The significance of WWF policies (corrected)

[Guest guest]

Edwin Wiek just pointed out that I misidentified Prince

Bernhard as Reinhard in my previous posting--the first time I've done

that in 20 years of mentioning this stuff. This is the corrected

text.

 

 

 

 

> I am however attaching a copy of the original Conservation Charter

>of WWF written by Sir Peter Scott in 1961 and it does not mention

>sustainable use.

 

 

Neither is it actually a charter, in the normal sense of the

word. It is a pretty personal statement meant for public

consumption, bearing the signatures of none of the other founding

board members.

 

Among that chosen lineup, as I keep pointing out, were

Princes Philip, Bernhard, and Rainier, three of the most prominent

and blood-soaked bird shooters of their day; National Rifle

Association president C.R. " Pink " Gutermuth; and Aristotle Onassis,

the most notorious whaler in Europe at the time, whose bar stools

aboard his private yacht were reputedly covered with the skin from

the scrotums of whales.

 

Scott didn't pick these gents for a cuddle-fest with the

warm-and-fuzzies. He picked them because he believed, like many

others, that " Power comes out of the barrel of a gun. "

 

Incidentally, the actual term " sustainable use " wasn't

popularized for another decade, but the concept had been promoted by

hunters, without a catchy short phrase to describe it, since the

heyday of George Bird Grinnell and Theodore Roosevelt. Grinnell

founded both the Boone & Crockett Club (1887) and the National

Audubon Society (1905) to help establish the primacy of hunters in

regulating wildlife.

 

[Competitive birding was then mostly done from the barrel of

a gun, too. Birders would go out, shoot everything in sight, &

then compare dead piles to see who had the most rare species. These

days birders tend reserve that approach for cats & squirrels.]

 

 

 

 

--

Merritt Clifton

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