind. We advocates like to make reference to the fact that the anscestry of this herd reaches back to the 23 remaining bison that were left after the slaughter of the 19th century. However, any bison that hasn't been genetically engineered of out synthetic material can also claim to be descended from wild bison. So you are right that they share a background. In my mind however, the domestication of an animal affects it's spirit in such that it becomes dependant on us, and in the ability it has to exist without our interference. The Yellowstone herd, while certainly not dependant on a species that would slaughter it for migrating towards it's own feeding grounds, is still being interfered with and treated as property. Were your bison to be freed tomorrow, there is a great chance they would survive on their own, if they were allowed to, and their lifetimes in captivity would not neccesarily have altered them in any fundamental way. Until that day they are domesticated; and as such the Yellowstone bison has been largely domesticated. The wildness that is symbolized in the Yellowstone herd is of great signifigance in that it is a symbolic connection to our own wildness; to our indigenous natures. Having bred with bison that had been born and raised in the wild; having descended from bison that have been hand fed by humans; that does not affect a creature's wildness. Having been fenced and denied the right to roam; that does. A fence and food may not alter independant spirit, but while that fence is there, indpendance and freedom are being denied. What we are fighting for is that last link to the wild that your bison no longer have. To many it can seem too symbolic, and indeed it largely is. The Yellowstone herd symbolizes a link to the past; it symbolizes wildness itself to many indigenous people in this land. The American government has long realized that; and statements were made in Congress in the 19th century that argued the extermination of the wild bison was the surest route to the extermination of the Indian. Such an extermination almost happened, and the same forces are still fighting today to make that extermination happen. To say that all bison are the same; that there is no domestic or wild deliniation is to concede this battle, and complete the extermination. This is not a battle we are willing to concede. That symbolism portrays a real connection that we have to Mother Earth. The buffalo are more than the spirit of America. To me they are the spirit of independance and freedom itself. And that spirit deserves much more respect than we have given it. Kalanu
Used Water Heaters - Worth The Effort?
I currently have three clients waiting for me to install biodiesel processors as soon as I find them used water heaters. We used to advertise on the website that we could provide used water heaters from time to time for $50. This seemed like a good idea at the time. The first one we installed we bought for $10 from a friend who had it in his backyard. The second I found out with the trash behind my neighborhood public school. The third and fourth I got from a plumber. All easy to find and easy to take home. Only one of the four had leaks.` And only one of the four was actually usable. Converting a used hot water heater to a biodiesel processor involves taking out the dip tube and anode rod from the top, and swapping the 220V element for a 110V element. Any or all of these things can prove impossible to remove. The first hot water heater I ever worked on at Lost Valley took the labor of four people, a plethora of tools and several days to remove the 220V element. I stripped the element on one of the units I brought home last week and now it will never come out. The second unit had a very bizzare old-style element that didnt even appear removable. Now I have three hot water heaters to take to the dump. And I have nothing to offer to customers. That's why I was happy to get the job that I did today. These customers had their own hot water heater. I figured if anything were to go wrong, the onus would not be on me. I would not be promising them a biodiesel processor and delivering a bunch of pipes and fitting protruding from a pump with nowhere to go... And things did go wrong. The dip tube was threaded in there so tight that a blow-torch was needed to get it loose. Unfortunately, in the process the plastic dip tube melted and fell into the water heater, where if biodiesel were to be made in it, the plastic would contaminate the fuel. Luckily, these guys were resourceful, had 55 gallon drums and knew how to weld. Within a half hour of scapping the water heater idea, they had cut the bottoms off two barrels and welded them together. Then we had a vessel with two bungs on the bottom and two on the top.  I then had the brilliant idea to thread the 110V element into a 2" bushing and thread that into the 2" bung on the bottom. This was an alternative to welding a new bung in the side and threading the element into the side. Turns out I wasnt the first person to think of it, though. When i got home I opened my copie of Maria Alovert's Biodiesel Homebrew Guide, and it was one of her old designs. We have given it new life, I guess. And I dont imagine we're the only ones doing it, used hot water heaters being so unreliable. The 3/4" bung on the bottom became the output and the two bungs on top became input and vent. Later it will be wrapped in insulation. They also plan to weld a conical bottom on it. That is if they dont find a stainless steel tank first. These fellas is serious!! I bet that thing'll look completely different in a few days...  Here's a shot of it almost complete. It was dark when I left and could not get a shot of them filling the tank with oil; a process that involved filling 4 gallon cubbees 20 times. A metered pump is now on their shopping list. Another reason why maybe I should put a site tube back on the kits...
Who's Greasin?
Someone on the Greasecar forum recently posted the question; What do you do for a living?It's not always my favorite question, as I consider myself more of a writer, an activist, a minister and a WVO technician that anything else, though I make money doing things that aren't nessesarily my passion. (That's changing. Buy a biodiesel processor and ask me how ;) Anywho, here's a list of some of the professions found on that forum thread of people who use WVO in their vehicles. I've also gone through the news articles found at my website (WVO in the News) and found some more professions to add to the list. As you can see, we're not all radical anarchists and peace-loving hippies. More than a few active military members post on the forums. Naval Shipyard Crane Operator/Instructor Student Farm worker Diesel mechanic Computer Programmer Registered Nurse Cartographer Real estate profiteer Medical student Community Organizer Restaurant Owner Dancer/Instructor Turtle Trooper (Game Warden) school bus driver international janitor teacher Haliburton offshore drilling employee Network Administrator RCMP webmaster bioanalytical chemist in the field of neuroscience Musician Circus performers Music Therapist Animal Trainer General contractor
Latest MamaG Developments
Our main focus these days is getting MamaG ready to get back out onto the road. Much planning has been happening lately. During our last trip to Portland we stopped into Scraps, which if I recall correctly stands for Student and Community Recycling Action Program. They stock mostly recycled items suitable for crafts. At this wonderful place we found carpet tiles, which, like the crazy backwards people that we are, we will be carpeting the ceiling of MamaG with. My research into home heating with WVO led me into considering putting a small oil furnace in MamaG, which led me to discover something called a diesel fired coolant heater. Here's an example and another. These are apparently the two most common brands. So the idea is here that I install this breadbox sized unit under the truck, plumb it into the coolant system, and it will pre-heat my coolant, allowing me to start the truck on WVO without driving aroung at 10mpg to heat the engine. Not only that, and here comes the exciting part, as if that wasn't exciting enough, we plan to further utilize this device as part of a radiant floor heat system in the camper part of MamaG. So, what that means is, we fire up this little device, and at the rate of about a quarter of a gallon of diesel (or biodiesel, some conditions apply) it heats the coolant, which runs through PEX tubing which lies between the floor of the camper and another false floor above it, heating the camper without the aid of radiators or other things which would take up space. I have yet to read of anyone figuring out how to burn WVO in these things, and many have told me not to even think about it, but I'm sure someone somewhere at some point in the future will figure out the trick to this. In the meantime, it's a way to heat with biodiesel (with the addition of a vegtherm and what not) and to reduce the amount of diesel and biodiesel required for start-up. Stay tuned for more info on this.
