By Judy Hoy, Stevensville
President Trump misleadingly said Covid-19 was a “hoax,” immediately after doctors briefed him on how serious and deadly the virus would be. Consequently, thousands of people are dead and many people will have lasting health effects. Wildlife biologists misleadingly called severe birth defects “normal variations.” Those same birth defects are still occurring on newborn wildlife after being reported on big game animals by MTFWP biologists in 1996. On human newborns, the same conditions were correctly called birth defects. Billions of individuals of vertebrate species, including human newborns, have died prior to or immediately after being born or have died premature deaths because of those birth defects. Both invertebrates and vertebrates have been declining world wide at about 1.3% per year for the last 50 years. For how many more years will there be life on the planet if we do not stop doing what is killing everything? That includes releasing pesticides, plastics and greenhouse gasses into the Earth’s ecosystems. You do the math. Then vote as if your life and your children’s lives depend on what the people you vote for will do to slow these mass extinctions.