Hunting: "The End is in Sight," Says The Fund for Animals U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service WILDLIFE-RELATED RECREATION PRELIMINARY SURVEY RESULTS and Animal rights wishful thinking.
**** "The End is in Sight," Says The Fund for Animals, as New Government Report Charts the Continuing Decline of Hunting in America
The Fund for Animals
SILVER SPRING, MD -- Proclaiming that "The end of hunting is in sight," The Fund for Animals, a national animal protection group, is celebrating yesterday's release of preliminary results from a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) report showing that the number of hunters in the U.S. declined by 7% between 1996 and 2001. During the same five years, the number of wildlife watchers, people who enjoy wildlife without harming them, increased by 5%.
This latest in a series of reports issued every five years documents a
continuing trend. According to the USFWS, in 1985 there were 16.7 million hunters in the U.S, while in 2001 there were only 13 million, a decline of 22% over fifteen years. This led Heidi Prescott, national director of The Fund for Animals, to comment that, "These are long-term trends, not just a blip in the numbers, and we're delighted to see that more and more people are trading their guns for cameras."
The USFWS results showed the largest declines in "small game" (22%) and "other animal" hunting (31%). According to Norm Phelps, a program coordinator at The Fund and author of the report Body Count: The Death Toll in America's War on Wildlife, "The decline is taking place primarily among hunters of small game. Since they kill many more animals than big game hunters, we can expect the total number of hunting victims to decline as well."
Michael Markarian, executive vice president of The Fund, noted that,
"Hunters now make up only 4.6% of the population, compared to the 31% who are wildlife watchers. It's time for the Fish and Wildlife Service and state wildlife agencies to start paying attention to their own numbers and stop catering to a tiny special interest group. Wildlife belongs to everyone, not just the few people who hunt."
Concluded Prescott, "Over a decade ago, T.A. Heberlein and E.J. Thomson, experts on hunting demographics at the University of Wisconsin, predicted that by 2050, sport hunting could well cease to exist. This latest report shows that they were right on target. The end of hunting is no more than a generation away."
[/align]
__________________
Money buys everything but good sense.
Life isn't like a box of chocolates. It's more like a jar of jalapeno's. What you do today, might burn your butt tomorrow
Unfortunately, We are already a vast minority. Huntings existence in this highly political world currently depends ontwo major factors....
It is for now, the most efficient way to control animal poulations by far.
The majority of the non hunting public still looks upon hunting favorably becuase it believes we perform a necessary service by controlling populationswhile in pursuit of our sport.
If either ever goes away we are cooked. The anti's would love to see animal contraceptives etc etc so that we wouldn't be necessary and while it's not feasible yet, that day will come eventually and it will come even sooner if the general nonhunting public begins to think we can't or won't control numbers.
This is what makes the deer management dispute such a critical issue.
The nonhunting public doesn't care a lick that wesee fewer deer. they are worried about theirfarms,their timber, their gardens, their cars, lyme disease etc etc. The old practices of maximum sutained yeild across entire states sets us up for a very hard fall far sooner than most of us can imagine.Public opinion on any issue can turn on a dime. Our last presidential election ought to prove that. Ask any non hunter whether they think we have too many or to few deer. (remember, theyWILL decide huntyings future within our lifetime)
The antis are poised to go for the jugular while we bicker over deer numbers and they WILL use the USP and their sympathizers as examples of why the job of deer managementand for that matter, all wildlife management should be taken from hunters.Rest assured, if a feasible nonhunting way existed to control deer right now, the PETA types would have us gone in less than a decade
__________________
Cant wait for 2012!
If guns kill people, spoons made Rosie O'Donnell fat!!!
The splintering of our oganization is very disheartning. Our fraternity is divided and the wedges that divide us getting deeper and deeper. There is a war waging amongst us and I don't know what it is going to take to make peace.
Here are a few examples.
The most recent is the use of crossbows.
Some frown on long range shooters.
Hunting turkeys with rifles.
USP vrs. Game Commission
hunters vrs game commission
In-line blackpowder rifles.
