Articles

As discussed above, MIT is one of a few schools holding to admissions standards.

Over the last 40 years, America’s so-called education experts have hidden their failure to educate our youth by making school easier. They have deemphasized history, math, science, language and writing. For years, tests have been made easier by substituting multiple choices for written answers, and by grading on increasingly liberal curves. This has hidden the miserable results but not reversed the trend.

As a result, our schools, at all levels, produce technically weak graduates who can’t pass the admissions tests given to their parents and grandparents. Now the idea is to eliminate test-based SAT and ACT admissions altogether.

It is a massive failure which starts at kindergarten and continues through graduate school. Our graduates lack the tools and measurements of critical thought that allow them to distinguish dogma from science, which explains many perverse actions seen in forest, wildlife and habitat management.

To make matters worse, neither students nor teachers are permitted to challenge the academic consensus. There are plenty of dedicated teachers, coaches and administrators who could fix this, but they are marginalized or eliminated altogether from the ranks that set policies and strategic direction for education and academic standards.

As reported above, Yellowstone’s migrating bison are once again being killed because they carry brucellosis.

Yellowstone’s bison would not be a threat to domestic livestock if: 1) all bison were vaccinated against brucellosis and 2) all cattle with whom they might share winter ranges were vaccinated against brucellosis. It is complete insanity to cull the few remaining genetically pure wild bison on the continent instead of actively managing them for health and repopulation.

The brucellosis has also infected the elk herd, making it more susceptible to CWD. If that is not bad enough, there is another, much worse bison disease, Mycoplasma bovis, in the offing. Unless we change current practices, we will not need to worry about culling any wildlife.

We can thank the anti-hunting, anti-predator, anti-logging, anti-cattle and anti-management ideologues and senior managers who place agency power and careerist agendas ahead of the objectives their agencies were created to advance. There are plenty of dedicated agency foresters, biologists and managers who could fix this, but they are marginalized or eliminated altogether from the ranks that set policies and strategic direction on range, forest and wildlife management.

Videos

As winter snow accumulations melt, a "green wave" of fresh growth moves upwards, into Yellowstone's higher elevations. Bison follow the green wave and they pretty much go where they wish. All this reverses with autumn snowfalls.

Beavers are a keystone species in desert ecosystems. See how beaver restoration is healing a degraded Arizona river and its Mexican tributaries.

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