Dear Hunters: Endowed To Protect

Remember this: Causative Melancholy writes an unread letter.

Dear Hunter: I am about to let you know what’s up.

Now that Thanksgiving 2016 has the derogatory stain of Human and Constitutional rights violations by a continuous stream of militarized police violence on the Standing Rock Sioux by Morton County Police, DAPL, Dakota Access, LLC, and outsourced security companies-the one thing I would like to see, which cannot find, is a full environmental impact statement for the conditions a DAPL crude oil leak in the ground implied under the water source of the Standing Rock Sioux. 

There should be one. This environmental impact statement should include the complete expanse of the pipeline through its subsequent states and anything it affects, even human beings. Where is it? How can Dakota Access, LLC build without the environmental impact statement? If there is an environmental statement, why is it not available for the public?

The XL Keystone Pipeline had an environmental impact study-where is DAPL’s?

Questions. Questions.

Free media is focusing on infringement of an indigenous spiritual movement, human rights, desecration of sacred burial mounds, and Dakota Access with the help of North Dakota’s governance to pull a Viking move on the Standing Rock Sioux. When you read the content of official letters between lawyers and different departments involved-one wonders where that bit of information is.

Celebrities got involved. It is a shame that the common person can’t make a statement and it is heard. It has to be known person with a huge following. That didn’t work-DAPL put up a barb wire fence while officers walked over the burial mound like it was nothing.

Yet a small person can stand up and make a big sound-when everyone else joins in repeating the words.

Foreign places even showed support but they are a long ways off.

I have been trying to put it all into perspective with the lack of evidence, available research on the part of science in order to do such a project, and turning the screw so you can look in another prism of the key hole.

When you review pipeline projects, jobs are generated but do not last forever. The project itself destroys habitat in areas and it takes time for those areas to recoup.

There is a problem with keeping up a standard of maintenance and upkeep on pipelines to keep leaks from occurring. Corrosion, as I have read is a guilty party. If an oil pipeline is sixty feet under a water source, at the mercy of the agents of nature, and not visually inspectable, is it proper to say this is favorable conditions for undetectable leaks over a period of time that could cause extreme damage to the ground, ground water, and those living things above it?

Then a company drives that right through someone’s family graveyard-that is a morally bankrupt concept to observe.

For writing purposes’ sake, I am going to reason that what has been done to Standing Rock is good enough reason to revolt. If you need something else to drive it home-here it is. Anyone else that can think of a valid reason to support this argument, feel free to write your own-and spread the word.

I may dwell in darkness in my blog, but readers tend to write and spread the word. Go forth and multiple.

Out-of-sight, out-of-mind. This pipeline stretches estimate 1,130 (or 1172) miles-with a certain amount of that underground. It goes through North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, and on to Illinois. That is 1,130 miles of potential damage to wildlife habitat, outdoor infringement due to No Access due to damage, etc. There is the issue of the Oil Company cleaning up the mess it has created, and everyone else living with the fall-out from it.

How fair it is that a big corporation, or company can act as they please, as it would seem, to whomever they want, yet depending on which state you live in, the constituent has to go to the local government, ask for a building permit to add to their house, or have natural resources come out to their property and tell the constituent where a hole can be dug to put in a water source?

Does Human habitation ever occur in an Environmental Impact study? 

If it does, why was the Standing Rock Sioux not included in its ledgers? Or someone was hoping to rub the Standing Rock Sioux from it in the hopes-no one would care about them.

Not this day.

The idea the other states involved caters to the acceptance of something that could ruin their quality of life exists, but look the other way with the hopes nothing bad will happen. Then I think, Flint Michigan and the tainted water-among other stories.

Constituents were disregarded in the construction of policies and ideas to supposedly serve the community without proper consideration for the possible outcomes that could harm them. In its execution of said plan, disregarded ensuring quality material and a plan to monitor were lacking. There didn’t seem to exist consistent monitoring for safety issues and placed regulations for water quality.

You have distrust in politicians, and the politician’s inability to use sound science to ensure quality of life of the human constituents through regulations that stipulate a section dedicated to problem-solving in the now, instead of the “after the fact”.

