This video is a must watch from CBS on the economics of saving endangered species through hunting. Though a couple of the questions are a bit over the top (how do you kill something you love?), it’s overwhelmingly fair. And yes, the animal rights activist argues that she’d rather see a species struggle to survive than be raised in the United States and potentially hunted once the numbers are high enough.
The rule the mention that will basically slash the numbers of near-extinct animals to almost nil can be found here and has a bit of history to it. Consider this from the background information from the Fish & Wildlife Service:
With the exception of reintroduced animals, no sightings of the scimitar-horned oryx have been reported since the late 1980s. …
Based on a 2010 census of its members, the Exotic Wildlife Association (EWA) estimates there are 11,032 scimitar-horned oryx, 5,112 addax, and 894 dama gazelle on EWA member ranches.
Just on member ranches, there are more than 11,000 animals of a species that hasn’t been see on its original home turf in North Africa in 30 years. Yet, it’s not acceptable that these animals are raised and thrive in a new land according to an activist who purportedly wants the species to live.
I asked someone who knows animal issues and the federal government if this falls squarely on the Obama Administration. I was told yes and no. As it was explained to me, while the Fish & Wildlife Service was forced into the position by the courts, the Administration could have fixed the flaws in the original rule that allowed the hunts to take place. They didn’t, so now the hunts are ending.
As I’ve grown so fond of saying in recent years, elections have consequences. For these 11,000 scimitar-horned oryx, it’s pretty much a death sentence with possible extinction of the species. For hunters, it’s access to unique hunting opportunities where the profits will go back into recovering the species for future generations. For gun owners in general, well, it’s just another door closing on one the traditions for some in our community.
In addition to a bear hunt, it looks like New Jersey is planning to cull the coyote population. Apparently one of them tried to make off with a baby. A lot of people seem to have a hard time understanding, without the ability to manufacture and use weapons, human beings are not apex predators, we’re prey. When other predators lose their fear of people, bad things are going to happen. The advice from the state is if you see a coyote, make sure it moves along. In most other areas, even in New York, as the article notes, it’s lawful to shoot them. It doesn’t take very long before the predators learn to steer clear of humans.
Roughly 7,000 hunters turned out [for NJ's bear hunt] this year, killing 469 bears. Last year, when the state also had a six-day hunt, 592 were shot.
The furry haul has unleashed a bull market for mounted bears, turning New Jersey’s taxidermists into unlikely job creators.
Mr. Clark brought on two extra seasonal workers to help process the trophies and is looking to hire a full-time taxidermist immediately. One of the workers, when not skinning mammals, makes a living as a cookie deliveryman. Bill and Ken’s Taxidermy in Morganville, N.J., also hired more help.
Apparently, the most important question a taxidermist will ask is whether the mouth should be left open or closed. I wouldn’t even know how to decide; there are just way too many cute mounts for black bears. I knew a guy who had three different bear mounts that all looked so different. And then there’s the choice of a rug.
Ultimately, the hunt is important for maintaining healthy population numbers. However, any help to the economy is surely appreciated, too.
I always loved it when a fellow instructor used to pull out the stats on range safety versus cheerleading. For many of the people in the room, the thought that they were sending their little girls off to a far more dangerous activity than if they took them to the gun range or took them out hunting with guns usually took a minute to settle in.
Today, NSSF released some data comparing various activities – including cheerleading – to hunting with guns. Now keep in mind that the numbers for hunting are many times not related to gun incidents. Tree stand falls are some of the most problematic injuries hunters face. So, if you want to give your kids a great activity to keep them outdoors and safe, teach them to hunt. Cheerleading, football, basketball, and even riding a bike are far more likely to result in injuries than hunting.
Evans’ committee meets Dec. 14 with an agenda “to be announced.” He and Murphy tell me of compromise efforts to allow hunting some Sundays on some lands, maybe state game lands.
But Rotz says: “No. We don’t have any compromise position.” And Evans admits: “A lot of our members are very afraid of the Farm Bureau.”
The Farm Bureau pretty obviously doesn’t support hunting. Why isn’t allowing it on public land a reasonable compromise? The Farm Bureau only represents a small fraction of farms in this state, from what I understand. This shouldn’t even really be an issue.
Ever since the early days of the recession, local news outlets have covered stories of food banks in desperate need of donations. Hunters have stepped up to help meet that need. The White House garden? That didn’t make 11 million healthy meals. I also bet that the carbon footprint of the average hunter taking to the woods is far smaller than that of the First Lady flying in her tax-funded plane with her entourage to Hawaii and traveling all around Oahu to find an organic arugula farm.
