The Agrarian's Lament

so let's post a few uncomfortable/surprising truths that relate to this.

Why? As this area, environmentalism, is one of those areas people allow their political views to enter and trump scientific ones, ending up taking positions counter to their own stated position.

So here goes

First off, almost all the really dire predictions that were made when Earth Day first became a thing have been, well, wrong, showing that our ability to predict in this area is no better and maybe worse than any other.

That's, oddly enough, a reason to hope.

Regarding climate change, those who argue that we should go to an electric future free of coal fired power generation and fossil fuel powered cars have to accept that absolutely, with no exception, requires the use of the one really efficient green power source we have. That's nuclear power. Back all the windmills you want, but without nuclear power, we're not getting anywhere on this.

On that, fear of nuclear power is purely emotional and wholly un informed.

For those who scoff at the arrival of electric cars, by the way, you're about at the same point that people who scoffed at the arrival of cars themselves were in 1915. I.e., there's enough of the old around to fool yourself, but that's what you're doing. Ten years from now your petroleum consuming vehicle will have no value at all and you'll be looking for an electric one, like it or not.

Re solar and wind, while nuclear is necessary, these have now come into their own. Scoffing at these sources not being self supporting is living in the past. Yes, they have their own problems, but everything does.

Next, in order to really preserve the wild areas and basic environment of North America you pretty much have to cap off immigration at some rational level. I.e., you can't increase the population of the country much beyond the current point and, frankly, you really have to look towards it decreasing, which given the low birth rate of native born North Americans is actually perfectly possible.

The entire population of the world will start decreasing on its own sometime during this century, but the current population growth rate in North America is way beyond the sustainable and that's all immigration fueled. This isn't racist or xenophobic. It would still be true no matter what populations were taken in. It's a simple fact. For that reason, really, immigration at this point in time ought to be geared mostly towards true refugees with some rational acknowledgement that a slower rate is required.

Tied into this, advocating for growth in everything is contrary to the environment as well, rather obviously.

On another point, agriculture is the only really green industry of any kind, and even it isn't green when its industrial. If you want to preserve the environment, preserve sustainable family farms and ranches, everything else flows from that.

The closure you live to nature, the more of a real conservationist or environmentalist you are. If you herd sheep, ranch, farm, work out in the sticks, etc., you are probably an environmentalist even if you don't know it. If you work in a large city, chances are that you aren't, even if you think you are.

Related to that, if you aren't gardening, hunting or fishing, you aren't really an environmentalist.

You probably also aren't if your living a modern corporate existence in a big American city. You may be eating a tofu based diet and working from home in Seattle, but if you got there by going to an east coast law school to make a big income and went on a vacation, just before COVID 19, to Bali, you're likely consuming a lot more of everything than that guy working down at the garage who's driving a twenty year old beat up pickup to work.

If you call your dog a "fur baby" and have fits about the plights of pets, but don't worry so much about humans, same thing. Being a misanthrope or just neglectful of the human condition doesn't make you an environmentalist.

If you oppose environmental measures because you are a Republican, and support them because you are a Democrat, you aren't thinking things out. Individual things require individual ponderings.

All of which means, you can't have it all your way, on anything.

Blog Mirror: USDA Amplifies Farmers Voices and Concerns Over Transportation and Shipping

USDA Amplifies Farmers Voices and Concerns Over Transportation and Shipping

Lex Anteinternet: "We all do things we said we never would"

Lex Anteinternet: "We all do things we said we never would":

"We all do things we said we never would"

So said a sticker that was on a car that belonged to somebody who parked in the same parking lot I've been parking in for 30 years. The quote was attributed to "Soccer Mom".

For some of that 30, I've parked a real car there. The cars were, in order of ownership, a 1954 Chevrolet sedan I once owned, a 1973 Mercury Comet, and a 90s vintage Mercury Cougar. The Chevy I bought when I was still a college student. I loved it, but owning it turned you into a part time mechanic and I didn't have the time. Additionally, at the time I sold it, I also had the Comet, which I had inherited, which was a nicer and more modern car.