No one said a politician had to be a scientist, but a politician has a world of scientists at the ready to give sound input on issues where there is questionable content. All they have to do is ask the question, receive the input, and make a sound decision, or send that idea back to the drawing board until someone works out the kinks.

If you can’t execute it without harm-review, revise, and then act.

Dear Hunter-this is where you come in. If you hunt any of those states, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, and Illinois-go to that states Department of Natural Resources for hunting and google the wild game. Do you want to lose that?

If these people can ramrod a tribe of indigenous peoples, when someone decides to privatize Public Lands-do you think the militarized police aren’t going to show up and spray you in the face with mace, shoot rubber bullets at you, blind you with lights to keep you up at night, and refuse to let you build a fire in freezing condition after spraying cold water on you to give you hypothermia?

Do you think you will be different? Somehow, your life has more value than Standing Rock-no, it doesn’t.

Standing Rock fights for the same things-it varies in their timeline-but the same things. They fight for all of us. Even you good hunter.

How you value land and hunting is the same as Standing Rock with some varying in belief-but you know it is sacred, you need it, and it is yours to defend-it is your home.

If you don’t believe me look up the fight for public lands and hunting. See what your google strike gets. I believe that is one of the keystone issues Steven Rinella speaks on; if you need some credibility here, because what do I know-I am a woman.

When you have elected a President that can’t be trusted in his word, you have to wait for the shoe to drop; God forbid where it fall.

When shady politicians forego the quality and value of human life to hire a get-away-crew to do less than excellent work which causes sickness and disease-maybe you need to rethink being silent because you were never promised it wouldn’t happen to you.

If a United States veteran, who made a vow to protect the American people can stand up for and with the Standing Rock Sioux, then Hunters everywhere need to get off their asses and realize what this means to them.

Not ever hunter is a likable character. Some are self-serving, like to see themselves in photos, and act as elitists over all of us-but you, Hunter-are a free agent of the wild. It is your endowment to protect it. I am eyeballing you to scientists of the world.

Yet, you are free to chose.

Its water, land, family, wildlife, a way of life, and the things you spout are tradition, to be pasted to your kids-for future generations. 

That is no different than Standing Rock Sioux. They have the same innate right to it-and it is being tread on.

Its habitat, wildlife, all things we know as Nature that restores our soul when the trappings of this world, wear us down with stress, depression, and lack of hope.

One of our mottoes as the American Public: Don’t tread on us.

When did we give it away? Why do we normalize the treading on other people that are fighting for a reason that can’t be argued?

When did we stop standing up with our ethnic brothers who want the same decency and respect-the same people whose ancestors walked through lives of happiness, abuse, torture, life and death for us to get here?

How did people come to disrespect the self and each other, and normalize the things our ancestors and people now, died for?

Some people don't like what I have to say. If I was having a hard time, I would want someone like me to show up. Standing Rock is having a hard time, that is all they want to-and people to respect their belief that pipeline not go under their water source, or anywhere near their sacred burial sites. They don't want putrid water. Water is life.

Dear Hunter: You best be standing up and vocalizing. You are not immune to this. Don't wait for them to drive something through your hunting grounds. If you shirk you duty at this, when your hunting is gone, or you cry for help and it goes unheard-I told you so.

Written by: Angelia Y Larrimore, čhúŋwaŋča waók kté 

~Courtesy of the AOFH~

Makes you wonder if the same thing happened to Standing Rock. 
When you read down through this you'll find this statement:

The scope of this task was restricted to assessing the impacts in the Columbia River from these two scenarios; we did not evaluate potential impacts in the Pacific Ocean or along the Pacific Coast. We also did not separately assess how the public or Indian Tribes would value the potential losses to natural resources if either of these spills were to occur, although these values may be at least partly accounted for in the methods we used. Thus, we expect that we are underestimating the potential impacts to fisheries and the potential natural resource damages from these spill scenarios.

http://192.168.1.1:8181/http://columbiariverkeeper.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/2615-137-CFTE-Ex1503-000095-ENV-Report_05-13-16.pdf

The Mystery of Missouri Mooswa, Disappearances of the Twig Eater.

