A Wolf Letter to the Denver Post
Jim Beers
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service Special Agent (Retired)
February 15, 2016
As a 32 year Biologist/Refuge Manager/Special Agent employee of USFWS:
1. Wolf presence or absence is not and should not be a decision for persons outside Colorado.
2. Wolves kill livestock; reduce big game herds, hunting opportunities and licenses,; and they kill dogs.
3. Wolves are extremely effective vectors of over 30 diseases and infections of great danger to humans, wildlife and domestic animals.
4. Wolves are deadly threats to rural children, elderly (women in particular) and adults as when rabid. Asian, European and North American history and current events confirm this routinely.
5. If Colorado residents choose to introduce or tolerate wolves, Counties should retain the final decision for Local elected officials to decide whether or how wolves are to be controlled, tolerated or exterminated in their County. Local officials are the most responsive to those local residents that would live with wolves and their very many social, biological and economic ill effects.
Jim Beers is a retired US Fish & Wildlife Service Wildlife Biologist, Special Agent, Refuge Manager, Wetlands Biologist, and Congressional Fellow. He was stationed in North Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, New York City, and Washington DC. He also served as a US Navy Line Officer in the western Pacific and on Adak, Alaska in the Aleutian Islands. He has worked for the Utah Fish & Game, Minneapolis Police Department, and as a Security Supervisor in Washington, DC. He testified three times before Congress; twice regarding the theft by the US Fish & Wildlife Service of $45 to 60 Million from State fish and wildlife funds and once in opposition to expanding Federal Invasive Species authority. He resides in Eagan, Minnesota with his wife of many decades.
