My Take: Conservation, Culture, Ethics & Politics

Illegal Immigration: One Conservationist's View From the Frontline

2007-06-15T14:07:00.000-06:00

By Tony Heath
Published by Birdlandranch.org: April 11, 2007

Spring Migration in Southeastern Arizona

April in the mountains of southeastern Arizona brings a tide of migrant neo-tropical birds. With it comes a feeling of joy as winter yields to a new season of life.

In our spring, native deciduous trees germinate fresh leaves in conventional fashion, as evergreen oaks shed and instantly sprout new. As winter ends we experience an eerie combination of spring and fall, as our house becomes covered in a blanket of brown oak leaves. We are part of a small area of the Lower Forty-Eight included in the sierra madrean occidental, a term used to describe a large geographic area spanning the U.S.-Mexican border.

Around the ides of March, the painted redstart, a small warbler, invariably appears, ushering forth his Jurassic kin in their annual crossing to the north. Overnight, the trees become filled with yellow and black orioles and other migrating songbirds of a prolific variety. Songs as melodious as music itself emanate from all directions in the surrounding woods. Pairs and trios of male Scott’s orioles engage in a lithe frolic through the boughs in what seems like a competition for best song improvisation. Although trying to gently intimidate their compadres, they seem concerned with little more than merrymaking and song. Soon the females arrive, ending the male orioles’ spring break, as responsibility for nest building and parenting take precedence.

Thirteen species of hummingbirds also arrive, descending voraciously on our flowers and feeders in a fanatical clash for territory and sustenance. Pairs square off in vicious dogfights, sometimes falling to the ground in a ball of writhing feathers and crackling as gravity prevails over skilled natural aviators. They are an endless source of fascination and free entertainment.

Nightfall brings the secret movement of owls scraping the land for small rodents and unlucky insects, keeping an eye out for a private enough tree cavity in which to raise some young. Spring is a busy cacophony of bird life—perfect and unthreatening—proof that we still have a wonderful world to hallow and protect.

A Completely Different Species

As inevitable as the northbound birds, the warm southwestern days also bring a river of humanity swelling its banks north through woodlands made more hospitable by turning seasons. Unlike any bird or animal in the forest, this migrant can be dangerous and quite capable of upsetting the gentle harmony of life in our borderlands.

An army of federal law enforcement agents spread out with little distinction through private and public lands, in a Keystone Comic treadmill-quest for the intruders. The human migrants are in pursuit of the U.S. money god, sneaking or being guided through our lands like ghosts in the night—”mohados” marching north, anywhere but home.

The quiet borderlands capitulate to the sound of predator drones. “Mosquito planes” buzz our campfires in search of infrared. Noisy rotor blades chop, and the smell of diesel wafts down over ancient grasslands. Species flee. Doors are locked at night, lights off to dissuade uninvited guests. The rattlesnakes are our sentries. Still, the river keeps moving north, leaving not fertile silt, but plastic bottles and pill containers, abandoned backpacks, old shoes, discarded brassieres, and other unmentionable byproducts of human life. We, the keepers of the forest, are left to pick up after the trespassers—those we are told our economy depends on. We call them illegals, yet we don’t hold them accountable for the damage they do, nor do we hold anybody accountable for tempting them into making the potentially lethal crossing of the desert.

Better Days

When we moved here in 1997, the land was still untainted by illegal immigration. There was not a print, a trail, a runaway campfire or unwanted track shoe on our land or in our fragile vanishing riparian canyons. Encouraged by modern commerce and an overstuffed, overstimulated culture that considers some employment unworthy of success, the mohados flow north in greater numbers than ever.

When I left the city I wanted to spend what I had worked hard to earn in southeastern Arizona, making a small difference, protecting the land from the wreckers of views—the builders and architects and other perpetrators of the slow destruction of my natural history, those that without thinking would sell my land down the river for a quick profit, land that first and foremost belongs to my furred and feathered companions in liberty. Land developers and a growing list of business interests of course welcome the migrating interlopers as fuel for their profit machines.

So they come, encouraged, but still consciously breaking laws we strictly follow. They cross the border dividing our countries, steal through remote areas impossible to police and occasionally even fearlessly approach the house. They waltz into our yard and with disconcerting confidence test us for food and water, as if nothing was out of the ordinary about it. At first we gave them food, then we were told to give them nothing, because word would spread back to Mexico and our nature preserve would become a rest stop on the human freeway. So then we gave them nothing but water. Finally, they entered the house uninvited, helped themselves to our food, cooked themselves a meal and slept in our bed. Later, they stole everything of value they could carry, including my wife’s engagement ring, an irreplaceable saxophone mouthpiece and an antique Navajo bolo with my favorite bird crafted in red stone. How these migrant burglars made it through harsh country to Tucson or Phoenix, carrying sacks of wool blankets, winter coats, kitchen knives, chargers, flashlights, radios, Budweiser cans and all manner of food stuffs, without law enforcement detecting a thing, suggests either their cunning ingenuity or the ineptitude of law enforcement. Needless to say, not an item was ever recovered.