I regret selling the Comet, but I did just that when we had our first child as I was able to buy a 1995 Ford F250 diesel for a good price, part of which was trading the Comet and a F150 to the person who sold it to me. I had too many vehicles anyway, I thought, and it was a good deal. The Cougar came along later when we picked it up from a friend of my wife's. It had a lot of miles on it but it was in good condition and I drove the stuffing out of it, even though the heater didn't work.

Otherwise, I've driven 4x4s to work.

Often they've been pretty heavy duty ones that could do ranch work as well as sporting transportation. More recently I've added an old Jeep. The Jeep is my current daily driver, but my Dodge D3500 4x4 takes me to work a fair amount and to out of town work when I go out of town. None of these vehicles is new by a longshot.

Most of them look like I'm ready to go pull a trailer full of bulls or go into the hills. But there they are, in the parking lot.

The point of the quote above?

Today is the opening day of turkey season.

I won't be going today. The weather is awful anyway, cold and lots of snow on the ground, but that's not the reason why.

I'll be heavily engaged in work.

When I was first practicing law, I cancelled an elk hunting trip here in the state (a Wyoming type of trip, not a guided something) as a partner in the firm assigned me something that conflicted with it. Another partner later apologized and noted that one of the advantages of being a lawyer was "the illusion that you could take time off when you wanted to." I've found it to be just that, an illusion.

I've been introspective a lot recently.

An old friend. . . my oldest friend, reminded me the other day that when we were in high school I maintained I'd never have a job in which I'd wear a tie. The conversation came up as we were at a funeral, his son's funeral, and he wasn't wearing a tie as his son always tied it for him. He doesn't wear them often. I was wearing one, and I know how to tie one, as I wear them so often.

My youthful declaration about ties was because I didn't want an indoor job. At that time I was going to be a game warden. I've written about that before, so I'll forgo doing so again, but I didn't take that path. Instead I pursued geology, but the bottom fell out of that. Then I went into law. I didn't know much about the practice of law and I didn't know any lawyers.

A different friend of mine, who is a lawyer and who is married to a lawyer maintains that law was the only occupation, other than the clergy, that would suit me, and as I'm Catholic, and married, obviously the clergy wouldn't be for me (unless, of course, I was Easter Rite, but that's another story). Religious are called in any event, and I lack that calling. Anyhow, that fellow is a German and has a more ordered sense of the world, I think, than I do. Maybe he's right. I hope so, and that would give an element of necessity to the otherwise complicated way we govern or our lives.

At any rate, as a lawyer, I've been a litigator. It's not that I pursued that, but fell into it. Lots of lawyers used to say that "the law is a jealous mistress", meaning it would take all your time, and whether or not that's true of all branches of the law, its certainly true of litigation.

Or perhaps my personality just works towards devotion to duty and work over anything else. But after two weeks with two untimely deaths, thinking back on the younger me, I've found that the sticker has been true to my personality more than I would have ever have guessed.

Lex Anteinternet: Subscribe by email "gadget" going away.

Lex Anteinternet: Subscribe by email "gadget" going away.: Google seems pretty intent on destroying the Blogger format, which means that for people like me, who have blogged on blogger, we have a cho...

Lex Anteinternet: It is now completely impossible to view the shift ...

Lex Anteinternet: It is now completely impossible to view the shift ...:

It is now completely impossible to view the shift away from an agrarian society. . .

Experimental farm, Willson North Dakota. 1914.

as anything other than a tragic mistake, at best.

We've exchanged a life outdoors and close to nature for one indoors that's artificial. We've lost our connection with nature in its real, and often not always kind, but always existentially beneficial, sense. We've lost our connection with other animals in the same way. In the process, we've made ourselves increasingly physically and mentally ill. We know that, and in struggling to deal with it, we're moving in the opposite direction.

We've forgotten who are neighbors are. We don't found real bonds of love with anyone. We've forgotten what a community really is, as we don't live in them. We have no connection with the place or the land. We don't understand ourselves as creatures. We're obsessed with money even when we claim we aren't.

The past was certainly not perfect by any measure. And the present certainly isn't. This year, 2020, has been a disaster. A horrible pandemic that originated in the densely packed cities of China spread rapidly through the densely packed cities of the rest of the globe, and while we struggle to deal with it, the best we can come up with is to hide indoors.