WVO For Home Heating
So from what I've been learning, home heating oil is diesel #2 with a red dye added. (I've never had a home that was heated this way). That means the deal is the same as it would be for cars;put B100 right in (slowly wean your furnace onto it, changethe rubber out, etc, not as simple as it sounds, but simple enough) or heat WVO to reduce viscousity. I am becoming obsessed with this idea. Standard oil furnaces can be converted to run WVO and there are several designs (DIY and commercial) out there for oil stoves and burners built specifically for WVO. Here is a pretty straight-forward posting I found on http://biodiesel.infopop.cc (an unending source of magic and wisdom that site is...) Scroll down past the bottom of this article for more links on using WVO for home heating. I add to this list as I find them. Burning 100% Waste Vegetable Oil in a standard oil fired furnace.Disclamer: The information below is simply what I have done to burn WVO. I experiment with many things; If you copy these experiments burning WVO, and do not follow the laws of physics; you may cause damage to property and it could injure you or cause death. If you alter your oil furnace in any way, you are probably breaking the law and you run the risk of burnig down your house and killing someone. Most Burner Technicians will warn you not to do what I describe below. How it works; Viscosity is the main issue in getting the WVO to atomize in the burner. By heating the oil up to 250 F at the nozzel; the WVO burns easily and cleanly. I filter my WVO to 5 microns and store it in a tank next to my standard #2 Home heating oil tank in my basement. From here the fuel line goes to a Heated Filter (which is a standard oil tank filter, heated to about 110 F) On the feed tube and nozzel; I have 2 band heaters that heat the oil to 250F. Simple enough........... but lots of details make it work ! Depending on what kind of WVO you are collecting/using, you need to keep the work/storage/burner area at a temperature above about 55 F otherwise the oil become too thick to flow. I heat my “in line standard filter” with hot water from my boiler; if you have a hot air system, you may want to use a large electric band heater to keep the filter at about 110 F. The burner oil pump needs to be kept above 70 F or so. This can be done by may different methods. One is to bolt a plate with cartridge heaters in it to the face of the pump; another way is to make a insulated box around the pump. The nozzel and feed tube are heated with two 150 watt band heaters; the temperature is controlled by a thermocouple style temperatrue controller . The band heaters are fitted to the feed tube and nozzel using two adapters made of alumimun or brass. PARTS LIST: and SUPPLIERS: Filter Bags: as required ; Polyester felt, 18”lg x 7”dia, 5 micron , McMaster Carr #9830K11, $1.77 each Band Heater: qty = 2, 1” ID x 1.5 “ long, 150 watts each, McMaster Carr #3594K2, $12.00 each Band heater Adapter, Feed Tube: Brass rod, 1.0 OD x 1.5 Long, drilled thru with .404 drill and a 10-32 set screw added to hold it in place. Band heater Adapter, Nozzel: Brass rod, 1.0 OD x 1.5 long, drilled thru .708” Nozzel Holder: From your existing burner or buy from Controls Depot .com Modify by turning down to .709” in lathe. Band heater Adapter, Nozzel is then press fit over the modified nozzel holder. Temperature controller: Any thermocouple reading controller will work ; digital is more expensive than an analog unit. E-bay item. $20 to $100 In-Line Oil Filter: F4B filter housing and replaceable filer element........Standard to the industry, Home Depot item or from Controls Depot.com on line. $15 to $25 Replaceable elements $0.65 to $3.00 depending on your purchase location. In-line Oil Filter heater: band heater from McMaster Carr or some creative idea. In-Line Oil Filter heater, temperature controller: Can use a hot water heater thermostate; salvage, or Home Depot $20 Oil Burner Hardware, Nozzels, Gaskets, Filters, Electrodes, Firo-Matic Valves etc: Controls Depot.com Nice on line store............ they presume you are a Licenced Professional Burner Technician......... do not ask dumb questions However they will sell to anyone with a credit card......... Ok still there after the disclamer?? I find that all of the safety controls still work as desgned; that and the reliability is why I modified my burner rather than use a truely home built burner that you must baby sit while it is running. I have run the system for 9 months now; and yes early on it had failed to fire up onec and a while , but the safety controls shut down the system if it does not see a good flame. I hope this helps; Be sure to e-mail me be7575@110.net if you want to talk off line. Regards, Eric Here are some more links on this topic:http://www.motherearthnews.comhttp://www.biodiesel.org/markets/hom/ (From the National Bio-Diesel Board Site) http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel_library/ethanol_motherearth/me4.html (Mother Earth News' Waste Oil Heater) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/altfuelfurnace/http://groups.yahoo.com/group/vegoilburners/Babington BurnersWasteWatts ForumHow to Build a Babington Burner
Spreading The Word In Portland
Dreamer Propulsion made the long drive up the 5 to Portland this weekend to install a biodiesel processor for a customer in Beaverton. It could have gone better, to be honest. We didn't have the titration kit that we promised, and had to ship it out to him after the fact, and we had forgotten to bring the temperature gauge, a part that we couldn't find anywhere in Beaverton. That also needed to be shipped. I had also hoped to do most of the assembling the night before, but it took us so long to get packed up that I couldn't get around to it and the install ended up taking four hours. But I learn from these mistakes, and never again will I leave the house without making sure that the entire processor kit is in the truck and I am ready to show up and do a professional job. The day after the install there was a street fair on Mississippi St, so we set up a booth and spent the day talking biodiesel and WVO to passersby. One fellow was had never even heard of biodiesel, and was completely blown away to realize that we fuel our car with other people's garbage. He was so thrilled he was jumping up and down and yelling 'No way!'. The biggest question of the fair was 'can I convert my oil furnace to run on biodiesel or wvo?' I was embarrassed that i had to answer that with "I'm not too sure about that at all." My understanding up to this point was that certain kerosene heaters were equipped to burn diesel and could thus handle biodiesel, but they were smelly, noisy, torpedo style things that you really would only want in a garage or during construction of a house. As soon as I got home I began to research, and so far I found this forum groups.yahoo.com/group/altfuelfurnace that discusses converting a forced air furnace to WVO. I have yet to receive permission from the moderator to view the posts, but when I do, you can bet I'll be sharing my findings here and at www.veggie-fuel.org.
