Fox guarding henhouse

When I’m hiking and photographing, I sometimes see a fox out looking for food or just resting after a long night of hunting. 

I admire foxes’ intelligence and beauty – but I don’t invite them back to guard my chicken coops that supply us with eggs. Instead of guarding the chickens, they would be devouring them at the first opportunity. 

I thought about foxes guarding chicken coops recently when the Trump administration nominated Steve Pearce to head the Bureau of Land Management. 

The BLM oversees more than 100 of the West’s most special places that are protected as national monuments. While national monument designation usually does not provide the same protection that a national park enjoys, it does generally protect special ecosystems from mining, logging, new grazing or other development. 

When Pearce was a member of Congress from New Mexico, he co-authored a letter to President Trump that called for abolishing or drastically reducing such national monuments as Grand Canyon-Parashant, Vermilion Cliffs, Sonoran Desert and Ironwood Forest in Arizona; Gold Butte and Basin and Range in Nevada; Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument in Oregon; Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante in Utah; Organ Mountains and Rio Grande del Norte in New Mexico; Upper Missouri River Breaks in Montana; and Giant Sequoia, Berryessa Snow Mountain, Mojave Trails, San Gabriel Mountains and Carrizo Plain in California. 

Places like these have been designated national monuments by 17 presidents, both Republicans and Democrats, but Pearce would now be in charge of administering the same public lands he doesn’t think should be protected. 

It’s no wonder the Pearce nomination was immediately endorsed by large corporations in the oil and gas, cattle and mining industries. 

Before becoming a member of Congress with the financial backing of the oil and gas industry, Pearce owned a company that provided services to corporations in the oil business. 

Earlier this year, the Trump administration proposed a 75% reduction in the BLM’s conservation lands system. The White House also has issued a series of executive orders directing all federal agencies to prioritize the profits of logging, mining, and oil and gas over conservation of public lands. 

In February, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who will be Pearce’s boss, announced a review of all national monuments. Colorado has nine, including: Colorado National Monument in Grand Junction; Brown’s Canyon in Salida; Camp Hale in Leadville; Canyon of the Ancients in Pleasant View; Yucca House and Hovenweep in Cortez; Florissant Fossil Beds, Dinosaur in Moffat County; and Chimney Rock in Archuleta County. These were designated by presidents ranging from Richard Nixon and Warren G. Harding to Barack Obama and Joe Biden. 

If Pearce and his corporate allies tear up our public lands, these special places and the creatures that live in them may never recover, especially in this era of intensifying climate change. That’s what happens if, as the saying goes, a fox is called upon to guard the chicken coop.

– Matt Witt, writer and photographer, Talent, Ore.