Right now, as you are reading this, America’s native wolves are being persecuted and killed in the Rocky Mountain states, wild horses are being brutally rounded up on public lands owned by all Americans and a butterfly sanctuary on the Texas-Mexico border is under attack by right-wing thugs. The brutality of the 19th century toward Native people and native wildlife has never really ended in the United States.
Donald Trump ended most federal protections for wolves as his tenure as president was coming to an end, but President Biden and Interior Secretary Deb Haaland have not made efforts to protect the species. Jacob W. Frank/National Park Service via AP, File
A year ago, Joe Biden promised one of his grandsons, who loves wolves and expressed deep concern to his grandpa that wolves again were about to be mercilessly slaughtered, that he as president would not allow such a slaughter to happen on his watch. (Donald Trump had ended most federal protections for wolves on his way out the door.) Yet Biden and his interior secretary, Deb Haaland, have done nothing to protect America’s wolves. Thousands of these vital, native beings, who in reality take very few cattle and who belong in nature as the Creator intended, have been slaughtered, including pregnant females and newborn wolf pups.
Wild horses and burros are an integral part of the history and natural heritage of the country. They grace public lands in the West with their great beauty. There are hundreds of millions of acres of wide open, public lands in the western U.S., with plenty of room for wild horses to roam and live their lives as they have for hundreds of years, while inspiring awe in all who are blessed to witness their presence. Yet wild horses are being violently rounded up by the federal Bureau of Land Management, with helicopters, and removed from their homelands. Horses are intelligent, sensitive beings with strong herd and family connections. These inhumane and senseless roundups inflict agony and suffering on these beautiful animals. Many horses are being transported in awful conditions to horse slaughter factories in Canada and Mexico. Who is being served by this monstrous cruelty and by the destruction of these beautiful beings?
Heavily federal taxpayer-subsidized cattle ranchers out West provide just a small percentage of the country’s beef supply. Yet these private ranchers are allowed to graze their cows across hundreds of millions of acres of public lands that all Americans own. These 21st-century federal welfare ranchers refuse to share our public lands with native wildlife, wolves, coyotes, wild horses, prairie dogs, wild cats, grizzly bears, a long list of native beings. Western ranchers strong-arm federal agencies into killing tens of thousands of native animals every year. The cattlemen’s brutal demands and actions have severely degraded ecosystem health across the West. It’s time to stop this selfish and immoral destruction of our shared natural heritage, the true heart and soul of our country, by an out-of-control cattle industry and by rapacious fossil fuel, corporate timber and mining interests as well.
One more situation to ponder. The National Butterfly Center is in the rural town of Mission, Texas, along the Rio Grand border with Mexico. The center is a precious sanctuary for butterflies, desert tortoise and other fabulous wildlife. The sanctuary and staff are under attack, and the director is pressing assault charges against right-wing border wall supporters. Despite President Biden’s promise that not one more foot of the ecologically destructive, outdated and ineffective border wall would be built, that wall is still being constructed near the butterfly center. The Biden administration has not lifted a finger to protect the sanctuary and its staff.
It is not acceptable that in this vast and great land, there is no room for native wolves, wild horses and a sanctuary for butterflies. There is more than enough room for all native beings to live and thrive here. With the climate change crisis that is upon us, our own survival as a species depends on humans living in this country and on this planet, in a way that is far more gentle and kind to all living beings and to all life.
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