Biodiesel is not the answer
I am not one of those zealots who believes that biodiesel is the answer to our over consumption of petro-fuel. Over consumption is the key term here. the only 'answer' to the fact that we consume too much energy is to reduce our consumption. As a nation, we drive too much. I too am just as guilty. I use waste vegetable oil in my car because I rely on it to take me to work, and I am converting our RV to waste vegetable oil because we are nomads, it is our home and we feel we must travel. The fact of the matter is, there is nowhere near enough vegetable oil in this country, new or used, to substitute for petroleum. I doubt there is enough of any alternative. The biodiesel you buy at the pump doesnt deserve to be called biodiesel most of the time. It's called B20, because it's 20% biodiesel and 80% dinodiesel. Not reneweable at all. The majority of B100 sold in this country is made with new seed oil. So think about what this fuel is. Machinery powered by dinodiesel helps to grow seed on farmland covered with pesticide and chemical fertilizer. Then it's processed with methanol and lye, more toxic chemicals, then it is loaded into dinodiesel drinking trucks and driven to wherever it is that you buy it. How then is this a renewable fuel? Until Sequential Biodiesel started making B100 from used cooking oil at their new plant in Salem, all the bioodiesel on the west coast was shipped from the midwest. How is that renewable? Right now, the only renewable fuel is used vegetable oil. But once our use exceeds the available used cooking oil,it stops being renewable. With the growing popularity of biodiesel (thanks to the rising price of dinodiesel) we are poised to surpase that availablity, then we no longer have a renewable fuel. Americans over over a billion gallons of petroleum a day! The entire annual output of waste fat (vegetable and animal) in this country is estimate to be around a billion and a half gallons. That means that if all the waste oil were to be absorbed into the fossil fuel market, a year's worth would be consumed in just over a day. Sequential is hoping to produce a million gallons of biodiesel per year. In Oregon, we consume a million gallons of petro-diesel per day. So no, biodiesel is not an answer at all. So, where does Dreamer Propulsion fit into the biofuels advocacy scene? Well, if you have to drive, you have options. And for now, the use of waste vegetable oil is a renewable option. It's also an affordable one, and for someone like me who usually earns below the poverty line, that's good news. We don't however, advocate the use of biodiesel made from new seed crop. Soybeans are a big business in this country, and biotech nightmare firms like Monsanto are hoping to profit from the biodiesel craze. Using new seed oil promotes the use of GMOs, pesticides, herbicides and chemical fertilizers. However, if you don't have access to waste oil (and I'd urge you to look harder) then it is a better option that fossil fuels. I just wouldn't go so far as to call it a solution. Here's a rather popular article about the folly of biodiesel advocacy. The adoption of biofuels would be a humanitarian and environmental disaster By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 22nd November 2004 If human beings were without sin, we would still live in an imperfect world. Adam Smith’s notion that by pursuing his own interest a man “frequently promotes that of … society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it” and Karl Marx’s picture of a society in which “the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all” are both mocked by one obvious constraint. The world is finite. This means that when one group of people pursues its own interests, it damages the interests of others. It is hard to think of a better example than the current enthusiasm for “biofuels”. Biofuels are made from plant oils or crop wastes or wood, and can be used to run cars and buses and lorries. Burning them simply returns to the atmosphere the carbon which the plants extracted while they were growing. So switching from fossil fuels to biodiesel and bio-alcohol is now being promoted as the solution to climate change. Next month the British government will have to set a target for the amount of transport fuel that will come from crops. The European Union wants 2% of the oil we use to be biodiesel by the end of next year, rising to 6% by 2010 and 20% by 2020.(1) To try to meet these targets, the government has reduced the tax on biofuels by 20 pence a litre, while the EU is paying farmers an extra 45 euros a hectare to grow them. Everyone seems happy about this. The farmers and the chemicals industry can develop new markets, the government can meet its commitments to cut carbon emissions, and environmentalists can celebrate the fact that plant fuels reduce local pollution as well as global warming. Unlike hydrogen fuel cells, biofuels can be deployed straight away. This in fact was how Rudolf Diesel expected his invention to be used. When he demonstrated his engine at the World Show in 1900, he ran it on peanut oil. “The use of vegetable oils for engine fuels may seem insignificant today,” he predicted. “But such oils may become in course of time as important as petroleum.”(2) Some enthusiasts are predicting that if fossil fuel prices continue to rise, he will soon be proved right. I hope not. Those who have been promoting these fuels are well-intentioned, but wrong. They are wrong because the world is finite. If biofuels take off, they will cause a global humanitarian disaster. Used as they are today, on a very small scale, they do no harm. A few thousand greens in the United Kingdom are running their cars on used chip fat. But recycled cooking oils could supply only 100,000 tonnes of diesel a year in this country,(3) equivalent to one 380th of our road transport fuel. It might also be possible to turn crop wastes such as wheat stubble into alcohol for use in cars – the Observer ran an article about this on Sunday.(4) I’d like to see the figures, but I find it hard to believe that we will be able to extract more energy than we use in transporting and processing straw. But the EU’s plans, like those of all the enthusiasts for bio-locomotion, depend on growing crops specifically for fuel. As soon as you examine the implications, you discover that the cure is as bad as the disease. Road transport in the United Kingdom consumes 37.6 million tonnes of petroleum products a year.(5) The most productive oil crop which can be grown in this country is rape. The average yield is between 3 and 3.5 tonnes per hectare.(6) One tonne of rapeseed produces 415 kilos of biodiesel.(7) So every hectare of arable land could provide 1.45 tonnes of transport fuel. To run our cars and buses and lorries on biodiesel, in other words, would require 25.9m hectares. There are 5.7m in the United Kingdom.(8) Switching to green fuels requires four and half times our arable area. Even the EU’s more modest target of 20% by 2020 would consume almost all our cropland. If the same thing is to happen all over Europe, the impact on global food supply will be catastrophic: big enough to tip the global balance from net surplus to net deficit. If, as some environmentalists demand, it is to happen worldwide, then most of the arable surface of the planet will be deployed to produce food for cars, not people. This prospect sounds, at first, ridiculous. Surely if there was unmet demand for food, the market would ensure that crops were used to feed people rather than vehicles? There is no basis for this assumption. The market responds to money, not need. People who own cars have more money than people at risk of starvation. In a contest between their demand for fuel and poor people’s demand for food, the car-owners win every time. Something very much like this is happening already. Though 800 million people are permanently malnourished, the global increase in crop production is being used to feed animals: the number of livestock on earth has quintupled since 1950.(9) The reason is that those who buy meat and dairy products have more purchasing power than those who buy only subsistence crops. Green fuel is not just a humanitarian disaster; it is also an environmental disaster. Those who worry about the scale and intensity of today’s agriculture should consider what farming will look like when it is run by the oil industry. Moreover, if we try to develop a market for rapeseed biodiesel in Europe it will immediately develop into a market for palm oil and soya oil. Oilpalm can produce four times as much biodiesel per hectare as rape, and it is grown in places where labour is cheap. Planting it is already one of the world’s major causes of tropical forest destruction. Soya has a lower oil yield than rape, but the oil is a by-product of the manufacture of animal feed. A new market for it will stimulate an industry which has already destroyed most of Brazil’s cerrado (one of the world’s most biodiverse environments) and much of its rainforest. It is shocking to see how narrow the focus of some environmentalists can be. At a meeting in Paris last month, a group of scientists and greens studying abrupt climate change decided that Tony Blair’s two big ideas – tackling global warming and helping Africa – could both be met by turning Africa into a biofuel production zone. This strategy, according to its convenor, “provides a sustainable development path for the many African countries that can produce biofuels cheaply”.(10) I know the definition of sustainable development has been changing, but I wasn’t aware that it now encompasses mass starvation and the eradication of tropical forests. Last year the British parliamentary committee on environment, food and rural affairs, which is supposed to specialise in joined-up thinking, examined every possible consequence of biofuel production – from rural incomes to skylark numbers – except the impact on food supply.