Conservative Sportsmen Turn Against Bush - USA Today

[hatrack]

"This is really some country," says my friend Arnie Erickson. He, his young son and I make our way down a steep slope toward Otter Lake, through a grove of centuries-old spruce, some of them with trunks 4 and 5 feet thick. We're scouting for spring steelhead fishing and next fall's deer in a rugged corner of Alaska's Tongass, our country's largest national forest, which encompasses nearly 17 million acres. The pristine landscape seems serene and timeless.

But as things stand now, this place is doomed. Late last month, the Bush administration announced it would exempt the Tongass National Forest from the roadless rule, set in place by former president Bill Clinton (news - web sites), which protected 58 million acres of public land nationwide. Former timber lobbyist Mark Rey, now undersecretary of Agriculture, spearheaded the rollback. Fifty industrial clear-cutting operations in untouched areas of the Tongass are set to move forward. The Otter Lake area, on Chichagof Island, is one of the first tracts scheduled for logging.

The tree-huggers fume that government subsidies to the timber industry cost taxpayers hundreds of millions, and the nearly 5,000 miles of existing logging roads are enough. But a powerful rumble of discontent is growing from what seems, at first glance, an unlikely source. Just weeks before the exemption was declared, Dale Bosworth, chief of the Forest Service, received a petition from the Northern Sportsmen Network of Juneau, Alaska. It was signed by 470 gun clubs from across the USA, 40 of them based in President Bush (news - web sites)'s home state of Texas. In places, their letter sounds like classic "greenie" rhetoric, calling the Tongass "an unparalleled part of the American landscape," the management of which should "err on the side of caution." The message, which failed to sway the Forest Service, is clear and to the point: "We urge the Department (of Agriculture) to leave the Tongass protections intact." But while their agenda is similar to traditional environmentalist groups' agendas, their focus is quite different.

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Petrich typifies the organization's constituency. The registered Republican, an avid outdoorsman with a degree in gunsmithing, says, "I respect Bush. I just can't believe he's doing this. The right thing is so obvious, it's a no-brainer." The "right thing," as far as the Northern Sportsmen are concerned, is protecting the Tongass against the damage of game habitat wreaked by clear-cutting and the encroachment of roads into some of the nation's largest remaining chunks of wilderness."

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[grannylib]

1. More and more sportspersons are starting to realize what the true impact

of Chimpy's environmental policies really will be: decreased habitat, thus fewer fish and less game, not to mention the priceless treasure of wilderness in and of itself. There is value beyond measure in this earth in its untouched beauty and we cannot let the profits of the few destroy that.
We gotta vote these evil bastards outta here!

[zbdent]

2. I loved the one where the female blue crabs were protected

from being harvested, due to the shrinking population. The harvesting was essentially eliminating the species from the planet.

The harvesters were complaining that their livelihood was being hurt because they were not allowed to do their harvesting, and their businesses were taking a financial hit.

Well, D. U. Fuc-ing H.! I think that your livelihood would be hurt more by the extinction of the blue crabs than the temporary halting of harvesting so that the female blue crabs, now fertilized, can repopulate what you have decimated!!!

[StClone]

3. I used to be a big tree hugger

Now I hug toothpicks because that is what's left.

[zbdent]

4. That, and the bare streets named after trees

.

[beyurslf]

5. Oh come on

No one really likes trees. All those leaves to rake. And the blocking of the sun. Don't you remember that forst in Wizrd of Oz...home to mean flying monkeys. Think of all the malls and parking spaces that can be built in the place of those dirty little forests. Lots of shopping. Maybe a theme park or something too. And who cares about some squirrel? Sounds like lunch to me.

<sarcasm off>

[zbdent]

6. I bet Mary Bono loves trees

Got her a political office, straight up from the waitress job, eh?

[jburton]

9. OUCH ! n/t

[treepig]

8. plus, they cause a lot of pollution

according to st. ronnie

[StClone]

7. What is their thinking

A new development that abuts my land removed over 60% of the trees and undergrowth then paved and built over the grassland that remained. The new streets are called 'Kingfisher', 'Warbler', 'Hawk', 'Owl' and 'Sandpiper'. Cute aren't they.