From: Cynthia Martinez To: D M Ashe; [email protected]; Jim Kurth; Betsy Hildebrandt; Matt Huggler; [email protected] Subject: Fwd: Complete turnover of the National Bison Range to a special interest group and in violation of every federal law that started and protects the National Wildlife Refuge System. Date: Sunday, February 07, 2016 4:51:08 PM Cynthia Begin forwarded message: From: Will Meeks <[email protected]> Date: February 7, 2016 at 4:46:13 PM EST To: Anna Munoz <[email protected]>, Cynthia Martinez <[email protected]> Subject: Fwd: Complete turnover of the National Bison Range to a special interest group and in violation of every federal law that started and protects the National Wildlife Refuge System. Will Meeks U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Mountain-Prairie Region Assistant Regional Director National Wildlife Refuge System 303-236-4303(w) 720-541-0319 (c) Begin forwarded message: From: Jeff King <[email protected]> Date: February 7, 2016 at 2:04:49 PM MST To: Noreen Walsh <[email protected]>, Will Meeks <[email protected]>, Mike Blenden <[email protected]>, Matt Hogan <[email protected]> Subject: Fwd: Complete turnover of the National Bison Range to a special interest group and in violation of every federal law that started and protects the National Wildlife Refuge System. Thanks jk Sent from my iPhone Begin forwarded message: From: Susan Reneau <[email protected]> Date: February 7, 2016 at 1:56:59 PM MST To: <[email protected]> Subject: Complete turnover of the National Bison Range to a special interest group and in violation of every federal law that started and protects the National Wildlife Refuge System. Dear Conservation, Hunting and Fishing Friends and Media, Since 1994 and more intensely starting in February of 2003, I have been sending emails to you regarding the destruction of our beloved National Wildlife Refuge System by political appointees within the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and people outside the USFWS in Republican and Democrat Administrations that wish to turn federal public lands over to special interest groups and/or state governmental organizations that have no business managing federal public lands in any fashion. My husband Jack and I hosted a public meeting where testimony was collected from individuals regarding their opinion about this issue at a high school gymnasium and I have traveled at my own expense to many wildlife conferences to speak to you and others about this issue, especially since the entire issue began with the destruction of the National Bison Range. This is a very national issue, not a local issue. Some of you have risen to my cry for action but some of you have remained quiet because you could not imagine my prediction that the entire National Wildlife Refuge System would be in jeopardy, starting with what was going on at the National Bison Range in Montana when I predicted ten years ago that if annual funding agreements with the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT), sovereign Indian government of the Flathead Indian Reservation, would eventually lead to the complete abdication of the National Bison Range to the CSKT. Many of you said to me, “This could not happen because no group like the CSKT could EVER be given a national wildlife refuge, a national park or any federal piece of land like this.” Well, please read an email below my comment to you from the current Refuge Chief of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife National Wildlife Refuge System, Cynthia Martinez, who I met with more than a year ago before she was given this appointment when she assured me that any agreement with the CSKT would only involve a partnership and would “never” involve abdication of the entire National Bison Range being give to the CSKT, which is now being proposed. You can now speak up LOUDLY and object in any fashion you wish and if you are media, please feel free to write about this new development at the National Bison Range because this is a violation of so many federal laws that this email memo from Refuge Chief Cynthia Martinez makes my head spin and it should make your head spin, too. It should also make your blood boil, as it makes my blood boil. If your blood does not boil and if you remain calm, then you truly do not care about the protection of one of the world’s greatest gifts to everyone, given to us by President Theodore Roosevelt, Ding Darling, William T. Hornaday and the many men of the Boone and Crockett Club so many years ago when they and their friends established the National Wildlife Refuge System in 1901 as TR began his presidency, established the National Park System in 1916 just after TR’s presidency, established the U.S. Forest Service and many other federal land systems. If you do not speak up this time, my conservation friends, then you are part of the problem. If you speak up or continue to speak up, Theodore Roosevelt and I thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Theodore, who did not like to be called Teddy, is pounding a very large stick up in Heaven right now over this, so you must help him speak. Start by forwarding the refuge chief’s memo to all U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employees in the National Wildlife Refuge System that was sent to me. In the spirit of Theodore Roosevelt, Ding Darling, Horace Albright, Gifford Pinchot, Madison Grant, Prentice Gray, John Lacey, and the men of the 19th and early 20th century that saw the vision of an America with national parks, national wildlife refuges, national forest and other federal land systems managed by scientists and not political appointees or special interest groups, I say, the wildlife and its habitat cannot speak SO WE MUST, so help us GOD. Today at my church, I lit ten candles in prayer that Ms. Martinez wish to abdicate one of America’s first national wildlife refuges be turned over to a local special interest group not come true. Only you and I can make sure that her dream is dashed. This is your mission. Go for what really matters and speak up, once and for all. Do whatever you like but do it. Scream from the rafters. Scream to your U.S. Congressman. Scream to your U.S. Senator. Scream to your local media. Scream to your national organizations you belong to. But, remaining silent is not an option. Use social media. Use your FACEBOOK. Use your website. Forward this email to all your email friends. If you are the media, it is your duty to interview both sides of this story and to investigate this from all angles. Feel free to start with me and I will give you phone numbers and emails of many people that are important to interview for a complete perspective on this story. My direct phone is 719-661-4037. That is my cell phone. You can also email me. I do not do FACEBOOK or TWITTER. I frankly hate both of those mediums and find them annoying but many people really love them and pay attention to them. Susan Campbell Reneau Author and editor of 22 books on big-game hunting, including Colorado’s Biggest Bucks and Bulls Life Member, National Rifle Association (benefactor life member), Wild Sheep Foundation, Rocky Mountain Foundation, National Wild Turkey Federation, and more Hunter and mother of three human sons that hunt and two black Labrador retriever hunters named Danni Boone and Betty Crockett Theodore Roosevelt/Abraham Lincoln Republican and Thomas Jefferson/Harry Truman Democrat Wife of a hunter who has been a certified wildlife biologist since 1973 From Refuge Chief ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: National Wildlife Refuge System, Chief <[email protected]> Date: Fri, Feb 5, 2016 at 5:37 PM Subject: National Bison Range To: Today the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service began discussions with Indian Affairs and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes (CSKT) about the potential for the Service to support legislation that would transfer the lands comprising the National Bison Range in Montana to be held in trust by the United States for the benefit of the CSKT. While the transfer will require Congressional approval, the decision to move forward was not made lightly. The National Bison Range was established by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1908 within the boundaries of the Flathead Indian Reservation, home of the CSKT. It was established for a defined purpose: to prevent the extinction of bison. We have been hugely successful in meeting that mission. The Bison Range’s conservation legacy will live on and we have confidence that the CSKT will maintain the high conservation standards that we established at the Bison Range. It is time for the Service to focus our efforts on landscape-scale conservation. I want you to know that every employee at the Bison Range will be taken care of. Employment options and opportunities are being discussed. Anyone who knows the history of the Bison Range knows that our employees have worked and lived with uncertainty regarding the Bison Range for many years now. I know that many of you will have varying thoughts, opinions and questions. This decision was not made lightly and does not represent a new direction for the Refuge System. Rather, it is a response to a specific set of circumstances in a specific location at a specific point in time. Since 1999, the Service has established more than 40 new national wildlife refuges and national conservation areas. Service employees are justifiably proud of hitting new conservation milestones year after year.