We are scientists, manage an animal rights mediation/law practice, study innovative forms of conflict resolution, and can no longer stay silent about the unjustified genocide being committed against the Profanity Peak Wolf Pack. There were and are at least three non-violent solutions to this problem, and yet, Washington State officials continue to choose the violent destruction of an endangered species while weak-minded Wolf Advisory members look on and watch. We find the actions of the state and the Wolf Advisory Committee to be both morally unjustified and intellectually witless. We experience their behavior as vile, juvenile, and reckless, and will not support it.
We were quietly associated with the proposed rescue of the surviving wolves by a California wolf sanctuary. In the sanctuary’s plan, the State of Washington would not have had to do or pay anything, and the wolves would have been flown to safety in California. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife rejected the rescue plan, arguing that it was not practicable, and, instead, opting to sanction the murder of the wolves in conjunction with U.S. Wildlife Services (the sadistic murderous agency that it is). We were just informed that they murdered another adult wolf from the pack, and therefore, we are contributing our perspective under the 1st Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
The gray wolves are ostensibly protected by the Endangered Species Act. The Profanity Pack lives in one of the most remote regions of the United States. They don’t bother any human population except for one. This is a powerful ranching family in Eastern Washington who rents PUBLIC LAND for cattle grazing in order to increase its profits. Because the wolf pack has apparently attacked the cattle, and because the Wolf Advisory Committee has foolishly created a murder protocol, men from U.S. Wildlife Services have, and still are, murdering this wolf pack instead of seeking rational, non-violent, and non-murderous solutions.
It may interest some of you readers that, according to some accounts, U.S. Wildlife Services regularly murders millions of animals each year on PUBLIC LANDS, and this is by shooting, poisoning, trapping and other heinous and cruel methods. In our professional community we wonder what could motivate such violent behavior. We are intrigued about the kind of person who seeks out jobs that permit this kind of violent jouissance (which, incidentally, is analogous to “crushing” innocent puppies). We speculate that there is sexual dysfunction or personality disorder involved in such profound levels of violence against defenseless animals who live on PUBLIC LAND.
There is much scientific and practical debate about how to prevent wolves from killing livestock. WSU PhD-level researchers have empirical evidence that they believe can greatly decrease depredations but WSU administration has rebuked these statements, apparently to side with the Wolf Advisory Group’s murder protocol. It is interesting that we have not heard from these researchers since they were hushed up by officials from the university. There are also other researchers across the U.S. who argue that there are ways to prevent these depredations, but some misguided wildlife workers avoid this discussion and instead focus on arguing that “lethal removal” is necessary sometimes. This scientific debate will not yet solve this issue, therefore, leaving us with the moral and practical dimension. Again, we see three non-violent solutions.
From the Western Enlightenment, we are indoctrinated to believe that humans are superior to all other species on this planet, and therefore of greater worth. This means that in cases of conflict between humans and animals, humans will always win in the end. In logic classes, we teach this as the “begging the question” fallacy. It is an un-thoughtful, non-reflective, and non-critical assumption that we make by fiat. In this case, it operates against the wolves, even though they are protected under the Endangered Species Act. In contemporary times, because every aspect of the planet is commodified through capitalism, every single item is assigned a value. Every human. Every animal. Everything has a value that is measured in terms of macro-economic and micro-economic financial systems. The wolves (as a group “thing”) are simply assigned a value that is less than that of a ranching family’s interests in money because it has rented out PUBLIC LANDS, and its interest in money is viewed as a greater value than the wolves’ interest in their lives. Let’s review this: In this case, we value a private landowner’s interest in money as greater than a wolf pack’s interest in its survival. We also want to respect a cattle-owner’s right to murder his cattle but curiously choose not to pay him off for his losses, and instead choose to murder, in part because of our need for revenge.
We suggest that the Wolf Advisory Board consider the following 6 axioms as its members continue to deliberate about the value of the lives of the wolves, for they reveal an ongoing human anthropological mistake, and one that we ought to take seriously. First, we must dismiss the notion that humans are better, of more worth, or higher on a value scale. We must substitute it with a new axiom of ontological parity. Second, we must agree that in principle that most of us have little knowledge about the whole: about how all beings, processes, and structures work together in an ecosystem. We substitute it with a new axiom of rigorous inquiry. Third, we must accept a new Archimedean point. We cannot pretend to be at the center of the universe or the planet earth. This means that we must render an accounting of all life forms, including ours, holding that all living beings have equal interests and rights. We must, therefore, have an axiom that recognizes we play a part in the whole but are not the whole, and that we must mediate and weigh our interests relative to those of other life forms. Fourth, we must recognize that all life forms come from the same source. This leads us to the reconstituted notion of solidarity. This is a trans-human notion that includes the human equally with all other life forms. Fifth, we must acknowledge and accept a new depth and breadth of our responsibility to others, including humans, other sentient life forms, additional life forms, and the environment in general. Sixth, we must work diligently to formulate and articulate a new philosophical anthropology for human beings. This means we must strive for new meaning and understanding of the world and our place within it. This is neither the autonomous subject nor the heteronomous subject but it is a new human. This re-formulates the reality principle.