(11) We need a solution to the global warming caused by cars, but this isn’t it. If the production of biofuels is big enough to affect climate change, it will be big enough to cause global starvation. www.monbiot.com References: 1. The European Union, 8th May 2003. Directive 2003/30/EC: On the Promotion of the Use of Biofuels or Other Renewable Fuels for Transport. Official Journal L 123 , 17/05/2003 P. 0042 – 0046. 2. Eg Monsanto, no date. The Biodiesel Revolution. http://www.monsanto.co.uk/biofuels/071202.html. 3. British Association for Biofuels and Oils, no date. Memorandum to the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution. http://www.biodiesel.co.uk/press_release/royal_commission_on_environmenta.htm 4. Robin McKie, 21st November 2004. Forget the tiger. Put some mushrooms in your tank . The Observer. 5. Department for Transport, 2004. Petroleum Consumption: by Transport Mode and Fuel Type. http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/groups/dft_transstats/documents/page/dft_transstats_031767.pdf 6. Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Crops for Energy Branch, 17th November 2004. Pers comm. 7. ibid. 8. Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, 2004. Agriculture in the UK 2003. http://statistics.defra.gov.uk/esg/publications/auk/2003/chapter3.pdf 9. Lester R. Brown, 1997. The Agricultural Link: How Environmental Deterioration Could Disrupt Economic Progress. Worldwatch Paper 136. The Worldwatch Institute, Washington DC. 10. Dr Peter Read, 20th October 2004. Good news on climate change. Abrupt Climate Change Strategy Workshop. Press Release. http://www.accstrategy.org/goodnews.html 11. House of Commons Committee on Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, 29 October 2003. Seventeenth Report. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200203/cmselect/cmenvfru/929/92902.htm
Green Fates Conspire Against Us
Dreamer Propulsion suffered somewhat of a disapointment last weekend when vehicle troubles (oh the irony!) forced us to cancel our trip to the SolWest Renewable Energy Fair in John Day, Oregon. Our plan was to drive MamaG, The Box Truck RV which is not yet running on vegetable oil, but was vital to the cause because we needed to transport a biodiesel processor and various other elements of our veggie-fuel booth. MamaG is not a small vehicle, as you can see from the picture. Not only that, but the 6.5L TurboDiesel engine that she has under the hood is the same engine to be found in the diesel Hummer. I would venture also to guess that MamaG is a bit heavier than a Hummer, and that would explain why she only gets 10mpg. The irony of driving such a vehicle to a renewable energy fair to promote biofuel was not lost on us, but our veggie fueled Mercedes was simply not big enough to carry the processor, our tables, tents, hand-outs, cooking gear, etc. We figured however that it was a worthwhile sacrifice to make to help other people kick their petroleum addiction. The engine gods thought otherwise. The first obstacle was a melted battery terminal, caused by a dead short that I could not for the life of me locate, until I remembered that I had disconnected the invertor in the back of the truck to install the dinette/bed combo and had just left the wires dangling. Oops. Luckily, it was just a side terminal melted, and after reconnecting the invertor I was able to buy a new ground cable and attach to the top terminal on the battery. The second obstable occurred after I had installed the FSD, a computer brain thingamajig that regulates the electronic fuel injection pump. The old FSD was mounted on the injection pump, a very hot place to put delicate electronics, but that's what happens when you let accountanst design engines. Anyway, the ineveitable overheating of this device causes the truck to hesitate and stall. Luckily, this is a problem that a whole small industry has sprung up to correct, and a wide array of products are available to mount the replacement FSD in a cooler location. I had chosen the wheel well of the truck, which may turn out to be as dumbass a place to put it as the injection pump, but I will be moving it, once I recieve the heat sink that I should have ordered in the first place. Anyway, after installing the new part, I started the truck up, put it into gear, and promptly stalled as I pulled out of the driveway. After a few attempts, I was able to get the truck started and back into the driveway again. This time I knew the stalling was not FSD related, and after flipping through the trouble shooting manual, started with the most obvious culprit. Yes, the fuel filter was clogged. (It wasn't when I first diagnosed the FSD problem, so I didn't waste $500 swapping out parts). So I pulled the filter and noticed that the housing wasn't draining. This should have also given me more time to remember to put something under the truck to catch the diesel, but my memory doesn't always function correctly, and I don't always clue into the signs around me. After flipping through the trouble shooting manual once more and posting a few questions on the GMC Diesel forum, I pulled out my hand vacuum pump and manually drained the filter housing. I pumped the offending diesel into a clear jug, where it was plain to see that glycerine, the remnants of my first biodiesel experiment, had fallen out of the unwashed biodiesel (always wash your biodiesel!) and had made it's way up from the tank (or at least cut your fuel pickup hose so that it doesnt draw from the bottom of the tank) and clogged the fuel filter hosing. So I blew out the housing, put in a new filter, started it up and then decided to go make sure i had installed the FSD properly. I do a lot of research before I attempt home repairs, but sometimes not enough, which is why I continue to do research even after the repair. Some searching around brought me to the advice that I should NEVER remote mount the FSD without a heat sink, not unless I want it to fail again after a few hundred miles. I had thought that the remote mount was enough, that the Injection pump was causing the overheating. But it's not that simple. As I write it now I understand it less. Turns out the FSD produces it's own heat, and the liquid flowing through the injection pump actually cools the unit down. However, being located in the engine compartment means that any attempt to cool the unit is lost. So one needs to remote mount it outside the engine compartment AND use a heat sink to cool it. Oh damn. Was this post too boring and technical. Anyway, so by them we'd missed a day and a half of the fair and realized we were not fated to go. However, we are working on plans to do biodiesel processor building workshops locally, to make use of all the handouts we printed and the nifty display materials we created. Keep visiting this blog and www.veggie-fuel.org to see how that goes.
www.veggie-fuel.com
Approximately 700 miles on the system now. A corroded and an improperly grounded battery cable were the cause of our electric problems. At a weekend retreat at a mountain hot-spring community we met another greaser from the very same town as us who had converted five vehicles, two of them identical to our three vehicles. He noticed the corrosion as I stood there puzzling over why it wasn't taking a charge. I was surrounded by helpful people who had a bunch of different ideas for what could be wrong, when this guy wanders up and says "It's your battery cable. Trust me, I have one of these cars that I converted to WVO. I'm an electrician and I've been doing these conversions for four years." So I trusted him of course, and the car started right up after he cut the battery cable before the corroded part and attached a make-shift battery terminal. I replaced the battery terminal as soon as I got home. A couple days later it still wouldn't start. Pantara was driving it, and her employer at the Farmer's Market checked the ground cable from the battery and noticed that it needed to be cleaned and grounded tighter to the frame. So, I learn again how important it is to pay attention to the little details. So this guy at the hot spring was one of many co-incidental meetings with greasers that happen when you have one of these cars. Generally the big bumper stickers or the tell-tale smell lead us to one another, but other times they are more mysterious co-incidences. For instance, by following a link one day on GoodGrease I found a website by a woman who had converted her 2001 Jetta to WVO. Tonya has written a great journal about her conversion, and her site details many other fascinating projects that she's into, such as a How To Spin Fire Poi DVD, raw food cooking shows she's appeared on, productions she's danced for (my favorite is the national touring company of Stomp, for which she recieved rave reviews), her art and poetry, etc. She's a nomad like myself, only she seems to jet around being in television commericials, dance perforances, videos, etc. She was in Corvallis yesterday, filming a Vegan Bodybuilding DVD in the food co-op where Pantara works. Pantara (who had never heard of Tonya at this point and didn't know that we knew each other somewhat) and Tonya began talking and soon it was revealed that both of them had WVO converted vehicles. Next, Pantara is on the phone to me and hands the phone to Tonya to say hi. We quickly figure out who each other is and have a too-brief chit-chat about WVO (complimenting each other's websites) and sychronicity, and then Tonya hands back the phone, finishes her shoot and jets out of town...
WVO conversions
www.windrift.us/dreamerbiofuels is the name of the new website. Check it out. We just finished converting a Mercedes 300D (for sale) and can convert the 300SD if someone buys it.
