29 Mar Park Service Takes Different Tact When the Nation Is Watching

Bucky Bucky Beaver
Let’s fight to keep him free.
A Potomac flood left him a facin’
Life alone in the Tidal Basin,
He survived right well with the squirrels and the bees
And chewed up a couple of Cherry Trees…

Lyrics by Alaska State Senator Robin Taylor – to the tune of Davy Crockett

Alaska State Senator Robin Taylor is hopping mad. Last April, the nation watched with daily amusement over the Park Service’s attempts to capture a family of beavers who set up housekeeping in the Tidal Basin, just in front of the Jefferson Memorial in the nation’s capitol. The pesky critters were guilty of chopping down several of the nation’s coveted cherry trees – right in the middle of the Cherry Blossom Festival!

So why is the Senator upset? Because in Washington D.C., the Park Service rushed into action to capture the beavers and end their invasion of “human habitat.” The beavers were clearly damaging valuable property. They had to go.

Ok, makes sense. What’s wrong with that, you say? Well, in Alaska, and most areas around the nation, when animals move into human habitat, it’s the people who have to change their plans, give up their land or stop production. Federal agents are quick to file injunctions against, arrest and even imprison land owners who fool with Mother Nature.

Not so in Washington, especially with the eyes of the nation focused on the situation. God help us if Congressman and Senators, who help make these ridiculous policies, actually have to live under their own injustices. So Senator Taylor is crying foul (fowl) against the double standard. To protest, he introduced a resolution into the Alaska legislature which says in part;

“Whereas the natural and free roaming beaver were trapped to extinction in Washington, D.C. and the Potomac Tidal Basin-beaver are only retaking habitat that the species has occupied forever and in which man is the trespasser, and

Whereas the return of the beaver to Washington, D.C. will enhance the biological diversity of the nation’s capitol and the integrity of its residents, as cherry tree-eating beavers cannot tell a lie, and

Whereas the unrestrained development of government buildings, highways and urban sprawl in Washington, D.C. has destroyed beaver habitat, and immediate steps should be taken to halt all major construction projects, …” Well you get the idea.

When you live in parts of the nation that are constantly under siege from radical environmental polices that steal your land, or programs that force the reintroduction of killer predators that once again threaten your livestock – it’s hard not to see the hypocrisy of the government’s policies. Move the beavers from the Tidal Basin – by all means. Just allow the same right, for the same reasons, to Americans nationwide.