Thought some of you Utah guys would find this to be humorous, or possibly infuriating. A friend sent me these exerpt notes of a subcommittee hearing of the Utah Legislature where Don Peay, Founder of SFW, testified of the value of Utah paying $300K to fund lobbying efforts in Washington, DC.
Almost in disbelief, I decided to listen to the comments myself on the Utah Legislative website. Below is a link to the video and audio recording of all Utah legislative hearings.You are looking for the February 21 Utah Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environmental Quality Appropriates Subcommittee video. It is a big file (119MB). The exerpts are from testimony that starts around the 20:00 minute mark.
http://le.utah.gov/#iframe
Funny stuff. Could use some serious fact checking on some of these details, but facts have never been a currency that some are comfortable dealing with.
Wonder who te "WE" is that Mr. Peay keeps referring to?
Evidently, now that the gray wolf battle was won by the folks who SFW hates and despite the efforts of SFW to stop those successful efforts, now they have found a new money machine in the form of the Mexican Gray Wolf. Wonder if this funding will come DWR or from the general fund of Utah?
If the Utah hunters are paying for this, they should at least be privy to who gets the money and how it is spent. Last time I looked at SFW tax returns, they had some line item expenditure that stated "Wolf Lobbying." Wonder who that money actually got paid to?
One Representative stated he thinks the value received by Utah is worth the cost ($300K). A comment like that is enough to make you fall off your chair in laughter.
Really, what value did Utah receive by SFW/BGF trying to kill the bill that got us the delisting of the gray wolf in MT/ID and that has since lead to delisting in pretty much every other state with wolves and soon delisting in the entire lower 48?
I know Utah got a lot of benefit from the work done by all the other groups who SFW threw under the bus. I know Utah got a lot of benefit from Representative Simpson and Senator Tester, two guys SFW has thrown to the wolves whenever they could. I know Utah got a lot of benefit from hunters in MT/ID/WY who spent years of time working on this delisting issue and finally getting the ball across the goal line.
But, I am confused as to what benefit Utah got from SFW/BGF being in the peanut gallery lobbing cheap shots at those actually getting the work done.
Anyhow, here are the pertinent exerpts that Utah hunters might want to know of.
Almost in disbelief, I decided to listen to the comments myself on the Utah Legislative website. Below is a link to the video and audio recording of all Utah legislative hearings.You are looking for the February 21 Utah Natural Resources, Agriculture and Environmental Quality Appropriates Subcommittee video. It is a big file (119MB). The exerpts are from testimony that starts around the 20:00 minute mark.
http://le.utah.gov/#iframe
Funny stuff. Could use some serious fact checking on some of these details, but facts have never been a currency that some are comfortable dealing with.
Wonder who te "WE" is that Mr. Peay keeps referring to?
Evidently, now that the gray wolf battle was won by the folks who SFW hates and despite the efforts of SFW to stop those successful efforts, now they have found a new money machine in the form of the Mexican Gray Wolf. Wonder if this funding will come DWR or from the general fund of Utah?
If the Utah hunters are paying for this, they should at least be privy to who gets the money and how it is spent. Last time I looked at SFW tax returns, they had some line item expenditure that stated "Wolf Lobbying." Wonder who that money actually got paid to?
One Representative stated he thinks the value received by Utah is worth the cost ($300K). A comment like that is enough to make you fall off your chair in laughter.
Really, what value did Utah receive by SFW/BGF trying to kill the bill that got us the delisting of the gray wolf in MT/ID and that has since lead to delisting in pretty much every other state with wolves and soon delisting in the entire lower 48?
I know Utah got a lot of benefit from the work done by all the other groups who SFW threw under the bus. I know Utah got a lot of benefit from Representative Simpson and Senator Tester, two guys SFW has thrown to the wolves whenever they could. I know Utah got a lot of benefit from hunters in MT/ID/WY who spent years of time working on this delisting issue and finally getting the ball across the goal line.
But, I am confused as to what benefit Utah got from SFW/BGF being in the peanut gallery lobbing cheap shots at those actually getting the work done.
Anyhow, here are the pertinent exerpts that Utah hunters might want to know of.