Perhaps it's time to really reconsider what "progress" is, and where we're progressing to.

A Tribune op ed and some thoughts on outfitters and locals.

We recently ran the item below.

The Agrarian's Lament: Two Hunting Season Reflections

A column appears in the Tribune today, by an outfitter, congratulating the Legislators involved in this matter (voting the bill down) for their thoughtfulness. Interested folks can find it here:

Outfitters: Senators deserve our thanks for taking a thoughtful approach

The argument basically is the one I noted. The bill would have reduced, the way the op-ed termed it, "hunter tourists" by 50%. And that's true.

That doesn't rise to the level a good argument in my view. After all, legalization of marihuana was subject to the same pocket book interest. And Colorado was, and probably still is, getting stoner tourists. But that is the way that a lot of people tend to look at any question, and this question in particular.

The bill claims the Senators were verbally attacked, which if true is inexcusable, but which probably does show the deep seated cultural feelings on this issue here in this state. Natives, of which I am one, tend not to be too sympathetic to this argument.

Why would that be?

It's not, by and large, that most natives and long time residents are opposed to people keeping their jobs and we generally don't want to hurt the owners of restaurants and hotels and the like. And we're keen on sporting goods stores. So none of that is it.

What is it, is being locked out.

Hunters and fishermen have sort on odd admiration/aggravation relationship with farmers and ranchers (quite a few of which, we should note, are hunters also). And outfitters have made this worse. It has to do with access to land.

Now, I'm not going to wax too romantic about this and there's always been places that hunters and fishermen, and from here out we'll just refer to both as "hunters" as fishermen are simply fish hunters, could not go. But they were much fewer before outfitting became a big business in the state.

That wasn't until the 1980s and the impact wasn't immediately felt. But by the 90s it was. Outfitters were part, but not all, of that.

Indeed, out of state land ownership was also a big part of that. Rich people would buy ranches in Wyoming and lock them up, if they could, whereas the same lands before had been ones of ready access for hunters. Outfitters, however, came in and bought the hunting access, often locking up public lands that were landlocked by private lands at the same time.

Ranchers and farmers of course participated in this for a variety of reasons, simple economics being one but also because that often meant that they didn't have to deal with the minority of hunters who were some sort of a problem to them. The outfitters guided their clients and hence controlled them.

The entire development has impacted the local land culture a lot. Access to private lands is harder to come by than it once was. Given that, local hunters are unlikely to love outfitters if they've been pushed off of their former hunting lands.

The Game & Fish, for its part, has tried to redress this and has done so fairly successfully by effectively becoming sort of an outfitter, sort of, itself, by buying access to hunting lands under various agreements with landowners. That's a great program that I highly encourage, but of course it still isn't going to engender love by the locals for outfitters.

With only so much wildlife to go around, and so many places that it can be found, reserving licenses for out of state hunters, while generally supported by the locals, loses some of its appeal when the argument fails to ignore the impact of what outfitting has helped to create in the state.

It's a classic agrarian conflict.

Indeed, it very closely replicates the agrarian conflict that took place in the 30 years following the Civil War in the South, to some extent, a conflict that came near to violence on multiple occasions. That won't occur here, but that local hunters will back such bills if they can, and that the outfitting industry will oppose them, should be no surprise.

All of which gets back, in some ways, to my earlier arguments about creating a subsistence hunting license in the state, but that's not seemingly too likely to happen any time soon, and if it did, chances are that those with a trophy focus, and outfitters, might oppose that. Or might not.

Two Hunting Season Reflections

I went out to the Game & Fish this week as I didn't quite grasp the turkey regulations.

It was my fault, I just wasn't reading them correctly. The reason for that, in part, was an element of hypervigilance on my part due to recent in the field discussions I've had with young game wardens, and also being acclimated to the regulations the way that they were, rather than the way they currently are.

Anyhow, the pleasant surprise is that there are now so many turkeys in Wyoming that you can get two or even three licenses. The bad news is that the extra licenses were already all taken. Indeed, that surprised the very helpful warden who was helping me, as he had hoped to get an extra tag himself.

