The Fish Stinks From the Head Down

Reading The Washington Post this morning, I was reminded of an Italian saying, "The fish stinks from the head down."

The thing that made me think of this was a massive color picture of dead salmon in an article about how Vice President Dick Cheney (ironically code-named "Angler" by the Secret Service), was instrumental in creating the largest fish kill on the Klamath River in order to save a completely redundant hay crop in Oregon. Two snippets are appended below, with a elipse (...) to denote a shortening of the source text.

Because of Cheney's intervention, the government reversed itself and let the water flow in time to save the 2002 growing season, declaring that there was no threat to the fish. What followed was the largest fish kill the West had ever seen, with tens of thousands of salmon rotting on the banks of the Klamath River.
Characteristically, Cheney left no tracks.

The Klamath case is one of many in which the vice president took on a decisive role to undercut long-standing environmental regulations for the benefit of business.

By combining unwavering ideological positions -- such as the priority of economic interests over protected fish -- with a deep practical knowledge of the federal bureaucracy, Cheney has made an indelible mark on the administration's approach to everything from air and water quality to the preservation of national parks and forests.

..... Months later, the first of an estimated 77,000 dead salmon began washing up on the banks of the warm, slow-moving river. Not only were threatened coho dying -- so were chinook salmon, the staple of commercial fishing in Oregon and Northern California. State and federal biologists soon concluded that the diversion of water to farms was at least partly responsible.

Fishermen filed lawsuits and courts ruled that the new irrigation plan violated the Endangered Species Act. Echoing Kelly's objections, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit observed that the 10-year plan wouldn't provide enough water for the fish until year nine. By then, the 2005 opinion said, "all the water in the world" could not save the fish, "for there will be none to protect." In March 2006, a federal judge prohibited the government from diverting water for agricultural use whenever water levels dropped beneath a certain point.

Last summer, the federal government declared a "commercial fishery failure" on the West Coast after several years of poor chinook returns virtually shut down the industry, opening the way for Congress to approve more than $60 million in disaster aid to help fishermen recover their losses. That came on top of the $15 million that the government has paid Klamath farmers since 2002 not to farm, in order to reduce demand.

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Cheney's Canned Hunt

I have always considered "shoots" to be little more than canned hunts. Tame, pen-raised birds are released at first light, often tossed into the air by hired hands, where they may spend as much as 15 minutes "in the wild" before they are blasted out of the air by rich smug men who kid themselves that they are "hunting". No one gets dirty, and the rich do not even gut and pluck their birds -- the hired hands do that.



This is to hunting what "chicken-hawk" draft dodgers are to true warriors that voluntarily put themselves in harms way.



This is skeet-shooting with chickens. This is chicken-sh**.



Angus Phillips, the outdoor writer for The Washington Post writes of these hunts: "[Y]ou have to wonder what kind of hunter takes delight in shooting 70 tame pheasants in a morning. What's the point? I like eggplant parmesan sandwiches; nothing makes me happier than having one for lunch. But you wouldn't try to eat a dozen of them. All states have limits on the number of wild game birds hunters can take in a day. Even in states where pheasants are abundant the limits are fairly strict. In pheasant-rich South Dakota the bag limit is three a day; on farms there where pen-raised birds are added to the wild population, the limit is six, which sounds like plenty of birds to me. But on toney Eastern preserves like Rolling Rock, where all the birds are pen-raised, you can shoot till your arm falls off. Evidently there's still a market for that sort of thing among supposedly responsible adults. Who knew?"



The article below recounts Dick Cheney blasting away 70 pen-raised pheasants in a morning, and presumably the same number of ducks in the afternoon. That's almost continuous firing at domesticated poultry, with your tax dollars idling on the runway.

From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Tuesday, December 09, 2003



Cheney in region for small-game hunting

By Rebekah Scott, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette



One of Washington's big guns came to Westmoreland County yesterday for a day's shooting at the Rolling Rock Club in Ligonier Township.



For the second time in two years, Vice President Dick Cheney arrived at daybreak at Arnold Palmer Airport in Latrobe. Air traffic was halted briefly at about 7 a.m. as Air Force Two landed and Cheney's security detail loaded him and his favorite shotgun into a Humvee and drove up U.S. Route 30 to the exclusive country club.



"All I'm allowed to say is there's a big military plane on the ramp, and it's not the first time I've seen it there," said airport manager Gabe Monzo. Cheney shot more than 70 ringneck pheasants and an unknown number of mallard ducks. The birds were plucked and vacuum-packed in time for Cheney's afternoon flight to Washington, D.C.



John Smith, law enforcement supervisor for the Pennsylvania Game Commission, said he was alerted to Cheney's day-trip. Rolling Rock has a game-raising program worthy of a second-in-command, he said, and unlicensed bird hunting is legal this time of year for guests at private clubs.



Scott Wakefield, a dog handler at the club, said about 500 farm-raised pheasants were released from nets for the morning hunt. The 10-man hunting party that included Cheney shot 417 pheasants. The vice president was set to hunt ducks in the afternoon.



Cheney followed a similar hunting schedule in November 2002, when he last visited the Ligonier Township landmark.



Cheney's Washington staff would not confirm his whereabouts yesterday, saying: "Today is his day off and he can spend it where he likes." Spokesman Kevin Kellems said Cheney is expected back in Washington today for a full day's work.



Southwestern Pennsylvania is a quick flight from Washington, D.C., a good alternative to Cheney's favorite South Dakota hunting ground.

Just A Couple of Outdoor Guys?

Deadly with a gun, but maybe not in the way intended.



Time Magazine, September 20, 2004



Just A Couple Of Outdoor Guys

George W. Bush unwinds by clearing brush. John Kerry has a weakness for windsurfing. But both the President and his Democratic rival stress their more macho outdoor pursuits in interviews in the October issue of Field & Stream, due on newsstands this week. (They are on the cover for newsstand readers, but are supplanted by a whitetail deer in editions sent to subscribers.)



The two answer questions on a variety of policy issues, from the environment to gun control, but also make a strong pitch to the rod-and-gun crowd.



President Bush, it seems, favors bass fishing (he once hooked a 9.5 pounder on Rainbow Lake in Texas) but also likes to fly-fish for ocean stripers and hunt quail with his dad. "You know, I'm not a very good shot," the President admits. He likes to fish with Barney, the family's Scottish terrier--"a great fisherman," who "sits on the bow of the boat for hours."



Kerry, for his part, favors saltwater fishing, mainly for bluefish and stripers. A good shot, the Senator says he occasionally goes bird and rabbit hunting and has hunted deer but has never bagged one bigger than an 8-pointer. "I once had an incredible encounter with the most enormous buck," he says, "16 points or something. And I failed to pull the trigger at the right moment." Don't tell Dick Cheney.