Thursday, September 21, 2006
Two Bull Bison Captured Today
Our thoughts here are with the two bull buffalo that are imprisoned in the Duck Creek capture facility tonight, after having been captured at 1:50 this afternoon. As I write this update frozen rain is falling on the West Yellowstone area, and the buffalo, unable to seek shelter under a tree, are kicking madly at the walls of their prison. These sounds are the only clue we have that these buffalo are still alive, despite the four gunshots we heard after they were chased into the trap.
Our day began at 8:30, when we arrived in Yellowstone Village on Horse Butte to find a Department of Livestock truck unloading horses with which to harass the two bull buffalo that they had been unable to chase into the park yesterday. We found the two bulls not very far up the road, and they were among the most beautiful buffalo we’d ever seen. The larger of the two was a deep black, with a shiny coat and thick fur on his front legs. They were both wonderfully healthy; in their prime. And they held their ground firmly.
It was hours before the agents were able to get the bison out of the subdivision, as they had been warned by the president of the resident’s association that they would be prosecuted if they ventured on to any private property within Hebgen Lake Estates. At one point, when I had set my video camera down, one of the agents on horseback charged across a vacant lot towards one of the bulls, only to rush back to the road as I picked up my camera.
We lost the haze for a bit after it went back into the woods behind the subdivision. We hoped in the truck and went to wait at the junction of 191 and 287, where these hazes usually end up coming out of the woods.
Within 40 minutes, a much shorter time than we had ever seen them haze through the woods when we were able to follow them (which goes to show how hard they chase the buffalo when we aren’t looking) they emerged from the woods and began to chase the buffalo across the highway and along Duck Creek into the park. Or so one of the agents had told us was their intention earlier in the day.
The patrol I was with went to the perch, overlooking the capture facility, and the other patrol set up next to the house adjacent to the property that the capture facility sits on. From their position they witnessed the bulls being chased into a barb-wire fence, causing one of the bulls to limp badly.
Eventually, the buffalo reached the property adjacent to the capture facility, (a safe zone where agents are not allowed to harass them), and began to graze.
After a few minutes of waiting impatiently, the livestock agents then pulled out their noiseiest ATVs and began circling the property, hooting and hollering and shouting and making as much noise as they could. When that didn’t work they took out the cracker rounds and began shooting them off, hoping the noise would cause the buffalo to move. And when that didn’t work, they pulled out some weaponry we had never seen them use before. These guns shot rounds into the sky, where they exploded with deafening booms that must have been heard for miles around. That got the buffalo going, and once they were on the property that the trap is one, the agents began chasing them towards the park. As they passed the entrance of the capture facility, the agents on ATVs sped past the buffalo, turned, and began to chase them away from the park. That’s when we knew we had been lied to and the agents were intending to capture the bulls. After about 10 or 15 minutes of chasing the buffalo in circles around the trap, they were captured, the gates closed, and their fates were sealed.
We stood stunned on the opposite shore of the creek overlooking the capture facility. This was the first capture that any of us had witnessed, and one of us was a brand new volunteer that had just arrived today. Welcome to West Yellowstone.
We sat watching the capture facility for five hours after that, waiting for the transport to arrive that would bring these magnificent creatures to their deaths. But it never came. At one point we thought that the buffalo might have been shot inside the trap. We had heard more gunshots after the buffalo had already been captured, and shortly after, the agents cleared off a flat-bed trailer, as if readying it for the transport of two bison carcasses to the dump. We sat watching that flat-bed, wondering whether these idiots would once again surprise us with something shocking, and wondering what would be more cruel, chasing them eight miles to the trap only to shoot them as soon as they arrived, or holding them overnight in the freezing rain before being trucked away to some slaughterhouse in Idaho. (One of the bulls is injured, having been chased into a barbed-wire fence today, and we witnessed it limping badly just before it was captured.)
When we left at sunset, all but two of the agents had left, and the flatbed lay empty by the entrance to the capture facility. We will send out a patrol shortly before dawn tomorrow, and wait to see these beautiful brothers taken from us.
Our day began at 8:30, when we arrived in Yellowstone Village on Horse Butte to find a Department of Livestock truck unloading horses with which to harass the two bull buffalo that they had been unable to chase into the park yesterday. We found the two bulls not very far up the road, and they were among the most beautiful buffalo we’d ever seen. The larger of the two was a deep black, with a shiny coat and thick fur on his front legs. They were both wonderfully healthy; in their prime. And they held their ground firmly.
It was hours before the agents were able to get the bison out of the subdivision, as they had been warned by the president of the resident’s association that they would be prosecuted if they ventured on to any private property within Hebgen Lake Estates. At one point, when I had set my video camera down, one of the agents on horseback charged across a vacant lot towards one of the bulls, only to rush back to the road as I picked up my camera.
