I was disappointed I didn’t bring my fly fishing rod. The pristine waters of the Snake and Yellowstone Rivers were calling my name. It was my first time visiting Yellowstone National Park and if you haven’t been, you need to get there. It’s over 2 million acres of the closest thing to perfection with nature as raw and primordial as it gets. That is, of course, until man got involved.
The waters once overflowed with cutthroat trout, which are native to the headwaters of the rivers and streams in northwestern United States. The cutthroat plays a crucial role in maintaining the balance of a delicate ecosystem, which is why, when someone introduced the lake trout to the waters of Yellowstone, everything changed for the worse.
Well intentioned actions often perpetuate devastating consequences especially those without forethought or understanding. Lake trout are much larger than cutthroat and feed extensively on them, growing to as big as 35 pounds. Because lake trout prefer the deep waters of lakes and rivers, they remain safeguarded from natural prey.
Cutthroats live mostly at the top of the waters and provided bald eagles, osprey and other birds, bears, and much wildlife with abundant sustenance. In the span of a few decades, the cutthroat population has been decimated, thereby substantially reducing the number of the bald eagle, osprey, and other wildlife that once fed on the once plentiful cutthroats.
Not surprisingly, big government mimics the same tomfoolery. Last week, the City of Española flippantly announced plans to ban all single-use plastic bags. Yes, you heard that correctly. With the multitude of problems facing the city, somehow banning plastic bags rises to the top of the list of to-dos — not the fact that last year’s audit remains woefully late and the city needs to find a third party fiscal agent to manage its money (allegedly). Or that the homeless situation gets frighteningly more and more out of control. No. Plastic bags must be tackled, for they pose a litter hazard to the citizens of Española. Banning them will do the trick. That’s what the state said about 1 oz. liquor bottles. Now instead of tiny containers littering the roads and parks, we have the larger 2 oz. bottles doing the job.
What politicians don’t get about the real world is that sometimes it’s complicated. Take plastic bags at restaurants for example. Ever since COVID, sourcing compostable bags on a regular basis has been near impossible. We often try to do right by the environment, but logistics, cost and economic factors beyond our control make it tough to do so. Add to that the increase in prices required to offset more costly alternatives.
The people of New Mexico can’t afford even a few extra bucks here and there to buy reusable bags when the price of butter has shot up to almost $8 and let’s not get started on the price of eggs. After two hurricanes in Florida, put the orange juice down and back away. The real gem comes from the hypocrisy. Just walk down the aisles of your local grocery store and you’ll see thousands of products in single-use bags. Why doesn’t the city go after them? Why does the end consumer get punished while the big agra/big box retailer and manufacturer get away with it?
Besides, there is no way plastic grocery bags get used only once — not in our Hispanic households!. Have you seen our junk drawers? They are full of grocery bags that we reuse daily as a substitute to expensive trash bags. Nothing goes to waste around here. If grocery bags get used twice, do they become exempt from the city’s proposed law? Or will the trash police come looking for you?
Invasive species always have negative, unintended consequences.
Governments, like Yellowstone’s fat lake trout, change the landscape. Maybe it sounded like a good idea to someone at the time, but invasive species have a way of crowding out the little guy. Like you and me.
Javier Sanchez is a former Española mayor and El Rito Media investor.