Brunswick, Ga-- Yesterday's meeting of the Coastal Marshland Protection Committee was held in the Susan Shipman Learning Center, an adjunct of the Department of Natural Resources District facilities located at the foot of the iconic Sidney Lanier Bridge. In addition to three projects in Savannah, whose representatives either had to get up real early to make a 9:30 meeting, or got to spend a night at the beach, the agenda featured a presentation by the very same Susan Shipman after whom the building is named. Ms. Shipman, having been the director of the Coastal Resources Division of the Georgia DNR, has apparently transitioned from the public corporation to shill as a consultant for our island's newest eleemosynary corporate shell, the Cannon's Point Preserve LLC. Limited Liability Companies are designed to shield the participants in the enterprise from the negative consequences of their acts.
And let there be no doubt about it; enterprise is the object of corporate endeavor, whether on the state, commercial or eleemosynary level. As Ms. Shipman herself explained in an opinion piece earlier in the year:
Salt marshes provide invaluable services:
• They filter contaminated sediments, provide a water-based highway for commerce and host myriad recreational activities.
• Marshes also provide crucial habitat for threatened and endangered species; and, they serve as the nursery grounds, shelter, and food source for 75 percent of the commercially and recreationally important fish, crustaceans, and shellfish.
No wonder our local planner thinks:
the Shore Protection Act (SPA) of 1979 was enacted to provide a regulatory means by which commercial and recreational development could occur within and adjacent to public trust lands. Public trust lands are the areas that are held by the state to provide equitable access and enjoyment for all the citizens of Georgia; our waterways fall into the “public trust” category.
Commerce is to be made regular by the state. From which one can only conclude that Georgia is a socialist state, though most of the citizens don't seem to know it.
"Recreational" fishing, by the way, is like "recreational farming" -- what people do to sustain themselves instead of sending their catch to market. Presumably, the "recreational hunt" falls into the same category. So, it is entirely consistent that the eleemosynary corp has invited the public to participate in a regulated kill. Of course, only those members of the public who can afford a hunting license, the time to take a course, the proper dress (orange), and an internet account will qualify to be selected at random for the ten slots. Prior adult/child hunts "harvested" no deer, so perhaps the four-legged creatures will luck out again and the harvest will be limited to an email list and contact information which the St. Simons Land Trust can sell over and over again.
That's actually particularly desirable because, although somebody has determined the white tail deer population on the six hundred acres known as Cannon's Point to be in "excess of the recommended carrying capacity," the
Wildlife Resources Division has let it be
known that
Fawn recruitment rates — the number of fawns that survive into fall — have declined in all five of Georgia’s physiographic regions and about 26 percent statewide.
and it's not the coyotes' fault.
Harvest data obtained from Georgia deer hunters indicates they annually take an estimated total of 95,000 coyotes while deer hunting.
Compare that to the 453,000 deer killed each year. Oh, excuse me, "harvested" by our "recreational hunters."
"Recreational" is actually a relatively fair representation, if one subscribes to the notion that man participates in creation by destroying what the Lord hath made. "Creative destruction," which has been identified as motivating economic development in the U.S., based on the premise that it is destruction which prompts the creative urge and, like the phoenix rising from the ashes, allows something new and better to emerge, is obviously not restricted to the purely economic realm. Or perhaps it was simply man's casual and erroneous observation of how natural resources seem to replace themselves, regardless of how much or many he consumes, until they are suddenly gone. Then, instead of realizing his error and changing his wasteful ways, he decides he's been deceived and goes on to plunder whatever else might be good to eat, or at hand to chase. How else to explain 95,000 coyotes killed each year?
"Recreational" is not really a euphemism. Paired with commercial it's more like bureaucrat speak for "fun" and "profit" -- fancy lingo to make corporates seems more important than they are. Same goes for "harvest" instead of kill. But, there's also more to it. The fancy lingo is deceptive and deceiving themselves seems to be what some people need to function. So, for example, one wonders if the former Director of Georgia's Coastal Resources, were she to think of herself as a shill, rather than a consultant, would feel more or less compunction about selling out the environment? Or is it all of a cloth in the context of "management" being nothing more than seeing to it that resources are regularly, rather than randomly destroyed? Deception and destruction made routine.