Wildlife Biologists Saviors or Vitiators?

By Bud Sonnentag

The majority of our states’ fish and game agencies are under the control and direction of biologists. They alone make every rule and regulation concerning the management of all wildlife in the North American continent, including Canada. Every man, woman, and child is directly impacted by the power they wield through their management plans and decisions they make from day to day regarding wildlife, especially mountain lions. Make no mistake…biologists are the vitiators of all our wildlife problems and not our commissioners, legislators, or hunter sportsmen as you might think. If I thought for a second that biologists were saviors, I would never have called them eco-terrorists. Commissioners and legislators are involved in politics to formulate and institute the laws that biologists concoct in the name of science…rightly or wrongly. Biologists learn quickly to guard what they say publicly or risk getting crosswise with administration policy and being excommunicated by their state or federal agencies. You can bet what biologists do say publicly on television or in news print will be disguised as science but calculated to be propaganda to move public sentiment in a favorable direction to benefit their agency. Our state and federal fish and game agencies have no shortage of bunny huggers and tree lovers willing to support them. Mother earth and her wildlife have become a cult religion with hundreds of animal societies jockeying to be the “Pope”—biologists weaseling their way in as high priests and the hunter sportsman trying to get all of them in his sights.
Just 25% of the nation has a college or university degree of some sort or another. That means the other 75% of our nation hold a high school diploma or less. In order to be employed as a biologist by any state or federal wildlife agency, one must have a BS degree…. the minimum to qualify and the lowest degree offered in the collegiate system. This excludes everyone with a high school education who relies on experience and a common sense approach to wildlife management. This time proven method has been handed down from father to son for generations and was the cause, thinking and under-pinnings for the creation of the famous Pittman Robertson Act. P.R. was not instituted by diploma carrying biologists. Today, young people come out of our colleges to enter wildlife agencies as mere children having been indoctrinated by very liberal professors in liberal colleges who promote protectionism, environmentalism and preservationism and not necessarily conservation. Many of these neophytes do not understand the concept of predation management the way older hunter sportsmen do through hands on experience and a high school diploma. These new recruits enter an atmosphere where the direction of wildlife has been preordained by cronies 50 years before they got there and are quickly informed not to buck the system or say anything that will make waves…or else! All of this is done under the guise of science by people who hold nothing more than a Bachelor of Science degree. By the sacred cow called education we glorify these four year graduates as scientists and experts who have no experience and we elevate them above ourselves. They are now ready to work their way up through a stiff necked system the way everyone did before them. The past system guarantees there will be NO present or future apostates in their wildlife administration. This explains why you never see any change in wildlife management throughout our state and federal agencies. Change is condemned not encouraged. Criticism smacks of their predecessors being wrong which is not thinkable. Winston Churchill was on the right track when he said “Anyone who is not a liberal in his youth has no heart: Anyone who remains so as he matures has no brains.” Touché! This sort of wildlife management in our state and federal agencies sets up a revolving chain of protectionism and not conservation by this stifling system and can be traced directly to biologist’s mentality.
I’ve never had theses problems pointed out as clearly as I did on April 9, 2006. A biologist by the name of Carl Lackey from Nevada Department of Wildlife (NDOW) was called to investigate a mountain lion sighting and serious disturbance at my friend’s ranch in Genoa, Nevada. This would not have been so ludicrous except that this biologist is considered thee Nevada “expert” in bear and mountain lion matters and personifies everything I have written. Upon arriving at the ranch Carl Lackey said to my friend; “I am not allowed to speak on any matters of the mountain lion that might involve the department in any controversy.” NDOW”S image be damned—there was a dead calf here. Carl Lackey didn’t dare answer my friend’s piercing questions with the truth because that didn’t fit 60 years of state and federal research and furthermore runs counter to NDOW policy. All this happened in the presence of several witnesses. This is an on-going daily recurrence throughout the western states wildlife agencies. My own 24 year old son endured the same stupidity by a California biologist on March 28, 2006. After seeing mountain lions far too frequently around his house, he called a California game biologist to discuss the urgency of the matter. He got the same response as my Genoa friend. Can you believe my son lives in Burbank, California of all places and well within sight of all the movie studios? Needless to say my son “mauled” the biologist good and proper with the facts and truth about mountain lions…. bless his soul. We permit these biologists to get away with this behavior because of the lack of education on our part. When they realize we are informed about mountain lions and stand up to them, they’re spooked. They instantly become aware that if you keep pressing them with facts you’re going to force them to lie or go against administration policy. I personally have lost all respect for biologists of this kind.
All sciences follow empirical laws and all sciences encourage examination, debate and free thinking. All strive for the facts—the truth. Just by these criteria alone it is easy to see that wildlife management fails the science test and is nothing more than a pseudo science at best. It attains its elevated status by attaching itself to biology and biologists. That’s about as close as wildlife management will ever come to being a science. From there it gravitates to such things as duplicity, confusion, distortion of facts and even lying. Because biologists have the diploma and we don’t, they convince the nation that their guess is better than our experience and common sense. Education, which we have glorified, has come full circle and knifes us all in the back. With this type of wildlife management, everyone, anti’s and conservationists alike come out losers. Like my mother told me—you can’t have your cake and eat it too. We can have lots of mountain lions or lots of “wildlife”—but not both. With mountain lions we are guaranteed lots of deaths and carnage with never any rest or peace. If you worship mountain lions, I ask you to look at your child or grandchild pensively and view them as “mountain lion food” or God forbid—“Scat.” As I said—I have no respect for people like this, especially biologists who have led this country into such a morass. Most of them knew better but did nothing to stop it or head it off. The height of stupidity in wildlife management came when the U.S. F. & W.S. chose on their own to reintroduce the wolf to Montana and Wyoming. Wildlife management policies in our Fish & Game agencies will not permit or encourage open debate, policy examination, criticism and God forbid beneficial change. Unless “we” change it, we can expect to remain under this yoke of oligarchy forever. I believe in an informed, educated public and a democratic government. In other words…Our American dream. Thank heavens the U.S. Observer thinks the same way.
Bud Sonnentag can be reached at PO Box 72, Gabbs, Nevada 89409 or huntersalert@huntersalert.org.