Wolf Re-introduction by Senator Ralph Okerlund
To appropriate $300,000 this year for Washington lobbying against the Endangered Species Act and to prevent wolves from being reintroduced into Utah.
Sen. Okurlund : "For the last couple of years the Legislature has been making sure we are protecting our agricultural interests and our livestock interests and our wildlife interests in the state by making sure wolves are not reintroduced. We've been very successful. We have good news on the gray wolf but not so good news on the Mexican Spotted Wolf. The request is for $300,000 to continue our efforts to make sure we do not have wolves in the state of Utah depleting our wildlife and livestock herds."
Don Peay [Founder of Sportsman for Fish and Wildlife] got the committee laughing about the Senator's confusing the Mexican wolf with the Spotted Owl.
Peay: "We've spent a great deal of industry and private money and effort to solve this problem for the whole state of Utah."
Peay reported that Idaho has lost $50 million, minimum, in the last years from lost revenue (hunters licenses, taxidermists, hunting guides) because of the wolf.
Peay: "We want to keep Utah a great place to hunt and fish................ We were able to work and get the United States Congress to remove wolves from the endangered species act. The three states Idaho, Montana and Wyoming have actually killed 1,230 wolves in the last 16 months............"
Peay reported that the Montana legislature just passed and the governor just signed "a bill that will allow them to kill a bunch of more wolves and make it a lot easier. It's destroying jobs, private property, the economies rural."
To keep ahead of this, Peay reported that the USFWS expects to delist for Utah and the lower 48 states for the gray wolf sometime this spring or summer.
Peay: "We've been having a battle with some people who don't want it to happen; we've been winning; they've been losing. We just want to keep that pattern going. And lastly, we've done a lot of preemptive work to keep the Mexican Wolf...they wanted to put Mexican wolves into Utah since the Mexicans don't want Mexican wolf recovery. And that would destroy, literally, all of Senator Okurlund's and Representative's Noel's -- all of your game."
Speaking about the large draw of people from around the world to last weekend's hunting expo in Salt Lake City:
Sen. Margaret Dayton: "If we have wolves we're not going to have any."
Peay: "It will all go away."
Dayton: "My question is this. The northern wolf isn't indigenous to Utah and the Mexican wolf which keeps getting killed in Mexico, and they escape and come up here, and they weren't ever indigenous to Utah either. Isn't that correct?"
Peay: "I'm quite sure in the scientific data the Mexican wolf was never native to Utah. It was never here so they're trying to actually fudge the ESA [Endangered Species Act] and put them here. There were wolves here when the pioneers came so there were some wolves; they probably weren't the Canadian wolves, but there were some wolves here."
Dayton: "Scientists say its a different DNA."
Peay. "Yeah."
Dayton: "Would you just remind us what the request is and what you've done with the money you've had. We probably have to have this restated."
Peay: "Yes, the request was for $300,000 for the second year and it's just been used to do a do a very complex political, legal grass roots effort administrative working to -- I'm a chemical engineer-- this is the most complicated thing I've ever worked on if you look at all the things, so in a simple way, very complicated process. I'll just say this, Jim Hansen said, Don, if you get this done they'll make a bronze [statue of you], if you get this done. No one has changed the ESA in 30 years except for the snail darter in Tennessee. Well, we changed it for this issue."
Rep. Mike McKell: "I'm looking at some numbers for Idaho. I'm an avid sportsman. I hunt and fish and I've done it all over the west. I'm looking at numbers. Lolo elk numbers before wolf introduction 20,000. After wolf introduction 1,700. I've hunted the Lolo Pass and the herd has been absolutely devastated and I would encourage members of this committee to support this proposal. Wolfs [sic] in Utah are serious and the amount of money we would lose far exceeds the $10 million dollars that Idaho loses. It would be devastating to the State of Utah. Devastating to our citizens. I think this [$300,000] is a small price to pay for what we receive in return. We have a tremendous asset. As a sportsman, I want to let the committee know that we harvest more Boone & Crockett bull elk than all of the other western states combined every year. We have an asset that we can't afford to let dissipate."