Category: Hunting

Looks like Solebury, not far from me, is also opening up to using hunting as a method of reducing deer population instead of the “sharpshooters” typically employed for such a task. Not only is using hunters cheaper, but safer too. Most of the sharpshooting companies hire people that are neither sharp, nor shooters.

This is the culmination of the work of the archers at my club, who put in a lot of time and effort to convince Lower Makefield Township to open up to the idea of thinning out the deer population using bow hunters. So far the township has been very pleased with the hunt. I think more local communities will adopt this model. It’s even getting traction over in New Jersey. It’s a good thing for hunting, since one of the chief causes of its decline is lack of places to hunt.

Jim Shepherd has an interesting report on the various species conservation groups.

Overlooked in the economic hubbub is the toll a bad economy takes on wildlife advocacy groups. Many depend solely on memberships and donations for their revenues. For many of those groups, the numbers have dropped – some precipitously. In fact, I’m hearing the numbers at a couple of the larger and more active groups have dropped as much as fifty percent. That is a serious knock on even their bottom lines.

It could be that some members were upset when 20 groups signed up to support Obama’s cap & trade agenda. Of course, that doesn’t explain nearly every loss, but getting involved in unrelated issues is usually a very good way to drive off members.

For some groups, there are other problems, including costly litigation with ousted former executives. Quail Unlimited, the oldest and largest of the quail groups, is under criminal investigation by the ATF unaccounted firearms; those investigations and management problems have splintered that organization, left it without an executive management team, and have state QU groups vowing to fix the organization – even if it means starting from scratch. In the meantime, the organization as surviving – but is essentially ineffective nationally.

Well that is interesting. I wonder if they are an FFL. But more importantly, where are the guns? Did someone decide they were an unwritten perk to membership? Speculation, but interesting.

While their situation is unusual, membership losses have led many groups to reduce staff and cutback on programs. Their ongoing wildlife programs have been invaluable resources to many state wildlife agencies also feeling budget squeezes.

Yesterday, I spoke with David Allen, President and CEO of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation about the situation. Allen was candid about the problems many organizations face. After all, he told me, RMEF had faced many of their own “challenges” over the past few years. RMEF, he says, is regaining momentum – and members – by focusing on realities and their core constituency -hunter conservationists.

“Some groups have been living beyond their means,” he said, “you can’t live in anticipation of money. Here, for example, I tell the staff ‘we won’t spend money we don’t have’. It meant downsizing our undertakings and cutting expenses, but it is just an economic reality.”

Allen says finances aren’t the single biggest challenge facing organizations. That, he says, is a one-word threat: complacency. Complacency, he says, is reflected in the fact that there are 1,000,000 elk tags sold annually – but only twenty percent of those hunters are RMEF members. While it’s unrealistic to presume all off them would ever become RMEF members, Allen makes a good case that the absence of that remaining eighty percent of elk hunters- as is true in any affinity wildlife group – deprives the organization of the two things that fuel their work: funds, and volunteers.

He remains convinced, however, that the single biggest concern for all wildlife groups can be summed up in a single word: habitat. Fighting habitat loss, unfortunately, takes time, money and volunteers. Today, many of the organizations are lacking in money and volunteers – and that may mean their time is running out.

“As a group,” he adds,”we also tend not to support each other and act as a group until there’s a crisis – then we overreact.”

Will all the groups survive? “Not without some consolidation, I’m afraid,” Allen said,”we have to find ways to get together for some of these groups to survive. I’m not optimistic everyone will.”

It’s good to hear that RMEF is surviving by being true to their main members and not hoping on board with the HopeChange plans just to curry favor in a temporary administration with declining numbers.

Heh, bet I made you double check the byline with that title.

But seriously, 12-year-old girls are making waves in hunting this month. One in Oregon snagged a (literally) once-in-a-lifetime mountain goat tag. She not only went out, bagged her animal, but the goat is likely to take the record for the third largest one ever taken in the Beaver State. Her 150-yard shot was filmed by The Outdoor Channel for air in March. She took 4 shots, 2 missed. Did I mention that since her dad broke her scope on her rifle, she was using his rifle for the very first time? That’s impressive for a gun she had never fired.

Meanwhile a Minnesota pre-teen takes the record for the youngest hunter in the state to harvest a moose. This 12-year-old managed to take her moose at 75 yards with just one shot. She was shooting her own rifle that dad bought her when she got her rare tag. Even better? Dad is a taxidermist and he will be mounting the full moose that had a 58-inch antler spread.

A bow hunter who was trying to recover a deer was unable to, because the property he tracked it to wouldn’t let him recover it. Normally, that kind of thing would just piss you off, but you know, I think I’d be ok with losing the deer if I knew it had wandered onto the property of the CEO of the Animal Rights Alliance.