Since that day our alarm has been tripped and our doors broken in. White SUVs come and go and people in green sneak around armed to the teeth. They are always nice polite young men and women, but with little comprehension of life here or its meaning to us. Having little choice, we accommodate them and they are our last line of defense after the expensive alarm and our handguns and pump-shotgun, and strictly agreed-upon courses of action should an undocumented criminal decide to prey on us with law enforcement out of reach. As a former New Yorker, I had been burglarized and nearly mugged, but surely life on this border would not get that bad? Ironically, while the government attempts to enforce our immigration policies, we suffer indignities and inconveniences in the wake of their failure, while others profit illegally with impunity. Something is very wrong.

Rule of Law

I am sympathetic to the people of Mexico who suffer because of a system that will not put its people to work. Ironically, theirs is a land flush with its own natural resources. The reasons are multifaceted, but the remedy is not our responsibility to burden. Built on the rule of law, our country cannot make exceptions for special interests that cannibalize cheap labor for bigger and bigger profits. Illegal immigration also cannibalizes American workers and the benefits naturalized Americans rely on to help makes ends meet in difficult times. In the path of this unregulated human highway, individual citizens in border states suffer with little attention paid by the rest of society. In our case, this means we are unable to enjoy the right to the quiet enjoyment of our home and the sanctity of the surrounding national forest. We are being forced to bear, with no compensation or relief of any kind, the burden of illegal migrations the society supposedly benefits from. We are burglarized. Without our permission, our property is used as a zone for enforcement and apprehension. Agents chasing undocumented individuals interfere with our lives. Drones upset the quiet balance of life in a previously peaceful part of America. Trash clogs our canyons. We are forced to constantly look over our shoulder and sleep with a loaded gun next to our pillow.

Pressing Issues at Home Already

We tolerate people living on our streets, millions without affordable health care or insurance, older Americans destitute without pensions, large segments of the population underemployed, yet in denial, we stealthily usher in an even lower economic class, which, as their first act, consciously breaks the law by sneaking across the border.

It is a well-known fact that the current housing crisis is taking a larger toll on illegal workers. They simply don’t make enough or have the benefits to weather an economic slowdown. By forcing workers to accept slave wages to do our dirty work, we are creating a class of people who will become an even greater liability to us as time passes. The wealth created at the expense of these workers does not trickle down, as evidenced by the last six years and the growing gap between the rich and poor. It is especially unfair to middle-class working Americans. They would do most of the jobs we are told only Latinos will do if only a living wage existed for the work.

Our current economic model suggests a pyramid, enriching people at the top at the expense of those at the bottom, which many of our 12 million unregistered immigrants are now a part. Our illegal population, our shrinking middle class, people like me who are concerned with conservation and sustainability and see resources not being adequately utilized, represent the bottom of a great commercial pyramid in which a relatively few at the top benefit at great expense to society at large.

‘Nation of Immigrants’ a Myth

There is a myth floating around that if we are kind and open to poor illegal immigrants, we are stronger for it and can somehow afford it. I don’t think the average American realizes the tax that especially poorer Americans pay indirectly as a result of illegal workers taking jobs and benefits. This is a departure from yesteryear when large numbers of immigrants were fleeing religious and political persecution and founding a new country.

The argument that the United States of America is a nation of immigrants, or that because we have traditionally taken in the poor and disenfranchised our future depends on it, or that we are morally obliged to keep our current policy, are outdated, unrealistic, simplistic views of life in the twenty-first century. It is absurd to conclude that illegal immigration is not wrong because we need cheap labor or that we must hurt ourselves in order to be sympathetic to our poorer neighbors to the south. Don’t let the powers that be fool you—it has nothing to do with humanitarian justice—only money and profit, as evidenced by the U.S. Senate’s attempt to put job skills over the sanctity of families divided by borders. If the former were true, we would airlift all the refugees in Darfur or other destitute locations on earth into the United States. We cannot take in all people in the world whose lives are challenged by demands placed on them at birth in foreign countries. Certainly not in a world with 6.5 billion people, exponentially increasing with every passing year. How do we decide who comes in America and who does not? Immigration must be a slow, thoughtful government-controlled process, based on reasoned considerations and the will of the people as reflected by their elected officials.

Illegal penetration of our international border cannot be a permissible prerequisite for becoming an American citizen or working inside the United States.

A Conservation Angle

As a person whose special priority is conservation, I do not undervalue human life, nor do I dismiss the needs of the poor, the suffering or the disenfranchised. I value human civilization as a great force capable of protecting, preserving and improving the world. I see a light in every child’s face, full of hope and potential, but it is of critical importance that we carefully steward our land and guide our culture to guarantee those children's right to grow up into a world of balance and integrity.

As a conservationist, I believe that wildlife and wildlife habitat is just as important a priority in keeping America whole as a fast-growing economy fueled by cheap labor supplied by Mexico. It is absurd to fantasize that we can go on looking the other way while an endless column of human souls presses north. We must be as selfish about our lands as will be necessary to maintain a stable, uncluttered, sustainable ecology for future generations. At the rate we are going, there will be no more habitat for wildlife. Mass extinctions will take place. Although ending illegal immigration from Mexico is hardly the only answer to loss of habitat for animals, immigration policy as a whole must be studied for its link to unsustainable population growth. There are consequences to the endless cycles of economic expansion that accompany large demographic changes.

