Geese

[Guest guest]

> 1) The Nene Goose project was started by WWT - Wildfowl and

>Wetlands Trust.

 

 

Check the clips:

 

 

>Honolulu Star-Bulletin Monday, Jan. 23, 2006

>

>Back to Nature

>Young Hawaiian geese are heading to Haleakala Park

>By Diana Leone <dleone

>

>[excerpt]

>

>Nene were once locally extinct on the island of Maui, according to

>the Park Service. The state began recovery efforts in 1962, when 35

>birds were carried by hiking Boy Scouts to the Paliku area.

 

 

 

WWF at that point hadn't even existed for a year yet.

 

The Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust, although formed in Britain in

1946, has never been incorporated to operate in the U.S.

 

I just ran a NewsLibrary search of the archives of all major

Hawaiian news media, 1999-present.

 

There were 325 articles about the nene published in this

time. Among them was an obituary for James Ohta, whose Scout troop

initiated the nene recovery. None mentioned Peter Scott, none

mentioned WWT, and three mentioned WWF, but only in unrelated

contexts.

 

Scott isn't mentioned in any of my own files on the nene.

More telling, the nene was not mentioned in any of the obituary

information about Peter Scott that I received at the time from WWF.

 

However, Peter Scott owned a lighthouse on the River Nene in

England, where he shot, stuffed, and painted geese. That was his

Nene Goose project.

 

 

 

>2) The situation in Galapagos is similar to that of hundreds of situations

>in the world. What is so unique about WWF's failure here again?

 

WWF raises $150 million a year. The Sea Shepherd

Conservation Society raises $2.5 million. If WWF wants to be

credited with doing something for Galapagos wildlife, it can jolly

well cough up a proportionally equal contribution toward saving it.

 

 

>3) The notion of " sustainable use " is not unique to WWF.

 

Of course not. The New York State Association for the

Preservation of Game espoused it nearly 90 years before WWF formed.

In the name of " sustainable use, " they had the last great wild flock

of passenger pigeons netted & shot them at a fundraiser on Coney

Island.

 

This organization merged with the New York Sportsmen's Club

at some point, and eventually metamorphized through further mergers

and alliances into the New York Conservation Council, the original

New York affiliate of the National Wildlife Federation, formed in

1936. NWF was the organization whose policies and philosophy WWF was

formed to promote worldwide.

 

 

 

> A History of WWF: The Sixties

>

>*One of the most important figures in WWF's early history was the

>renowned British biologist, Sir Julian Huxley...In 1960, Huxley went

>to East Africa to advise UNESCO on wildlife conservation in the

>area. He was appalled at what he saw. On his return to London, he

>wrote three articles for The Observer newspaper in which he warned

>the British public that habitat was being destroyed and animals

>hunted at such a rate that much of the region's wildlife could

>disappear within the next 20 years.

 

 

And independence activists in Kenya, among the first of the

new nations formed by the break-up of the British empire, were

already pushing to ban trophy hunting as a colonial abuse -- as was

accomplished in 1977.

 

Both WWF and the African Wildlife Foundation (formed by

trophy hunter Russell Train) were formed to try to forestall the

abolition of hunting in Kenya and other newly or recently independent

nations where the hunting culture seemed to be in jeopardy.

 

India & Kenya went ahead & banned trophy hunting anyway, but

the WWF & AWF strategy succeeded everywhere else.

 

 

 

>It was established as a Swiss Foundation registered in Zurich

 

Where the accountability requirements for charities were then

& now extremely weak compared to those of the U.S. & U.K.

 

 

--

Merritt Clifton

Editor, ANIMAL PEOPLE

P.O. Box 960

Clinton, WA 98236

 

Telephone: 360-579-2505

Fax: 360-579-2575

E-mail: anmlpepl

Web: www.animalpeoplenews.org

 

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