Fourteen firefighters were

trapped by the Thirty Mile Fire July 10 along the Chewuch River in Washington

State's Okanagan County. One trapped firefighter believes that the delay

in the delivery of the water was critical. "If we'd had the water

when we'd asked for it, none of this would have happened," Solomon

quoted the firefighter as saying.

This is the dropping of the

final shoe. We have so distorted our view of animals that they can not

only render us impoverished, but now take our lives. One can possibly

blame Walt Disney and the "Bambi's Mother Syndrome" for starting

all of this romanticizing about animals, including the unfounded transfer

of human qualities to them, but our imaginations probably have a lot to

do with it.

We can also blame the tendency

of liberal politicians, who have traditionally used their majorities to

champion trendy and intellectually pleasing programs as a means of advancing

the notion of an ever more sensitive and powerful federal government.

One of their utopian notions, "rewilding" means the introduction

of additional predators (grizzly, cougars and wolves) onto lands where

humans are but one representative from the available food chain.

Environmental law has resulted

in some remarkable situations: A farmer was arrested for running over

an endangered kangaroo rat while tilling his own land. His tractor was

seized and held for over four months, and he faced a year in jail and

a $200,000 fine. Irrigation water was cut off to 1,500 families in the

Klamath Basin along the Oregon-California border to save the sucker fish.

This case, recently resolved

a hopeful sign. But the farmers' bills can drive them to bankruptcy while

the legal bills of the environmentalists are paid through the "citizen

lawsuit" provisions of the ESA.

Seventy percent of the 4.1

million acres of designated critical habitat for the red-legged frog are

on private property. This is a lawsuit waiting to happen that will profit

only the lawyers. What you might consider a mud puddle has been designated

"vernal pools" and the habitat for fairy shrimp in some California

locales. The presence of "vernal pools" in Fresno County cost

taxpayers $250,000 in construction delays.

The Bush Administration now

has a rare opportunity to strike a blow for common sense. They can start

to favor the property owner instead of the suit's instigator.

They can also utilize the focus

provided by the unfortunate deaths of the four brave firefighters to issue

a mandate that, in effect, will insure that wherever lives are at risk

whether through forest fires, animal attack (on other animals as well

as humans), or accident wherein animal lifesaving and human lifesaving

are at odds the humans will be given priority.

The fact that this has to be

proposed at all speaks volumes about the maturity of our ethical reasoning

in the year 2001. Regardless, this might very well be one of the most

popular mandates issued during the Bush presidency at least to us who

value all life but, especially, human life.

William Fielder

Peachtree City