Let’s Look Inside ODFW

By Wil Clow

To understand a state agency and the way it operates lets look at our own Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW), or as I have come to name it: Oddballs and Deadbeats, Funding themselves Wildly. First, it has a commission appointed by the Governor to oversee its operations and to make rules up as they like. That is right, these commissioners are not elected nor approved by the Senate, they rule merely at the whim of the Governor in charge. The credentials most of the sitting commissioners have wouldn’t qualify them for a garbage collector in most cities, but it is enough for the Governor. They seem to have done everything wrong they can to make sure that they do not perform their mission. You say they have a mission, yes, it is on their web page www.dfw.state.or.us/ and is as follows. “To Protect and Enhance Oregon’s Fish and Wildlife and their Habitats for use and enjoyment by Present and Future generations.” Talk about hypocrisy and incompetence, ODFW has by far done nothing to protect Oregon’s Fish and Wildlife. Now, the tree-hugging, frog kissing people claiming to be environmentalists would have us believe that this is a good thing. And, that if we don’t have animals to hunt in the woods, well, we just wouldn’t need all those guns we have anymore. A real environmentalist wants balance and equal numbers of things, not just saving one animal at the expense of thousands. Our for-fathers knew that the Cougar was a predator and the most efficient killer there was. If they were going to provide food for the masses and themselves they had to balance the need of the many.

Measure 18 took away that balance and as sure as I am alive once we kill off four to five thousand Cougars and some 12,000 bears we are going to need to stop hunting deer and elk for a few years to build back the herds we once had. Now, ODFW has, after twelve years of sleeping at the wheel decided that maybe the cougar and bear have eaten about 70% of the wildlife in the woods and whoops, hunters are not buying as many tags as before because there is not much left to hunt. That of course means less money for them to waste each year on their meetings and studies and such (parties).

The ODFW has engaged in many forms of consumerism, one of my favorites is the ban of pelletized powder and use of any projectile with plastic in muzzle-loading hunting. The ODFW commissioned a survey of muzzle-loaders (which cost over $5,000) who overwhelmingly said, do not ban Sabots, a plastic sleeve used around .45 caliber slugs to hunt with, a very effective killer. Of course that is exactly what the ODFW Commission did. Instead, let’s allow idiots to run through the woods shooting at elk with round balls, which, according to an ODFW official I talked to is the wrong projectile to use on Elk. This is an effective measure of protecting and enhancing our wildlife, NOT! They did this for the few who like to run around in animal skins remembering the good old days when they could shoot injuns at 500 yards in the head with a round ball. Their argument that this is primitive hunting fades in the light of the RV’s in circles, the pick-um-up trucks racing down the roads, and other modern things they use including televisions, c.b.’s, walky-talky’s, cell phones, well hell you get the point, it is just too primitive to talk about anymore. Then there was the changing fishing regulations on the Rogue River giving privilege to Fly Fishermen, you know the ones in those fancy outfits, using certain guides.

Second, ODFW makes rules up not found in the state laws. For example ODFW sets the hunting hours, the seasons, the numbers to be killed, etc. This is arbitrarily based on their “sound science” called “best guessing” as they don’t know facts from fiction. In short they just make things up as they go along with no real basis for doing so except that they say so and that is that. Talk about abuse of power.

You see the ODFW works this way, they pass a regulation in one of their meetings, wait thirty or more days to publish them and that way you don’t have time to take the case to the Court of Appeals which you must do within thirty days of the rule making process or it can never be challenged except within their Kangaroo system. The ODFW should be disbanded or at least sportsmen and women of common and knowledgeable fields should be picked to be on the commission. All past rulings should be opened for review by independent, regional groups. Those who have the knowledge and expertise to help formulate rules based on reality, not studies done by people who haven’t spent a day living in the real world. Ever met a PHD that you liked or did not try to make you feel inferior to their great book learning? We now understand their disability; they have Personality Hysterical Disorder or at least exhibit those tendencies if you challenge their unreal view of things. The West Coast and perhaps the U.S. “expert” on Cougars studied and learned all about cougars in a major urban city in California. This expert will tell you everything wrong about Cougars and if you challenge him he runs to his degree in book learning and states you know nothing because you don’t have Personality Hysterical Disorder. That is one of the biggest problems within most state agencies, but in particular ODFW. They rely on these unreal experts and their unrealistic reports to make decisions that affect us and our resources, just because they have PHD. As funny as that may seem to most of you, it greatly saddens most of us, because we have to live in the real world with the real consequences of these “elevated individuals” actions, while they live in their academic unreal world. We love wildlife and we love to hunt wildlife. ODFW is slowly taking this love away.

I hope that I have given you some insight as to why government does not and will not work, as it doesn’t operate or even think in real world terms. In short, Biologists and the “commissions” who rubber stamp their ideologies are more of a threat than the dangerous numbers of predatory cougars living closer to humans each day, with each implemented administrative rule…