The decline in hunting over the past decade endangers wildlife preservation funding, which comes largely from hunting licenses and taxes on firearm, bows and the like. Hunters team up with environmentalists to find ways to sustain funding for wetlands preservation, endangered species protection, and other state and federal programs designed to maintain and expand natural habitats. Will anti-hunting activists, concerned for animal suffering, figure out that there are worse ways to die? Will they pony up the cash to cover the funding shortfall?
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16 replies on “Fewer Hunters, Less Wildlife: Hunting Decline Endangers Species Preservation Funding”
Insightful discussion.
Back to my minor soap box, but fun, non-political content like this would be nice to have on weekends. Not asking for more content, just to adjust the release schedule!
Wow Bill! If you can hit 19 out of 20 skeet with a rifle, remind not to tick you off! 😉
Impressive enough with a shotgun – magical with a rifle…
What is also never shown is how the animals that people do eat at home and in restaurants, and how companies kill animals in meat-packing plants, which is far, far more cruel than anything a hunter does. People who demonize hunters for shooting an animal (a free, un-abused wild animal that is killed quickly) do not understand their own hypocrisy for eating a hamburger from MacDonald’s made from a penned, unfree animal that is often penned like a slave, fed unnatural food and antibiotics, and is led to its death terrified by watching hundreds of other animals get hit with a pneumatic hammer. Visit a mass poultry farm and you will be sickened by how chickens are treated. There is no reason to demonize ethical hunting.
City people often do not understand that food may not always be available to them. As dependents, they just assume it will always be there. “Oh,” they claim, “then I’ll just hunt when I’m starving.” Folks, hunting, tracking, trapping, skinning and dressed are skills. They require practice and experience. Like fighting skills, they will not just suddenly show up when you need them. If you want to prepare for such things, you need to learn how to hunt before you need them. There are days when even experienced hunters come home empty. Inexperienced hunters have virtually no chance in those situations.
I don’t do it every day, but I have studied how to do this. I know how to hunt game, particularly small game (big game means less shooting and much harder work). I know how to skin it, clean it, cook it, and even how to tan the skins and hides to make clothing from it. I enjoy doing that. I also enjoy just being in the woods. Daniel Boone and Davy Crockett were my heroes as a kid. I have no problem with killing animals, but I have huge problems with being cruel to animals. There is no reason to hunt endangered species at all unless they are threats. We are primates with canines. We are omnivores, not herbivores. We didn’t design this system, nature did. We are merely part of that nature, and hunters are in tune with it.
Shoot a Ma Deuce on a cruise ship! Yee-ha! I think any non-wuss would sign up for that! But .50 caliber ammo is mighty expensive… 😀
“We don’t need more hunting licenses, we can just raise taxes, silly Republican” – idiot Democrat
I had a customer who talked about someone moving out into the country next to them from Chicago and the kids being certain that milk came in a box in the supermarket, not from the cow on the other side of the fence from them. And this was in the 80s I think… not last week.
I go hunting … in Skyrim. Reduces my eye problems that give me trouble with a gun or crossbow and eliminates the smell that keeps me from dressing out game in real life.
The economics of hunting and wildlife preservation also always comes up when one of the big game hunters gets splashed across the internet after taking a large animal. The fact that the animal was picked out by a guide and was selected for some herd management reason (or was supposed to be, if the guide didn’t get lost and confused) never seems to make it into the articles and the amount of US dollars that go so very much farther in the country never gets mentioned either.
Surely you don’t expect those “journalists” to sully a good narrative with facts. That would be inconceivable.