I meant to get around to checking this a couple of weeks ago, but I didn't as I was too busy.

I also meant, fwiw, to apply for a buffalo license, the deadline for which was yesterday, but I forgot to do so. I tend to do that.

In discussing the turkey licenes with the Game Warden, I noted that I should have expected this as it seems that COVID 19 is causing people to get outdoors. He said that was really true and that this year they'd seen a record number of out of state big game licenses applied for. Far more, by a huge margin, than ever before.

That likely will mean the same for in state licenses as well.

This gets back to this bill in the Wyoming legislature, and my earlier comments on it:

March 3, 2021
Sometimes you learn of these bills in surprising ways.

A bill has been introduced and advanced in the legislature which seeks to adjust the percentages of licenses between natives and out of staters. I'm sure I wasn't in the intended audience, as I'm an instater.
It reads:
2021
STATE OF WYOMING
21LSO-0423

SENATE FILE NO. SF0103

Resident and nonresident hunting license issuance and fees.

Sponsored by: Senator(s) Hicks, Kolb, McKeown and Schuler and Representative(s) Burkhart, Harshman, Henderson, Laursen, Stith, Styvar and Wharff

A BILL

for

AN ACT relating to game and fish; modifying provisions governing resident and nonresident hunters; modifying resident and nonresident license reservations; increasing resident and nonresident fees as specified; repealing nonresident license reservation requirements for elk, deer and antelope; making a conforming amendment; and providing for an effective date.

Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Wyoming:

Section 1.  W.S. 23‑1‑703(e), 23‑2‑101(e), (j)(intro), (xv), (xvii), (xix), (xxi), (xxiii), (xxv), (xxvii), (xxix), (xxxi), (xxxiii), (xxxviii), (xxxix) and (k) and 23‑2‑107(c)(intro) and (e) are amended to read:

23‑1‑703.  Limitation of number of certain licenses; reservation of certain licenses; reservation of certain unused licenses.

(e)  The commission shall reserve eighty percent (80%) of the moose and seventy‑five percent (75%) of the ram and ewe and lamb bighorn sheep, mountain goat not less than ninety percent (90%) of the limited quota big game animal, wild bison and grizzly bear licenses to be issued in any one (1) year for resident hunters in the initial license drawings.  In any hunt area with less than ten (10) licenses available, the commission shall not issue any licenses to nonresident hunters under this subsection. The commission shall determine the allocation of resident and nonresident mountain lion harvest.

23‑2‑101.  Fees; restrictions; nonresident application fee; nonresident licenses; verification of residency required.

(e)  Resident and nonresident license applicants shall pay an application fee in an amount specified by this subsection upon submission of an application for purchase of any limited quota drawing for big or trophy game license or wild bison license.  The resident application fee shall be five dollars ($5.00) seven dollars ($7.00) and the nonresident application fee shall be fifteen dollars ($15.00) seventeen dollars ($17.00). The application fee is in addition to the fees prescribed by subsections (f) and (j) of this section and by W.S. 23‑2‑107 and shall be payable to the department either directly or through an authorized selling agent of the department. At the beginning of each month, the commission shall set aside all of the fees collected during calendar year 1980 and not to exceed twenty‑five percent (25%) of the fees collected thereafter pursuant to this subsection to establish and maintain a working balance of five hundred thousand dollars ($500,000.00), to compensate owners or lessees of property damaged by game animals and game birds.

(j)  Subject to W.S. 23‑2‑101(f), 23‑1‑705(e) and the applicable fee under W.S. 23‑1‑701, the following hunting licenses and tags may be purchased for the fee indicated and subject to the limitations provided:

(xv)  Nonresident deer license; one (1) deer
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 372.00 655.00

(xvii)  Nonresident youth deer license; one (1) deer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  110.00 150.00

(xix)  Nonresident elk license; one (1) elk, fishing privileges . . . . . . . . . . . .  690.00 1,100.00

(xxi)  Nonresident youth elk license; one (1) elk, fishing privileges . . . . . . . . . . . 275.00 300.00

