Idiots With Firearms

Shot Up Sign, Indian Creek Reservoir, Idaho

Just to be completely clear: These are the opinions of Wickersham’s Conscience. Do not assume that others share the views, even if they are mentioned in the blog post. 

Readers ask why WC detests gun-toting, Second Amendment-spouting gun nuts. Thank you for asking.

This sign and tens of thousands like it across the West would be one reason. Some percentage – the gun nuts claim it is a small percentage but offer no evidence – some percentage aren’t clever enough to shoot game, so they shoot signs instead. After all, signs don’t evade the shooter. Some signs are so badly shot up that they become illegible.

For a certain segment of these idiot shooters, a sign seems to be too challenging, so they shoot up buildings instead. This pit toilet is along the Weiser River Bike Trail.

Pit Toilet, Presley Station, Weiser Bike Trail (Photo by Mrs. WC)

Some of those chunks were blown out by a very powerful rifle; others by a mere .22. The door handle was so badly damaged that the door could not be opened. It’s a wonder ricochets didn’t injure the shooters, but it’s probably too much to expect.

Now it’s bad enough that the heavily armed cretins damage public property. They also target birds.

Long-billed Curlew, Centennial Marsh, Idaho

Long-billed Curlews are a large shorebird with an amazingly long bill, especially the females. The populations are in decline across North America. But the populations are in very steep decline in southcentral Idaho. The regional population has decreased 95 percent over the past 40 years. The Intermountain Bird Observatory is trying to figure out why. As a part of their study, they put satellite transmitters on birds they capture. That allows IBO to track the movements of the birds, both locally when they nest and raise their kids, in spring and fall migration and on their winter range.

Long-billed Curlew, Centennial Marsh, Idaho

And when almost half of the transmitter-equipped birds were found shot in Idaho, well, it gave everyone a pretty good idea of why local populations were in steep decline. If WC recalls the data correctly, 7 of the 16 transmitter-equiped birds were shot.

You see, a certain kind of “hunter” – WC thinks real hunters would be offended, but that’s the term Idaho Fish & Game uses – goes to Bureau of Land Management public lands where it’s legal to shoot so-called “vermin species.” They’re not “vermin,” of course; ground squirrels and prairie dogs are the base of the food chain, and are meals for hawks, falcons, coyotes and badgers, among other species. It’s not hunting, either; it’s just killing stuff. While WC supposes many of these “hunters” are ethical, a few of the scofflaws among them don’t stop at “varmints.”

Long-billed Curlews nest on the ground. They make easy targets. A nesting Long-billed Curlew is like a road sign or a pit toilet building: an easy target.

Never mind that the curlews are protected under the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Never mind that the populations are in decline. For a certain kind of firearm owner, everything is a target, and the easier target, the better.

Long-billed Curlew, Centennial Marsh, Idaho

WC admires folks like Intermountain Bird Observatory’s Heather Hayes, who are attempting to educate hunters, to get the carnage of Curlews to stop. It’s certainly worth the effort. WC recently attended one of her presentations – just before COVID-19 shut all that stuff down – and Hayes is very good.

But if WC’s thesis is correct, and it’s the same criminals shooting up signs and buildings that shoot the Curlews, well, the perps know what they are doing is illegal and simply don’t care. It’s going to take law enforcement and some criminal prosecutions to control the shoot-at-everything crowd. And that’s not the priority of the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service or, heaven knows, the Idaho Fish & Game folks.

Which makes WC pessimistic about the Idaho populations of this species.