LIABILITY - From Indonesian Troops to Saskatchewan Wolves
by Jim Beers, March 11, 2006

Headline: "Exxon Mobil 'vicariously liable'".  Washington Times, A15, 10
March 2006.

"Jakarta, Indonesia - Exxon Mobil Corp. said yesterday it will appeal the
ruling by a US judge allowing villagers to sue the oil giant for reputed
abuses by Indonesian troops at facilities it operated in Aceh province."

Whatever the actions or lack of actions by an oil company operating in a
dictatorship, the fact that a US Court allows former Indonesian villagers to
sue in a US Court based on "vicarious liability" is disturbing.  Why?
Because there is more than enough "liability" both "vicarious" and direct
here at home to keep both US and Canadian Courts busy. I am speaking of
wolves and the legal responsibilities of Federal, State, and Provincial
governments for the havoc and death they are wreaking throughout North
America and will increasingly wreak in the days and years ahead.

Wolves are killing all manner of dogs wherever they encounter them.  Wolves
are killing all manner of livestock regularly.  Wolves are reducing big game
herds and steadily eliminating annual surpluses of such wildlife and thereby
hunting seasons and hunting license revenue.  Wolves are causing
increasingly restricted and stressful rural living for the elderly, parents
leaving children at winter bus stops, and visiting grandchildren; thereby
reducing rural residency and rural economies.   Other effects go unmentioned
such as when fewer dogs are use for hunting, fewer hunting licenses are sold
and less money is spent in rural economies and for sporting goods.

All of the above represent losses of property both private (dogs, stock,
rural land values, etc.) and public (huntable wildlife populations,
"user-pays" fish and wildlife agencies).  Rural economies are hobbled as
"Critical Habitats" (for other "Endangered Species"), Wilderness, Road
Closures, and elimination of natural resource management programs couple
with wolf epidemiology to take their toll.  Additionally, the loss of
"domestic tranquility" (a primary Constitutional charge to the US Federal
government) and the mental stress caused throughout rural areas inhabited by
wolves are also losses caused by wolves.

But it is not these catastrophic effects of wolves that is the subject of
this piece, it is rather the liability for homicide and endangering the life
of another.  Specifically, I am referring to the liability for the death of
a Mr. Carnegie recently in Saskatchewan and the attack on Mr.Desjariasis a
resident of Saskatchewan.  Both men were attacked by wolves.  Mr.
Desjariasis was, very fortunately, able to fend off the wolves due to his
strength and determination.  Mr. Carnegie was not so fortunate, he
disappeared but the evidence at the scene of his disappearance left no doubt
that wolves had killed him.

Mr. Desjariasis' account is irrefutable.  Wolves attacked with the intent to
kill him and probably eat him.  End of story.  So it not unexpectedly
receives little press coverage outside the local area.  Mr. Carnegie's
legacy (since the only witness is gone) is subject to and the victim of
government, University, and environmental organization cover-up, distortion
and lies.

When I first heard of this event, I expected the usual lies to appear in the
reportage that we routinely see in US reporting of predator attacks on
humans.  When a cougar attacks or kills a human, it is always the persons'
fault for "not puffing up" or "looking in their eyes" or "being in their
habitat".  It is always all our faults for "building in 'their' habitat" or
"limiting their food supply" or "enticing them into our yard with our dog".
Lastly, it is always the fault of Mother Nature or Global Warming that
"forced" them into the town or camp or city or bike path or whatever.

When a grizzly kills campers all of the above applies plus the old canard
that the girl "was menstruating" or "they had food" or they "camped too
close to the trail".

What has emerged in Saskatchewan is "doubts" about a wolf attack, but if
wolves did attack then it was caused by a "dump" and "inadequate government
environmental enforcement".  So the dump "caused" the attack sort of like
the "dog ate my homework".  The solution is not wolf control and public
education but "more environmental government employees" and "more
environmental enforcement" and more "environmental laws".  Like the carnival
customer gambling on which pod covers the pea, we dutifully look away at the
crucial moment as the carnival barker picks up the pea.

In the case of wolves in the late 1900's in North America the lies are even
more outrageous and purposely misleading.  "There has never been a
documented attack by wolves" is one of the biggest lies ever told.  Sixty
deaths by wolves in India alone in recent years are probably only the tip of
the iceberg.  (Does anyone really believe that there is a "Wolf Central" or
"Shark Central" where attacks are reported, much less recorded?)  Russia is
replete with scientific, literary, and anecdotal accounts of hundreds of
fatal wolf attacks in the past century and a half.  European Church records,
newspapers, and family histories are full of wolf attacks on children, the
elderly, hunters, shepherds, and rural unfortunates during winters and
summers, by both healthy and rabid wolves right down to the present.
American accounts of wolf attacks number in the hundreds but are all
dismissed by animal rights/environmental propaganda and fund raiser machines
manipulating an agenda-driven press.  For instance, one biologist explained
why an Alaskan that died in the 40's from a wolf attack didn't appear as a
wolf victim since he died days later from rabies!