Another Shift
By the way, if you happen to read this blog, how about giving me an email to let me know. I wonder sometimes... I've never been able to lead a stable life. I've tried, but it just never seems to be feasible for me. I'm far too restless, not to mention there are other issues of interpersoanl relationships that I am not about to go into now, but sufficed to say, I am always changing plans, always finding somewhere else to be. Some would view this as pathology. As Tolkien (who I've never been a big fan of by the way) would say "Not all who wander are lost." Am I a seeker? Well, in a sense that we all are. I have tried to explain by attachment to nomadic existance, and it has proven a futile effort. This particular road-trip started as a tribute to Hunter S. Thompson, who took his life just as we were starting out from Monatana. As a writerwith inclinations towards impulsive and illogical behaviour, it seemed a fitting theme to the journey. My travel partner and I, however, being polite Canadians that we are, were not able to be as gonzo as purpose required. The most Hunteresque thing we managed to pull off was attending an art lecture and spending most of the lecture in the lobby drinking free wine. It seems however that the ghost of a different writer has been accompanying me on this trip. Our first destination on the trip was an Earth First! organizer's conference, and on the way there we stopped to camp at Arches National Park. It follows logically that the ghost of Edward Abbey, author of The Monkey Wrench Gang and inspiration for the formation of Earth First! as well as the first Ranger of Arches National Park, would follow as us traversed his beloved western desert. Indeed as I saw the damage that humanity has been inflicting on so sacred a place, I felt more of an affinity with that misanthropic anarchist, cursing mankind for spoiling so pristine a place, becoming more and more radicalized as I went. the damage has been inflicted ten-fold on southern california, but as I passed through that area I felt no calling to it all all. Sure, the weather's nice, but there's hardly a scrap of wilderness to hold onto anymore. The desert has remained on the tip of my mind, however. Why, I have been asking myself, am I heading back to yellowstone, when the Sonoron is calling me so strongly. I have been readin Fool's Progress, Abbey's last novel, and feeling more and more like I need to turn around and head back to the desert. But what about the buffalo, you might ask? I was on my way back to the buffalo, to a campaign desperately in need of warm bodies, a place where I am valued as a writer (something I have longed for), where plenty of amazing people come and go, and best of all, there is free food and shelter. I said I'd be back there, and I was told my arrival was anticipated. Do I no longer care for the buffalo? The answer is I still care for the buffalo and I will continue to defend them using my pen; writing letters, articles and spreading the word any way that I can. But I have learned something important on this trip; something the ghosts of Hunter and Ed have taught me. I am a writer. Shit, I have been on that path since I was ten years old. Interests come and go for me. Some stay and fade. Could I go back to Montana and work on a single issue for three more months? Maybe, but not without feeling that something out here was calling to me. What doesn't fade is my desire to write. My plan, if I choose to accept it, is to follow through on my dream of creating a magazine. That magazine's focus will be the positive things that people are doing to protect the planet and each other, and will contain also information relevant to activists of all kinds. Sunstroke is a publication of hope, and will explore this changing world and the ways that people are putting it into context, always communicating that our efforts in whatever field are only made possible by our ability to take care of ourselves and have fun while we're here.
Road Trip
On Feb. 14 I left BFC for a short road trip to Tucson and beyond, hoping to take two to three weeks. Over three weeks later, and here I am in Corvallis, Oregon, still over 1000 miles away (via Seattle so that I can avoid hitching in Idaho). First things first, cause I'm not sure how long I'll have for this blog today. The days of my tripping around the country with no purpose or destination are over, for now at least. It wouldn't be inaccurate to say that this trip has radicalized me. My first stop, (after camping in and around Arches National Park, Canyonlands National Park and Canyon Deshelley Monument) was an Earth First! organizers conference near Tombstone, Arizona. For those of you not familiar with Earth First!, they are a radical environmental organization with a 'no compromise' position in regards to defending the earth. Mostly known for it's "Monkey Wrenching" of machinery used to rape the earth in industries such as logging and mining, Earth First! is an organization of non-members, with no leadership stucture. Direct action involves not just sabotaging industry, but also includes media outreach, lobbying and public education. There is however, a belief that it may be against the law, but not immoral, to dismantle the machinery of death and destruction. Anyway, what is a radical environmentalist philosophy? In my own case, I believe that not only should we be protecting all the wilderness that is left in the world, but we should also be re-wilding much of it. That means not only building no more roads, dams, factories, etc, but dismantling what already exists to allow biodiversity to revitalize. It's not a 'reasonable' set of demands. If it was all that environmentalists asked for we'd be in worse shape than we already are. Compromises are made and for the most part need to be made as oppossed to nothing being done at all. Ther needs to be a radical vanguard that refuses to adopt a compromised position, that speaks the truth and talks not just of what can be done, but what should be done. A friend of mine sums it up well in saying that he seeks to make the Sierra Club look reasonable. If we have to compromise, we might as well start bargaining from as wild as we can. On the way to Arizona we saw cows. Lots of cows. Cows in the desert. Cows in the mountains. Cows where you would least expect them to be. Cows everywhere. The livestock industry is already on my shit-list for in complicity in the buffalo slaughter, but when I saw cows grazing under saquaro cactus in the sacred Sonoran desert, I damn near lost it. At this year's Environmental Law conference in Eugene last week i attended a few panels and presentations on the ecological impacts of cattle grazing in this country. I'm not going to get into it here, but needless to say these cows gotta go. Ok, I'll get into it a bit. I learned a few facts like most of the water we use in this country goes into agriculture, and more of the crops we grow get fed to cattle. Cattle are on 85% OF National Forest. The other 15% is likely vertical. Anyway, these are the kinds of things that radicalize is, aren't they? Not just the facts, but seeing the damage with our own eyes. I love the Sonoron desert. It's one of my favourite places in the country. I'm amazed by the biodiversity there, and appalled by the utter lack of disrespect for that diversity being displayed there. That's what is is that fuels our activism. Not just abstract concepts of wilderness, but actual wilderness that we can feel and fall in love with and never wish to see spoiled. I am becoming a warrior of sorts, and I know it is my path...
The Legacy Of Walking Coyotes Orphans
An article I wrote for our new in-house newsletter.
Subtitled "a brief critique of early bison conservation"
This particular story begins in the late 1870’s when a Pend d'Oreille man named Samuel Walking Coyote brought two bull and two cow buffalo back to the Flathead Reservation (near Missoula) after a visit with the Blackfeet in Northern Montana. The most popular explanation for where these buffalo came from is that they simply wandered up to him while he was hunting near the Milk River. Another story tells that he married a Blackfoot woman during this hunting trip and, already married to a woman on the Flathead reservation, took the buffalo home to atone for his sins
This was the first in many controversies that would lead up to the current situation in Yellowstone Park and the near extinction and reintroduction programs of the Wood Buffalo in Canada.
Historically, this is also one of the events that helped bring the plains buffalo back from the brink of extinction.
By 1884, Walking Coyote’s herd had grown to 12 or 13 animals. These buffalo were then sold to Charles Allard and Michael Pablo, also of the Flathead Reservation.
Pablo and Allard also bought 26 buffalo from C.J “Buffalo” Jones, a rancher from Kansas who had achieved fame as a buffalo hunter and hunting guide, and who would go on in 1902 to become the game warden in charge of the Yellowstone herd.
It was also in 1902 that Yellowstone Park acquired 18 buffalo cows from the Pablo-Allard herd. These buffalo, along with three bulls donated by Charles Goodnight from Texas, were raised in an enclosed pasture near Mammoth and eventually became part of the Lamar Valley and Hayden Valley herds.. They were kept as ranched animals, herded daily from enclosure to pasture. They contracted brucellosis from cattle kept at the ranch to provide meat and milk to park visitors.
Back at the Flathead Reservation, Anglo ranchers were leading a propaganda campaign to convince Montanans that the natives were wasting grazing and timber resources. In the years leading up to the Land Allotment Act of 1910, Anglo businessman began buying up Flathead land.
By this point, Allard had died and his heirs had sold his portion of the herd to Charles Conrad. Conrad’s herd later went on to form the nucleus of the National Bison Range.
As fences were build around the allotments, Pablo’s buffalo became more and more restricted in their range, until finally, in 1907, Pablo was forced to sell the herd.
Pablo tried to sell his herd to the U.S. government, and had he been able to, the Canadian Wood Bison might still be disease free and genetically pure.
