Ron, I think I can answer that question without need for an investigative reporter: politics. I worked very closely with USFWS in my years with the US National Park Service as a wildlife biologist. Given the constantly changing political climate and the consequent usually dramatic changes in policies (e.g., should FWS change wolves, polar bear, grizzly bear, salmon, bison, Island Marble Butterfly, etc, etc from Endangered to Threatened or take them altogether off the List? Should mining and drilling be permitted in a National Wildlife Refuge?), the US Fish & Wildlife Service personnel, usually at the professional mid-management and field levels, are scared to death of doing or changing anything which might come back to bite them in the rear end one to ten years down the road. The "do nothing" option is the only choice they feel they have which will permit them to keep their jobs (and I know personnel who have lost their jobs by actually taking action on something). FWS is caught in the middle between hardcore environmentalists and committed open pit and petroleum miners. Most of the personnel can't be fired but if someone makes a decision that it would be OK to permit ham radio ops on Navassa or Desecheo Island, the risk is that someone might suddenly find their job has been eliminated. Thus, don't expect to see permitted operations on either island anytime soon. I hope I am wrong.
I believe it will indeed require an act of Congress before we see further DXpeditions to KP1/5. Good thing for me since Caribbean contacts are difficult from my particular Arizona QTH under current propagation conditions :-( . 73 de Fred Stevens K2FRD, VO2FS Certified Wildlife Biologist, Retd At 7:55 AM -0600 2/3/11, Ron Notarius W3WN wrote: >I think we need an investigative journalist to find out WHY Fish & Wildlife >staff for the Caribbean has ben so against ANYONE not with the agency ever >officially landing on "their" islands. > >One wonders if they are covering something up, or merely... overly >enthusiastic, if not zealous, about doing their jobs. > >There's been innuendo for years about how some of the staff uses the islands >for their own purposes > > >Mar 2, 2011 07:18:43 AM, rjai...@gmail.com wrote: > > >There was an attempt to get Congress to open up KP1/5 but the bill >died in committee. That is one avenue to pursue if we can't persuade >FWS but it needs enough support. > >__ >Ryan, N2RJ >Via iPhone ----------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe or subscribe to this list. Please send a message to imail...@njdxa.org In the message body put either unsubscribe dx-chat or subscribe dx-chat This is the DX-CHAT reflector sponsored by the NJDXA http://njdxa.org -----------------------------------------------------------