(xxiii)  Nonresident bighorn sheep license; one (1) bighorn sheep . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,318.00 3,000.00

(xxv)  Nonresident mountain goat license; one (1) mountain goat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2,160.00 2,750.00

(xxvii)  Nonresident moose license; one (1) moose
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,980.00 2,750.00

(xxix)  Nonresident grizzly bear license; one (1) grizzly bear . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  6,000.00 7,500.00

(xxxi)  Nonresident antelope license; one (1) antelope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  324.00 600.00

(xxxiii)  Nonresident youth antelope license; one (1) antelope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  110.00 125.00

(xxxviii)  Resident turkey license .  14.00 20.00

(xxxix)  Nonresident turkey license . 72.00 75.00

(k)  Any resident qualified to purchase a moose or ram big horn sheep hunting license under subsection (j) of this section may pay a fee of seven dollars ($7.00) ten dollars ($10.00) in lieu of applying for a moose or ram big horn sheep hunting license.  Payment of the fee for a particular species under this subsection shall authorize the person to accumulate points under W.S. 23‑1‑703(b) for that year in the same manner as if he had unsuccessfully applied for a hunting license for that species. Payment of the fee shall be made in compliance with application dates.

23‑2‑107.  Wild bison licenses.

(c)  Subject to the limitations imposed by W.S. 23‑1‑703(e), the commission shall promulgate reasonable rules and regulations regulating wild bison licenses and the management of wild bison.  The rules shall provide for:

(e)  A resident applicant shall pay a license fee of four hundred twelve dollars ($412.00) for a license to harvest any wild bison or two hundred fifty‑eight dollars ($258.00) for a license to harvest a female or calf wild bison and shall pay the fee required by W.S. 23‑2‑101(e).  A nonresident applicant shall pay a license fee of four thousand four hundred dollars ($4,400.00) six thousand dollars ($6,000.00) for a license to harvest any wild bison or two thousand seven hundred fifty dollars ($2,750.00) for a license to harvest a female or calf wild bison and shall pay the fee required by W.S. 23‑2‑101(e). The fee charged under W.S. 23‑1‑701 shall be in addition to the fee imposed under this subsection.

Section 2.  W.S. 23‑2‑101(f) is repealed.

Section 3.  This act is effective January 1, 2022.

(END)
As can be seen, it dramatically increases the costs of out of state licenses, in some categories as well.
Well so be it.
I learned of this bill when an outfitter that I really don't know except by business name sent an email "alert" to my email on this, noting that it would supposedly destroy my ability to hunt in Wyoming, by which it meant a state that it though that I, as a visitor living elsewhere, would only be visiting to hunt, and wouldn't be able to.
This taps into a long running slow burn cultural battle in the state that really began in the 1970s. Prior to that time outfitting wasn't really a statewide business and may not have been a full time business of any category at all. In that timeframe, however, there was an effort basically to attempt to stabilize the business, more or less at their request, by requiring they be hired in certain areas for those who came from out of state.
Since that time, the business has really grown and there have been real efforts to directly aid them, including even granting them some licenses to be sold directly. For native Wyomingites this has been a huge issue as natives don't use guides at all and the feeling is that these efforts directly impinge on a sort of native right. This feeling has increased as some outfitters have locked up ranch lands in deals which reserve the lands for the outfitters clients. There's various arguments on this on both side, some of which they will not commit to in print but will openly voice. The printed one, form the outfitters, is that out of state hunters bring in a lot of revenue to the state.
For native hunters the counter is that they largely don't care. They don't benefit economically from it, and indeed, the opposite is true in that they loose opportunities to hunt. The past few years this loss has been keenly felt as licenses that were once easy to get now no longer are. Indeed, I haven't drawn an antelope license for two years running at this time.
With an influx of outdoorsmen of all types due to the Coronavirus pandemic, this has been all the more the case.
An interesting aspect of this bill is the absence of sponsoring names that appear on the "hot" topics this year.
On other matters, a bill a bill has advanced allowing the holders of real property to remove racially restrictive covenants from their deeds.
Such restrictions are void in any event, so this bill simply allows such restrictions to be officially removed. As few people read their deeds and as people likely generally don't repeat the illegal

I don't know why the bill failed, but I'd really hoped it would pass.

