Cat lovers nationwide have managed to accomplish what advocates for more reasonable beach access could not ? take out Audubon Magazine contributor Ted Williams.
Williams has written numerous articles and opinion pieces in the magazine and other publications about off-road vehicles destroying public lands, especially at Cape Hatteras National Seashore. He has claimed that ?motorheads,? as he calls them, have run over shorebird nests and chicks and that the new ORV rule and plan at the seashore is responsible for more successful nesting numbers.
His articles have been published under provocative headlines, such as ?Beach Bums,? ?The Outer Banks of North Carolina become a blood beachhead,? and ?The battle over North Carolina beaches continues.?
Williams is arrogant, condescending, sarcastic, and sometimes downright combative towards ORV supporters, especially when he responds to the comments on his blogs and articles.
Here is what he told one supporter of ORV access who commented on one of his articles: ?I have spent a lot of time on the Outer Banks, and I have NEVER encountered a more ignorant, slothful, arrogant crowd of anglers. (Or a more intellectually disadvantaged one?.)?
Beach access advocates have protested the image he has created of ORV users as irresponsible, lazy, and ignorant ?bums,? cowboys who tear up and down the beaches here, running over nests and chicks at will.
However, Williams has continued his attacks on ORVs in Audubon magazine ? at least until this month.
Williams is a freelancer, mostly closely associated with Audubon magazine, though he writes for other publications.
On March 16, The Orlando Sentinel published an op-ed article he wrote. The headline was ?Trap, neuter, return programs make feral-cat problem worse.?
He cited good reasons for opposing the programs ? cats kill wildlife, especially birds, and carry diseases. He endorsed trap and euthanize programs, but in the first version of the story published in the newspaper and on its website, he wrote that Tylenol was poisonous to cats and implied that it could be used to wipe out feral cat colonies.
Williams wrote in the Orlando newspaper about an earlier Audubon assignment: ?I inspected three odiferous feral-cat feeding stations in Honolulu. Scrawny, gimpy, semi-hairless, cloudy-eyed and single-eyed feral cats padded over rooftops, crouched, slunk and crunched kibbles. Dining with them were mongooses, another alien scourge sustained by TNR.?
In fewer than 24 hours, Williams? article went viral, and cat lovers across the nation were condemning him in blogs and demanding that Audubon magazine fire him.
On March 20, Audubon complied and suspended Williams, pending ?further review.?
A statement on the Audubon magazine Facebook page said:
?The National Audubon Society is unequivocal on the important issue of cat and bird safety: We reject the idea of people taking matters into their own hands in ways that can harm neighbors? pets ? or any cats.
?Audubon strongly believes that… cats belong indoors. That?s safer for them and for the birds. Feral and free-roaming cats are subject to injury, disease, and predation. We urge communities around the country to adopt effective measures to counter problems suffered and caused by cats and to vigorously enforce existing rules and procedures.
?Ted Williams is a freelance writer who published a personal opinion piece in the Orlando Sentinel. We regret any misimpression that Mr. Williams was speaking for us in any way: He wasn?t. Audubon magazine today suspended its contract with Mr. Williams and will remove him as “Editor at Large” from the masthead pending further review.
?Mr. Williams is not an Audubon employee. He is a freelance writer and a conservationist who has written for Audubon for 33 years. He writes for numerous publications.?
If you search for ?Ted Williams Audubon? or ?Ted Williams feral cats? on the Internet, you will be inundated with blogs, comments, and columns by outraged cat lovers.
A few bloggers are defending Williams, and one wrote that the reason Audubon suspended Williams is that ?money? talks ? look to where the donations are coming from.
ORV users, I am sure, have not made many donations to Audubon in recent years. However, the folks who love cats apparently also love birds. And they donate to Audubon.
Whether you support trap-neuter-release programs or not, you have got to hand it to the cat lovers for getting the job done with the unpleasant Ted Williams.
Even without Audubon magazine, he surely will continue his unfounded and often inaccurate attacks against the use of ORVs at the seashore.
But at least he?s been knocked down a notch.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
To read some of Ted Williams articles on ORV use at Cape Hatteras, go to:
http://www.audubonmagazine.org/articles/conservation/battle-over-north-carolina-beach-continues
http://www.audubonmagazine.org/articles/birds/war-rages-cape-hatteras
http://www.scottchurchdirect.com/ted-williams.aspx/beach-bums?pg=1
Here is just a sampling of Ted Williams? arrogant answers to folks who comment on his articles:
- ?James: Spare us the BS about your ?hope? and ?optimism? and ?facts.? You got your ox gored, and you bawled. Unlike you and your fellow motorheads who yell ?lie, lie, lie? I do actual research. Most of the facts are in the public record for anyone who cares to look. For example, any of you could do a quick Google search for ?piping plover? ?status? ?Atlantic population? and determine in minutes that the piping plover native to the Outer Banks and is protected under the Endangered Species Act as ?threatened.? Any of you could do a quick Google search for ?Cape Hatteras National Seashore? and ?Enabling Legislation? and quickly determine that it provides for mostly ?primitive wilderness.? Any of you could acquire court documents and read testimony of Park Service personnel, as I did. Any of you could speak with Park Service personnel, as I did. Any of you could interview the negotiators, as I did. Any of you could read the facilitators? reports, as I did. Any of you could drive and walk around the Outer Banks and seashore and observe the obscene signs and ?wanted? posters intended to intimidate wildlife advocates, as I did. Any of you could read the Internet threats of violence against wildlife advocates, some actionable, as I did. But you are lazy and gullible. So you consult folks just as ignorant as yourselves (Warren Judge, for example, and moronic posters on the Red Drum idiot channel) and then regurgitate their personal fantasies such as ?predator control is done for one species? and ?the Park Service is killing natural predators? and ?piping plovers are nonindigenous.? James you and your sorry ilk took a knife to a gunfight, and you got ventilated.?
- Either your memory is impaired, AYS, or you don?t read what you write. Here are your words: we are ?lying about chicks and turtles being run over and crushed on the beaches.? And because you are grossly ignorant of ORV impacts on nature you don?t comprehend that wildlife ?being wiped out by predation? is a direct result of parent birds being run off their nests by ORVs and hatchlings being trapped in ruts. Yes, Audubon is in favor of more closures. As I reported, the current regs are light years ahead of the interim plan but still grossly deficient. If you had read the article, you would know this. As I also reported, and as you also failed to note, sea turtle numbers at Hatteras have been soaring ever since the modest ORV regs that came with the 2008 consent decree. That steady increase has NOT been reflected elsewhere. Finally, if you wish not to feel ?insulted,? consult the public record rather than recycling the BS generated by your equally ignorant neighbors.
- Believe it or not there are anglers who care for wild creatures other than the fish they target and who would gladly give up a fishing spot for a couple months if it meant nesting success for a species on a toboggan slide to extinction. Then there are anglers who believe what Abraham believed–that God created earth and its biota to drip milk and honey into their mouths. We?ve been hearing from a lot of them on this thread.
