Kudos to county for caribou delisting effort

The decision by the Board of County Commissioners to petition U.S. Fish & Wildlife for the delisting of the woodland caribou is simply brilliant. I applaud their judgment, and I hope that many will contribute to this worthwhile legal fight.

For many, many years, local environmentalists have abused our legal system to satisfy their personal guilt issues about obscure animal species, to the point of denying fair access to our public lands — all in a very high-handed and patronizing manner, as if only they are “pure of heart” enough to pass judgment over the rest of us. The result has been to put Fish & Wildlife personnel in a “lawyers made me do it” position — when in fact many of them have acknowledged that these road/trail closures and “recovery zones” are futile exercises.

Now our elected representatives have given the rest of us the opportunity to fight back because they know environmentalists are a tiny minority of Bonner County residents. They are working hard to preserve our right to enjoy the backcountry as the vast majority see fit.

If you think that $10,000 is a lot of money from our pockets to fight this new critical habitat designation —remember that the environmentalists have succeeded in forcing the government to soak us for $4 million to protect these three or four “occasional caribou” — and all we got for our $4 million was a bunch of closed gates. Thanks to the BOCC for pushing back!

ROD STAFFORD

Priest River