It Boils Down To A Lack Of Caring

A few weeks ago, I ended my column by asking readers to comment on the public’s commitment to wildlife.

Several wildlife professionals from Washington and Idaho called to vent frustration with a public that offers little financial support, but expects state employees to be available to tend every limping raccoon, grounded hawk, road-killed deer and wayward moose.

A woman from Coeur d’Alene said “the goodwill relationship between people and wildlife is one of convenience rather than devotion.”

Most callers yearned for a way to make the public aware of the toll unbridled development takes on wildlife.

A reader named Kathleen Jess put it all in perspective on my voice mail: I read with interest your article about how we can’t hold the state responsible in wildlife crises. I’m going on 50 years old, so let’s say I know the land. I was born in Massachusetts, raised in Southern California, lived on Long Island, N.Y., and now I’m here.

What I’ve seen across America is a lack of caring for our specific surrounding, our own community, parks and rivers.

People always want to put the responsibility on someone else. Unfortunately, we’re not taking our own responsibility. When we have this tremendous growth that knocks out our wildlife and natural resources, we can’t complain because we didn’t stop the builders when it was time to stop them.

Southern California used to be prime farmland. I’d walk in acres and acres of potato land, onion land, bean land; we had orchards, groves of trees and fresh oceans that washed your feet.

Today, it’s a mess.

There’s no excuse. Each one of us is to blame for the lack of caring. I wish we would point to ourselves rather than to others.

I talked to Jess later on the phone, and she offered one additional insight.

If the burgeoning human population is ever going to temper its impact on wildlife, “we each must look at ourselves,” she said.

“How do you enter a room? Do you come in quietly and unobtrusively, or do you slam the door?”

Nothing discreet here: Spokane County Commissioners Phil Harris and Kate McCaslin are quickly joining forces as a caricature for the conventional stereotype of rip-and-ruin, right-wing Republicans. This week, they ordered county planners to fast-track a plan to rip out wildlife habitat along Chester Creek near the Dishman-Mica Road.

The idea is to prevent flooding of the flood plain.

Harris also suggested laws that regulate this sort of in-stream tinkering could be overlooked.

In Kathleen Jess’ terms, Harris is a door-slammer.

Angling ice: The current cold snap spells opportunity for anglers. The ice has firmed on most of the region’s lakes.

In Washington, Hog Canyon and Fourth of July lakes are both producing trout.

In Idaho, anglers are catching perch at lakes such as Fernan, Hauser and Rose, with best results before sunrise. Northern pike are showing at the north end of Hayden, as well as along the Lower Coeur d’Alene river in Thompson and Killarney lakes.

Exotic visitor: The hottest bird find in the West is a Siberian Accentor - which should be in China this time of year - that’s been flitting around the Wood River near Hailey, Idaho, for the last three weeks.

The bird apparently blew in with the Pineapple Express.

“It’s causing a national stir,” said Chuck Trost, Idaho State University ornithologist. “This is an impossible bird to see in North America.”

Good taste in partners: Several times this year, I hunted with men who are much older than I, as well as with men who are not much older but look like they’re my grandfather.

Skip Hensler, for example.

On a late-season trip, Skip and I bagged no quail, but we relished a variety of wildlife spectacles, including a snowy owl on tour to Lincoln County from the arctic, a peregrine falcon making dinner out of a Hungarian partridge, wild turkeys pecking through aspens and a porcupine gnawing away carelessly at eye level in a hawthorn bush.

My dog, Radar, tried to jump up and poke his nose into the porcupine’s quills to make the outing seem more like one of our normal hunting trips. But he couldn’t quite reach.

After several hundred trips in my rig without contributing a nickel toward gas, Hensler began feeling uneasy as we drove home from that outing.

“I feel as though I’m not paying my share while you do all the driving,” he said.

Then he paused. “What are you thinking?” I asked.

“I’m thinking that if I shut up, this feeling will pass.”

Later, we agreed that on the last trip of the season, I would once again drive. Hensler would bring the lunch.

This is a better deal than it sounds, considering that Hensler doubtless would enlist the services of his wife Christie, who is an artist with food. Indeed, he brought a lavish lunch featuring homeraised lamb sandwiched in homemade bread plus exotic homemade pastries and Christie’s hand-dipped huckleberry chocolates.

We bagged a few quail that day between courses of a feast that eased the pain of Hensler’s bruised ego.

It was bad enough that I had out-shot him nine-toone. But now he had to bring the empty food basket home to a sharp-witted wife.

“Next time, I’m buying the gas,” he said. “I’m paying too much for this lunch.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Christie said bringing lunch to keep a hunting partner is as desperate as tying a pork chop around your neck to get your dog to play.”

You can contact Rich Landers by voice mail at 459-5577, extension 5508.

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