{"id":4700,"date":"2008-08-23T05:17:26","date_gmt":"2008-08-23T12:37:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.amptoons.com\/blog\/archives\/2008\/08\/23\/mccains-aggressive-ignorance-millions-of-dollars-for-bear-dna\/"},"modified":"2008-08-23T05:17:26","modified_gmt":"2008-08-23T12:37:14","slug":"mccains-aggressive-ignorance-millions-of-dollars-for-bear-dna","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/?p=4700","title":{"rendered":"McCain's Aggressive Ignorance: He Thinks Knowing How Many Grizzly Bears Are Still Alive Is A Waste Of Money"},"content":{"rendered":"

bears.jpg<\/a>
\nObama, during a soon-to-be-forgotten controversy, said <\/a>that Republicans take pride in being ignorant.<\/p>\n

Here’s a relatively minor example that illustrates the point: During the saddleback forum (EconomistMom <\/a>posted the relevant part of the transcript), McCain said:<\/p>\n

My friends, we spent $3 million of your money to study the DNA of bears in Montana. Now I don\u2019t know if that was a paternity issue or a criminal issue\u2026<\/p>\n

(LAUGHTER)<\/p>\n

\u2026 but the point is, it was $3 million of your money. It was your money. And, you know, we laugh about it, but we cry – and we should cry because the Congress is supposed to be careful stewards of your tax dollars.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This is a argument McCain has reused year after year — it’s part of his stump speech.<\/p>\n

So what is McCain talking about? The funding (which was actually $5 million, spread out over several years) was for a project that measures the population of grizzly bears by conducting DNA tests on grizzly hair<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe main question we\u2019re trying to answer is how many grizzly bears are now in the NCDE,\u201d says Kate Kendall, who coordinates the Northern Divide Grizzly Bear Project. A U.S. Geological Service research biologist stationed at Glacier National Park, Kendall explains that wildlife managers can\u2019t effectively protect, control, restore, or otherwise manage grizzly bears or other wildlife population unless they first know how many animals exist and whether the population is increasing or decreasing. […]<\/p>\n

An accurate number of NCDE grizzlies has eluded biologists for decades. Comprising Glacier National Park and the Bob Marshall, Scapegoat, Great Bear, and Mission Mountains wildernesses, the ecosystem is one of the wildest and most inaccessible in the contiguous United States. Moreover, grizzly bears are among the most difficult animals to count. For decades, biologists thought a reliable population estimate of these secretive bears in the NCDE would be impossible to obtain.<\/p>\n

Then came DNA hair follicle sampling. By snagging the hair of bears visiting lure stations or using rub trees, researchers can now identify individual animals and accurately estimate population size with the same DNA technology police use to solve crimes.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn addition to being quick and relatively inexpensive, one major advantage of DNA analysis is that we don\u2019t have to trap, tranquilize, collar, and otherwise handle bears,\u201d says Kendall. \u201cIn fact, there\u2019s really no interaction between bears and people.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The project involves nearly 5,000 stations, some of them as much as 50 miles from the nearest road. Each station needs to be set up by trained technicians (among other things, you need someone who won’t get in trouble with bears despite wandering around in the woods with big bottles of extremely effective bear bait — the project has so far had nearly 100 bear sightings but zero bear-related injuries). The bear fur samples also need to be collected and the stations sterilized and reset for the next bear, and eventually dismantled. Each sample needs to be tracked (they use bar codes), packed, shipped, identified by DNA, and then the data needs to be interpreted.<\/p>\n

First of all, let me just say: Damn, that’s really cool.<\/p>\n

It’s a clever and innovative solution to a measurement problem that scientists recently thought impossible to solve. And without it, we can’t be certain if the grizzly bear population is going up or going down — which is important, because federal law requires the government to protect endangered species, and that can’t be done without good data.<\/p>\n

Here’s some questions I’d like to see McCain asked:<\/p>\n

1) On dozens of occasions, including just last week, you’ve cited the Northern Divide Grizzly Bear Project as a prime example of wasteful government spending. Can you tell us what the Northern Divide Grizzly Bear Project’s purpose is?<\/p>\n

2) Are you opposed to tracking the population of grizzly bears to make sure they don’t go extinct? Are you opposed to protecting endangered species?<\/p>\n

3) If you’re not opposed to tracking the population of grizzly bears, then what less expensive but equally effective means do you propose?<\/p>\n

4) Why did you vote for a program<\/a> that you’ve cited dozens of times as an example of useless government pork?<\/p>\n

It’s possible Senator McCain voted for the program because he knows <\/em>it’s a good program and a responsible use of taxpayer money. But Candidate McCain is so lacking substance — and so certain that the way into Republican hearts is through aggressive ignorance and mockery of good science — that he might discredit a program he knows is valuable in order to advance his anti-government, anti-science campaign. What matters to an empty shirt like McCain isn’t substance, and certainly not good science; the only thing that matters is votes.<\/p>\n

Alternatively, McCain is such an ignoramus that he thinks the Northern Divide Grizzly Bear Project really is a bad idea. Finally, it’s possible that he’s been speaking against it for years, on dozens of occasions, without even knowing what the project does.<\/p>\n

(See also: Scientific American<\/a>, The New York Times<\/a>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Obama, during a soon-to-be-forgotten controversy, said that Republicans take pride in being ignorant. Here’s a relatively minor example that illustrates the point: During the saddleback forum (EconomistMom posted the relevant part of the transcript), McCain said: My friends, we spent … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[102,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservative-zaniness-right-wingers-etc","category-environmental-issues"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4700\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/amptoons.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}