Conclusion

I do not have the solution to the immigration crisis, but firmly believe a protracted discussion and debate should take place, and hardly can be avoided, as the president and some members of the United States Congress attempted recently, hoping for a quick fix similar to those that failed in the past. There is evidence that American workers rights and benefits may be threatened by the addition of 12 million soon-to-be-naturalized citizens who thought nothing of breaking the law to come here. There is evidence that a guest worker program would create an underclass of exploited human beings. Lawbreakers who, by virtue of the fact that they walked into the country, can now pay $8,000 to purchase their citizenship, while others offshore are invariably discriminated against. Shouldn’t employers who feasted off cheap labor all these years pick up part of the tab for deportation, law enforcement and other costs to society to compensate for their law breaking? Why is Mexico not being pressured to take action along its border to prevent its people from crossing it? Has anybody considered sanctions against Mexico as a way to encourage them, or will a wall costing billions of dollars simply do? A wall will only wreak havoc on nature, create an eyesore of epic proportions and cost the taxpayers a bundle with no promise that it would make much difference. Eliminating the incentive to cross once and for all through sanctions against Mexico and U.S. employers seems like a logical first step. As for filling unwanted jobs, let’s start by raising the minimum wage, creating incentives to employers to pay more and combing the entire world for a diverse cross-section of skilled and non-skilled workers to fill the needed jobs.

America cannot be all things to all people. As a nation, we have a lot to think about without being forced to accept, by default, the burden of millions of new uninvited immigrants. There are more productive ways to assist hungry people in other countries. It depends on how generous we are with our wealth and how willing we are to pay taxes. It will not just be in the form of so-called free trade, but will be measured in direct foreign aid and assistance, independent of McDonald’s, Nike, Coca-Cola, Walt Disney, Citigroup and others. It will not be rooted in a feeling we are doing the right thing by looking the other way as opportunists breach our borders in violation of our laws and dignity. Our generosity as a people will not be reflected in the hollow prosperity we derive at home at the hands of illegal workers, but by the sacrifices we make exporting food, clothing and medicine to those who need it at home in their own countries. For all people, home is where the heart is.

Copyright © 2007 Tony Heath
Photo Top – San Rafael Valley, AZ – Copyright © 1997 Tony Heath
Photo Middle – Trash – Copyright © 2004 James Syme

Why Preserve Threatened Ecosystems?

2007-05-23T16:29:00.000-06:00

By Tony Heath
Published by Birdlandranch.org: March 26, 2007

Skeptics doubting many of the most fundamental premises of conservation often ask me about the reasons for preserving our ecosystems. Why save species, flora or fauna, if as part of evolution, one species encroaches on another, causing natural extinctions? In other words, why police or interfere with ourselves if we are part of natural selection? If unprecedented human expansion is natural, should we not continue dominating the planet to the detriment of incalculable numbers of lower forms of life that share our world and depend on it as we do? Ensuring human health and well-being is the biggest reason we should preserve threatened ecosystems and the biodiversity that has characterized life on earth for millions of years.

Here is a small example of what can happen when man interferes with nature. Where I live, there are agricultural interests who, with the help of the federal government, would systematically kill all the coyotes to save a few calves in their herds. These are domestic animals already subsidized by taxpayer dollars. The kill is not limited to predators like the coyote, but can include, at the request of ranchers, virtually the gamut of wild creatures wandering the grasslands and forests of southeastern Arizona. After the last coyote is killed, what will these people do when they discover their homes are under siege by an exploding rodent population, attracting the most feared and hated of all creatures, the rattlesnake? How will the rancher feel if a nutritious grass he depends on for his livestock is depleted by jack rabbits, a favorite prey of the coyote?

In another example, If the Bush administration succeeds in removing the wolf from the endangered species list, who will benefit even temporarily besides a few powerful agricultural interests? It is counterintuitive to force one undesired species into decline, allowing another to overpopulate with unwanted effects. It should be obvious to all, including the Bush administration, why nature herself brilliantly designed the wolf as a vital part of the food chain. Nature has achieved balance (intelligent or otherwise), through a process understood well in scientific circles as evolution. It is not a right, nor is it particularly “intelligent,” of governments to try and engineer processes that have governed the natural world since life first emerged from the primordial soup. Clearly, it makes good sense to preserve an ecosystem in its natural state, as the Endangered Species Act is designed to enforce.

The second reason for conserving ecosystems, the first being a scientific one, is a moral argument. For years I believed that we Homo sapiens were simply the highest form of life, yet essentially the same as other animals. Lately, after all the talk about creation, I have come to understand why some religious fundamentalists seem tempted to consider humankind spiritually separate, and not necessarily dependent on lower life forms, other than for food. There is, after all, a huge gap between humans and our nearest relatives in the wild. Still, if we are divinely created beings, endowed with a spirit and consciousness that are unique to us, do we not have a special moral obligation to protect and preserve our world, which includes all of creation? As the most highly evolved animal on earth, we have an implicit obligation to act as stewards and to stop the rising tide of human encroachment on the natural environment.