Remember this: In mysteries there is always a pattern, if not a pattern, a subtle nuance that almost goes undetected if not for the astute investigator; otherwise you are screwed Sherlock. Besides its fun to play Nancy Drew sometimes.

 

First off let me say I was a little disappointed by the lack thereof literature on moose physiology, function, body systems such as digestion and its deviations due to disease, reproduction, and environmental factors, etc. Maybe I wasn't looking in the right places? I felt like I was walking through a horrible moose Sahara where the moose was in the witness protection program. What does the moose have to hide?

Missouri knew that the moose population was declining but since last year it was a drastic 35 % which caused them to wake up on that I guess. Some days I swear these states are trying to ruin hunting to some degree by screwing around until things look dire or is it just me?

I recently came across an article (everywhere on the internet) that stated the moose in Missouri were disappearing. It was a great dumbfounding mystery. I soon read the general consensus was climate warming, ticks, and the unknown were to blame.

In response to this mystery the state of Missouri has decided to shell out 1.2 million dollars to start an investigation. I wanted to inspect this situation much closer to see what I could surmise. Believe it or not this is probably not the first time this kind of behavior or result has happened to the moose. Referencing data from previous scientific inquests can help build a case as to why. Even if it is pure assumption on my part why can’t I play the investigator in what is now Moose Forensics 101? It’s not going to hurt anything. I did see it mentioned that this was not an applicable CSI case because of what I guessed to be the helplessness of smart people to solve a moose death problem. I bet that made a lot of important people feel more than inadequate. I argue that point because there is mystery, dead bodies with DNR chalk lines and no explanations. For fun I decide what a huntress might be thinking if she were trying to play Nancy Drew under a tree in a boreal forest while hunting moose and googling on her cell phone to find the same animal she is after may not be there in the woods. Going on what we know about moose let us look at the known evidence be it fractured.The only thing that sticks out is more than one moose dying in the same place. Whether this is at the same time I do not know.

 

Building the Case Part 1: The Evidence.

Evidence #1:

Diet: Moose are ruminants that eat a variety of plant material. Their diet consists of wood foliage, aquatic plants, lichen, grasses, and roots.

Here I would like to say that lichen, fungi, and algae are present in the hindgut of a moose. The moose eats bark. Lichen occupy bark in large numbers if the light is favorable along with other conditions. Lichen is made of algae and fungi. The moose is eating bark because the moose needs the lichen that is growing on the tree? The algae, fungi, and protozoa perform many functions in the hindgut. Sometimes it’s the little things that are crucial. If this staple is missing in bulk from the moose diet there may be problems with digestion or even absorption/production of Vitamin K and Vitamin B. This is one of the limited articles I found on ruminant digestion.

http://physrev.physiology.org/content/78/2/393.full

Personal story: Had a client once that came in with a sick dog who had eaten rat poison. It was mostly too late to make the dog vomit then administer activated charcoal but upon inspection and the fact she didn’t really know when the dog ate the rat poison we tested the pack cell volume to find the dog was anemic. We ensued a blood transfusion with a subsequent treatment of Vitamin K. (I say this because if a moose in Missouri can have 50,000 ticks sucking it dry, be infected with a tick-borne disease have anemia and show some data that its Vitamin K levels are low then I would say ~let’s consider it in the name of scientific investigation). Besides the more parasites you have the more nutrition is lost.

Personal story: Once saw a cat almost suck dry by a flea infestation. I itched for two weeks.

Evidence #2:

Physiology: Moose have a four compartment stomach consisting of the rumen, omasum, abomasum, and the reticulum. Being foregut fermenters, the moose forces the regurgitated food back up from the stomach into the mouth so they can chew for up to seven hours to digest properly. Moose have bacteria in their gut that helps absorb these nutrients and synthesize essential amino acids, vitamin B, Vitamin K, and volatile fatty acids. These bacteria produce acetic acid, propionic acid, and butyric acid from the cellulose of plant material that are broken down into energy. In my reading ruminants completely depend upon the microbial flora present in the rumen or hindgut for cellulose digestion. The rumen contains various bacteria, protozoa, yeast and fungi. Ruminants produce large amounts of saliva that help with fermentation and act as a buffering agent. Fermentation from these processes produces organic acids and maintains the pH of the rumen fluids.