One group of hunters is hunting in someone else's season.
someones season is too long
archery hunters hunting during the rut
Trophy hunters vrs. meat hunters
QDM vrs. MSY
food plots vrs. baiting
semi automatic rifles
shooting multiple shots at moving game
deer drives
use of radios
wildlife vrs game
wildlife for everyone vrs game for hunters
The list goes on and I bet that just listing some of these things will start an arguement about them. Anyone want to bet? I have seen so many arguements on these forums and so many of us are so narrow minded and uncompromising. We are unwilling to see someone else's point of view and so unwilling to give an inch. Don't even mention the hypocricy that is rampant. None of this is going to serve us well. We are more alike than we are different. We need to find ways to reconcile are differences and to work together. By working together, we can make things better for all of us. I am not looking to point fingers and put blame on any one group. There is enough guilt and blame to go around and the truth is that none of us are guiltless.
Right on BTB! Your reply to my post, shows you and few others truly understand what is going onin our hunting world. This is why a few others better get their heads out of their butts. The anti's love seeing this in house fighting amongst ourselves.
__________________
Money buys everything but good sense.
Life isn't like a box of chocolates. It's more like a jar of jalapeno's. What you do today, might burn your butt tomorrow
Hoping not to rile anyone on any side, I'm sure it can be said that eve last hunter out there would love to see far more deer than we see every time we go out but unless we begin to acknowledge that 90% of our world doesn't care how many deer there are so long as they get to see one once in a while and that the deer don't cause them any greif. I stopped by one of my landowners places yesterday to thank them and let them know that the season is over. She asked how my season went and I told her that I'd killed 4 deer on her property. Her response was "only 4?" I have a great spot to hunt with that property but I'll not likley keep it if I don't produce. I responded by telling her that four less deer meant 20 pounds of tree buds, plants and shrubssaved every day and she was much happier.
How do you supposed she'd have reacted if I'd saidthat Ineeded to leavelots of does so that there would be more deer next year? I get to hunt because I perform a welcome service to my landowners. We getv to hunt collectively as a group because the public recognizes that we help keep the deer numbers down. It doesn't matter to that 90% how many deer we COULD have. It only matters how many there are when it effects their world. No matter whether it's timber interests,birdwatchers [:'(], farmers, homeowners, drivers or whatever. Without the support of that 90% we,re finishedand rest assured, no matter what hunters think, the 90% out there believes that there are either too many or enough deer.
When the deer issue hits the nonhunting press, it's never a cry of too few from the nonhunters, it's always either silence or more often a cry of too many.
__________________
Cant wait for 2012!
If guns kill people, spoons made Rosie O'Donnell fat!!!
PGc is helping the antis by magnifying the decline. From 2001 to 2006 the national rate of decline was 4%. In that same time period OURS in Pa was 10%. Its not hard to understand why that is either. Its not coincidence that an excessive extremist deer program was taking place.
""No matter whether it's timber interests,birdwatchers [:'(], farmers, homeowners, drivers or whatever. Without the support of that 90% we,re finishedand rest assured, no matter what hunters think, the 90% out there believes that there are either too many or enough deer. ""
I have many friends and family members that dont hunt, yet support me and my views 100% in regards to hunting. Id bet just about every other hunter in the state could say the same. DO that 900,000 times and we ARE NOT in the minority. Keep spewing the ecoextremist and antihunter rhetoric which they rely on to spread their lies and deciet and you arent doing anyone any good.[:'(] Audubon was one of the first to spew the "tiny minority of hunters against the world" propaganda.And pgc extremist supporters are all to happy to spread that sentiment.[:'(]
""No matter whether it's timber interests,birdwatchers [:'(], farmers, homeowners, drivers or whatever. Without the support of that 90% we,re finishedand rest assured, no matter what hunters think, the 90% out there believes that there are either too many or enough deer. ""
I have many friends and family members that dont hunt, yet support me and my views 100% in regards to hunting. Id bet just about every other hunter in the state could say the same. DO that 900,000 times and we ARE NOT in the minority. Keep spewing the ecoextremist and antihunter rhetoric which they rely on to spread their lies and deciet and you arent doing anyone any good.[:'(] Audubon was one of the first to spew the "tiny minority of hunters against the world" propaganda.And pgc extremist supporters are all to happy to spread that sentiment.[:'(]
Isn't Crapperhead the one who claims to hunt public land and trophy bucks, now he claims to have harvested 4 deer for some lady? He has finally shown his colors, just another meat hunter like his friend Doug.
I wonder how these PGC supporters filled their freezer, before legalized poaching came about with all these antlerless permits. Do you think if we went back to one deer a year, they would still fill their freezer with meat or eat spam. We know they are too cheap to buy a decent cut of meat at the grocery store.
Wakeup call
Its not coincidence that an excessive extremist deer program was taking place.
