There’s a Role for Conservatives in Conservation
It may be tempting to lump this week’s “tiger summit” in St. Petersburg, Russia, in one’s mind with a global-warming convention or an Al Gore movie premiere. But the “tiger summit,” despite its slightly silly name, deserves better. The summit serves to highlight some deeply disturbing facts that will require dedicated action to reverse.
According to the AP, the “World Wildlife Fund and other experts say only about 3,200 tigers remain in the wild, a dramatic plunge from an estimated 100,000 a century ago.” According to wildlife experts, “tigers could become extinct in 12 years if countries where they still roam fail to take quick action to protect their habitats and step up the fight against poaching.”
To attempt to undertake such action, the tiger summit is seeking to raise $350 million to implement the first five years of the Global Tiger Recovery Program’s 12-year plan to try to double the tiger population in the wild.
Okay, I know what some of you are thinking, but issues of conservation should not be the exclusive domain of the political left. “Conservative” and “conservation” come from the same root, and, whatever their high-minded ideals, it’s not generally the liberals who dedicate themselves to preserving, protecting, and nurturing that which is worthwhile in the world. Moreover, there is no bigger, more legitimate issue of conservation than the pending extinction — at least in the wild — of many of the earth’s greatest animals.
In a recent op-ed titled “The Earth Doesn’t Care” (subtitled “About what is done to or for it”), George Will summarizes the views of Robert B. Laughlin, co-winner of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Physics. Characterizing Laughlin’s arguments, Will writes: “What humans do to, and ostensibly for, the earth does not matter in the long run, and the long run is what matters to the earth. We must … think about the earth’s past in terms of geologic time.”
The upshot of Will’s piece is that the earth is remarkably durable; that it often endures natural changes of far greater significance than any effects caused by the automobile or the air conditioner. Will writes, “Damaging this old earth is, Laughlin says, ‘easier to imagine than it is to accomplish.’ There have been mass volcanic explosions, meteor impacts, ‘and all manner of other abuses greater than anything people could inflict, and it’s still here. It’s a survivor.’”
But there is one exception: “Laughlin believes that humans can ‘do damage persisting for geologic time’ by ‘biodiversity loss’ — extinctions that are, unlike carbon dioxide excesses, permanent. The earth did not reverse the extinction of the dinosaurs.”
With that in mind, we ought to talk a lot less about the “need” to reverse global warming or to stop sensible oil-drilling in the vast open expanses of Alaska, and a lot more about a key way in which our actions — or our collective inaction — truly can change the natural world for the worse.
Tigers currently roam freely in 13 countries: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand, and Vietnam. But each of these countries, on average, has only about 250 tigers (though the exact number varies from place to place). Tigers’ habitat, in the AP’s words, is being destroyed “by forest cutting and construction, and” — rather disturbingly and perversely — because “they are a valuable trophy for poachers who want their skins and body parts prized in Chinese traditional medicine.”
The Global Tiger Recovery Program aims, the AP reports, “to protect tiger habitats, eradicate poaching, smuggling, and illegal trade of tigers and their parts, and also create incentives for local communities to engage them in helping protect the big cats.”
So the plan to save the tiger will move forward on several fronts. The AP reports that “[the head of the World Wildlife Fund, James] Leape said that along with … [taking] stronger action against poaching, it’s necessary to set up specialized reserves for tigers and restore and conserve forests outside them to let tigers expand.” Leape adds, “And you have to find a way to make it work for the local communities so that they would be partners in [tiger] conservation and benefit from them.”
All of this, of course, will require money. And the $350 million that the tiger summit hopes to raise is a lot of money. But it’s less than a day’s worth of ObamaCare — literally. (Once up and running — if not repealed — ObamaCare would cost more than $500 million a day.) Even without the compulsion of the taxman, $350 million seems an attainable goal. That’s only about $1 for every American, never mind contributions from the rest of the world.
Leonardo DiCaprio, who attended the tiger summit, made news this week by donating $1 million to the World Wildlife Fund to help conserve tigers’ habitats. Again, this might prompt mocking in some quarters, as actors and actresses are easy to lampoon — and often justly. But why not think of it instead as a wonderful example of a private citizen (and a tremendous actor, to boot) exercising his natural right to control his own property and to use it in the service of good. There are a lot of other things that DiCaprio could have done with that million dollars, but I, for one, am glad he chose this.
