A Usenet persona calling itself Noone wrote:
wrote:
Granted throwing rocks into an eagles nest would be rotten but does
anyone else fing the blockage of what must be a navigable water way a
little disturbing?
For a country priding itself and based on freedome this seems a little
,,, well, off.
Well, the eagles can't be too sensitive. We have a Bald Eagle nest here
in Minnesota just north of where Rice Creek is crossed by Interstate 35W.
On many an occasion I have seen little heads poking up. Guess the drone
of traffic and poor quality of roadside air does not bother them.
As I said in my reply to cramersec, it depends entirely on the specific
circumstances and the specific eagles involved. I can tell you with
certainty that coming within 200 yards of the eagles nesting on my property
will cause them to flush.
Then again, I've seen one of the eagles sitting on top of my dump truck in
my equipment yard not 50 yards from my house, waiting for one of the ten
rabbits hiding UNDER the dump truck to make a mistake. Of course, my dump
truck wasn't the nest, either. It's nearly half a mile away from my house.
It's risky to make assumptions about particular eagles of your experience
and try to extrapolate about what's acceptable behavior in every case.
Certainly CO paddlers CAN choose to take their chances and float past the
nest, and indeed they have done so in the past. Most of them probably didn't
even know the eagle nest was there, and had absolutely no idea they were
violating the law. It's also absolutely true that floaters have violated the
law, because I've watched it happen. Until now I've been unable to document
such intrusions.
But the stakes have been raised, and I'm taking the high-tech solution to
tip the odds in favor of the eagles by setting up a system that will
photographically and indisputably document such activities for prosecution.
Before, you might get away with it because nobody was around to see it or
you could claim ignorance. That's going to end. In addition to the cameras,
I'm installing several prominent warning signs advising floaters of the
exclusion area ahead. That way if they ignore the warnings, they can't claim
they didn't know. And if they ignore the first sign, posted at the upstream
boundary of my property (not to mention the numerous open space closure
signs along the way), and then decide to stop when they reach the second and
final warning sign at the 250 yard limit and walk out, I'll prosecute them
for trespass.
If they proceed, I'll have them picked up at 95th street by the Sheriff and
held for a USFWS agent.
As for the navigable thing, remember that Colorado elected a different
basis regarding water rights than did most of the rest of US. There has
been much dialogue here in years past on that very subject. You can poke
another stick into *that* hornet's nest if you want, but I don't think you
will have too large an audience.
Well, that's the one saving grace of the eagles. When they moved their nest
next to the creek last year, they started a whole new ball game and gave me
a potent weapon to prevent trespass by floaters that is extremely hard to
argue with. The navigability argument is still on the table, of course, and
is proceeding to its conclusion in due course, but the eagles place the
entire weight of the federal government squarely on my side, which is the
only silver lining to the fact that at the same time, my property has been
seized by the feds.
At least I get to use the eagles to keep the kayakers out. Not much in the
way of "just compensation," but it'll do for now.
As for Freedom in general, you don't have to go back very far to
recognize the erosion that has occurred. But along with Freedom, go
rights and responsibility. We all carry our own sense of Freedom with us
everyday. Not many of us understand the rights of the other
stakeholders. If we did, then we would have fewer encounters with the
law. And if it was easy to do so, we all would spend less time in courts
sorting it out. Like most things, the real truth lies well below the
surface.
Below the surface indeed. My intent in starting this thread was to bring
this issue to the surface. There's new "stakeholders" in the game, and all
arguments about navigability aside, this issue trumps the "I can paddle
wherever I want" argument. Here is where we get to see if paddlers are
really eco-friendly, sensitive, responsible citizens willing to sacrifice
their own personal pleasure in order to help conserve a protected species,
or whether they are simply selfish, uncaring pleasure-hounds who care for
nothing but their own small-minded agenda.
It should be obvious to even a child that you are not "free" to do just
exactly whatever you want, whenever you want to do it. Our nation is founded
on the principle of "ordered liberty," not anarchy.
Time to step up to the bar and demonstrate that you are reasonable
people...or not.
In any event, those who choose to float down Boulder Creek through my
property do so at substantial risk. Fair warning has been given.
--
Regards,
Scott Weiser
"I love the Internet, I no longer have to depend on
friends, family and co-workers, I can annoy people WORLDWIDE!" TM
© 2005 Scott Weiser