I was reading on the Moose in Minnesota website that there is a known trend for moose to move from one location to another because I go by their phraseology, “In the 1980’s moose began appearing in the Pembina Hills area of northeast North Dakota, and expanded to the south. In the early years of the 2000’s moose began appearing further west and further south.” There was also the note of warmer temperatures having some influence on mortality rates but there was a discrepancy in the fluctuation of temperature from one location to another.

 

There was a previous GPS collar project from 2000-2007 performed by the University of North Dakota led by Rick Sweitzer and James Maskey.  The dissertation done by Maskey was not moving. I wouldn’t suggest bothering to read it. This project admitted the moose were recently colonizing the area which implied movement yet again. They ruled out river flukes but there was a mention of brainworm. This brainworm is a small parasitic nematode that infects ungulates. Its choice host is the white tail deer that doesn’t suffer from the brainworm but other species do that involve neurologic damage that lead to death which is affectionately known as “moose sickness”.

The Canadian biologist Roy Anderson identified brainworms in 1963. The brainworm female lays eggs in the blood vessels and venous sinuses and subdural space of the white tail deer’s brain. Here is the difference in non-deer ungulates. The adult worm does not produce eggs and the animal become ill. This makes the moose an aberrant host. The way the moose could get infected is the white-tail deer, after gestating the brainworm larvae and its subsequent infection into slugs and snails could be eaten by the moose where the food is retained for up to seven hours in mastication marathon. The brainworm has plenty of time to migrate to brain parts unknown before defecation occurs.

I was also reading an article entitled, Maple Syrup, Moose and the Local Impacts of Climate Change points out climate yet again. In this article it stated that climate change was causing milder winters which in turn lead to better foraging in places reduced snow pack would usually cover making pathogens and pests.  Of course there was the point in this article of doing long term studies for real-life complexities. It was bizarre that moose were found in maple syrup production problems. That would be a concern if the brainworm is able to reproduce itself faster due to the availability of ground cover so it can continue its life cycle during mild winters where foraging is not hindered. I wondered what the likely suspects were:

Building the Case Part 1: The Suspects.

Suspect #1:

Climate: If the moose is use to a colder climate and had problem with thermoregulation in warmer climate I could see where this would bother it but would it kill the moose just on its own? (I am thinking pig here because they don’t do well in hot weather unless they have mud). It’s got something to do with pigs not being able to sweat.

I suspected climate change was an initiator of a series of biological events based around food, parasites, disease, weather, stress, migration, poison, DNA disturbance/interference.

 

Suspect #2:

Parasite: Here we have the brainworm that the moose gets from the White-tail deer/slug/snail hosts. Could this infection and subsequent inability to help the brainworm thrive cause the moose to die via illness?

There is also the tick to be considered. Ticks during the summer usually pick a spot in wooded areas where they go through their life cycle. If it’s warm enough there is a tick explosion where offspring might fall on you like a sky diver or as you walk through grass or brush jump on you. Once on and attached they have all kinds of cooties they can transmit to you that cause arthritis like symptoms, flu-like symptoms, malaise, and sometimes death. I mention cows here because Moose inhabit areas with cows and white-tail deer that have been known to transfer disease.

There is also Setaria spp. which is a filaroid nematoide that lives in cattle inside of the abdominal cavity. It has a microfilaria stage where the parasite swims around in the blood. The Mosquito is the bug of choice to transmit the disease by taking a blood meal from a cow. (This is so like heartworms in a dog.)These parasites migrate to the head and mouthparts of a cow. Upon necropsy the worms are found in the peritoneal cavity. These are supposed to be nonpathogenic parasites but if it looks guilty be suspicious. I have seen a ball of migrating or dying worms block up the heart and digestive track pretty much killing the animal.

Suspect #3:

Hunting: This is not the case it would seem but it would pose the question if the State of Missouri already knew there was a problem with its moose why did they not freeze the hunting season a while ago? Was it monetarily based because they already knew moose numbers were limited and people wanting the meat would take the chance at losing money on a wild goose (moose) chase?