His motivation? DiCaprio says it well: “If we don’t take action now, one of the most iconic animals on our planet could be gone in just a few decades.”
The powerful tiger has to be on — and may well head — the short list of the most gorgeous and splendid animals in all of creation. And yet many of the greatest of animals, the tiger and the great apes chief among them, are in very serious jeopardy of essentially disappearing from the wild. The AP reports that tiger populations have declined by over 40 percent in the past decade alone, and three of the nine tiger subspecies (the Bali, Javan, and Caspian) have all become extinct — and not just in the wild — since around the start of World War II.
One might be motivated by the biblical teaching that the creation of the animals was “good” and by our attendant responsibility to exercise “dominion” over them in a way that isn’t tyrannical but is just, or by the notion that a world in which a tiger can only be found in a zoo is an impoverished and imbalanced place. Or perhaps one’s motivation is simply a general sense of duty to protect incarnations of greatness, grandeur, and beauty in our world.
Regardless, there are plenty of reasons to take action. I encourage you to do so. The tiger is well worth saving.
Persuasive. It would help to know in what way we could contribute (other than donations)
I’m not sure which planet you are intent on saving, Mr. Anderson-this one, or the one you came from?
A NGO founded by the former head of the KGB? Funded by a notorious Hollywood bonehead? Wow! Pardon me if I knock down a few little old ladies in my rush to get on board.
Seriously, have you done any critical thinking on this notion? Vlad Putin doesn’t have an altruistic bone in his body. His alma mater has a history of creating just such organizations with the express purpose of using them for propaganda and intelligence means. When they aren’t murdering dissenters and other troublesome types.
Leo DiCaprio’s thoughtless endorsements of goofy left-wing causes is already the stuff of legend. The man endorses Al Gore’s ‘work’ on global warming, yet flies around the world in a private jet. Does that tell you anything about his capacity for discernment? Or irony?
Animals do indeed come and go on our planet. We may be one of them. Animals such as tigers, who frequently eat people, will probably go before us. But this isn’t going to help them.
I am astonished that there appears to be nothing more respectable you or your organization could have brought to my attention through PJM. George Bush may have looked into Putin’s soul, but I suspect you’ve stuck your head into something else.
-I’ve often wondered about the irony of “Conservative” and “conservation” coming from the same root. In the quest to achieve the Conservative ideal of Free Enterprise, conservation takes a beating. Fine article Mr. Anderson. I hope it will have an effect on your target audience.
I do think it is a good article and often some thing over looked or underplayed by some sources. Personally, I view myself as a conservationist, but not a preservationist. At any rate, some valid points to mull over.
Tigers are facing extinction. The proposed solution? A “program” (another bureaucracy). Most likely that will end up accelerating the extinction.
I rather have a force enabled to *eliminate* all tigers (like the “rat control” in NYC or Boston.) That will ensure thriving tiger populations in the same manner that “rat control” programs have ensured the exponential growth of healthy rodent populations in our large cities.
If you don’t want to contribute to the organization started by Vladimir Putin, there are plenty of other organizations and funds that are trying to preserve tigers and other endangered wildlife. They all welcome donations.
http://forevertigers.com/organizations.htm
You don’t have to be a left-winger to be saddened at the prospect of these magnificent animals going extinct–permanently.
In California and actually almost every part of America, Conservation of of rare species of birds, frogs, insects, fish and other creatures of God’s Green Earth is excuse to infringe upon the rights bestowed upon humans by their creator, the same God who made the Green Earth. Which one should prevail? Property rights, or the right of an animal species to be exempted from the realities of life? 3,200 tiger’s in the entire world? Is it a specific type of tiger? I hear there are only a couple dozen of certain species, even though every decade new habitats where they live are being found. I hear the Polar bear is going to be extinct around the same time the tigers are going to be. I also note that salmon have survived dozens of years past their extinct date. Many species are not even distinct species, only delineated by the geopolitical region in which they roam.
So, how about some real numbers, some specifics, and a guarantee that money will not be used to deprive lawful property owners of their God given right to their property use. There are probably a hundred or more guarantees that will be required before I even imagine myself supporting “conservation” efforts, particularly those that are pushed by the likeds of Vlad Putin.
What is with this sudden rash of conservatives assuming other conservatives aren’t sufficiently environmentally conscious? Between this guy and Moran, I am beginning to feel like my conservative friends and I are some kind of exception to an unwritten rule somewhere (all of us are avid woodsmen and hunters who belong to or participate with area conservation groups or efforts.)