So who is liable for what?  Government is liable for introducing,
protecting, and spreading wolves that then cause all the harms mentioned
above, up to and including homicide.  Homicide ?  Yes, homicide.  If I go
about telling my neighbors that my pet pit bulls or Dobermans or
wolf/shepherd crosses are benign and friendly and then allow them to run
loose and they attack one neighbor who fortunately fends them off but then
they kill and eat another neighbor, what would you call it?  What would you
say should be done with me?  I owned the dogs and am responsible for them.
I told lies to everyone about the dogs, thereby laying the groundwork for
people not protecting themselves with weapons or forcing me to contain them
absolutely.

What if I had pictures circulated with one of my daughters holding a pup and
smiling and then accompanied it with all sorts of lies like "they 'never'
attack people" or "they do so much good for our neighborhood by keeping out
deer and howling at night" or "all of you benefit from the reluctance of
burglars to come into our neighborhood".  Would you let me off the hook when
the dogs attacked and killed?  Would you let me go unpunished and even let
me get some more large dogs to replace those I "lost"?

Remember the San Francisco dog that killed the old lady in the apartment
hallway or the lady recently killed in Virginia by such dogs?  The owners
were imprisoned and sued and they hadn't additionally conducted public
campaigns to tell everyone how beneficial and benign their charges were or
actively cooperated with groups doing such things.

Government has done and is doing all of the above.  And what liability do
they have?  None.  What accountability is there for the growing menace and
harm in our midst?  None.  What does government do when these harms occur?
A double arabesque and then pirouettes off stage right to return again once
things cool down.  Indeed wolves are protected, spread, and used for all
sorts of nefarious agendas that cause enormous losses and harms and NO ONE
IS LIABLE.

Canadian Provinces and US States were given jurisdiction over and
responsibility for all wildlife within their respective boundaries at the
Founding of our Nations. In the past century, Federal governments in Ottawa
and Washington have hijacked the jurisdiction over group after group of wild
animals (migratory birds, marine mammals, endangered species, those found on
Federal lands, those found in wildernesses, UN Appendix #, etc.) to one
degree or another.

I am not aware of wolves being placed under Federal jurisdiction in Canada.
They remain under Provincial authority to the best of my knowledge.  In the
US the Federal government has declared complete hegemony through Endangered
Species chicanery over wolves and destroyed everything but a serf-like role
to Federal bureaucrats for State fish and wildlife agencies.  Indeed they
have launched a true jihad against rural Americans and their way of life to
force wolves into every nook and cranny of every State.  States are but
vassals to Federal royalty regarding wolves.  This is all being spurred on
by national animal rights and environmental organizations interested in
stopping hunting and a wide range of rural pursuits.  Also complicit in this
shady business are University professors greedy for grants from government
and financial support from radical groups and the tenure and recognition
that such things create.

US State fish and wildlife agencies, the US Federal government agencies,
Canadian Provincial agencies, and the Canadian Federal government agencies
have shifted over the past 35 years from realistic management of wolves by
realistic, common sensical employees regarding human safety and social
impacts to a true pagan worship of wolves as "symbols of wilderness" and
"keystone species" of undescribed benefit to an "ecosystem" by employees
that are little more than zealots and flacks.  This shift has been mirrored
in Europe where resurgent wolves are protected and causing great harm from
Finland through the Slavic nations to southern Europe thanks in large
measure to European Union bureaucrats and politicians in league with
environmental and animal rights lobby groups.  Recent wholesale attacks in
the Ukraine are but a small part of the havoc being wreaked and covered up
by compliant press reporting.  Russia is being overrun with wolves from the
Urals to the Pacific since controls have ceased with the demise of the
Soviet Union.

So why is a Provincial government or State fish and wildlife agency or
Federal bureaucracy "liable" and not all these others?  In a moral sense
they are all "liable" and responsible for the harm and death they are
bringing to the rest of us.  In a legal sense the Provincial fish and
wildlife agencies and the US Fish and Wildlife Service are the entities that
exercise primary jurisdiction over wolves in Canada and the US.  They and
their employees are "liable" every bit as much as a General that lies about
a foreign threat and causes death and harm or a government engineer that
lies about a bridge that collapses or a teaching administrator that lies
about children's tests or accomplishments until they are too old or too
ignorant to lead full and productive lives.

When these agencies and their employees allow deadly lies to be publicized
without refuting them; when these agencies and their personnel condone and
even support these lies; when these agencies and their employees enable the
spread and protection of wolves by lying to politicians and the public THEY
ARE LIABLE in both courts and at Judgment.  Perhaps the way to get the
attention of national politicians to reintroduce common sense and good
government into the world of environmental chimeras is to drag government
officials before the courts like Exxon and test their only defense, to wit
"I was only following orders".

So maybe the US Court interest in Indonesians and Exxon should be directed
at the US Fish and Wildlife Service and wolves and maybe our Canadian
cousins should likewise give some thought to wolves, Provincial government
liability, and environmental sophistry run amuck.

Jim Beers
11 March 2006