The Blue Mountain eagle. (John Day, Or.) 1972-current, March 20, 2019, Image 4

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The Blue Mountain eagle., March 20, 2019, Page A4, Image 4

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Newspaper Page TextA4 OPINION Blue Mountain Eagle Wednesday, March 20, 2019 Wolves won’t be delisted without a ﬁ ght C attlemen are cheer- ing an announce- ment that the De- partment of the Interior will soon propose a plan to end federal protections on grey wolves. On March 6, Acting Sec- retary of the Interior David Bernhardt announced the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Ser- vice will soon come up with a plan for delisting wolves, returning management to the states and tribes. “Recovery of the grey wolf under the Endangered Species Act is one of our nation’s great conserva- tion successes, with the wolf joining other cherished spe- cies, such as the bald eagle, that have been brought back from the brink with the help of the ESA,” said Fish and Wildlife spokesman Gavin Shire. While we agree that this is good news, the proposal has a long way to go before becoming reality. Since they were reintro- duced in 1995, grey wolves have enjoyed intensive fed- eral and state management. When biologists ﬁ rst con- sidered how long it would take wolves to become re-established in the Paciﬁ c Northwest, they had no idea the species would thrive the way it has. They started with 31 wolves transplanted from Canada to Idaho and 35 transplanted to Yellow- stone National Park. Now hundreds of wolves blanket Idaho and parts of Montana and Wyoming and range as far west as the Cascade Mountains in Oregon and across much of Washington state. The number of wolf packs in the Northwest contin- ues to multiply with no help from state or federal wild- life managers. Wolves also show up in the most unlikely places. OR-7, a wolf origi- nally from northeastern Ore- gon, wandered as far south as California before return- ing to Oregon and establish- ing his own pack. Recent attacks suggest a wolf or wolves have now made it to Curry County and the Ore- gon coast. Wolf attacks on cattle and sheep grazing on federal and private lands are com- mon. Ranchers can rightfully claim that they have invol- untarily paid a big part of the price to re-establish wolves throughout the West. Now federal regulators say their work is done and it’s time to take the grey wolf off the federal Endan- gered Species List. That will hardly signal open season on wolves, as they still enjoy robust state protections. But environmental groups disagree. “Given that grey wolves in the Lower 48 states occupy such a small percent- age of their historical habi- tat, it is almost laughable for the Fish and Wildlife Ser- vice to determine that they are successfully recovered,” said John Mellgren, an attor- ney with the Western Envi- ronmental Law Center. “On its face, this appears to be politically motivated,” Mellgren said. “We look for- ward to reviewing the draft delisting rule, and look for- ward to taking the Fish and Wildlife Service to court should its proposal not be based on what the science tells us.” Let the lawsuits begin. Sticking with you “Mom-meeeeeeeeee!” my 3-year-old screamed at the top end of his vocals. “Help me!” One would think that, upon hearing this noise, I would have dropped everything and headed out to help my son. But I was in the middle of switching a load of laun- dry — and honestly, my young- est son seems to use that tone of voice for many things. It could be that his cracker fell on the ﬂ oor, the hound knocked him over, the bookcase toppled over on top of him or maybe just that he needed another glass of water. The next shout made me drop my laundry basket. “Blooooooooood. Blood. Mommy, Blood!” I bounded up the stairs two at a time. My toddler was sitting on the counter, a Pampered Chef knife and sheath lay next to him along with little droplets of blood. He wasn’t crying, but he was looking at his bleeding index ﬁ n- ger in panic. I pinched his ﬁ nger, and hauled him into the bathroom. He had done a good job of cutting it, and it took a bit for the bleeding to subside. He wasn’t excited about a bandage on his ﬁ nger — he thought that a kiss would be a bet- ter idea. It seemed to take a lot of talking to convince him that mommy’s kisses were like Santa — they’re the ones with the magic — but sometimes they need the elf bandages to help get the work done. It took a bit, but he ﬁ nally decided bandages would be OK as