Just because a person disagrees with the premise of the climatists or disagrees with the solutions to environmental issues as proffered by left wing groups doesn’t mean that most (or even many in my personal experience) conservative individuals think mother nature should take a flying leap or that we can treat her as our very own open sewer.
Conservatives can be conservationist, especially if they are large land owners. Land ownership produces conservationist and people that have great respect for land and the native animals that roam said land. Farmers have always been conservationist and for the most part always will. Farmers and large land owners love their land and want to see it productive as well as reservoirs for wildlife.
There is a wild and beautiful park that runs through Washington D.C, called Rock Creek Park. I have been unsuccessful so far in having the surviving wolves brought from Yellowstone to Rock Creek, but it would be just the place to bring the endangered tigers.
When the neighbors complain, as the ranchers around Yellowstone have, they will have this remedy. You are allowed to shoot the animal if it can be proven in court that the animal is a menace. The most usable evidence is the dead animal with remains of cattle or your children in its stomach.
“donating $1 million to the World Wildlife Fund to help conserve tigers’ habitats. Again, this might prompt mocking in some quarters, as actors and actresses are easy to lampoon”
No, I mock it because Leo is being a gullible rube: the WWF won’t spend a penny of his million “to help conserve tigers’ habitats.” The WWF is a sham: nothing but a political pressure group and lobbying organization- it does nothing, period, except run PR and propaganda operations, and promise checks to politicians who will advance their Watermelon political program, and fund academic whores who participate in the global-warming pseudoscience scam.
Doesn’t surprise me at all. Hunting groups such as Ducks Unlimited often do the most practical environmental good, even if their ultimate goal is a wee bit different than the environmentalists. The best harvest requires not just a healthy species but a healthy biosphere. While these aren’t technically political groups, and many members are pro-union, you’re probably not going to find too many leftists with a hunting license and deer tag.
It’s too bad that the tigers don’t really range in areas to allow limited hunting and the sort of groups devoted to it. A “Tigers Unlimited” with local members who have ‘selfish’ reasons to keep the population robust will always be better than even the noblest of altruistic purposes.
I’ve been a board member and primary donor of a tiger rescue sanctuary in Southern Calif. for years. I’ve learned some interesting stuff:
1. There are more tigers in the United States than in the (world’s) wild. This is thanks to qualified private ownership, a huge Lib/Enviro bugaboo. The success of zoo and private breeding programs in the US has brought back the White tiger from ending up as yet another Chinese sex vitamin, as but one example.
2. Zoos help to put down thousands of exotic animals every year. Yep – even endangered tigers. Why? Because of zoo’s elite eugenics-era ideas of bloodline preservation. Bring your lion to a zoo and they more than likely will euthanize it if it happens not to match their preferred degree of purity. Putting it down ensures that “mutts” stay out of the system.
3. Our sanctuary houses exotic animals that the zoos won’t take, usually confiscated due to California and Fish & Game law. From Tigers, Leopards, Lions, Cougars on down to Bobcats and Servals. Since zoos won’t take them (#2 above) it’s private money – not gov. money – that keeps them alive. Even though the animals have been dropped off by govt. authorities – police usually – the govt. does not provide the resources to care for these animals. Yes, I’m a tea partier so admittedly I’m compromising ideologically here to complain about a lack of govt. assistance.
4. Exotic animal ownership is a tough area to politicize one way or the other. We had two of Mike Tyson’s cats – a Sumatran Tiger and an African Lion, both male – but had to send them away because they were totally nuts, as in wild-eyed crazy. Tyson had kept them in tiny steel cages off in some corner of his yard and the cats were about 60% of healthy body weight. They were likely put down because they were just too freaked to be in an open environment. They were not abused that we could tell, just neglected. Most of our neglected and abused cats come from rappers, almost exclusively. You can go to several states and get a lion or tiger cub for several hundred bucks. Yep.
This kind of thing understandably makes a lot of people mad and feeds a reactionary movement to stop all exotic animal ownership. Since most of us are not equipped to take on exotic animal care, it seems to make sense to limit the damage and not let anybody do it at all. This is a big agenda item for “animal rights” organizations like WWF, who I believe are simply antihuman enviros out to run our lives and save Gaia from evil humans.