Lastly, a simple argument. Many of us mistakenly value nature as an invariable given. Despite these feelings, who could argue that nature is not fundamental to our sense of well-being? Life would not be the same without sunlit mornings or moonlit nights, or lush green meadows and towering forests of ancient trees, filled with the sounds of singing birds. Nature gives us comfort with its assurance that we are not alone. Who doesn't want to breathe clean air or drink fresh, clean water? Why not err on the cautious side and take steps to ensure its health, as we do that of our own bodies? Millions of years of evolution formed the world as we know it today. How could it be bad to honor it by preserving and protecting it?

For life on earth to survive and prosper, biodiversity in the environment must be preserved intact. Human impact is taking a heavy toll on critical ecosystems, as evidenced by the destruction of wetlands and rain forests. Rain forests are incubators of plants and animals which could play critical roles in developing new medicines and technologies. As marine ecosystems are being destroyed by pollution, oceans are being depleted of fish populations. The still undetermined cause of a blight that is decimating U.S. honeybee populations suggests the perils of imbalance in the natural world, in this case, losing the bee’s role as a pollinator. Can we afford to have irreplaceable habitats at the mercy of global free markets, dominated by human greed and fear, intent at any cost on short-term prosperity?

Preservation of ecosystems can be achieved only through government action and intervention. It requires individual political awareness and responsibility, as well as financial sacrifice. It will mean finding practical ways to limit population growth, develop alternative energy, rethink consumption-based economics, and much more. I am personally willing to accept short-term inconveniences to know that the earth I love will be preserved as it is in my time for those people, plants and animals who will follow long after I am gone. How can anybody argue with building a natural legacy of this kind?

Copyright © 2007 Tony Heath
Photo – My Mother in Granada – Copyright © 1987 Tony Heath

In Memory of Michael Brecker: A Personal Eulogy

2007-05-23T16:16:00.001-06:00

By Tony Heath
Published by Birdlandranch.org: March 26, 2007

As I grow older, for obvious reasons I am developing an irksome habit of scanning the obituary page more frequently. Sometime in early February, I was shocked and saddened to read, “Michael Brecker, dead at 57.” It couldn’t be—not at such a young age, and with so much to live for and so much potential. I thought the era of major jazz artists dying young had ended with Bill Evans at 51. And, It must be said, he died not from the proverbial drug overdose, but of an unfortunate illness he fought bravely to survive.

I only met him once at a clinic at the University of Virginia around 1990, but I found him to be a soft-spoken gentleman, in contrast to the bright facile flowing style of his musical expressionism. His discography bears witness not only to a prolific body of work, but a generosity supporting lesser-known artists, in addition to complimenting the music of the industry's biggest and most demanding stars. My personal favorites of Brecker’s career were: a short solo on Don Fagen’s “Nightfly,” and his dazzling improvisations on Pat Matheny’s “80-81.”

As a saxophonist myself, many times I marvelled at Brecker’s facility on the horn, an instrument I personally felt was one of the hardest to master. Mouthpieces, reeds, pads, keys and more conspire to slow the mind down. Any one inconsistency can create a nightmare for the performer. Brecker was a master, both cerebrally, in the mental process he brought to the music, but also in his mastery of the physical and material demands of an unwieldy beast first popularized in the last century by Coleman Hawkins.

I considered him to the tenor saxophone what David Sanborn is to alto, a relationship I sometimes compared to Stan Getz and Paul Desmond. Both played with a hard-edged bright sound rooted in rhythm and blues. Brecker, however, was unlike any saxophone player I’d ever heard. Unlike most, he actually invented a melodic style all his own advancing the ideas of John Coltrane to a next level. His music represented a distinct chapter in the lineage of sax-based improvisation, beginning with Coleman Hawkins and moving through Lester Young, Charlie Parker and John Coltrane. There were many other great stylists who played outstanding music, but these five seem to have been the key innovators. The world will now have to search for the next Michael Brecker.

Rest in peace—your life’s work was hardly incomplete, and made a difference to so many of us.

Copyright © 2007 Tony Heath
Photo – Michael Brecker – Copyright © 1990 Tony Heath

Are Visual and Musical Art Passé?

2007-05-13T14:06:00.000-06:00

By Tony Heath
Published by Birdlandranch.org: March 26, 2007

The Greatest Artist

It occurred to me some years ago that being a big-time artist or musician in our time has lost some or all of its traditional virtue. It’s always been a narcissistic self-congratulatory process in which we essentially compete for “best artist,” but today issues call out for action that transcend the relatively narrow focus of our personal creations. Those of you who lived in Soho, my old neighborhood in New York City, might recall René’s ubiquitous graffiti claiming, “I am the Greatest Artist.” It was a wonderful parody of the art world at that time.

Today, if you are a “chosen one,” you can make thousands-folds more money than your classmates in art school or your peers during those formative years who once shared your earnest quest for recognition. Competition for acclaim and motive for colossal profit have taken on epic proportions, upstaging the “process,” as we used to say in art school.

