THE NORTH AMERICAN WATERFOWL MANAGEMENT PLAN
The last time I promised to tell you about the North American
Waterfowl Management Plan. If you’ve already read press releases touting
the Plan as one of the greatest conservation efforts of the century, I
hope you kept in mind that the US Fish and Wildlife Service, the
Canadian Wildlife Service, and our state game agencies are in the
hunting business.
The Plan is an agreement signed in 1986 between the US and Canada to
increase duck and goose populations. Mexico has since become a third
“partner.”
Press releases aimed at the general public from the Department of
Interior to newspapers read this way:
The North American Waterfowl Management Plan, originally signed in
1986, is an agreement to reverse the continent’s loss of wetlands and
stem the decline in populations of waterfowl and other migratory birds.
“One of the great features of the North American Plan is the
partnership dollars it attracts,” Director Beattie said. “It is a magnet
for non-government money and has a multiplier effect of two to three
times the federal investment.
The plan is also integral to our ecosystem approach,” she said. “The
joint ventures are footholds on ecosystem management, demonstrating that
waterfowl cannot be conserved without habitat and all the species that
go along with it. The Plan and all its joint ventures provide a model
for us to follow in implementing ecosystem management in all our
efforts.” [Press release, July 1991 from the DOI]
In a pamphlet designed for hunters entitled the North American
Waterfowl Management Plan: Waterfowl for the Future, it describes the
“conservation” project this way:
The goals of the plan, with its 15-year horizon to 2000, establish
specific objectives to restore duck populations to the levels of the
1970’s. It aims for breeding populations of 62 million that should
produce a fall flight of 100 million birds. Attaining these objectives
would mean that 2.2 million hunters could harvest about 20 million ducks
annually. The plan also lists population objectives for geese and swans.
There are lots of ways to make money. The USWFS and state game
agencies sell the public’s wildlife. Although it is surprising, this is
a non-issue in the public mind. We have to make it an issue – a major
issue. We’re asking wildlife advocates everywhere to rise up, speak out
and vote!!! We have to vote out the politicians who are selling off our
wildlife to thieves and killers with the hope that the majority of the
electorate won’t figure it out or will blindly accept the atrocity of
“sport” hunting.
