Re: [Paddlewise] Wilderness is good business

From: Dave Gorjup <dgorjup_at_cox.net>
Date: Wed, 04 Jun 2003 11:24:17 -0400
As counterpoint, I submit the following from a friend who runs a flight 
service in Idaho. It would seem that Idaho politicians may need a better 
sense of balance. There's got to be a compromise in here somewhere, both to 
protect the environment and to help humans in trouble. Every story has two 
sides.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On May 27th the Idaho wing of the Civil air patrol was put on alert for a 
missing aircraft that had left a high mtn. air strip in the central Idaho 
mtns. We began the search the same day with 8 Idaho wing Air force fixed 
wing aircraft. the Idaho Dept. of  Aeronautics refused to let us fly in to 
the boundaries of the designated wilderness areas. We have burned up 
countless man hours and aircraft hours looking for this lost plane. The 
state of Idaho is now run by a bunch of environmental tree hugging granola 
crunching freaks.The reason given for this decision was that we might upset 
some wild animals. at 0400 this morning the United States Airforce told the 
state of Idaho to stick it. The people we were looking for had left the air 
strip on Sunday the 25th and had not been reported until the 27th. Also 
these People were Military. At 0630 this morning we found the aircraft two 
miles beyond the wilderness boundary, In deep snow and trees. We called in 
a Airforce rescue helicopter who confirmed our worst fears that was that 
this man and woman had been alive for approx. 24 hrs. they were hurt but we 
could have saved them . We go on about 100 searches each year. Missing 
hunters to down military air craft like the A 10 that went down in Colorado 
I flew high bird on that one, we use to call that C&C . Yes the Enviro 
types are moving in and influencing the Dept's of our government; they 
place animals above humans, they burn down peoples homes on the edge of 
forests, they destroy SUV's in parking lots, they harass hunters and they 
lobby against grazing rights.  And yet no one is calling these people 
domestic terrorists.  Perhaps in the west we see this more then the people 
in the east.  But terrorism is terrorism, how your thoughts on the matter?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The characterizations he makes are his and not necessarily mine. I have 
left his writing intact as it was sent to me.
One who is interested in balance,
Dave G.
Poquoson, Va.

At 06:35 AM 6/4/2003 -0700, Mary Zuschlag wrote:
>NPR had an interesting story on the protection of wilderness.  The outdoor
>equipment manufacturers are threatening to move a 25 million dollar trade
>show out of Salt Lake due to concerns about dropping wilderness protection
>of millions of acres in Utah. Here are the letters to the Governor:
>http://www.businessforwilderness.org/news/index.asp?ID=8
>http://www.bdel.com/about/stand.html
>You can listen to this NPR program on the Web.
>http://www.npr.org/
>It will be interesting to see if these companies can affect governmental
>policy.  -- MZ
>
>visit my website:
>http://www.mzuschlag.com


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Received on Wed Jun 04 2003 - 08:24:36 PDT

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