Brice Marden, a painter I admired in art school, owns three giant homes. Hank Mobley, the great jazz saxophonist, was driving a cab when he died in obscurity in the nineteen-eighties. Commercial interests had left him with nothing. The old-fashioned idea of an artist’s devotion to his work trumping financial security has yielded to the phenomenon of the art-star towering above his peers. Art now mirrors professional sports. Could Gauguin have created his masterpieces without secluding himself in a paradise where profit was irrelevant?

Old-fashioned Values

Great artists of the past were the visionaries, going beyond—making outstanding contributions, sometimes starving for their innovations, but always moving culture forward. The grandeur of nature—grace and beauty—was traditionally the muse. Contemporary art seems obsessively preoccupied with personal angst, fashionable styles and vitriolic expressionism crying out for attention. Artists are falling into complacency, encouraged by a consumption-driven society, rather than transcending it and representing the alternative. The majority of brute creativity is devoted to the sale of goods and services—slave to the accumulation of capital.

John Lennon had the enlightenment to proclaim, “Give peace a chance.” I am saying give somebody else a chance besides Quentin Tarantino, David Lynch, Michael Jackson and Madonna, a few we call artists from whom the world is getting little inspiration. I recommend the reader listen to the work of the great Brazilian songwriter Antonio Carlos Jobim—specifically, “Quiet Nights & Quiet Stars,” “Song of the Sabia,” “Two Kites,” “Passarim” (Songbird) and “Forever Green,” to name several of his most inspiring works. Listen, and contrast the beauty, and the message (a positive one), with that of the discordant drone of much of today’s pop culture.

Originality A Thing Of The Past

Few if any artists today can change the world as artists did in the past. The cave painters of Lascaux, Leonardo Da Vinci, Claude Debussy, Aaron Copland, Duke Ellington, to name a few, made great contributions to human perceptions and sensibilities. In some cases, they even had a positive influence on commerce, lifting the human spirit higher. Innovation has always defined important works of art. With few exceptions, it would seem that everything has been done. Artists today are mixing styles and falsely calling the result original. Louis Armstrong and Charlie Parker were innovators. The jazz pianists and composers Bill Evans and Tom Jobim wrote original compositions the likes of which the world had never heard until their time. They were also skilled craftsmen. Painters Paul Cezanne, Henri Matisse and Jackson Pollack and the photographer Paul Strand are examples of original visual artists. All created a positive new direction in the arts, influencing whole generations of younger creative people in a serialized process through time. In short, they contributed something that in turn led to something else of value.

Most artists today are in fact craftsmen reshuffling the styles of past innovators. In many cases, they may be creating works of great beauty, but originality in the arts is disappearing because there is little left to innovate.

The point is, if the purpose of art is not to innovate and move culture forward, why place so much value on it? We are in a period when immediate action is required to preserve things about the world that we baby boomers as children took for granted —clean air and water, open spaces, pristine forests, living coral reefs, national parks free of man’s touch, enough land to protect large mammals, intact polar ice caps, biodiversity, the food chain, and on and on.

A New Paradigm

Crippling changes are taking place all around us as we overpopulate our planet. Art is an important phase in our singular path to self-knowledge, but it hardly seems of critical importance to the survival of the planet. Our age requires a new kind of action—not necessarily the kind that uses our sensibilities or talents in the traditional ways, but one that contributes to the preservation of discovered values and espouses conservation in an era of unprecedented change.

Great artists of past centuries taught us to see and hear things we had never before experienced. They created works of great beauty that reflected the mysteries of nature and gave us the perceptual foundation upon which to value the surrounding world and ultimately ourselves. Today, artists must accept that there are more pressing issues equal to or greater than their personal quest for adulation or self-fulfillment. A new vision does not require that they abandon their craft, but that they begin to understand that critical issues outside themselves beg for individual action.

We baby boomers embraced the arts in exceptional numbers, making our time not the Swing Era or the Information Age, but rather the Age of Self-fulfillment. We have bit-chomped our way through a horse race of winners and losers as the Earth has continued to decay under our feet. Without action, we will leave our planet “a crust of skulls and bones and dead machinery,” as Kurt Vonnegut wrote recently in, A Man without a Country.

One day soon we may be forced to admit that much of the art of our era is in fact passé. Great craftsmanship will survive and prosper, but a fresh up to date vision, preserving and honoring the Earth, will usher forth new art that is innovative in its philosophical consciousness.

Copyright © 2007 Tony Heath
Photo – Carnegie Hall – Copyright © 1987 Tony Heath

USDA – Wildlife Services 2005 Kill List

2007-05-12T14:52:00.000-06:00

By Tony Heath
Published by Birdlandranch.org: May 3, 2007

The following is a list of wildlife killed in 2005 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture through their Wildlife Services unit. It was brought to my attention by the Tucson Weekly (“Death Count,” April 12, 2007). The information is available on Wildlife Service’s web site, or if absent, with the assistance of a Freedom of Information Act request. The Tucson Weekly gathered the information with the assistance of Wendy Keefover-Ring of Sinapu, a carnivore protection organization; and from Forest Guardians, a New Mexico-based conservation group. Keefer-Ring says, “they are definitely a rogue agency, and they don’t want anybody to know what they're doing.” So be prepared if you want to verify the information yourself. These officials are and should be on the defensive, because their work, in my opinion, is a crime against nature. Deep down they must know it.