Let us discuss these axioms together. Presently, our collective view focuses on human desire in which there is an implied and sometimes stated thesis that the world revolves around the interest of humans. In this view, other life forms have lesser value; we wouldn’t want to argue that they have no value but to say “lesser” still gives us the same power to torture and destroy them, these other life forms. It actually goes even further than this: humans are so caught up in their desires, which creates a certain form of the way we see and perceive, that they most often just ignore the interests of other life forms. Because they ignore other life they don’t even consider the real interests of these other life forms, passing them off as “wildlife,” or “wild animals,” without natural rights to be left alone by humans. In our view, this is an unreflective life project with unreflective opinions. By definition an unreflective opinion is uncritical: it lacks thought. Our intent is to interrogate this uncritical state in such a way that we deepen our understanding of it.
If the reader looks at these six axioms as a whole she can see that there is an isomorphism between individual narcissism (disregarding the Other human) and cultural/species narcissism (disregarding other life forms). Both include the same preoccupation with self or culture, and both ignore or actively trounce on the interests of Others. Moreover, we can see that there is an over-reliance on the law, i.e., in this case, the murder protocol (for lethal removal). An over-reliance on the law is a retreat to the familiarity of the superego position, i.e., the dominant proscriptions of one’s society and culture. This is a denial of the transcendent in both the individual and in the social elements of a culture. There is also a compulsion to rely on the words used to taxonomically differentiate one type of being from another, which includes different levels of ontological value, rights, and protections. For example, in most jurisdictions wild animals are considered things/property, and become personal property once they are taken from the forest. Because “property” and “things” do not enjoy due process rights, we therefore, allow the human taker to do anything he wants to the “property.” Analogously [and curiously], there are historical examples amongst humans, in cases of race and gender, in which different categories of humans were assigned different value, and some counted as “property.” It is the same kind of thinking. Although this is a change in name, it is not necessarily a change in action although this might be the first step in a long-term, developmental process of change.
We believe that conservation groups that are involved on the Wolf Advisory Board are so grateful to be allowed a voice at the table with state authority and with ranching money that they are afraid to take a truly protective stance for the sake of endangered wolves. We read many Internet entries about how “sad” they are and how “tragic” this is, but see nothing of advocacy and real solidarity. It is disappointing that such a weak group of people is in charge of making such important decisions. At the end of the day, we think they are pansies. As far as ranchers go, we believe that they don’t really understand the meaning of their despicable behavior. They are just doing their jobs, continuing to support false beliefs about the nature and value of wolves, and the value of the production of beef. Unfortunately, they don’t yet understand that we cannot sustainably feed a growing human population on a meat diet—or they don’t care. Right now, the expansion of cattle grazing is colliding with many other interests. For example, the BLM’s round-up of wild horses is due in great part to the interests of ranchers in more grazing land. Even more importantly, perhaps, is the inefficient use of water and other resources to feed cattle that the ranchers eventually murder themselves. It also causes a significant amount of environmental pollution. Do the comparative mathematical analysis like we have done. It is simply a poor use of resources, is not sustainable, and causes governmental bureaucracies to make irrational judgments about the lives of so-called “protected” species. One can easily see how this is an example of the “great hierarchy of being” thinking that we inherited from Christianity and from European Enlightenment philosophy—thinking that in the end destroys wolves (and other species). Finally, we think that the bureaucratic group that is overseeing this operation from Olympia is an example of the worst kind of human being: callous, heartless, un-reflective, and unwilling to consider at least three non-violent solutions that are obvious. People from our community wonder what kind of inducements trigger such behavior.
The fact of the matter is that we live in a violent world, and here we are, justifying a murder protocol just like Hitler’s group did in Germany, as many administrative workers processed these murders just like the Wolf Advisory group, and both the state and federal agencies that are responsible for the savagery. Humans pride themselves as being rational and intelligent, but here we are, admitting that we cannot come up with a non-violent solution and that we have to murder wolves—and wolf pups—by taking a rifle to them. Yet, the truth is that we had and have non-violent solutions. It was rejected by callous bureaucrats in Olympia who prefer ranching interests over the lives of individual members of an endangered species. Anyone who was involved in drafting this murder protocol, and anyone who either ordered the murders, or who carried them out, should be ashamed of themselves. You are neither intelligent nor moral. You represent the violence in humanity, and the lack of regard for other sentient beings either directly or by complicit passivity. You also lack creative problem-solving skills or worse yet, allowed yourselves to become besotted by “bureau-speak.” We can only hope for a natural justice that compensates for your insane belief that only human beings have natural rights.
The three non-violent options are to collar the cows, move the cows and pay the rancher money, or rescue the remaining wolves. In addition, there are at least three truths of the matter. First, there is no other place for the wolves to go than where they are (other than by rescue). Second, in our collective knowledge, the pups are just as innocent as the puppy you brought home for your kids. Imagine some bureaucratic cretin taking a shotgun to your puppy’s face. Three, it is still an option to rescue the remaining wolves. We are betting that the Wolf Advisory Board remains passive and that the scurrilous demagogues in Olympia maintain their murderous, violent, vile campaign. Why? This is the most puzzling question of all.
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