The other argument is that qualified exotic animal owners provide the best possible situation for these animals to be in – arguable better than the wild in some cases. You would be very surprised at the animals all around you in your neighborhood, and 99% of the time they are in great shape.
A few years ago we had a volunteer who was a secret PETA spy. He copied the cage key over a few weeks, and snuck in one night to let the tigers and leopards have their freedom. Very luckily for him, he broke the key off in the lock. I always wondered what he planned to do after letting them out, because there is absolutely no escape if one of the cats felt threatened.
It’s not just that the canine teeth are two inches long, the tooth is also sharp enough to cut paper. Then there is the bite force, which is the same as a Tyrannosaurus per square inch. When people get hurt, the word “accident” is used because honestly, the cat very likely didn’t mean to do anything; it is just the weaponry that is beyond belief.
Yours is not the only place that does things like that. Near Spokane, Washington, there’s a small privately-owned park called Cat Tales that does the same thing with big cats, and many of theirs are also rescues from owners who didn’t know how to take care of them.
Conservationism IS a subset of conservatism in my opinion, and it is different from Environmentalism in that it actually accomplishes something. Environmentalism is all about controlling other people and preening with self-righteousness. The actual environment is just a foil. The Boy Scouts are considered a reactionary organization by most of the left, yet they do a whole lot of the actual conserving of state and national parks. I’ve personally been involved in a dozen Eagle projects that were worked out with the AZ Forest Service to reclaim unauthorized jeep trails, clean up campgrounds and lake beaches, rebuild forest trails, etc. Doing what you do is eminently conservative, and I don’t reckon wishing the gov would help out when they’re such a part of the problem is antithetical to the TEA Party platform (the small portion that is consistent, at least).
The best way to derail the Envirofacsist movement is to take over the worthy parts and continue doing our best to preserve natural habitats as best we can. The American ideal of Federalism is all about balance in the government, and Conservation should be balanced as well. There’s no reason that the rights of humans and needs animals and even plants can’t be reasonably and judiciously balanced.
Arizona history offers a parable of imbalance. When Pres. Theodore Roosevelt expressed his admiration for the herds of elk on the north rim of the Grand Canyon, the overzealous rangers began shooting, and paying for other to shoot, every predator they could find. Wolves, coyotes and cougars were slaughtered, and even a few bears. The herds increased to the point that they began to starve, and that’s where the hunting lotteries came from. No human organization is ever going to be perfect, but AZ Fish and Game does a pretty good job with managing wildlife, and predators have been making a comeback, but so far we haven’t had many attacks on humans, likely because enough people carry guns to keep the predators wary.
One essential principle of leftist thought is to always go overboard to keep reactionaries overreacting. There’s no need to fall into that trap. Conservationism has been Republican from the beginning, and it’s past time to reclaim the good parts. The rest can be left to the Envirofacists so they can keep their self-righteous pride and accomplish as little as possible. It won’t matter to them, results only matter to the Left when comparing body-counts.
Just remembered an anecdote on the subject of the strength of the big cats. The tiger sanctuary is by Victorville, and very often a nearby rancher stops by with a horse, cow or sheep in the pickup that has met an untimely demise for one reason or another. The animal has to be ‘divided’ up for distribution between 9 tigers, a task I managed to studiously avoid.
One day I heard a sharp crack/crunch that sounded like a tree was falling outside. Turned out it was one of the 600lb. Siberian male tigers, Diablo, that had been presented with a steer’s entire head, horns and all. He bit the head and skull in half completely, in just a few bites. The next day there were a few large bones like the jaw, and the horns.
Here are some pictures of Diablo:
http://www.foreverwildsanctuary.org/images/diablo_2.jpg
http://www.foreverwildsanctuary.org/images/diablo_8.jpg
http://www.foreverwildsanctuary.org/images/diablo_5.jpg
http://www.foreverwildsanctuary.org/images/diablo_7.jpg
The premise of “Cruncy Con” the Whole Foods loving conservative is half lost on the power of what I declare are the true facts of conservative conservation…recycled products and small farmers are good for small business. Leananrdo Dicaprio is one of the idiots that think plastic bags are bad, but his ilk was part of the effort to ban paper bags that used forest products. The plastic grocery bag is used to make fleece the finest “new” innovation for clothing in the past 20 years. Recycled cement is used to make siding, recyled steel should be the basis of a huge American indurstry, but 95% of it goes to China. The conservative voice for the environment could be about how recycled creates new industries and new jobs…the best green jobs that need no subsidy.