One would think a government agency named “Wildlife Services” would have a more helpful role such as servicing wildlife? Not so. Since 1915, with an approximate budget of $100 million, the agency has exterminated innocent wildlife at the request of ranchers, farmers and sportsmen. In 2005, the professional killers from Wildlife Services killed 1.7 million animals, including collaterally, and with legal impunity, endangered species. These are the same species other government agencies receive taxpayer money to protect.

In 2005, their work included gunning down 200 coyotes in the San Rafael Valley near Sonoita, Arizona. This is only several miles from Birdland Ranch Conservation Area.

Get involved. Write your congressman. Support the caring organizations that are spearheading the fight to end taxpayer sponsored lethal-extermination of innocent wildlife.

The List:

500 badgers
1,697 gray foxes
30 kit foxes
2,172 red foxes
330 mountain lions
9 skunks
2,164 bobcats
72,817 coyotes
507 river otters
2,844 woodchucks and marmots
33,469 beavers
9,922 raccoons
1.2 million starlings
300,000 other assorted birds, including song birds, water birds, hawks and a snowy owl
6,832 striped skunks
1 Mexican wolf

Endangered Species:

1 golden eagle
3 bald eagles
2 grizzly bears
252 gray wolves

Special Thanks to Source: “Death Count” by Tim Vanderpool – Tucson Weekly (4/12/07)
Photo – Skunk –Copyright © Tony Heath 2004

Gunshot Coyote Dies Next To House

2007-05-12T14:02:00.000-06:00

By Tony Heath
Published By Birdlandranch.org: March 3, 2007

Trying to Make a Difference

This is a story about an incident that occurred around our home at our ranch in the Huachuca Mountains of southeastern Arizona. Ultimately, it will be about the moral and cultural changes our modern world must accept to survive and remain intact for our children.

My wife and I operate our ranch as a wildlife sanctuary. We sacrificed careers and money to live in the wild and preserve our land in its natural state. We advocate for the rights, respect and protection of the animals that that called our place —their habitat—home before it was ours. Who can deny it was theirs first? As thoughtful Homo sapiens with clear advantage over all other living creatures, we consider our work here a special calling. It was an occasion of great sadness when we discovered next to our home the death by gunshot of an animal we cherish as a source of great mystery and a symbol of freedom in the wild. It made us think and forced us to speak.

An Infuriating Event

About 5 p.m. on Sunday, February 18th, I was carrying a pile of brush around our barn when I came upon the carcass of a female coyote. The animal had been shot twice in the abdomen and left to wander, fatally injured. Upon further inspection, we determined that the animal had come into our compound to look for a place to hide or die, odd behavior considering it was a human being that had shot it. We followed her trail of blood through the garden, past our front door and onto the porch outside our bedroom. With open wounds oozing blood, she had approached the dark window perhaps thinking it a refuge to nurse her wounds or die.

It all began about 1:30 that afternoon. I was napping when unnoticed by me the animal came to our window in shock and seeking shelter. After rising a short while later, I went outside to mow our back lawn. About that time my wife had noticed another coyote, no doubt the deceased female’s mate, standing just across our cattle guard looking in our direction. I had been mowing in the exact area where only an hour later I would find her already stiffening corpse. We placed the time of her death shortly after that, between 3 and 4 p.m. As It turned out, while I was working, our maimed friend was fighting for her life somewhere close to me.

After determining that the male coyote had moved on, we wrapped her in a sheet and gave her a dignified burial on the side of a small nearby embankment. We used a convenient hole recently dug with a backhoe to plant a box tree this coming spring. A large purple rock was placed over the grave to mark the spot. We prayed her spirit was running freer, somewhere... in a happier hunting ground.

Most puzzling was her decision to die so close to Kate and me, and despite the frightening sound of the lawn mower. Perhaps our work here is adding up to something and they are growing to trust us as we have hoped. We are here for them—their advocates first and foremost.

Killing for Pleasure

Thinking about the person who condemned to death this marvelous animal and carried out the sentence, in the immediate rage that ensued, granted somewhat irrationally, I wished this person would face a similar fate and feel the same kind of suffering they had wrought on our coyote. One day, I fantasized, they too might wander the wilderness accidentally wounded by their own cowardly hand, or the weapon of another lusting for innocent blood. I believed this wanton act of cruelty to be a crime deserving as severe a punishment. Such was my rage.

What kind of a person would take pleasure on a Sunday afternoon killing a wild animal for no reason other than sport? According to an FBI study, human cruelty to animals can be an indicator of a psychopathic nature with the potential for similar acts against people. The humanitarian Dr. Albert Schweitzer wrote, “anyone who has accustomed himself to regard the life of any living creature as worthless is in danger of arriving also at the idea of worthless human lives.”

The incident was followed by a period of pensive melancholy for several days. I sought the counsel of others whose outrage would equal my own. A description of the event is not enough. My duty is to try to do a small part to educate the growing millions of people, many of whom have not developed the sentience which allows, for example, naturalists to relate to the commonality of all living things.