We lost the haze for a bit after it went back into the woods behind the subdivision. We hoped in the truck and went to wait at the junction of 191 and 287, where these hazes usually end up coming out of the woods.
Within 40 minutes, a much shorter time than we had ever seen them haze through the woods when we were able to follow them (which goes to show how hard they chase the buffalo when we aren’t looking) they emerged from the woods and began to chase the buffalo across the highway and along Duck Creek into the park. Or so one of the agents had told us was their intention earlier in the day.
The patrol I was with went to the perch, overlooking the capture facility, and the other patrol set up next to the house adjacent to the property that the capture facility sits on. From their position they witnessed the bulls being chased into a barb-wire fence, causing one of the bulls to limp badly.
Eventually, the buffalo reached the property adjacent to the capture facility, (a safe zone where agents are not allowed to harass them), and began to graze.
After a few minutes of waiting impatiently, the livestock agents then pulled out their noiseiest ATVs and began circling the property, hooting and hollering and shouting and making as much noise as they could. When that didn’t work they took out the cracker rounds and began shooting them off, hoping the noise would cause the buffalo to move. And when that didn’t work, they pulled out some weaponry we had never seen them use before. These guns shot rounds into the sky, where they exploded with deafening booms that must have been heard for miles around. That got the buffalo going, and once they were on the property that the trap is one, the agents began chasing them towards the park. As they passed the entrance of the capture facility, the agents on ATVs sped past the buffalo, turned, and began to chase them away from the park. That’s when we knew we had been lied to and the agents were intending to capture the bulls. After about 10 or 15 minutes of chasing the buffalo in circles around the trap, they were captured, the gates closed, and their fates were sealed.
We stood stunned on the opposite shore of the creek overlooking the capture facility. This was the first capture that any of us had witnessed, and one of us was a brand new volunteer that had just arrived today. Welcome to West Yellowstone.
We sat watching the capture facility for five hours after that, waiting for the transport to arrive that would bring these magnificent creatures to their deaths. But it never came. At one point we thought that the buffalo might have been shot inside the trap. We had heard more gunshots after the buffalo had already been captured, and shortly after, the agents cleared off a flat-bed trailer, as if readying it for the transport of two bison carcasses to the dump. We sat watching that flat-bed, wondering whether these idiots would once again surprise us with something shocking, and wondering what would be more cruel, chasing them eight miles to the trap only to shoot them as soon as they arrived, or holding them overnight in the freezing rain before being trucked away to some slaughterhouse in Idaho. (One of the bulls is injured, having been chased into a barbed-wire fence today, and we witnessed it limping badly just before it was captured.)
When we left at sunset, all but two of the agents had left, and the flatbed lay empty by the entrance to the capture facility. We will send out a patrol shortly before dawn tomorrow, and wait to see these beautiful brothers taken from us.
Saturday, September 09, 2006
Green Anarchy
I think the reasons why I wouldn’t consider myself a ‘Green Anarchist’ are first of all that I wish not to identify with any –isms, and secondly that I am not living, or for that matter actively advocating a primitive hunter/gatherer lifestyle. Simply believing in anarchism does not make one an anarchist. Actions being said to speak louder than words. I’m probably more of a socialist/capitalist than anything else, but I abhor the idea of those concepts.
That said, I find myself probing deeper into the idea of anarcho-primitivism and it’s inherent premise that civilization itself is the root cause of corruption, oppression, inequality, violence and the other ills that we find ourselves dealing with/fighting against every day.
Basically, this line of thought is built on the idea that the hunter/gatherer lifestyle was the only sustainable way of living on this planet, and that domestication (from the domestication of plant life, ie agriculture to the domestication of humanity, ie civilization) is unsustainable and inherently flawed. And I tend to agree. Following this logic even further, the idea that the system can be reformed, through the electoral process, or even violent revolution is hopelessly futile. Some of the fundamental cornerstones of civilization are the extraction of non-renewable resources and the exploitation of labor. Without cheap oil and slave labor, we wouldn’t have industry and agriculture. So we need to advocate for a raping of the earth and forced labor of many of it’s humans if we are to sustain the project of civilization.
Now, the more mainstream version of anarchy advocates for a removal of the oppressive forces that control civilization, but not civilization itself. Most anarchists believe that if we remove the influence of the state from the picture, than people will govern themselves, police themselves, regulate trade themselves. Under this logic, people will choose to labor in mines, factories and fields, under some noble desire to serve the common good. This is an idea I consider quite absurd. A few people really like that kind of work, but generally, it’s not what most people want out of the human experience. It also doesn’t address the fact that our current ‘civilized’ lifestyle is consuming the planet dry. Whatever political or ideological idea I eventually find myself sticking with, it will need to have as one of it’s basic tenets the fact that our consumption needs to be reduced dramatically. If not a complete removal of civilization, then at least a major scale-back.
