There will come a point when federal regulations become so erroneous that we will eventually become criminals for simply camping in the wrong place. If you think I’m kidding, just take a look at what recently happened to the woman at Yellowstone National Park.
The Department of Justice just brought criminal charges against a woman for snapping photos of bears in a designated visitors’ parking area in Yellowstone National Park. While snapping photos from a safe distance and behind a brick wall, the bear charged her, at which point the woman quickly turned around and calmly walked away.
The entire encounter was caught on camera as bystanders gasped in disbelief from inside their cars.
The response from the public is bitter, declaring that she should be permanently banned from all national parks for life, jailed, and fined large sums of cash.
Why? According to the National Park Service, she put the bear’s life in danger of being euthanized. If she had gotten attacked, the bear would have been put down by Park Service officials.
Therefore, the bear’s life is more important than a human’s life, and she must be punished. Never mind the National Park Service officials who are responsible for euthanizing the bear. Never mind the ridiculous guidelines that allow this nonsense to propagate. No, none of that is responsible at all.
Now that’s environmental justice!
How long will it be before we face similar punishments for wildlife wandering into our campgrounds? What would we do if we encounter a federally endangered species while hiking, mountain biking, camping, or four-wheeling? Will we be able to encounter and watch wildlife without the threat of criminal charges?
Despite all of this, people should look at the real threat to the grizzly population. It doesn’t come from curious tourists, ignorant visitors, or any of us little people. Instead, the real danger comes from environmental extremists who seek to protect animals and their habitat to the point of destruction.
It’s maddening to see biologists chase deer with a helicopter and trap them with a net gun, or dart grizzlies with tranquilizers just to put a GPS collar on them. All the while, the same group of people who advocate for this type of management want to jail you for even encountering wildlife in the backcountry.
With this comes the false belief that the so-called “professionals” have the right to disturb wildlife to carry out studies that ultimately work against motorized access and all forms of multiple use.
Furthermore, these “professionals” develop policies that stop basic forest management while they intentionally disrupt industry on public lands. This disruption has caused more destruction than anything by interfering with our long-established system of grazing and timber harvesting.
The bottom line is, these folks seek to play God and wish to control every form of life on earth. This has nothing to do with the environment or wildlife in any way, and by the time they’re done, our spectacular forests will be blackened, and the wildlife they wish to protect will meet their fate in an inferno.
The blood is on the hands of environmental extremists.
How dare we fail wildlife and allow them to meet their destiny at the hands of this radical ideology. We must do better.