Frontier Mentality

“Sympathy for wild animals, sympathy that is intellectual as much as emotional, has not been a strong element in the traditional American way of Life... How familiar the iterated remark:’I thought I might see something and so took along my gun’—as if no enjoyment or other good could come from seeing a wild animal without killing it... The majority of country-dwellers in western America today would consider it necessary to apologize for not killing a coyote they happened to see doing something unusual. This traditional killer attitude is a part of the traditional exploitation of the land.” From The Voice of The Coyote, by J. Frank Dobie (© 1949).

Lethal Control

Every year 400,000 coyotes are exterminated by the United States Government, at an approximate cost to the taxpayers of $20 million (Finkel, Audubon Magazine, June 1999). Without going into the details, it is accomplished using horribly brutal methods which only humans could devise, like gunning them down from helicopters. Mr. Finkel also describes contests with prizes awarded to the person who kills the most coyotes in a given period of time, and hardly in sporting manner.

In Arizona, it is legal to take a potshot at a coyote any time and for any reason. This is an outrage and should anger any thinking, caring, ethical person who understands that all higher mammals are in kind with us in fundamental biological ways. They must feed themselves, find homes in which to rest and raise their young. They feel pain and joy. Compared to us, with our highly developed brain, they are the innocents, needing our stewardship and love, as all life is precious and now in peril. In his endorsement of Marc Bekoff’s book The Emotional Lives of Animals, The Dalai Lama describes his thoughts regarding the commonality of life I refer to above: “as a boy studying Buddhism in Tibet, I was taught the importance of a caring attitude toward others.

Such a practice of nonviolence applies to all sentient beings—any living thing that has a mind. Where there is a mind, there are feelings such as pain, pleasure, and joy. No sentient beings want pain; instead all want happiness. Since we all share these feelings at some basic level, as rational human beings we have an obligation to contribute in whatever way we can to the happiness of other species and try our best to relieve their fears and sufferings. I firmly believe that the more we care for the happiness of others, the greater our own sense of well-being becomes...”

Personal Experience

In ten years living close to a local family group of coyotes, not one has ever come close to stalking or harassing us or our pets. The human ignorance about these animals is mind-numbing. I ‘d be rich if I had a dollar for every time a local said, “Watch your dogs. Those dastardly cunning coyotes will stalk and kill them, and that goes for the owls too. They’ll swoop down and carry them off. And if you see one of those rattly reptiles, be sure you kill it lest it come after you.” My experience in the sierra madrean pine-oak woodlands of Arizona couldn’t be farther from the myths these anxious fearful humans spread at great peril to the wildlife. Of course, an occasional opportunistic predator acting simply on instinct is capable of harming a pet. Last year our miniature dachshund provoked an encounter with a javelina and barely survived. But understanding what we do about nature, we took no violent action against the animal. In point of fact, neighbors foolishly feeding the collared peccaries cause the animals to lose their fear of humans. They are the ones I blame for that incident, interfering in the natural processes around them.

Others let their animals wander through the wilderness unchecked, reaping their own brand of havoc and invariably causing trouble. I routinely come across domestic dogs running roughshod over the land. Speaking of ethics, the owners of these dogs are putting their pets in great jeopardy. Yet when one gets torn up by coyotes defending their territory (as you would if similarly provoked), its always the coyote’s fault.

Livestock Predation

The issue which I have grappled with most these past two weeks is how to address the financial liability suffered by ranchers and farmers when the omnivorous coyote occasionally predates on livestock and crops. According to The National Agricultural Statistics Service, in 1995 a study found that for cattle and calf deaths, coyotes caused 1.6% of all deaths and that predators overall only caused only 2.7% of cattle and calf deaths (source: www.api4animals.org). That is—a percentage of all deaths; not a percentage of all existing domestic livestock grazing on the open range. In fact, coyotes, being omnivorous, eat almost anything of value dead or alive, animate or inanimate, but feed primarily on rodents. They do not seek out or have a preference for domestic livestock.

There is no “intent” on the coyote’s part to take money away from ranchers and farmers. They operate on a purely instinctual basis doing exactly what we do, seeking the easiest least complicated opportunity to fill their empty stomachs. They have a right to compete and survive. As silly as it may sound, look at human culture, increasingly dominated by corporate capitalism and so-called free-market forces. Is it legal to shoot your neighbor because he opens a competing business across the street, forcing you to accept 25% less profit? Why do we not respect and value other forms of life as we do ourselves?
Regardless of the cost to agriculture, I believe there is an overriding ethical issue that trumps the small cost of limited predation—That is, the fundamental spiritual value of almost all life forms, the possible exception being solely destructive microorganisms, although many of these organisms play a vital role. A collective balance is necessary to create and preserve a planet which is “whole”—intact for future generations of organisms, including humans. We are all intertwined and interdependent.