When it was discovered that there were only 23 plains buffalo left in the entire country, W.T. Hornaday, a taxidermist for the Smithsonian Institute, formed the American Bison Society. Hornaday might not have realized how few buffalo were left until it was almost too late. He slew 24 of them in his efforts to provide specimens for the museum.
In co-operation with the U.S. government the society set about reintroducing buffalo to parks and ranches across the country.
The American Bison Society would have liked to see Pablo’s herd remain in Montana, but the government didn’t like his terms.
In the same year the American Bison Society attempted to establish a herd of buffalo in the Adirondack Mountains. The appropriations bill made passed both houses of legislature, but wisely vetoed by the Governor of New York.
By the turn of the 20th century, the Canadian Wood Bison (bison bison athabascae) had also suffered its share of slaughter and was believed to number less than 500.
In 1907 the Canadian government decided to buy Pablo’s herd of 600+ plains buffalo and transport them to Elk Island National Park, near Edmonton. Two years later, all but 45 buffalo were shipped north to Buffalo National Park near Wainwright.
It took five years and 75 professional cowboys to round up the buffalo and ship them by train and riverboat. This round-up lives on still as a widely told chapter in American cowboy adventures.
In 1922 Wood Buffalo National Park was formed near the border of Alberta and Northwest Territories to protect the last of the Wood Bison.
The wood bison (bison bison athabascae) is darker, taller and less stockier subspecies of the plains buffalo.
By 1925 the plains bison population in Buffalo NP had exceeded its carrying capacity and one of the most idiotic decisions in bison management history was made. Some idiotic politician had the brain-fart that it would be a good idea to send the 6000+ surplus plains buffalo up to Wood Buffalo National Park.
Maxwell Graham, the Director of the Dominion Parks Branch, never accepted the possibility that there were two distinct sub-species. He also didn’t accept the possibility that they would spread brucellosis and tuberculosis to other wildlife. The buffalo were already known to have contracted the diseases from local cattle during their stay in Wainwright.
Regardless, the plan was to put them far enough away from the wood buffalo that the two would never intermingle. As you can imagine, the plan failed, the two (definitely distinct subspecies) intermingled and by the 1950’s it was assumed that the last of the wood buffalo had been absorbed into a plains/wood hybrid.
By the late 1950’s, scientists were able to confirm that the introduced bison had also managed to spread brucellosis and tuberculosis.
The remaining buffalo at Buffalo National Park near Wainwright were eventually all slaughtered to eradicate the diseases. After all that trouble getting them up to the park
In 1959, however, a herd of 200 pure wood bison were found in the northwest corner of WB Park.
In 1963, eighteen healthy wood buffalo from the 200 discovered in WBNP were transported northwest into the Mackenzie River basin of Northwest Territories to establish the Mackenzie Bison Sanctuary.
In 1965 twenty-one more were captured and released into Elk Island National Park near Edmonton.
Soon after it was discovered that some of those buffalo had brucellosis, and an intensive test and slaughter program eradicated the disease from that herd.
The buffalo that remain in Elk Island Park are now used for reintroduction programs around Canada.
An iron fence separates the remaining plains buffalo from the wood buffalo herd.
A bison control area exists between the diseased hybrids in Wood Buffalo National Park and the healthy wood bison in the Mackenzie River Basin.
Any buffalo found in this area are not considered wildlife and do not fall under any management plans. They can be hazed, captured or hunted, and local hunters do not require permits.
Fortunately, not many wander into this zone.
Conservation in the 20th century consisted of creating habitat, capturing, testing, slaughtering, relocating, interbreeding, hand rearing, herding, hunting, vaccinating and radio collaring. An ‘Armageddon’ solution for the WBNP herd was being proposed as late as the 1990’s.
These practices continued into this century. As always, science too often takes a back seat to political influences like industry and settlement, and a logical approach to wildlife management is still an elusive promise.
No one is quite sure how Walking Coyote came to have those buffalo in his possession.
Those four orphan calves, as they passed their legacy from Walking Coyote to the numerous National Parks, Reserves and ranches around North America, have become legendary.
They helped reestablish the buffalo in North America and saved the plains buffalo from extinction.
They also played a part in the ongoing bureaucratic nightmare which saw the last continuously wild plains buffalo herd infected with brucellosis, a new hybrid species created, and the near extinction of the wood buffalo.
The grassroots efforts of groups like Buffalo Field Campaign may herald a new era in bison conservation, one in which all the voices involved have a chance to be herd, including the buffalo themselves.
Seven Buffalo Hazed
Seven buffalo were hazed back into the park last Tuesday. Six bulls from north of the Madison River on the Horse Butte Peninsula, and one bull from near Duck Creek.
I was on patrol to film the haze on the Madison. We hunkered down behind some bushes for a couple hours while the agents got themselves ready. My partner's guess ended up being a bit off, and instead of hazing them along the river, the agents took them along the ridge. This ended up being a hard run for the buffalo, who had to run up the ridge, then down onto the road, then back up the ridge and down and up again. They haven't moved from where they ended up in four days.
I've been quite busy writing. I've had four letters to the editor published, in papers in West Yellowstone, Bozeman, Billings, and Detriot, MI.
I'm also starting an in-house volunteer newsletter called The Bull Sheet. The first issue will be out this coming Thursday.
My recent letter to the West Yellowstone News is my favorite. It's not on the web, so I'll type it up here.
Support of HOBNOB would not violate councilman's oath of office
At the town council meetin of January 6, Council member Jack Clarkson declared his belief that supporting the Horse Butte Neighbors of Buffalo's (HOBNOB) attempts to influence State Legislature would violate his oath to uphold the law.
On the contrary, council would be well within its rights to adopt a resolution urging Legislators to hand bison management over to Fish, Wildlife and Parks.
Instead of considering the requests of it's constituents, council showed disrespect by making uneducated remarks on the issue and refusing to take HOBNOB seriously.
The Montana Department of Livestock has proven over the past ten years that it is incapable of managing wildlife, and has repeatedly violated the propert rights of HOBNOB members by hazing bison on private property.
To these residents, like many of us who have moved to the area to see wildlife, it is abundantly clear that an alternative to the current bison management plan is urgently needed. As representatives of the people, council has a responsibility to seriously consider a resolution, and educate itself on the issues affecting the commmunity.
A Quiet Week
It’s been a fairly quiet week here, with no buffalo out of the park and no government agents in town. We’ve been managing to keep busy, however. The co-ordinators have been busy preparing for a meeting with the governor on Tuesday. They have less than an hour to share their suggestions on bison management, but at least he’s listening.
I got the chance to go on a couple road trips this week, one to a rally in Helena, and the other to the north side of the park to learn about the buffalo situation there and to prepare for upcoming patrols in that area. We drove into the park to see how close the buffalo were to the boundary and saw three different herds of buffalo, hundreds of elk, dozens of mule deer and white-tailed deer, three bald eagles, a hawk, four pronghorn and did I mention elk. Elk everywhere. Now I know why some people consider Yellowstone Park to be the most beautiful part of the country. I urge you to boycott it however, unless you sneak in after the gates close at night.
As well, I got two letters published; one in the Bozeman Chronicle and the other in the Helena Independent Record. One more and I get a free t-shirt. Anyone who gets three letters published gets a t-shirt, so write those letters!
When I got here I thought I’d stay for about a month. Then I decided to stay through spring. Now I’m considering staying through the summer. The buffalo stay in the park during the summer, and so there are only about 10 volunteers that stick around to run information tables in the park. I love to talk to people about the issues, so it's right up my alley. And I haven't been able to garden in many years, so I might have an opportunity to do that if I stay. But who knows.