The world is over-populated, and there is just too many people to return to a hunter/gatherer lifestyle. Not that we could ever convince people to do so anyway. SO it seems to me that the point of anarcho-primitivism for most people is not to provide a model for ha new way of living, but to point how where we went wrong, what the roots causes of war and poverty are and perhaps how to survive the coming changes that our over-consumption, corruption and disregard for the environment are obviously creating.
If the industrial system is unsustainable, it locally follows that a collapse is coming, and if we can’t rely on someone in Asia and South America to grow our coffee sugar and tropical fruit, then we’re going to need to learn to survive without the help of exploited third world labor and fossil-fuel based technologies. That means, for those of us not willing to starve to death in the cities, returning to a more primitive lifestyle and relying much more heavily on hunting and gathering. So in that sense, Green Anarchy is not about advocating solutions for the entire of civilization, it’s about realizing that our society is in a terminal state, and that perhaps the answer lies in small communities of people banding together to survive what will be a horrible age, as most people are even unaware it is coming and thus nowhere near ready.
Some Green Anarchists are optimistic that civilization can be stopped. I see maybe this civilization collapsing under it’s own weight, as every other civilization before it has tended to do, but I see something else rising up from it’s ashes eventually, with the same kind of social stratification, coercion and injustices defining it as they always have.
So, if you're still with me here, perhaps you'd like some further reading on the topic of Green Anarchy, because whether you buy into it or not, it is a concept that is gaining momentum among the yound environmental activist crowd.
First of all, the Wikipedia entry on Anarcho-primitivism.
Secondly, start with that. It's pretty in-depth.
That said, I find myself probing deeper into the idea of anarcho-primitivism and it’s inherent premise that civilization itself is the root cause of corruption, oppression, inequality, violence and the other ills that we find ourselves dealing with/fighting against every day.
Basically, this line of thought is built on the idea that the hunter/gatherer lifestyle was the only sustainable way of living on this planet, and that domestication (from the domestication of plant life, ie agriculture to the domestication of humanity, ie civilization) is unsustainable and inherently flawed. And I tend to agree. Following this logic even further, the idea that the system can be reformed, through the electoral process, or even violent revolution is hopelessly futile. Some of the fundamental cornerstones of civilization are the extraction of non-renewable resources and the exploitation of labor. Without cheap oil and slave labor, we wouldn’t have industry and agriculture. So we need to advocate for a raping of the earth and forced labor of many of it’s humans if we are to sustain the project of civilization.
Now, the more mainstream version of anarchy advocates for a removal of the oppressive forces that control civilization, but not civilization itself. Most anarchists believe that if we remove the influence of the state from the picture, than people will govern themselves, police themselves, regulate trade themselves. Under this logic, people will choose to labor in mines, factories and fields, under some noble desire to serve the common good. This is an idea I consider quite absurd. A few people really like that kind of work, but generally, it’s not what most people want out of the human experience. It also doesn’t address the fact that our current ‘civilized’ lifestyle is consuming the planet dry. Whatever political or ideological idea I eventually find myself sticking with, it will need to have as one of it’s basic tenets the fact that our consumption needs to be reduced dramatically. If not a complete removal of civilization, then at least a major scale-back.
The world is over-populated, and there is just too many people to return to a hunter/gatherer lifestyle. Not that we could ever convince people to do so anyway. SO it seems to me that the point of anarcho-primitivism for most people is not to provide a model for ha new way of living, but to point how where we went wrong, what the roots causes of war and poverty are and perhaps how to survive the coming changes that our over-consumption, corruption and disregard for the environment are obviously creating.
If the industrial system is unsustainable, it locally follows that a collapse is coming, and if we can’t rely on someone in Asia and South America to grow our coffee sugar and tropical fruit, then we’re going to need to learn to survive without the help of exploited third world labor and fossil-fuel based technologies. That means, for those of us not willing to starve to death in the cities, returning to a more primitive lifestyle and relying much more heavily on hunting and gathering. So in that sense, Green Anarchy is not about advocating solutions for the entire of civilization, it’s about realizing that our society is in a terminal state, and that perhaps the answer lies in small communities of people banding together to survive what will be a horrible age, as most people are even unaware it is coming and thus nowhere near ready.
Some Green Anarchists are optimistic that civilization can be stopped. I see maybe this civilization collapsing under it’s own weight, as every other civilization before it has tended to do, but I see something else rising up from it’s ashes eventually, with the same kind of social stratification, coercion and injustices defining it as they always have.
So, if you're still with me here, perhaps you'd like some further reading on the topic of Green Anarchy, because whether you buy into it or not, it is a concept that is gaining momentum among the yound environmental activist crowd.
First of all, the Wikipedia entry on Anarcho-primitivism.
Secondly, start with that. It's pretty in-depth.
