Fifth in a series on a new ESA list­ing. The author states there may be more com­ing in this series.

A secret 2013 Wash­ing­ton Depart­ment of Fish and Wildlife map that was acci­den­tal­ly placed in Thurston Coun­ty Plan­ning‘s pub­lic files has been obtained by Watch­dog Wire.  The map pur­ports to show loca­tions of the new­ly fed­er­al­ly pro­tect­ed pock­et gopher.

The WDFW map, below, is from an aer­i­al pho­to of rur­al land near the south­west Thurston Coun­ty com­mu­ni­ty of Rochester.  Prop­er­ty bound­aries are marked with yel­low lines.  Land out­side the yel­low lines are coun­ty right-of-ways.  Except for Rochester real­tor Lar­ry Weaver‘s lot near the map’s cen­ter iden­ti­fied by the par­cel num­ber end­ing in ‑701200, all indi­vid­ual par­cel num­bers have been redact­ed. The alleged gopher loca­tions are iden­ti­fied by “on-site” green and “off-site” orange dots.

The map was to have remained unknown to the pub­lic, accord­ing to WDFW offi­cial Tam­my Schmidt.  Schmidt cre­at­ed the map of three sep­a­rate prop­er­ties after her Dec. 2, 2013 field vis­it, by plac­ing the green dots with white cir­cles and the orange dots on the par­cel map.  Schmidt describes how this map was cre­at­ed in her email at right.

These dots can crim­i­nal­ize some­thing as sim­ple as man­i­cur­ing a lawn or plant­i­ng a flower bed.

WDFW only had per­mis­sion to be on one of these parcels, which belongs to Lar­ry Weaver. Although the green dots in white cir­cles were to show “Weaver gopher mounds,” the dots and cir­cles are clear­ly encroach­ing on a neigh­bor­ing lot.

The loca­tion of  pock­et gopher mounds, which are cre­at­ed when the rodent sur­faces, is crit­i­cal for land use reg­u­la­tion because WDFW claims that each gopher remains sta­tion­ary and doesn’t wan­der past its own small habi­tat area.  How­ev­er, Pest Edu­ca­tion states that pock­et gophers can tun­nel hun­dreds of feet to expand their habi­tat, bur­row­ing under roads if necessary.

Schmidt did not pro­vide any actu­al evi­dence of these gopher mounds, such as pho­tos. Accord­ing to Mike Cope, WDFW Region­al Direc­tor, no such proof is required by their agency.

Trespassing on private property to document species at any time

In his Sept. 22, 2014 email, shown at right, Cope fur­ther explains how his agency, at any time, can cre­ate secret maps of any species on anyone’s prop­er­ty, with no per­mis­sion or proof.

WDFW did not get per­mis­sion from the prop­er­ty own­er who shares Weaver’s green gopher dots, nor did they get per­mis­sion from the prop­er­ty own­er with orange dots on his prop­er­ty.  They state that they did not tres­pass to cre­ate these dots.

Orange and green dot areas that disprove WDFW map

A series of pho­tos of these dot loca­tions was tak­en on Oct. 19, 2014—the same approx­i­mate sea­son as the 2013 map.  These pho­tos show no evi­dence of pock­et gophers at any of the loca­tions.  WDFW claims that these gophers are sta­tion­ary, and don’t move from place to place.

Pri­or to Tam­my Schmidt’s Decem­ber 2013 inspec­tion, WDFW required Lar­ry Weaver to mow his prop­er­ty so that Schmidt could see gopher mounds.  Even though Schmidt was allowed to walk on Weaver’s prop­er­ty and inspect it up close, she still insist­ed that it be mowed so she could see evi­dence of gophers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How­ev­er, to put the orange “off-site” dots on the map, Schmidt claimed that she could see evi­dence of far off gopher mounds on pri­vate property—from a dis­tance, through tall grass­es, and from behind shrub­bery, as shown in these photos:

 

Mick Cope fur­ther stat­ed that they have not informed the prop­er­ty own­ers that their land is now offi­cial­ly iden­ti­fied as hav­ing an ESA-list­ed species, with no proof and no recourse.

These unsup­port­ed WDFW maps and doc­u­men­ta­tion restrict land use.  Thurston County’s reliance on unsup­port­ed WDFW doc­u­men­ta­tion has even result­ed in crim­i­nal and civ­il charges against cit­i­zens.  Any “dots” on these maps can ren­der a land par­cel worthless.

ESA listing of gopher is a hoax

Iron­i­cal­ly, the actu­al pock­et gopher ESA micro-list­ing has proven to be a hoax.  Although the species itself is plen­ti­ful and inde­struc­tible, offi­cials have claimed that a Rochester area “sub­species” boasts mas­sive penis­es, and there­fore qual­i­fies for protection.

Although WDFW has stud­ied this rodent for over ten years, there has nev­er been any proof of any sub­species with any size penis.

In the offi­cial fed­er­al ESA list­ing, U.S. Fish and Wildlife (USFW) claimed that they didn’t need such proof, because the sub­species was rec­og­nized by the “Inter­na­tion­al Com­mis­sion on Zoo­log­i­cal Nomen­cla­ture” (ICZN).

USFW’s claim about ICZN is also a hoax. The ICZN was once a small group who col­lect­ed ani­mal names and pub­lished a bul­letin out of the Lon­don Nat­ur­al His­to­ry Muse­um. They have been cut loose from the muse­um, and are now broke.  They have no recog­ni­tion of any sci­en­tif­ic exper­tise or author­i­ty, and their reg­istry shows no gophers of any kind.

Fea­ture image of WDFW map, from Thurston Coun­ty pub­lic records.  Blacked out areas are where prop­er­ty par­cel num­bers have been redacted.

This is Part 5 of a series about a new ESA micro-list­ing, and its impact on a rur­al community.