The impact of 9/11
(Part 3 of a four-part series. See also The animal issue that made Donald Trump a presidential candidate; How an ant doctor came to be driving public policy; and Questioning the claims of “crisis.”)
Discussion of “invasive species,” a term practically invisible in mainstream print before 1988, rose in 1993 coincidental with media discussion of human immigration issues, gathered momentum after the Natural Resources Defense Council began promoting the term “invasive species” in 1995, and achieved a virtual dead heat with mentions of “exotic species” by the end of 2001, soon after the first external attack on Americans on American soil since Pearl Harbor, 60 years before.
Attention to “invasive species” then nearly doubled in one year, tripled in two years, and by 2006 occurred at four times the frequency of mentions of “exotic species.”
The average American might say that “invasive species,” “exotic species,” “alien species,” and “introduced species” all mean the same thing, yet the terms are not given anything like equal weight.
Instead, total mentions of “invasive species” have increased twentyfold since 2001, occurring ten times more often than mentions of “exotic species,” 34 times as often as “alien species,” and 50 times as often as “introduced species.”
Why are “invasive species” of so much more evident concern?
A hint is that mentions of human “illegal aliens” and “illegal immigrants” surged simultaneously to five-year highs in 2001, and have been rising ever since.
The alien-killing agency
What concern about “aliens” and “invasions” mean to animals and public policy appears in the funding allocated by Congress to support USDA Wildlife Services, the official U.S. government extermination agency––which originally just killed native predators of introduced livestock.
Ancestrally part of the U.S. Geological Survey, funded to kill wolves in the early 20th century, the agency was moved to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, retitled Animal Damage Control, and assigned to exterminate coyotes in 1931.
Under the Fish & Wildlife Service, coyotes were massacred in record numbers year after year, yet spread from the southeastern quadrant of the U.S. to all 48 states plus Alaska.
The Fish & Wildlife Service by mid-1986 wanted to abandon the Animal Damage Control. But politically influential ranchers wanted Animal Damage Control to kill even more coyotes.
Former U.S. President Ronald Reagan resolved the conflict by moving Animal Damage Control to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The USDA renamed the agency Wildlife Services to try to shake the murderous reputation established by Animal Damage Control, but without success.
Wildlife Services, with a 1998 budget of $28.7 million, was in June 1998 nearly abolished as a money-wasting boondoggle by the House of Representatives. A motion by Peter DeFazio (D-Oregon) that would have in effect disbanded Wildlife Services actually cleared the House on first reading.
But the DeFazio motion was defeated on a second vote, after frantic rancher lobbying.
Environmental groups of ecological nativist outlook then joined with the ranchers in ratcheting up alarm about “invasive species,” managing to nearly triple media coverage of so-called “invasive species” during the next six months.
The Invasive Species Council
At instigation of then-U.S. Vice President Albert Gore, then-U.S. President Bill Clinton in February 1999 reinforced and enormously expanded the role of Wildlife Services by creating the Invasive Species Council.
The main stated goal of the Invasive Species Council is to eradicate such non-native “nuisance species” as kudzu weed, gypsy moths, zebra mussels, and fire ants by hiring Wildlife Services to kill them.
In the fine print, however, the anti-“invasive species” mandate extends to practically any species hated by anyone influential.
The strategy of preserving Wildlife Services by aligning it with the nativist philosophies of many major environmental groups succeeded bigtime.
Under former U.S. President George W. Bush, the USDA Wildlife Services budget expanded to $78 million in fiscal 2007, nearly three times the 1998 budget.
Under current U.S. President Barack Obama, the USDA Wildlife Services budget has increased to $121 million, despite renewed efforts by DeFazio in 2011-2012 to effect about $10 million in cuts.
The body count
Further, since the Bush administration in 2004 pushed through Congress an amendment to the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act that stripped more than 100 allegedly “invasive” bird species of protection, USDA Wildlife Services can kill animals with less restraint than at any time since the 1973 passage of the Endangered Species Act.
Recounted Christopher Ketcham in the March 2015 edition of Harper’s Magazine, “Since 2000, Wildlife Services operatives have killed at least two million native mammals and 15 million native birds. Many of these animals are iconic in the American West and beloved by the public. Several are listed as endangered or threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
“In 2014,” Ketcham wrote, “Wildlife Services killed 322 wolves, 61,702 coyotes [one of the lowest annual totals in the history of the agency], 2,930 foxes, 580 black bears, 796 bobcats, five golden eagles, and three bald eagles. The agency also killed tens of thousands of beavers, squirrels, and prairie dogs.”