I deeply appreciate your article “Where are the hunters”. I’m 78 years young and grew up on a small farm in Missouri, we hunted for food. Dad wanted a son but I was what he got. When I was old enough to go out by myself he would give me the rifle, the shotgun was too dangerous, and I almost always brought home a squirrel for dinner. My first husband was enlisted in the army. Someone was raping wives when guys were out on manuvers so hubby decided to teach me to shoot a rifle he bought for me. He lined up some cans on a log in a rural area and I took them all out on the first try. He took the rifle away from me and, with a disgusted tone, told me “you’re a better shot than I am”. Years later with my current husband he wanted to take shooting lessons. We went to a pro who took us to a range to see how we did. He handed me the rifle, lined up a target, told me to take my best shot. When he looked at the target he turned to my husband and said “I wouldn’t want to piss off this little lady”. Every round hit the center of the target. It was all muscle memory, hadn’t touched a firearm in over 50 years.
Another bravura performance gentlemen.
One point not really touched on was the socio-political one. Here in the UK the lefties got their way and banned hunting with hounds. They imagine the classic fox hunt, posh folk in scarlet jackets, and it was very clear that their main motivation was class based, not animal welfare. It is true that fox hunting needs plenty of cash but the fact is that many, many hunts are foot packs, hunting mink and hares etc. A much more affordable and truly socially mixed affair. I used to go out now and then minking or beagling, in fact one of the hunt members on my first hunt was a vegetarian lesbian! Hardly the demographic lefties were thinking of when they brought in the ban. Not one person there was in any way what I would call ‘posh’.
The ban has not stopped hunting with hounds of course, officially they’re all drag hunts now, but once a pack is out if they catch a real scent they’re off, hounds have very poor legal minds. However, hunts don’t really like guests anymore, as they’ve understandably become quite paranoid.
I’ve noticed that there is a distinct political angle in the US too. On American TV hunters tend to be shown either as drunken, ignorant, red neck gun nuts, or (less often) as callous, rich businessmen. Sometimes they’re shown positively, but pretty rarely. Once again, we have the classic watermelonism, green on the outside, red on the inside. Over here the Left/Green axis attacks hunting as a sport of the upper classes, in the US they attack hunters because they see them either gun nut Trump voters or capitalist fat cats. In both cases I think they instinctively hate hunting because, as Bill rightly said, it’s part of what makes us human, it keeps us in touch with our deep down roots.
Here in Texan suburbia, my 8-year-old nephew got his first BB gun for his birthday last month. He immediately set up target practice in the back yard, and his mom kept an eagle eye on him through the window and corrected him whenever he mishandled it (i.e., not keeping it pointed at the ground).
The people who condemn hunting and hunters and become radicals about it are so ignorant. I used to say (if I was in charge…. don’t worry it wont happen) that anybody above the age of 16 who wants to eat meat needs to have successfully passed a course where they have killed, dressed and prepared at least 1 meal of meat. Bill, I understand your position and respect it – you do not need to turn in the meat card. I also have nothing against vegetarians except for the vegetarians who want to play holier thou because they do not kill animals. They Obviously do not understand how many animals die harvesting vegetables. To them I say just stop, you look like a fool. Anybody who values wildlife conservation and the general health of the wildlife resources in our country should value hunters and hunting and not just because of the money generated by hunting licenses. Hunting and fishing together is one of the most healthy, bonding, outdoor experiences a family can have together. It is very sad, and loss for our Nation that the experience is demonized.
It is unbelievable to me but what what I don’t think Vegetarians who are vegetarians because they are freaked out about killing animals understand is how many animals get slaughtered and churned into the dirt harvesting vegetables. A Vegetarian should never think their hands are clean of blood unless they only eat out of their own garden that you manage and allow the animals to enjoy as well.
Local-vours? I got a bunch of cows that live right across the street from me. I’m good.
I blame Disney.
I am not a big hunter, but I do occasionally have to do it for work, and I have learned that a well-placed shot is a FAR more humane end for that animal than nature has in store for it. It’s tragic to see this American tradition dying.
Bill is right that we can be vegetarians and so compassionate to animals because we are not hungry. I am sure Venezuelans are compassionate, but eat zoo animals and pets because they are hungry.