long as they were kissed too. A bandage on a 3-year-old doesn’t last very long — between dirt and play and water — and I seemed to be changing or replac- ing it every few hours. Somewhere in this period, my Brianna son’s other ﬁ ngers Walker started to feel real bad for his index ﬁ nger. Suddenly, they all needed bandages. Again, bandages on 3-year-olds don’t last long — whether they are on real or sym- pathetic hurts. We blew through an entire box in just a few days and started on a second. It soon became apparent that it would be more economical to buy some- thing other than the fabric, ﬂ ex bandages — seeing as how the chance of one of them lasting from breakfast to lunch was about as good as coaxing an egg out of my rooster. My toddler became obsessed with his bandages. Thankfully, over the course of a few weeks, his other ﬁ ngers stopped having “hurt pains,” and we could cut back on the bandage usage. Well, at least the bandage usage on his un-cut ﬁ ngers. The bandages that were saved now were used to “help” the toilet seat stay down and the bath- room door to stay shut. A crack on my cellphone screen was “ﬁ xen” (the opposite of broken) with a brightly-colored bandage. Ban- dages also started popping up on torn items of clothing, or on body parts that had moles or bruises. Bandages even ended up in my hair after my toddler saw me doing a french braid one morning. “What doing, Mommy?” he asked. “Fixing my hair,” I replied. “Oh, why Mommy’s hair bro- ken?” he asked, his big blue eyes looking genuinely concerned about my hair. Anything that appeared broken was ﬁ xen with the help of a ban- dage — everything, that is, except the initial cut on my toddler’s index ﬁ nger. He would hold his ﬁ nger out of the water during baths or cry when made to wash his hands — because his bandage would get wet. Play- ing with the baby lambs was fun — until they started to nibble on the ﬁ nger with his bandage. Mean- while, weeks passed and the ban- dage boxes rotated through our medicine cabinet. The cut under the bandage has long since healed, with hardly even a scar to mark its history, but try convincing my 3-year old. I think you’d have bet- ter luck talking to my rooster. I wonder if it’s a 3-year-old thing. My oldest got his thumb slammed in a car door and wore a thumb protector for months. Even after he had lost his thumbnail and a new rosy-pink one had grown back in its place, he still insisted that he needed that protector. As parents, we should never worry that our children aren’t lis- tening — because they are always watching us, ready to imitate our worst habits. Makes me wonder what I don’t need that I won’t let go of? (And, no, it can’t be a closet full of shoes — regardless of what my husband might say!) Brianna Walker occasionally writes about the Farmer’s Fate for the Blue Mountain Eagle. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR Withdrawal decision highlights fundamental problems WHERE TO WRITE GRANT COUNTY • Grant County Courthouse — 201 S. Humbolt St., Suite 280, Canyon City 97820. Phone: 541-575-0059. Fax: 541-575-2248. • Canyon City — P.O. Box 276, Canyon City 97820. Phone: 541-575-0509. Fax: 541-575-0515. Email: tocc1862@ centurylink.net. • Dayville — P.O. Box 321, Dayville 97825. Phone: 541-987-2188. Fax: 541- 987-2187. Email:dville@ortelco.net • John Day — 450 E. Main St, John Day, 97845. Phone: 541-575-0028. Fax: 541-575-1721. Email: cityjd@ centurytel.net. • Long Creek — P.O. Box 489, Long Creek 97856. Phone: 541-421-3601. Fax: 541-421-3075. Email: info@ cityoﬂ ongcreek.com. • Monument — P.O. Box 426, Monument 97864. Phone and fax: 541-934-2025. Email: cityofmonument@centurytel.net. • Mt. Vernon — P.O. Box 647, Mt. Vernon 97865. Phone: 541-932-4688. Fax: 541-932-4222. Email: cmtv@ ortelco.net. • Prairie City — P.O. Box 370, Prairie City 97869. Phone: 541-820-3605. Fax: 820-3566. Email: pchall@ortelco.net. • Seneca — P.O. Box 208, Seneca 97873. Phone and fax: 541-542-2161. Email: senecaoregon@gmail.com. SALEM • Gov. Kate Brown, D — 254 State Capitol, Salem 97310. Phone: 503- 378-3111. Fax: 503-378-6827. Website: governor.state.or.us/governor.html. • Oregon Legislature — State Capitol, Salem, 97310. Phone: (503) 986-1180. Website: leg.state.or.us (includes Oregon Constitution and Oregon Revised Statutes). Blue Mountain EAGLE Published every Wednesday by To the Editor: The Forest Service’s recent decision to withdraw its revised forest plan, as relieving as it is, sheds light on some fundamental problems within the organization. What