Who do you think is respecting the deer more? The CEO, who will let the animal go to waste, or the hunter, who wants to recover the animal to use it for a purpose nature intended — food.

We’ve known that HSUS CEO Wayne Pacelle has had his eye on shutting down hunting since at least 1991 when the Associated Press reported him saying, “If we could shut down all sport hunting in a moment, we would.” In the Obama-themed “Change Agenda for Animals,” HSUS outlines their plans to stop hunting step-by-step in the first term in of the new administration.

First and foremost, Pacelle’s organization has called for an end to expansion of hunting activities on federal lands. However, his call goes one step further and asks the Obama administration to close down hunting on National Wildlife Refuges and, eventually, all other public lands. In Pennsylvania, we only have two Refuge properties, and only one currently allows hunting. However, shutting down this federal property will close the Erie National Wildlife Refuge’s 8,260 acres to hunters. Nationally, that would close 370 Refuges open to hunting from Alaska to Florida.

HSUS’s leaders are intelligent folks, and they know that shutting down access is one of the fastest ways to reduce the number of hunters nationwide. In Michigan, they figured out how to divide hunters and passed a dove hunting ban as a ballot initiative. The group has also been instrumental in hurting the hunting culture in New Jersey as one of the largest opponents of the state’s historic bear hunts.

In addition to closing down the National Wildlife Refuge System’s hunting opportunities, HSUS has set a goal of defeating all Congressional attempts to better equip National Park wildlife managers with hunting options. Specifically, the Rocky Mountain National Park and Theodore Roosevelt National Park have severe elk population problems in need of control measures such as a restricted hunt.

For those hunters looking to go west, HSUS wants to make sure you have fewer species to hunt. After the wolf populations of western states recovered enough to be taken off the threatened or endangered species list, hunts were opened to keep the population balanced with other animals they prey upon. HSUS is actively fighting to shut down those hunts, going so far as to put the wolves back on the endangered species list regardless of recovery status.

If any American hunters hope to head overseas for a hunt, it might be time to book the trip before hunting is shut down. HSUS proposes ending aid to African countries that promote trophy hunts to American hunters. They hope to use dollars meant for economic development and assistance in order to shut down lawful industries abroad. These same hunts actually support the conservation programs for African species.

Finally, HSUS has already seen success with another agenda item. HSUS wants the government to end all permits for polar bear hunters headed to Canada. Similar to African species, these polar bear hunts support not only the conservation programs for the species, but also native populations and local environmental projects. HSUS asks the Obama administration to maintain the current ban on import of polar bear trophies, a success they won at the end of the Bush administration.

As just five of the 100 action items, this list should strike fear into the hearts of hunters across the country. Even if a hunter never plans to head off across the ocean to hunt exotic species in Africa, HSUS has made clear that they want to shut down access to public lands in everyone’s home state.

A favorite pastime of hunters and groups that represent hunting is to slit their own wrists. We don’t need Wayne Pacelle when hunters are completely willing to off themselves. Study after study has shown that the primary impediment to people going hunting is the lack of places to hunt. With increasing sprawl, hunters and anglers find themselves having to go farther than farther out to find land to hunt and fish on. And what is the primary thing that lets hunters and anglers get to far away and remote places to hunt? Energy. Namely gasoline and diesel. So how is gasoline and diesel being a lot more expensive going to help hunters? That’s why I’m displeased more than a few hunting groups have signed on to the National Wildlife Federations mission to get crap and trade passed the Senate. For of you who are curious, the complete list of groups signing on can be found here (large PDF, warning):

1. American Fisheries Society
2. American Fly Fishing Trade Association
3. American Sportfishing Association
4. Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies
5. Berkley Conservation Institute
6. Campfire Club
7. Dallas Safari Club
8. Ducks Unlimited
9. Houston Safari Club
10. Izaak Walton League of America
11. Mule Deer Foundation
12. National Trappers Association
13. National Wildlife Federation
14. Pheasants Forever
15. Quality Deer Management Association
16. The Wildlife Society
17. Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership
18. Trout Unlimited
19. Wildlife Forever
20. Wildlife Management Institute

Only a few of these groups are actually hunting and fishing groups, but if you belong to any of them, I’d quit, and call them up and make sure you know why. They do not look after the interests of hunters. I can tell you in at least one of the cases, the Mule Deer Foundation, they are actively supporting HSUS’s attempts to restrict hunting. They are bad news for hunters.

It would be a good first step toward reversing the long slide. The question is whether the Tories will take up the issue. It appears they are willing, but don’t want to burn up a lot of political capital over this one issue, and end up getting bogged down in Parliament.