As an interesting side note, NSSF estimates that if they could account for all direct donations – those hunters make directly to friends & family in need without going through a food program – these numbers are easily doubled.
In California. Apparently the extreme animal rights group Humane Society of the United States is a certified law enforcement training agency in California, being certified by the Butte College Academy. Sportsmen need to be on the watch out for this in other states. HSUS would love to get their fangs into state game agencies, and in a whacked-out state like California, the odds are better than in most others. I’d keep an eye out for this in New Jersey too.
A group called the Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit in 2009 asking the courts to prohibit the use of lead bullets on Bureau of Land Management property in Arizona. It contended that California condors were being poisoned by scavenging game killed by hunters using lead ammunition.
A federal judge has thrown the lawsuit out, however.
Threats to lead based ammunition is one of the biggest problems we’re facing today. Had this suit been allowed to proceed, it would have been really bad news.
I love me a good tale about gun owners and their psychology, especially those tales which are woven by lofty academics who pretty clearly haven’t been outside of the Ivory Tower for a while. Over at the HuffPo, there’s no clearer example of some of the nonsense of this type. I invite you, dear readers, to go look at part one and part two, of the HuffPo interview with Professor Michael Messner, author of King of the Wild Suburb: A Memoir of Fathers, Sons and Guns. Let me share with you some excerpts from the interview, and discuss why I think his thinking is antiquated, and most decidedly out of touch with the gun culture of today:
You write movingly that “those hunting trips with Dad and Gramps were actually about fathers and sons finding a way to love each other. These outings were not so much about hunting for deer: they were about hunting for each other.” You have two sons who are now young adults. Because you gave up hunting before they were born, you never had that as a catalyst to connect with them. Is that a continuing source of sadness? Did you find other less violent ways to bond with them that will stick with them throughout their lives, as your experiences hunting with your father and grandfather have stayed with you?
What exactly is flawed about men bonding through activity? Men and women are somewhat different, I think, in how they form friendships. Men tend to bond with each other more through activity, and I think this is not really different for father and sons. He speaks of this type of bonding as if it were a bad thing, but that strikes me as rather narrow minded.
Part of the tension–and this is really only possible to see in retrospect–is that this 1950s identification with Davy Crockett was very much a pre-civil rights era celebration of white masculinity, and the violent subjugation of the continent from Native peoples, and eventually of the Southwest from Mexico. Still today, in a good deal of popular culture as well as in political debates about gun violence, we tend to think of white guys with guns as protectors and heroes, while reacting with fear to images of black or brown men with guns.
The Professor is making connections that I think only exist in his mind. You can embrace masculinity without racism or sexism. Because some of the people who embraced masculinity in the past, also happened to be racist and sexist, does not mean the two need to be forever connected. This strikes me as incredibly weak thinking for an academic. It also just amazes me we can’t have a discussion about gun ownership with people on the left without bringing up the whole “scared of brown people” motivation for gun ownership.
Well, I guess I’d be surprised to hear that sort of politicized passion about something like hunting coming from a young guy today. However I am happy to see so many young men today — including my sons Sasha and Miles — for whom ideas like equality with women, gay and lesbian people are taken for granted.
Professor Messner is a man living in the past. He’s had his thinking tainted by the left-wing baby boomer culture that focuses heavily on gender, and rejects a flawed conception of masculinity that is entirely of their own making. Would it surprise Messner that “equality with women, gay and lesbian people are taken for granted,” even among many gun owners and hunters today? Would it be such a shock to discover we’ve changed along with the rest of society?
Women are now the fastest growing demographic of gun owners. Most of us have not only been tolerant of this trend, but outright embraced the ideas of women being involved in our sports. Younger men want to share their hobbies with their wives. And why not hunting and shooting as a hobby for a couple to share? Many of us have also either been completely tolerant of gay gun rights groups, or have outright embraced their coming to our cause. I also think I’ve been a vocal advocate for legalizing gay marriage. Does it mean anything that I can announce this on a blog about gun rights without worrying about losing readers?
Get out of the past Professor Messner. We’ve come a long long way since the gun culture of your father and grandfather. The hunting and shooting culture has changed into something more tolerant and inclusive. I would invite Professor Messner to step out of the Ivory Tower of academia for a bit, an attend something like an Steel Challenge or USPSA national competition, and then talk to some of the women shooters about how they view their relationship with firearms, hunting, and shooting through the lens of their gender. Sure, you’ll give them a little chuckle about such a blast-from-the-past question, but some of their answers might just surprise you.