Welfare Ranching

In my state of Arizona ranching is a form of welfare, as public lands are provided to the ranchers only, and at a cut rate. I am grateful that at least temporarily ranching keeps the land from being divided into little comfortable but destructive “ranchettes,” guarded by invincible lengths of endless field fencing, effectively eliminating habitat for many larger animals. Yet I can find no reason why in our wealthy over-stuffed country dominated by special interests, pork-barrel spending, bridges- to-nowhere, democracies fragilely built on the other side of the earth at great cost in American lives and money, the coyote can’t be spared lethal, methodical extermination; or protected from the focus of one small man’s lust for blood and death on a Sunday afternoon. There are millions of children without health care insurance in the United States, yet our priority is killing coyotes and protecting the fossil fuel business.

Arizona cattlemen raise a few animals, compared to ranchers in less severe environments like Virginia, where my grandfather, Charles T. Neale, was a noted cattleman. Like my grandfather, many are successful businessmen more than able to offset the small cost of limited predation by coyotes. Granted, some are not, and society must act to help them as they do people in urban areas in need of public assistance.

Most frustrating, some environmental organizations with financial means have expressed willingness to pay the same or more for the same range; to set it apart, permanently yielding potentially far greater value to society, yet Arizona law forbids it.

Changing Times

Many Americans have been forced to suffer harsh changes in labor practices which competition, expanding populations, demographic shifts and globalization have foisted on them. In my own case, I wanted to be a professional jazz musician, believing still that Duke Ellington’s music has great cultural value. Despite my determination to succeed in an antiquated profession, even a modest livelihood as a performer was practically impossible. There was no market in which to make a profit. I was forced to accept this, retool and move on—disappointed, frustrated and dejected. Life demands this of us at times.
Thus, the rancher must first accept the sometimes harsh reality of changing times. We can no longer be governed by a frontier era mindset. In a civilized world all life is precious—to be nurtured and protected. Animal products must be harvested in a sustainable and humane manner. No doubt many ranchers agree, and to them I give credit for the courage to change. To the others, I say it is not your right alone to make a small profit at the expense of the food chain, or the pain and suffering of countless innocent predators acting on instinct; or to expect taxpayer subsidies when the highest and best use for the land must be redefined lest it be trashed and nonexistent for our children as we know it today. By ruthlessly killing predators in lock step with old-fashioned values (or lack of them), you are upsetting the balance of an already challenged ecosystem, and compromising the morality of those of us that consider the sanctity of wilderness our God and a duty to protect.
Let’s put our money into creating more parks and refuges, rather than systematically killing predators.

Food Chain

Lastly, there is one critical issue and perhaps the most pressing that must be addressed—our “food chain,” a vital process that keeps nature in balance. We, humans, the coyotes, and all living creatures contribute to it and depend on it for the equilibrium which has kept the earth intact for millions of years. Without it, an endless string of chain reactions would create an imbalance manifesting itself with potentially disastrous consequences. In their hunt for food, coyotes are opportunists. They usually kill sick or weaker individuals removing them from the gene pool while providing a valuable service to the evolution of healthier animals. In this way coyotes provide a valuable role in the food chain.

Aside from the ethical and moral issues, controlling the rodent population alone is reason enough to end a primitive era of lethal extermination. I can tell you personally that the biggest problem we face on our ranch (other than human interference) is damage to home and vehicles by uncontrolled rodent populations. We don’t have enough coyotes. I fear Hantivirus as one consequence. This issue applies equally to the rattlesnakes, also critical in controlling rodents. As an associate of ours, Sandy Anderson (an expert on rattlesnakes and other local wildlife Gray Hawk Nature Center, has said, you are highly unlikely to die from a rattlesnake bite, but you will die from Hantivirus. People’s fears of these animals are often the result of naivete.

Mother Nature created a food chain through millions of years of evolution, which many of us take for granted. Human interference in the food chain in an industrialized era little more than a century old is asking for big trouble.

Summary

Lethal control of predators must end. Wildlife must be protected from the wanton cruelty of people killing animals for no other reason than their twisted notion of sport. Laws and penalties against this behavior need to be passed.

Ranchers must be better educated and made to realize, for example, that a coyote in the vicinity of his herd is not necessarily predating upon it, but may simply be after his favorite food (rodents). After all, they are a lot easier to catch. He must be made to see that shooting on sight every coyote he sees is morally wrong and affects the food chain. This applies equally to cougars and other wild cats, wolves, golden eagles and other predatory animals acting on instinct.

A small percentage of loss from predation is simply the cost of doing business, in the same way that a trucker must accept the volatility in the price of fuel that directly affects his bottom line.

For those dissenters who after reading this essay may indulge in typecasting me as an easterner intent on upsetting or changing life in the West for selfish personal reasons, let me be clear: I am a lover of the Old West. I was weaned on John Ford movies. And my favorite actor is the Duke.

The open spaces are my church. I recognize God in the land beneath my feet. As a realist, I realize that change is inevitable. I want to protect as much of the unspoiled open spaces as I can, and what’s left of a wild kingdom that once ruled our precious southern plains. We must all do what is required to protect our little planet from the devastating effects of human neglect, and encroachment on the habitat on which our brothers and sisters in the wild depend.

“Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man himself will find no peace.” – Albert Schweitzer

Special thanks to: Indiana Coyote Rescue

Copyright © 2007 Tony Heath
Photo – Coyote Kill – Copyright © 2001 Tony Heath