Finally, as Migratory Birds disappears into the bowels of FWS and USGS slowly digests the remains of Migratory Bird Research, FWS is cleverly using migratory birds as allies of endangered species to buy more land, control more private lands, and eventually evacuate large swaths of America to implement radical agendas like Wildlands and Native Ecosystems. One need only look to central Nebraska.

The Federal government has been grousing about irrigated farms in Nebraska for years but it is all private property supporting farms, towns, and families and the Federal government has little say. The US Park Service has been casting an eye on all the historical (settlers, Indian fights, pony express, etc.) sites in Central Nebraska. FWS PLANTED (they call it reintroduced) endangered sturgeon downstream of the irrigated area and are now waiting to demonstrate that they (the sturgeon) will need more water in the Platte River. Never mind that the same Federal agencies have fought a four year court battle (still pending) to maintain and continue their dumping of very toxic sludge (from the District of Columbia water treatment) by the US Army Corps of Engineers - through a National Park - under and EPA permit approved by FWS and the National marine Fisheries Service - ON THE ONLY SPAWNING GROUND OF THE ENDANGERED SHORTNOSE STURGEON IN THE POTOMAC RIVER. All of this goes on where your political leaders live and your top bureaucrats complete their careers before moving to some gated community. But I digress.

FWS plants the sturgeon below the irrigators and then claims Critical Habitat for piping plovers (a shorebird used to close beaches on the East Coast, around the Great Lakes, portions of the Platte soon, and probably many other "unapproved" locations in the future.) Plovers were always widespread and never numerous. They go up and down (numbers-wise) and probably the best thing to hit them recently is a drought that bares miles of shorelines along lakes and rivers where they find the openness they prosper in.

The piece de resistance for central Nebraska for FWS purposes is provided by the Migratory Bird Program. Record-high snow goose flocks, record-high Canada goose (resident and migratory) flocks plus high sandhill crane populations occupy central Nebraska for months on end during migration both ways and often during mild winters. Their numbers when combined with large flocks of mallards number as high as 8 to 10 million. FWS refuses to manage these birds or ameliorate their impacts or the impacts to the few wetlands they utilize. Instead mysterious allegations are raised that irrigators may have caused 28 deaths from West Nile Virus last year. This was patently untrue since 6 to 7 days of still water are necessary for a mosquito hatch and no such water puddles on farms. The marshes used by the waterfowl do provide such water. Still, the cry is we "need" more wetlands under government control in central Nebraska.

Farmers were then accused of causing fertilizer runoff that polluted water and soil. When farmers asked me if waterfowl cause any pollution what I found was startling. There is NO comprehensive research on the make-up, frequency, magnitude, and impacts of wild waterfowl manure. Think of that, 80 years of managing flocks in the millions on National Wildlife refuges, 25 years of resident Canada geese population explosions across the northern ½ of the nation and NO IDEA OF WHAT THE FECES ARE DOING TO OUR WATER, OUR SOIL, THE BIRDS, AND MOST IMPORTANTLY TO THE HUMAN HEALTH OF OUR FAMILIES AND OUR COMMUNITIES!