By Hal Brown (Other stories that piqued my interest today)
This story caught my eye in The NY Times this morning because it was in their Editors Picks section (right) on their homepage: What Makes a Good Duck Painting? The Government Suggests Some Hunting.
The article begins focusing in the winner of the contest to paint the Federal Duck Hunting Stamp which hunters need for their license and which stamp collectors and birders buy on their own.
In his youth, Richard Clifton woke up before dawn to go duck hunting in the marshes of Delaware. He pushed his boat into the water and waited. Sometimes a mallard flew overhead, a silhouette in the dark with the wind whistling through its feathers.
His memories of the quiet waters of Slaughter Creek have inspired his art for years. Now one of his paintings has entangled him in a controversy in one of the nation’s top competitions for duck painters: the Federal Duck Stamp Contest.
Mr. Clifton, 58, was announced the winner over 137 other artists late last month, landing him in a debate about conservation and art that started with one new federal rule. This year, for the first time, artists were required to incorporate hunting objects or scenes into their paintings to, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service, celebrate the American “waterfowl hunting heritage.”
Since The NY Times requires a subscription fortunately you can read about the controversy with a subscription on the National Audubon Society website: Duck Stamp Artists Turn to Spent Shotgun Shells to Meet New Pro-Hunting Mandate. The Guardian also had an article.
I decided to dig a little deeper into this story and found this:
“For more than 80 years, millions of waterfowl hunters have made a difference in protecting our nation’s birds and their habitats,” said Aurelia Skipwith, Director of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “The Trump Administration has prioritized protecting our wildlife and their habitats and provided access to some of the most spectacular places available for hunting, fishing, birdwatching, hiking and other outdoor activities.” Press Release
This is such a small story that I doubt anybody in the mainstream media will investigate how much politics played in Skipworth’s appointment to this position. I decided to see what I could find.
The first hints come from the Wikipedia profiles for her and her fiancé:
During her United States Senate confirmation process, Skipwith's relationship with Giacometto was scrutinized after it was revealed that she did not disclose her ties with Giacometto, a registered lobbyist on behalf of agricultural businesses. Wikipedia
Dig a little deeper into Wikipedia references and you find the following:
Public Records Sought on Connection Between Trump Wildlife Agency Nominee, Montana Political Circles
WASHINGTON— The Center for Biological Diversity filed a Freedom of Information Act request today seeking public records documenting meetings between top Interior Department officials, Aurelia Skipwith — Trump’s nominee to direct the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service — and Skipwith’s fiancée, Leo Giacometto.
The request for records follows reporting by The Guardian documenting the web of connections between Giacometto, Skipwith, outgoing secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke and Montana politicians.
Giacometto is a long-time lobbyist and Montana political operative. He served in the Montana Legislature and was the director of agriculture for Gov. Marc Racicot, as well as the chief of staff for the late Sen. Conrad Burns (R-Mont.). His lobbying firm, Gage International, employs A.J. Rehberg, the son of former Montana Congressman Denny Rehberg.
“Cronyism is a way of life in the Trump administration, and the public has every right to know the details behind each nomination, especially one that’s so important to the fate of our most endangered species,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center. “With Zinke heading out the door, it is even more important for the public to have a full understanding of Skipworth’s connections to these Montana politicians and special interests before the Senate votes on her confirmation.”
In 2014 Skipwith and Giacometto founded AVC Global, an agricultural company. Skipwith became chief counsel at AVC in 2016. After Trump’s election she was one of the first political operatives to arrive at the Department of the Interior, when in April 2017 she was appointed deputy assistant secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks.
In October 2018 Skipwith was nominated to be the next director of the Fish and Wildlife Service.
“It’s odd and totally unprecedented that someone with no wildlife conservation or fisheries experience has been nominated to oversee such large and important agency,” Hartl said. “During her limited time at the Department of the Interior, she helped enable the most anti-environmental agenda in the history of this nation. Giving her free rein at the Fish and Wildlife Service would be a disaster.”
During Skipwith’s tenure as deputy assistant secretary for Fish, Wildlife and Parks, the Fish and Wildlife Service has repeatedly put the interests of industry ahead of imperiled wildlife, including an unprecedented weakening of nationwide protections for endangered species and migratory birds.
Skipwith has repeatedly put the interests of the pesticide industry ahead of wildlife. Records that the Center obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that she was integral in a decision to reverse a 2014 decision prohibiting bee-killing neonicotinoid pesticides on national wildlife refuges. She also helped derail the first nationwide assessments of the impacts of pesticides on endangered species. In her current position within the Interior Department, Skipwith was party to the National Park Service’s illegal “review” of the national monument system that enabled President Trump to roll back large-scale protections for Utah’s Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante national monuments.
This demonstrates how deeply Trump’s political appointments have burrowed themselves into the federal bureaucracy. Is there any Federal agency or department headed by a Trump appointment that doesn’t demonstrate how corrupt the federal government has become over the past four years?
As a former cranberry grower I know that swamps get a bad name. Swamps are good. We also know that wetlands act like giant filters so water that percolates down through them enters the aquifer cleaner than when it was on the surface.
We irrigated and flooded our bogs from streams flowing though a 100 acre swamp. When we harvested the cranberries we popped those tart cranberries into our mouths without a thought that they were coming from swamp water. (Click to enlarge image below)
In looking for photos to include here I just discovered that a photo of our cranberry bog attributed to me had been featured in Wikimedia Commons:
Here’s a photo of a double rainbow over the bogs we used to own.
Trump drained a good swamp and replaced it with a polluted swamp.