May 7, 2002
Billionaire Ted Turner turned out for the recent Academy Awards. The man, who revolutionized reporting on celebrities as news at CNN, should be right at home in Tinsel Town. Jane Fonda's ex-hubby deserves his own academy award for hypocrisy in the environment.
Washington Times reporter Audrey Hudson so aptly puts it: "Ted Turner pursued his stated goal of saving the environment by purchasing a good portion of it--1.8 million acres in 10 states, making him the largest private landowner in the United States."
This fan and personal friend of late Greenpeace founder, David McTaggart, who died in a car crash in March 2001, gives new meaning to the term 'ecocentric'. According to Hudson, Turner sponsored elite bison hunts at $10,500 per crack and erected 'killer fences' that snare and torture migrating wildlife.
Turner cuts timber and drills for natural gas. Whether he uses a dowser or not is a matter of speculation. The CNN founder even bulldozed a hilltop to create a better view of a mountain range that is reflected in his trout pond.
Now if this were Joe Schmoe rather than Ted Turner, there would be squawks of protest and litigation from a broad range of well-heeled environmental groups. Writes Hudson of the missing criticism: 'But critics of Mr. Turner's stewardship of his lands say he largely escapes repercussions for such activities because the media mogul is one of the environment movement's most generous benefactors, donating millions to the cause.
"When it comes to land-use policy an environmental policy he treats his own property different than how he wants everyone else to treat their property," said Alan Gottlieb, president of the Center for the Defense of Free Enterprise. "There is no doubt of a hypocrisy here."
"I consider myself a serious rancher," Turner told USA Today. "But we're not trying to squeeze the last nickel out of everything. We're trying to leave an adequate portion for wildlife."
Just like in the movies, today Turner owns the world's largest herd of buffaloes--numbering 27,000--and is the major producer of buffalo meat. With silence from the normally raucous PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals), buffalo are harvested on site as part of a commercial hunting venture.Turners latest venture is to create a new outlet for his bison meat, a chain of restaurants called Ted's Montana Grill that will feature the Western delicacy--coming to a Canadian town near you.The meat already is sold to a cooperative that the federal government subsidizes in the amount of millions of dollars a year. American taxpayers also subsidize some Turner ranch operations--which received more than $217,000 in federal funds from 1996 to 2000.
Turner's 20 ranches and other properties cover more than 26,000 square miles in Montana, New Mexico, Nebraska, Kansas, Florida, South Dakota, South Carolina, Georgia, Colorado and Oklahoma, as well as in Argentina.
Although you'll never hear of it from Barbara Streisand or say, Alec Baldwin, the ranches are world-class hunting and fishing destinations that charge up to $4,000 per person for big-game hunts in addition to the pricier buffalo hunts.
According to Forbes Magazine, "exploration for natural gas on the pristine Vermejo ranch in Montana--which crosses into Colorado--is expected to net more than $80-million in royalties for the Turner clan over the next 20 years."
While Turner hobnobs in Hollywood, the leading critics of what they call 'killer fences' and other Turner ranch practices are sportsmen Jack Jones, a retired wildlife biologist for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and Jack Atcheson Sr., a conservation activist who has been honoured by Outdoor Life magazine.
Jones and Atcheson say the electrified fencing around the 12,000-acre Snowcrest Ranch in Montana not only is illegal but kills wildlife that tries to crawl under or through the fence to enter winter feeding grounds.
The sportsmen say the fences are 60 inches tall with a bottom rung 9 to 11 inches above ground, a departure from the federal governments definition of a legal fence.
The pair say they recorded 23 dead elk and deer along a 500-yard stretch of fence during three field trips there last August.
"The elk were dead because they could not get over or under the fences. So they died a horrible death after spending five to seven days starving to death while continually being shocked," Jones said.
Asked why environmental groups are not protesting Turner ranching or hunting operations, Jones pointed to the Turner Foundation and said, 'Follow the money trail and see where it leads.'
The Turner Foundation, headed by Turner and his children, awarded 3,143 grants totaling more than $152-million from 1991 to 2000 to environmental and population-control groups, foundation president Michael Finley said.
"We give to groups that are interested in protecting the environment--or support sustaining use of the environment, which includes hunting and fishing," Finley said.Critics say environmental groups refuse to criticize Turner because of the funding provided by his foundation.
While a timber-cutting operation was under way on one of his ranches in 1998, members of the radical environment group EarthFirst instead protested timber cutting on a nearby ranch owned by Zachary Taylor, said private investigator Barry R. Clausen, who spent a year undercover at EarthFirst.He asked a protester why the group did not include Turner, Clausen said, and was told "We cannot. That's where our money comes from."
Mr. Clausen, author of Burning Rage, an investigation of domestic terrorism, said environmental groups' nickname for Turner is "Daddy Greenbucks".
Association Press reports what may be the first case of Eco assassination.
The assassin believed to be Volkert van der Graaf, 32, works for Milieu Offensies, a radical Eco organization, which boasts a link to Greenpeace, Netherlands, on its website. The tragic assassination in the Netherlands claimed the life of Pim Fortuin, professor of sociology, described as an articulate and flamboyant liberal, who was taking the best platforms of both the left and right and said to on the verge of victory for a May 15, 2002 election.
The Eco movement has crossed the line leaving Europe reeling.
At press time, Greenpeace Netherlands did not respond to Toronto Free Press telephone calls.
-Centre For Consumer Freedom
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