Suspect #4:

Predation: This was also ruled out. Why? Because the State of Missouri already knew moose numbers were down. Low food might cause the predators to migrate away to find better prey. Also Missouri is no fan to wolves. Unless Missouri is going to put a great big fence up to keep the immigrant wolves out I don’t think they can stop them from migrating back in unless they have Wolf Border Patrol. Lions? Coyotes?

Nope. The powers that be decided they didn’t think predation was the culprit but I am not ruling them out just yet.

Suspect #5:

Spontaneous abortion: This could be due to disease in the infected mother. Spontaneous abortions have been known in deer, caribou, and elk when they are menaced to great levels by humans and predators. Brucellosis has been known to spontaneously abort Elk calves.

Suspect #6:

Sterility: When you have low numbers of moose living in one area that are not migrating out the gene pool becomes smaller which make the moose ripe for disease to take advantage of their systems because they have not developed disease resistance strategies through natural selection.

Personal story: This reminds me of the commentary on early Americans meeting the Spaniards. They didn’t know what smallpox was or STD but one hand shake and well placed rug killed a whole lot of people.

Suspect #7:

Migration: Maybe the moose decided things sucked in Missouri and walked over to North Dakota? It could happen!

Suspect #8

Disease: Here we could list all the disease of the tick from Lyme disease, Erhlichia, Spotted Rocky Mountain Fever, etc.

Personal story: I worked as an office manager for a mixed animal practice for ten years. This Rottweiler breeder came in with a litter of three month old puppies. The veterinarian orders some tests but the breeder was too cheap to get the needed ones. It was proven the Parvo virus was not in the puppies. The breeder ordered all pups to be euthanized because he didn’t pay for failure. The veterinarian lied (very illegal practice for one to do but he got away with it) and kept one pup alive which he wasn’t supposed to do. He then after treating the pup for free turned the pup over to the breeder who immediately had it euthanized by another doctor because he was afraid of spreading something to his other litters. Per another veterinarian checking additional pups they found out it was nothing more than E. coli because the guy had treated lumber for kennel flooring. He wasn’t properly cleaning or disinfecting the wood so the pups made themselves sick from unsanitary conditions. All it would have took was better communication and looking at the environment instead of just the symptoms.

There is also the worry of Bovine Tuberculosis but a necropsy of lung tissue could rule that out. This disease was also being spread as published in a research article in Veterinary Medicine International Vol. 2011 entitled, Preventing the establishment of a Wildlife Disease Reservoir: A Case Study of Bovine Tuberculosis in Wild Deer in Minnesota, USA by M. Carstensen and M. W. DonCarlos (what a name?!)

The way this was discovered was a beef cow at slaughter in Wisconsin had thoracic lesions upon processing. It was traced back to a herd in Minnesota where more of the cows were positive. A deer 1 mile away was collected then tested only to find it was positive too. The powers that be decided the deer got infected by spillover from the infected cattle. I did glean that a total of 9.783 deer from surveillance methods were tested in northwest Minnesota for bTB and yielded 27 infected deer. These lesions would be exhibited on the ribcage, lungs, diaphragm, or lymph nodes. Once again if the moose is sensitive maybe its symptoms aren’t the same? If this isn’t the guilty party at least you got an education on Bovine TB. It’s real and it’s out there like Mad Cow. The only problem with conditions like these is sometimes you don’t really get to find out where Pathogen Zero comes from or who germinates it first. Moose are like big cows but not really quite the same. Just look at it. It’s the alien of the ruminant family.

Suspect #9

Invasive species: The Foxtail (Setaria) Species. I would think either eating it or someone trying to poison it out of cattle grass whereby the Moose eats it second hand. That might account for multiple moose in one area dying. Contamination of foodstuffs or poisoned by nefarious weeds/plants. I wonder at this because most animals kind of know what to avoid but when you’re hungry a moose could be like that guy living in the bus on the movie, Into the Wild. He dies from dysentery after eating the forbidden berries.

S. Faberii has spread through parts of North America. It would seem that low temperatures keep the seed dormant but once those temperatures change the seed may begin to grow prematurely in these unstable climate times. I wonder what a forest fire would do to that if the temperature were high enough.

