by PrkStRangr@aol.com
Early this month we alerted you to a vote in the U.S.
House to slash the funding
of the Department of Agriculture's Wildlife Services department. As you
should
know, Wildlife Services (formerly known as Animal Damage Control, but
they
changed their name to improve their image) kills hundreds of thousands
of wild
animals each year as a service to wealthy western cattle ranchers.
Predators
such as coyotes, wolves, wildcats, bears, birds of prey and other wild
animals
are eliminated by poisons, rifles, leg-hold traps, explosives in dens
and other
methods to increase the profits of ranchers. These are your tax dollars
at work
to keep burgers cheap.
On Tuesday, June 8, the U.S. House of Representatives
voted 230 to 193
against the DeFazio-Bass amendment to the House Agriculture
Appropriations
bill. The amendment would have reduced the Wildlife Services Department
budget
by $7 million dollars. The department has an annual budget of about $40
million
and they use $10 million federal tax dollars a year to kill the wildlife
of the West.
In reply to a letter I wrote my representative, the
Honorable Mr. Silvestre Reyes
of Texas, the Honorable Mr. Reyes sent me a piece of mail which read
"thanks
for sharing your opinion with me but I voted against the Bass-DeFazio
amend-
ment because the amendment would have negatively impacted other
important
programs carried out by Wildlife Services, such as the control of
migratory birds
around our nations airports. For our air travel safety this program must
continue....blah blah blah".
Ok, so I understand that they must kill the ducks and
geese which nest near
airports so that they don't get sucked into jet turbines or make a hard
to see
through splat on the aircraft windshield...I wish we could find a more
humane
solution to this problem, but I guess this isn't a priority for our air
travel industry.
Just a thought, couldn't some compassionate air traffic
officer come up with the
idea to use some of the many herding type dogs, border collies and the
like,
which are put to death in our nations shelters, to form a corp of guard
dogs
around airports? This idea has worked at golf courses, why not airports?
But either the Honorable Mr. Reyes of Texas was lying to
me or he was
hoodwinked by the ranching lobby. The Bass-DeFazio amendment only
intended
to reduce the Wildlife Services budget by $7 million. And the cuts were
only to
be from the predator killing program in the west. The work done by the
W.S.
department to prevent rabies outbreaks and to kill the birds at airports
would not
have been affected by this amendment.
Such is the power of the ranching/agriculture lobby.
DOA, Department of Agriculture, Dead on Arrival.
For the sake of the remaining wild animals,
For the sake of the 9 billion animals tortured and slaughtered for food
each
year,
For your own health and peace of mind,
Go Vegan.
To see how your representative voted on this amendment
go to this site:
Final Vote Results for Roll Call 172
http://clerkweb.house.gov/cgi-bin/vote.exe?year=1999&rollnumber=172
If your representative voted for the amendment, it might
be nice to tell him or her
thanks. If they voted no, you might like to enlighten them about how you
feel.
For more information about this federal department which uses your tax
dollar
to slaughter wildlife go to this page from the Fund for Animals
website...
Animal Damage Control: Out of Control
http://www.fund.org/facts/adc.html
Go on to Wildlife
Services???
Return to 23 June 1999 Issue
Return to Newsletters
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