Copyright 1999 Globe Newspaper Company
The Boston
Globe
June 13, 1999, Sunday ,City Edition
SECTION: NEW HAMPSHIRE WEEKLY; Pg. 1
LENGTH: 1250 words
HEADLINE:
Bass seeks to end 'cowboy welfare';
NEW HAMPSHIRE WEEKLY
BYLINE: By Robert Braile, Globe Correspondent
BODY:
CONCORD - As a New Hampshire
congressman, Charles Bass has taken on an unlikely cause. He wants to end a
federal program that spends millions of dollars a year helping ranchers out West
by killing tens of thousands of coyotes and other predators that attack their
cattle.
The Peterborough Republican says the US Agriculture Department's
Livestock Protection Program amounts to "cowboy welfare," a
federal handout to often-wealthy ranchers that is indefensible. He'd like to end
it. And while the House last week defeated for the second year in a row
legislation he sponsored to do that, he says he'll keep trying. "We have coyotes
on my farm in New Hampshire, but nobody has given me a dime to get rid of them,"
Bass said last week, after his amendment to the fiscal year 2000 Agriculture
appropriations bill was defeated by a vote of 193 to 230. Bass crossed party
lines to cosponsor the amendment with US Representative Peter DeFazio, an Oregon
Democrat.
"This problem happens all over the country, but we learn to
deal with it and we don't need a federal subsidy to help bail us out," Bass
continued. "Some resources from the Livestock Protection Program do go to other
parts of the country, but most go to large ranchers in Western states to kill
wild animals that prey on livestock." The amendment would have cut
$7 million from Agriculture's budget, effectively ending the
program.
For Bass, targeting this program is part of a broader agenda to
cut what he and others on Capitol Hill consider wasteful federal spending.
Should the cuts coincide with environmental interests, as this one would have,
all the better, Bass says. Where they do coincide, it has made for some dizzying
alliances, as conservative antispending groups have joined forces with liberal
environmental groups.
Bass, who has a modest environmental record, says
the Livestock Protection Program "takes money from taxpayers' pockets and gives
it to private landowners to control predators on private property," he said.
"This is an entirely inappropriate use of federal funds. Taxpayers should not be
required to subsidize Western ranchers who choose to use this program."
The trouble for Bass, Defazio, and the 191 other congressman who share
that view is stiff opposition from the Agriculture Department and the ranching
industry, especially the American Farm Bureau Federation.
"We opposed
the amendment, because we believe the program provides a valuable service in
controlling predating wildlife," said Patrick Collins, an Agriculture Department
spokesman.
Collins said it makes more sense to have federal agents
rather than ranchers killing predators, because the agents have greater
expertise in targeting specific predators posing a problem. "And the ranchers
trust us to do that," he said. "This way, we don't have ranchers taking matters
into their own hands and killing every predator they see." Agriculture
Department data indicate that agents in 17 Western states killed 82,392 coyotes
in fiscal year 1997, among the 146,318 predators in total they killed that year.
The Livestock Protection Program is part of a larger Agriculture
Department program called Wildlife Services, which handles other activities,
including killing nuisance animals at airports. Bass and his supporters say the
amendment would have had no effect on those other activities, which they
consider necessary. But Collins said it would have an effect since department
staff members work together on all the activities, "and it's hard to separate
out those who work on airports from those who work on coyotes."
Collins
added that the broader agenda, to cut federal spending and end what some like
Bass and DeFazio consider subsidies, makes little sense in this case.
"We're a government program, and in some people's eyes, every government
program is a subsidy of sorts," he said. "But you have to look at the whole
picture. Again, one reason we have this program is so that we don't have people
out there spreading poisons on their own, or taking up the 'shoot, shovel, and
shut up' routine."
The predators die in various ways. Some are shot from
helicopters and planes that allow agents to get to remote locations. Others are
trapped or shot on the ground. Still others are killed by M-44s, which are
spring-loaded baits laced with sodium cyanide. When the predator trips the M-44,
it gets sprayed with the sodium cyanide and is poisoned.
"Predator
control is important to farmers and ranchers," said Chris Noun, a spokesman for
the American Farm Bureau Federation. "You have to understand - sheep and cattle
are their livelihoods, are how they make their money. And any damage by
predators equals an economic loss for them. If you have a lamb or a calf killed
by a predator, then you can't sell that adult animal. So we support this
program."
But Bass's supporters see it differently. Environmentalists
say the program is based on an antiquated 1931 law that provides no opportunity
for reauthorization, through which it could be improved. It was also passed when
the sheep industry was thriving, with 52 million sheep nationwide. They say
there are now 7 million. Yet they say funding to the program has increased.
The environmentalists add that the M-44s kill indiscriminately, often
taking animals that are not predators, including pets, and that may even be
protected under federal law as threatened or endangered species. They also say
that is biologically counterproductive - killing randomly and broadly increases
the food supply for remaining animals. And so females reproduce earlier and more
prolifically, increasing the very same animal populations that the federal
agents are trying to trim.
"To continue funding this program doesn't
make any sense," said Caroline Kennedy, program associate for Defenders of
Wildlife, a national environmental group. "Any way you look at it, fiscally,
biologically, ethically, it doesn't pass the test."
Taxpayers for Common
Sense, a national group working to cut federal spending, agrees. "Common-sense
economics dictates that taxpayers should not subsidize predator control, because
this leaves little incentive for ranchers to improve their husbandry techniques
or deter predators," wrote Jill Lancelot, the group's legislative director, in a
May 20 appeal to Congress. "Why should a rancher try to prevent a problem if he
knows the taxpayers will solve it for him?"
Bass's crusade against
subsidies has left him vulnerable to criticism at home. New Hampshire
environmentalists have for years argued that timbering in the White Mountain
National Forest, as in national forests across the country, is subsidized, in
that the federal government loses millions of dollars a year on it. While Bass
has taken up arms against Western ranchers, he has not done that against the New
Hampshire timber industry.
But Bass "feels it's a different situation,"
said Sally Tibbetts, his spokeswoman. "Timber management is needed to achieve
the desired conditions of a multiuse forest. It improves recreational access,
produces a healthier and more disease-resistant forest, and provides economic
stability to the communities that depend on the timber industry. If you compare
that to the ranchers out West, we have figures that show it'd be cheaper to just
reimburse them for every animal they lose than to continue this program."
That said, is Bass ready to give up on his crusade? "Not at all,"
Tibbetts said. "We'll just try again next year."
LOAD-DATE: June 16, 1999 