Sorting Through Propaganda and Lies
This week has seen the Yellowstone bison subject to many front page articles in Montana newspapers. Shortly after the hunt was cancelled, the governor had a conversation with the Billings Gazette in which he proposed running all the buffalo through quaratine and temporarily emptying the park of bison. As we struggled to respond and corrent the out-of-context quotes included with the article, Fish, Wildlife and Parks announced that starting very soon they would be quarantining calves that leave the park, killing those that test postive for brucellosis exposure (of which only 20% are likely to actually test postive for infection) and keeping 200 'healthy' calves which they will use as 'seed stock' for conservation projects.
Keeping up with this nonsense has been tiring. I thought I was up-to-date on the issue, but the news keeps revealing these frankenstein plans that require even more study to debate. Those of us who glean the importance of this herd being left alone don't need scientific fact to explain why such idiotic plans are so damageing. They just obviously are. But we're a media organization, and when agencies like FWP and the Department of Livestock go about things as if they know what they're doing, it's up to us to demonstrate that the science they use to justify their actions is fraudulant, or often enough, non-existant.
No one has yet to fully study family structure in the herd, but it would be quite likely that the way these agencies plan to remove bison from the herd will be highly disruptive. The selective way they plan to go about it is one of the most disruptive things they can do to the family structure of the herd.
My head hurts from trying to understand how to debate these issues. All I know is we shouldn't even have to. These asinine plans are solutions to a problem that isn't even there. The bogus threat of brucellosis is a song we can all sing here. Sometimes we wish we could just shout "LEAVE THE BUFFALO THE FUCK ALONE!!" and make it all go away. Sometimes we wish for mad-cow to wipe out every herd of cattle in the nation. If these idiots could just come out here and look eye to eye with these buffalo as they're chased and killed, maybe they'd come closer to understanding.
The Governor's Insane Plan to Eradicate Brucellosis
This morning we awoke to find an article in the Billings and Helena newspapers outlining the Montana Governors insane plan to eradicate brucellosis by, get this: rounding up all 4200 bison in Yellowstone Park, quarantining them, test them for brucellosis, slaughter those that test negative, and send all others to Indian Reservations and private ranches. Several years later, either the 'healthy' animals (a misnomer because the bison are not sick. The are only carriers of brucellosis) or their offspring will be reintroduced to the park.
If you haven't been following the issue or are unfamilar with the science involved, it still probably sounds ridiculous, but for those of us who have so much time, energy and emotion wrapped up in this issue, we're in a state of deep shock. It's just hard to believe that anyone, especially the governor who we really thought was on our side, could propose such a deplore idea as this. In the history of Buffalo Field Campaign, no one can remember a more idiotic idea ever being presented. The media co-ordinators here are scrambling to respond in a way that expresses their shock, outrage, grief and betrayal with insulting and alienating thr governor, who like it or not still represents one of our best chances of ending the slaughter. We just need to get him to understand a few basic facts that just never seem to get through people's thick skulls.
First is the fact that the is the only continually wild and free-roaming herd left in the country. What this plan will amount to is a complete domestication. Anyway with a half-way rationale regard for nature should realize that a wild animal should not be treated in this manner.
And then there is the asinine reasoning for this plan; reasoning that the BFC have struggled for years to expose as completely bogus and politically motivated. Brucellosis has been used for years as an excuse to slaughter the buffalo and chase them of their winter grazing lands.
What needs to be made absolutely clear is that there has never been a case of brucellosis being transmitted from bison to cattle. And here's why: Cattle graze the land in the summer, and bison in the winter. They are never on the land together, and considering that brucellosis, transmitted when cattle come in contact with birthing matter, only has a lifespan of four hours in direct sunlight, transmission is impossible. So it's always been a non-issue. Really it's been about cattle ranchers not wanting to share forage with bison. They believe their cattle have right to all the grass on public land and they don't want cattle eating it.
But there's more to the governor's absurd plan. The first thing he wants to do is pay the ranchers not to graze their cattle on buffalo habitat and allow the buffalo to roam free starting now and while they round them up for Bison Concentration camp. Minus the idea of paying the ranchers, this is what we've been proposing all along. Tell the ranchers to take their 140 head of cattle and fuck off. Then, the already impossible threat of brucellosis is even further reduced and we can all move on.
But somehow the governor thinks he can eradicate brucellosis entirely. And the next simple fact that makes this impossible is that elk, bear, moose, big horn sheep, coyote, wolf, muskrat, mice and other Yellowstone wildlife all carry brucellosis. Yet they roam freely in and out of the park and only bison are targeted.
So, to be optimistic about this news, it's far too idiotic to ever be taken seriously, but then again, this is America, and look at all the other absurdities this country is involved in.
Please write the governor, remind him that the bison are one of the main reasons 3 million tourists visit Yellowstone every year. Just remind him of the facts, which you can get up to speed on at www.buffalofieldcampaign.org.
Write your local media and Montana and Wyoming media, let them know you know what's going on.
Not Your Normal Buffalo Herd
In the wake of Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer’s decision in early January to cancel the 2005 bison hunt there arose a handful of misunderstandings, the largest in my opinion being in regards to the importance of the Yellowstone herd.
Some have said - But why all the fuss? This isn’t the only herd of bison in the country. Which is quite true. There are many private ranches across the country. Thanks to the efforts of these ranchers, we may never see the bison become an endangered species.
Yet of all the buffalo herds in the country, the Yellowstone bison are the last free-roaming wild herd. All other buffalo exist behind fences, domesticated and confined.
From a certain point of view, the difference is inconsequential; buffalo are buffalo, no matter where or how they live. To a great many people however, there is a vast distinction between a wild and domesticated animal, both in terms of genetic purity and of a certain spiritual connection to the land.
To the First Nations tribes who inhabited the plains prior to European conquest, the buffalo was a provider of food, shelter, clothing and tools. The buffalo led the people into this world and sustained them. As such, the buffalo is not simply an animal, but a relative.
In the traditions of the First People of this land, the four-legged and two-legged creatures are of the same spirit, intrinsically connected. There is a Lakota prophecy that says as long as there are buffalo, the people will survive. When the buffalo are gone, there is no longer hope for the people. This refers not just to the material resources that the buffalo provided, but also a deeper level of protection and affinity with the world around them.
Still, it is not immediately apparent what is to be lost with the Yellowstone herd. Consider for a moment however that all of us on this land, not just those with First Nations heritage, have a sacred connection with the buffalo. To whom do we feel more connected, those buffalo who roam free and unfettered, or those whose existence is that of a kept animal, fenced in and domesticated?
In the 19th century, when the army fought to open the west to white settlement, it became apparent that the First People would continue to be an obstacle to ‘progress’ for as long as buffalo roamed the plains. In the name of ‘civilization’, the buffalo were systematically destroyed, and in a few short decades, there were only 23 bison left, hidden in a remote valley of what is now Yellowstone Park.
Over a hundred years later, the descendants of these survivors still represent a part of this country that has yet to be conquered, caged, indentured, and re-engineered.
Considering the fact that these bison face death at the hands of government agencies when they attempt to access their traditional winter forage grounds, their freedom is tenuous at best.
The idea that the herd is growing unsustainably is sheer fiction, based on a politically derived population cap formulated to satisfy the livestock industry, whose fear of disease transmission is also based on complete fiction. A true scientific study of the park’s capacity to sustain bison has never been undertaken. In determining this number it would also need to be taken into account that the park boundary, itself politically derived, dissects the bison’s traditional winter migration route.