As usual, my Kingdom for a functioning CENTER!!
Lately, I have been backing off some of my contributions to green organizations, because they often go too far in their AGW bluster and their super-tight restrictions on such things as killing wolves. On the other hand, someone has to support reasonable wolf (just to pick one hot-button species) management.
I do not believe that property rights are absolute, when it come to environmental issues, but when the battle lines get drawn, all sort of odd things emerge from Greenpeace to “Nuke the whales.” Around here the issues are more about habitat preservation, hunting restrictions in an area with an expanding white tail deer population, and developers. Neither a hunter nor a bird-watcher wants to lose a hundred acres of woodland/wetland to housing developments and shopping malls.
I can mingle with, because I believe in diversity
(and have been hunting on gun club land for thirty five years), righty gun-worshippers in my local pistol and rifle club. Sometimes we can agree on conservation measures, sometimes not, but we can agree that the eight-point buck I took with a bow a couple days ago is a nice deer. If I am lucky, there will be another deer in the next month taken with either a shotgun or a (supposedly) primitive firearm. I say supposedly, because its rifled barrel shoots further and straighter by far than the shotguns. It’s just that you only get one shot.
My green friends, wince and say, “Well, I know the deer have over-populated, contribute to lyme disease and someone has to hunt them.”
It is no scoop that it is difficult to find common ground on any issue these days that has political overtones and the impulse to protect or preserve something gets morphed into a strange brew.
Around here, hunters had a breakthrough moment about twenty years ago when it became clear that the no hunting zone which had been established around Quabbin Reservoir, our main water supply, had resulted in badly overly-foraged land with resulting erosion and general degradation of habitat. When the state lifted the hunting ban there, the most extreme of the greens came out to protest, stalk hunters, and publish ways of frustrating hunters, which soon resulted in a law making it an offense to harass legal hunters.
Now, the much publicized “over-supply” of deer has pretty much quelled that line of thinking, but hunting as a recreation/way of life, whatever you want to call it, is still shrinking, rather than expanding. Kids would rather play video games or be with their friends etc. State revenues from hunting and fishing licenses are decreasing…but for the relative few of us Cro-magnons who remain, the hunting in southeastern Massachusetts, has probably never been better. In the days of the pilgrims….hmmm, I could go on, but then I might not stop.
The damage that the environmentalist Left has wrought is two-pronged. First, they have often worsened existing problems with their myopic focus on anti-capitalism, the anti-human rhetoric they purvey, and many of their Procrustean, counterproductive “solutions.” Second, they have given a bad name to giving a damn about the environment, and encouraged too many people on the Right to feel that the Earth requires no stewardship, or that attempting (or even wishing) to practice such stewardship is essentially leftist.
As seen above, some of us are willing to countenance depredations upon an area or species, as long as it’s felt to be poking a finger in the Left’s eye. Rather than leave environmental protection to the Left, I’d prefer considering what parts of their agenda AREN’T crazy, think seriously about non-crazy ways to address them, and do so, respecting property rights as without using them as a club to preempt any and all measures (same as with transportation). Nothing unconservative about that.
Liberals are only interested in the Tiger because it’s dangerous. This is the formula: If it kills humans, liberals like it. Nobody would give a damn about an endangered rabbit. The “fascinating” animals are the ones that kills humans: Crocodile, Tiger, Gorilla, Shark etc.
That “fascination” criteria also extends into the kind of humans liberals feel empathy for: Terrorists, criminals, dictators etc. The more scary they are, the bigger the urge for liberals to defend and endorse them.
Up until four years ago it was widely assumed there were 4000 tigers in India alone. Then it was discovered that the India Forestry Department had been padding its figures for years, was engaged in the illegal trade of tiger parts to China, etc, and in truth there were only about 1500 tigers left.
I’m annoyed that outfit of a magazine, called The National Geographic, has not published a lengthy article on the matter. I suspect that it will not do so because its pages are so heavily larded with photos, it no longer has a staff with the writing and investigative capabilities of its glorious past, and that it would be too politically incorrect to expose the enormous amount of corruption that exists in a “developing” nation such as India. Thus we will never know the particulars of what happened.
Which bodes ill for the tigers of not only India, but every other “developing” nation in Southeast Asia.