we see in the Forest Ser- vice’s failure to institute a new plan, after 15 years in the making, is that it isn’t in touch with reality. For starters, many things can hap- pen in 15 years. A plan that takes 15 years to complete will be obso- lete by the time it’s ﬁ nished. This is something Forest Service deci- sion makers remain incapable of wrapping their heads around. Also consider the length of the plan itself. At over 5,000 pages, the revised plan was more than four times the length of the aver- age Bible (about 1,200 pages). A 5,000-page plan would be so dif- ﬁ cult to navigate that it would essentially be worthless, as the revised plan turned out to be. What we can glean most of all from this is the glaring lack of accountability demanded of For- est Service leadership. After 15 years, and presumably millions of MEMBER OREGON NEWSPAPER PUBLISHERS ASSOCIATION Controlled burns ‘have not been enough’ To the Editor: Revised rules that protect air quality in areas of Oregon sus- ceptible to smoke from controlled forest burns have gone into effect, adopted by the Oregon Board of Forestry and approved by the Oregon Department of Environ- mental Quality. This sounds great, but after reading the rest of the story, you ﬁ nd out that nothing has changed except the cost and responsibility for the health of our county’s chil- 1 YEAR SUBSCRIPTION RATES (including online access) Grant County’s Weekly Newspaper Publisher............ ......................................Chris Rush, crush@eomediagroup.com Editor & General Manager ...............Sean Hart, editor@bmeagle.com Reporter ...................................................Richard Hanners, rick@bmeagle.com Community News .................................Angel Carpenter, angel@bmeagle.com Sports ........................................................Angel Carpenter, angel@bmeagle.com Marketing Rep .......................................Kim Kell, ads@bmeagle.com Administrative Assistant ..................Makenna Adair, oﬃ ce@bmeagle.com Oﬃ ce Assistant .....................................Alixandra Hand, oﬃ ce@bmeagle.com dollars spent, the Forest Service has nothing to show. If a blunder of this magnitude had occurred in the private sector, people would have lost their jobs. It’s doubtful that a single reprimand was issued to those responsible for this mas- sive waste of public resources. In conclusion, the Forest Ser- vice needs to adopt some basic common sense. It needs to join us here in the real world, stop mak- ing excuses and begin manag- ing our forests, as it was created to do. Gregg Boethin Canyon City Grant County .........................................$45 Everywhere else in U.S. .......................$57 Outside Continental U.S. ....................$60 Online: BlueMountainEagle.com Subscriptions must be paid prior to delivery Periodicals Postage Paid at John Day and additional mailing oﬃ ces. POSTMASTER send address changes to: Blue Mountain Eagle 195 N. Canyon Blvd. John Day, OR 97845-1187 USPS 226-340 Phone: 541-575-0710 dren and elderly will be on us. Our great leaders in Salem want a cap and trade for indus- try in Oregon to reduce CO2 and carbon ash pollution. (They want more tax money.) While the U.S. Forest Ser- vice is increasing controlled burns yearly, Oregon Department of Forestry recorded, for 2018, 181,282 acres of controlled burns, which amounted to an estimated 1.3 million tons of woody debris. The acreage is increasing each year. I have had contact with numer- ous Forest Service employees, and all think controlled burns is the answer to our wildﬁ re prob- lem. After stopping forest ﬁ res for over 100 years, and in the last 40 to 50 years not managing our pine forest correctly, controlled burns and what little proper for- estry practices that have been done, have not been enough. A comprehensive plan based on true forestry practices, and not what well-meaning people push- ing politicians think, is best. Look around you, we have a prob- lem. All leadership needs to pull theirs out of the sand, stop think- ing of themselves and use com- mon sense to solve the building problems. Ken Koser Prairie City Copyright © 2019 Blue Mountain Eagle All rights reserved. No part of this publication covered by the copyright hereon may be reproduced or copied in any form or by any means — graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, taping or information storage and retrieval systems — without written permission of the publisher. facebook.com/MyEagleNews @MyEagleNews