Later I heard that Wyoming tends to be unique in regard to out of state licenses in holding more for out of states than other states.

I don't know why the bill failed, but I'd really hoped it would pass.

Later I heard that Wyoming tends to be unique in regard to out of state licenses in holding more for out of states than other states. I don't know why we do this, although I do know that some years ago an asshole who lived out of state sued the state under the Equal Protection Clause claiming that the Game & Fish should make no distinction between in state and out of state licenses. That suit failed, and I hope that his lawyer was charging that guy something like $5,000/hour and he went bankrupt, but I've wondered if the G&F has been a bit gun shy since that time about adjusting these numbers. After all, they've withstood the test of litigation, so I'd get that.

If that is it, I'd yield to their considerations of those factors.

On the other hand, a common argument has to do with the dollars that out of states bring in for hunting, fishing and everything else they come in for.

Wyoming has undoubtedly been in the economic dumps for some time, due to the state's reliance on fossil fuel extraction for income. Everybody knows this, but nobody is willing to do anything much about it, yet. There are things that could be done. We have other raw products, beef, wool, etc., we produce, but we don't bother to finish them as we prefer to live like a colony. . . oh wait, that's not it. We don't do that as we're used to the petrol and coal bucks and can't really grasp anything else, even though we didn't always rely on those things. We had sheep, cattle, wheat, etc., before we ever had oil and coal in a marketable fashion, and we have uranium right now in addition to the fossil fuels. We're not, however, going to look at state sponsored meat packing plants, wool processing plants, or nuclear power, and if we started to somebody, probably somebody from somewhere else, would start decrying a "slide into socialism". So we're going to wait for things to get really bad.

In the meantime we're going to make reference to tourist dollars, such as in this instance. This rings the money in, the argument goes. And I suppose it does.

But money isn't everything and to the extent changing these percentages would impact things I doubt it would do so in a very harmful way.

Outfitters, as noted, were very much against this bill, but here too we have to consider the oddities of this. Right now, in order to go on the public land hunting in some areas of the state you need an outfitter by law. This is the case, as a friend of mine pointed out, even if I am from Alaska and hunt in the wilderness all the time. And its also the case if I come into the state to fish, rather than hunt, or to hike. The argument that out of state hunters will get lost is a dog that doesn't hunt, and we know that. The law is just a way to help guaranty employment for outfitters.

Outfitting used to be a part time job done mostly by guys whose full time jobs allowed them to have the fall off, which is still partially true. And it used to be a part time job for ranchers. Now, however, outfitters often hire out of state guides whose familiarity with the wilderness is probably not that much better, in real terms, than the people they're guiding from time to time. Some time ago, for instance, I spoke to a guide who was here for the season from Tennessee. Not exactly the rough Wyoming cowboy spending the winter as a guide as people might imagine, before he starts riding the grub line. Given that, I don't think outfitters would really be that hurt by a change in the law, and I really don't care if out of state guides are hurt. They can stay in Tennessee for all I care. Local outfitters, if they're busy enough to hire Tennesseans, can decline to do so and take care of their business themselves. That may sound callous, but I don't mean for it to be, and I think they'd be okay, money wise.

Which also gets back to this. In something like this there's an entire set of competitive interest over a limited resource. That resource, it seems to me, should be scaled towards residents and more than that, scaled towards subsistence.

Sort of a combination of Subsidiarity and Field to Table, if you will.

I'm serious about that. I'm not going to argue that the general public has a right to dictate what ever square inch of private property is used for, but the table is a basic. At the end of the day, hunting is for food, and food directly acquired is acquired in the best way possible. I don't begrudge somebody from far away coming to hunt in Wyoming, but we should be honest. First of all, in spite of what people may think, there are hunting opportunities in every state in the United States. Even Hawaii has big game hunting. There's nothing wrong with crossing state lines to hunt, but if you are trophy hunting in another state chances are high that the Chile con Carne aspect of it is probably not what took you there.

Again, that's fine, but the Chile con Carne hunting is something deeper and more meaningful. It really ought to be the thing that controls.