CARIBOU: Avoid this boondoggle

To the compiler of public comments:

Once again the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service seems to be listening to environmentalists who live in cities, seldom come to areas they are trying to tie up, and have little or no knowledge of the species they are supposedly trying to protect. During the 1970s about two dozen woodland caribou, subsisting in the Cabinet Mountain ranges of British Columbia, were netted and air-lifted to the northern ranges of the Selkirk Mountains in Boundary County. This was an ill-conceived attempt to re-establish a herd in the lower United States. As I recall about 60 percent of the transfers either died in the relocation process and/or during the first winter after their relocation; this was done for a subspecies that is not endangered and whose numbers would have multiplied better if left in their British Columbia habitat.

Following this fiasco, the U.S. Fish and Game established a grizzly bear habitat in the same area. The nonsense continues in that now Fish and Game is protecting several packs of wolves that range in the same area. How dumb can you get? What the grizzlies don't kill in the spring, the wolves kill in the winter.

Caribou range in elevations above 4,500 feet and bed under the canopies of hemlock, fir and cedar. Their hooves are about 7 inches long and more than 4 inches in width, which form natural snowshoes. They are docile animals and are not especially afraid of humans. In fact, quoting from the "Ethnography of the Kutenai" by Harry Holbert Turney-High, page 40, "Caribou hunting (by the Kootenai) was considered a matter of individual enterprise and not subject to the chief's control. Caribou were too tame to require communal effort." His Indian informant stated, "They are just like shooting cows." They certainly don't need a gated area or protection from non-hunting humans.

I hope the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will recognize that woodland caribou will do fine in their self-chosen range above the U.S. border and that land under review will remain multiple use. If the agency proceeds with the ridiculous plan of closing the area to other uses, then they need to move the grizzly bears and wolves from the proposed posted area. Taxpayers should not be required to provide caribou, elk or deer for the predators to eat.

Data collectors in Washington tell us that there are more than 20 million homeless children in the United States. If that is indeed true then we have no business blowing our limited funds on wildlife relocation boondoggles.

LEONARD BRANT

Rathdrum