Suspect #10

Startling: Scaring Female Moose into abandoning young.

Suspect #11:

Drowning: Self-Explanatory.

Suspect #12:

Agriculture: Farmers using Monsanto corn or products that have been engineered to kill or ward off pest/insects. Once again what if the GMO’ness of the corn or its altered DNA does not agree with the DNA or even the four compartmental stomachs of the moose? This could literally be poisoning the moose.

Personal Story: My mother recounts back in the day when people actually got away with knife fights, farmers used agricultural soda. If a farmer put it out on grass to make it grow, he would be required to keep the cows off until there was a rain storm to wash it in the ground. She noted there were several deaths upon licking at such ground treatments. We know people still stock pile that kind of crap.

Suspect #13:

Human Development: Pretty much this causes habitat loss, startling, and fluctuations in moose economies.

Suspect #14:

Nutritional Stress: See Digestion. I also would note here that White-tail deer do eat birds. Birds are known to be reservoir for all kinds of nasty things from West Nile to Salmonella. What if a moose started eating birds? Or something else when it couldn’t find something else or was just bored?

Suspect #15

Monsanto corn or other GMO crops: It could happen.

Suspect #16:

Reproduction rates for non-sterile moose: There might not be enough females to breed to and have calves.

Suspect #17:

Moose Calf Mortality: I have found published papers from the Alaskan Department of Wildlife entitled, Unusual Moose Morbidity and Mortality in Alaska where in 2005 a study indicated that calves were indeed dying from bacterial peritonitis and septicemia. Whether the calves got this from a tick borne disease or virus (bacterial or otherwise) remains to be seen. A lot of them got eaten by bears during calving but there was note of lethargic periods before becoming recumbent the dying due to extreme cold temperatures.

Suspect #18:

Industry: Factory waste sites active and abandoned; fracking, or mining activities that cause second hand pollution and stress.

Suspect #19:

Lack of consistent predation: This is pretty straight forward stuff. If you don’t have the right amount of predators to pick off the sickly, odd or just bad DNA donors then poor specimens might be walking around in the form of what appears to be healthy moose. Natural selection did not get the chance to do its magic because of some unknown interference that allowed a Bad Bull or Female Cow to breed, have babies then pass on bad genes.

Suspect #20:

Bigfoot: Hey Bigfoot could have run them to death like hunter tribes did back in Africa. The only problem is before Bigfoot got a chance to gnaw off a piece humans showed up pointing fingers while yelling, “Look! It’s a dead moose. What happened?” I laugh at this because Matt Moneymaker and BoBo would probably theorize this is a possibility. I still love the show thought.

Suspect #21:

Aliens *hahaah*I had to it was funny. The mother ship has been coming to steal our food source.

 

After some limited research and what I know about the world at large on animals this is what I feel constitutes Angelia’s unofficial synopsis of Moose Death in Minnesota theory:

 

Due to climate changes, the moose who is problematic with thermoregulation and stress suffers from a lowered immune system.

This immune system once faced with lack of necessary food sources like lichen from trees that harbor alga and fungi for hind gut process of digestion inhibits the necessary processes of digestion. Anemia caused by entering tick hotspots with subsequent tick-borne infections and carriage of essential molecules by moose blood cells would lower the threshold of the immune system also. Malabsorption of nutrition that provides Vitamin B as an energy source and Vitamin K for blood coagulation and metabolic pathways which occur in the hindgut could render the animal lethargic. Climate changes also make the conditions right for the life cycle of the brainworm which needs warmer temperatures to cycle through to settle in the moose brain where it isn’t well received due to not being able to reproduce eggs which compounds the already lowered immune system. Given that there were several moose carcasses in the same area the idea not to rule out something in the environment that could have contaminated or poisoned the moose should be considered. (Excluding vehicle collisions, predators, and hunting.) Rubbing off hair due to parasites should be considered but whether or not it’s a chemical or other contaminates should be ruled out. There is always the “unknown”.

With that being said if anyone would like to add to the list of suspects feel free to let me know and I'll add them.
The moose need our help.

Written by W Harley Bloodworth

~Courtesy of the AOFH~