Wildlife Damage Management, Internet Center for
Date of this Version
December 1979
Abstract
I greatly appreciate being invited to the 1979 Great Plains Wildlife Damage Control workshop - especially being your dinner speaker. The climate of public opinion developed from the ecology movement in the western world implies that everything chemical is unnatural and bad, while anything biological is intrinsically desirable. Vertebrate pest control faces a very emotional climate, thanks to government actions and many organizations seeking to profit fran keeping it that way. Unfortunately Americans have been indoctrinated to think that the present vertebrate pest control methodology is archaic and inhumane, that the field attracts those who are killers at heart, and that most of the tools being used should be banned. I have accepted your invitation because I want to try to put animal damage control in a rational perspective. We desperately need to develop a sensible environmental ethic in the national consciousness, to replace prevailing emotional and extremist views being perpetuated for financial gain by too many conservation organizations. I wish that more of these organizations would follow the lead of the National Audubon Society and National Wildlife Federation in trying to state the issues in the proper context rather than striving to inflame the issues further.