Our relationship with the buffalo has always included hunting. The relationship that the First People had with the buffalo relied heavily on the buffalo giving their lives for the people’s survival. It is a small minority of people who wish the buffalo to never be hunted. It is a sensible and far-thinking approach however to wait until the survival of the herd is not so tenuous. This is a large part of what fair chase hunt means.
The future of the last remaining herd of free roaming bison, whose importance some would say is vital to our own survival and unmediated connection to the earth, is at stake. The importance of this symbolism may not be so obvious or recognizable to those who don’t share the kind of worldview and cosmology as First Nations people, but to disregard this symbolism can be easily seen as a violation of a religious freedom. Which is not to say that we must yield to the beliefs of any one religion or spiritual worldview. What is called for here is an approach that respects all of our freedoms. The freedom of the buffalo to roam freely, the freedom of the First Nations people to honor this connection the earth, and the freedom of the sport hunting population to continue what they regard as a heritage.
I would welcome those who would seek to hunt the buffalo to help create a natural habitat for them. It is in everyone’s best interest to protect the Yellowstone herd from the on-going slaughter at the hands of the Montana Department of Livestock and the National Park Service.
Many hunters seem to be under the impression that the herd needs culling. Were that so, many of us who are opposed to the hunt now might have wanted to actually use the permits we applied for. However, the wild bison population is nowhere near that of other game animals, and whether culling needs to be done or not, it is already happening by the hundreds every year. At the current rate, there may soon be no wild bison left to hunt.
It’s in everyone’s best interests, whether it be to protect their spiritual heritage, to be able to hunt wild game or simply to know there are wild buffalo out there, to educate themselves on the issues beyond what we read in the newspaper and act accordingly.
Buffalo Killed and Attempted Capture
Just found out not ten minutes ago that Yellowstone Park Service killed a female buffalo that had wandered out of the park onto private land. From a BFC press release -
" The buffalo had migrated onto the Royal Teton Ranch (RTR), owned by the Church Universal and Triumphant (CUT). In 1998 the American people spent 13 million tax dollars to purchase 6,770 acres of Church land, and to provide for a conservation easement for buffalo and elk habitat on an additional 1,508 acres.
“The public was lead to believe we had secured critical buffalo habitat,” said Mike Mease, of the Buffalo Field Campaign. “The money has been spent; buffalo should be allowed to access these CUT lands, yet they are still dying by government hands.”
“She was becoming more difficult and more resistant to hazing, moving out of the Park at night,” said NPS spokesperson Cheryl Matthews. “Under the Interagency Bison Management Plan we are required to maintain spatial and temporal separation with domestic cattle. She was becoming unhazable and resistant.”
“Just who does the National Park Service work for anyway?” wondered Stephany Seay of the Buffalo Field Campaign. “Do they work for the interests of livestock ranchers, or the American people and the wildlife they are mandated by law to protect? Killing a buffalo to appease livestock interests runs contrary to their mission. The Department of Interior should replace their buffalo insignia with a domestic cow.”
National Park Service officials said members of CUT did not contact them with complaints about the buffalo. CUT’s Andrew Van denied any knowledge that the buffalo was ever on their land. When asked his personal feelings about a creature being gunned down due to the zero-tolerance of the Church Universal and Triumphant he said, “I have no personal feelings about it.”"
Yesterday I witnessed an attempted capture of the same bull buffalo that I had witnessed being chaed across the highway by a pick-up truck last week. George, as we've taken to calling him, was back out of the park again, and in the same subdivision. The DOL must have gotten a call from one of the residents of that area. Our recons had failed to notice that he was back out of the park. The presence of out-of-town agents alerted us to a possible haze or capture, but we had no idea where the buffalo was.
The agents worked fast. I was part of the Duck Creek Patrol that was watching the DOL headquarters when the agents rolled out on snowmobiles. We followed the sheriff down the highway and watched and noticed he and a DOL agents putting up signs to close the highway. We raced back to the cemetary driveway that faces the subdivision on the other side of the highway, and were hardly out of the car before the buffalo came running down the hill followed by eight snowmobiles. The agents were trying to chase him south towards the capture facility, in the opposite direction of which we came running, video camera in hand. But George has too often proven smarter than the agents, and decided to turn around and head towards the cemetary. At this point George and I were head on, running towards each other. My partners screamed to turn around and get out of the way, but I would not have been able to outrun the buffalo, so I jumped off the road into the waste high snow. George was directly in front of me, not ten feet away, when the DOL agents blocked his path towards the cemetary and tried to turn him back around to go south. For a moment, as George looked over towards me, I thought he was going to join me in the snowbank in an effort to get around the agents. The scene was chaos, with the snowmobiles zoomimg around us and the frightened buffalo trying to figure his way out of this, and I certainly shared his fear.Being in between the buffalo and the snowmobiles, I wasn't sure whether I was going to get out of there without being either trampled or arrested. But he decided instead to just plow on up the highway, and the agents moved aside to avoid being trampled. George up continued up past the cemetary and towards the park, followed by the agents and my partners, who I had handed the camera to while I extricated myself from the snowbank. To make a long story short, George made it back into the park, much to the dissapointent of the agents, who by now must be frustrated by their failed attempts to capture him. Myself, I ended up lying in the snow for fifteen minutes, suffering from severe chest pains and hacking up a storm. Seems I wasn't in shape enough to be running through the snow trying to follow snowmobiles and escape stampedeing buffalo, not without warming up. But one minute we're in the car watching the agents warm up their snow mobile, and the next we're sprinting towards them on the highway as they hassle the buffalo. As I said, they work quickly. Not to mention I'm getting this virus that has been going around camp.
Buffalo Smarter Than Government Agents
Over a week has passed since I arrived at the BFC camp. The temperture here has been around 10-20 degrees, and heavy snow falls every few days, but the wind has been absent and the sun plentiful, so being out on patrols has been quite pleasant.
No buffalo have been captured, killed or hazed (chased back into the park by Montana Department ofLivestock Agents), but I did witness one attempted hazing. It seems that the Buffalo are often times smarter than their enemies. Had the DOL agents gotten to work an hour or so earlier, they might have captured a buffalo last week, but as it turned out, George, the bull buffalo that has been grazing in a subdivision just west of the park, decided to walk the quarter mile or so back into Yellowstone minutes before the DOL Agents arrived on snowmobiles to haze him. This turn of events was further quickened by a cruel-minded home-owner who took it upon himself to chase the buffalo out of his driveway, down the road and across the highway, using his pick-up truck to frighten the animal into a terrified run. Were it not for BFC volunteers being onscene to slow traffic down, George might have met his end at the front grille of an on-coming semi.
A day later, after the out-of-town DOL Agents went home, George was right back in the subdivision, as if he were taunting his would-be captors.
The campaign recieved good news today, as the proposed bison 'hunt' that was scheduled for Jan.15 was cancelled by the new Montana governor. It was only three days after his inaguration that Gov. Swietzer decided that Montana didn't need the black-eye that this hunt was threatening to inflict on the state. Media from all over the world covered the story of the 'hunt', which, as many people noted, would have been as sporting as shooting a parked car or a sofa. The governor is to be applauded for this bold move, and encouraged to continue with efforts to end the much greater slaughter that is being undertaken by the Department of Livestock and Yellowstone Parks Service. He can be contacted at:
Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer
State Capitol
Helena, MT 59620-0801
Phone: 1-406-444-3111
Fax: 1-406-444 5529
E-mail: Governor@state.mt.us
Please let him know you are grateful for what he has done for the buffalo and urge to to help put a stop to the continueing slaughter. Visit www.buffalofieldcampaign.org for tips on letter writing and more details on the campaign.
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