ORIGINAL: BTBowhunter
ORIGINAL: R.S.B.
ORIGINAL: BTBowhunter
No hunters shouldn’t be the only ones the Game Commission listens to. In fact the Pennsylvania Constitutions specifically requires the management of our resources FOR ALL of the Commonwealth citizens.
And, I don’t work for you. I work for the resources and all of the Citizens of this Commonwealth.
Hunters have in the past chosen to be the ones paying for wildlife management. I can assure you that don’t care if hunters fund the agency or not, in fact I am becoming more and more convinced that wildlife management would be better off if we worked from the general fund and told hunter to take a flying leap with their money. If hunters don’t want to pay for wildlife management there are many others that do care about wildlife that will be very willing to demand that wildlife management be funded through general tax dollars. Personally I think that would work a whole lot better then this hunter and political blackmail.
RSB
I respect you and your posts are informative and I often (not always) agree with you but that one was out of line.
I agree that the PGC is charged with managing all wildlife but that last statement paints all hunters with one brush and the vast majority of hunters out there do support good management for all species. As the ones who have always voluntarily paid the bills, and your salary by the way,we deserve to be heard. Not to the exclusion of all others but we deserve to be heard.Others deserve to be heard too, of course butyou were just plain out of line to make that blanket statement toward all hunters.
The fact that we have a minority of dissenters making noise right now is no excuse for the statement you just made and you owe Pennsylvania's hunters an apology.
Hunters are heard, they always have been. But, when it gets to the point, as it is now, that the agency can no longer affectively manage the wildlife resources due the lack of funding it simply isn’t working.
Since hunters are the only ones that fund the agency who is too blame, but the hunters? Obviously the hunters that do support adequately funding, and I do believe that is the majority, aren’t being affective or we wouldn’t be trying to run wildlife management on a shoestring budget.
Most hunters aren’t taking the time to contact their Legislators and Senators to demand that their wildlife management agency be adequately funded so how you could believe they really even care about having a voice?
Think about it and then tell me who is too blame, if the majority of the hunters really are supportive of sound wildlife management practices and principles, and then adequately funding that management.
What we have now is NOT WORKING! The Game Commission can’t force the funding initiatives, only the citizens of this Commonwealth have that power. If that power doesn’t come from the hunters I can promise you it will eventually come from someone other then hunters. If you believe, or even remotely think, that hunters have no say now what do you think is going to happen after hunters are no longer the force taking the initiative to push adequate funding forward through the State Legislature?
R.S. Bodenhorn
I never said or thought that hunters didnt have a say. My statement that hunters deserve to have a voice was a direct response to your statement about hunters "taking a flying leap"
Statements like that directed randomly are quite likely to do you and the PGC way more harm than good. I have been largely supportive of the PGC and its current management. I daresay I'm among its strongest supporters here and you have managed to royally piss me off with this one. You might want to think about what you say when you find that you've managed to piss off the friendly's.
Your right, I am pretty angry. Why shouldn’t I be? I also recognize that you are one of the good guys that does support sound management.
But, maybe your anger also allowed you to missed the part about the hunters taking that flying leap WITH THEIR MONEY, with the money being the real point I was trying to make.
The point of that comment is that the day has obviously come when the hunting license dollars should just go to the State General Fund with the Legislature doing as they darn well please with it and then simply using tax dollars from ALL of the public to fund the State’s wildlife management programs.
Obviously the State Legislature would like to have the hunter license dollars to build roads or give them selves raises with so let them do it. I actually can’t wait to see who people will blame for the price of a hunting license then let alone what it will cost them to buy a hunting license.
When was the last time anyone asked the citizens what they were willing to pay for their driver’s license or their vehicle registration?
It is equally obvious that many hunters don’t want to fund wildlife management unless even the least educated among them get to dictate not only how that money is used but also dictate how the wildlife management professional do their job even when scientific management indicates they are doing the right thing. Therefore, I say we would be much better off using tax dollars provided by all of the Commonwealth citizens. Let the State Legislature take those hunter dollars and do as they darn well please with it. If the wildlife management professionals can’t use the money to do what is right for the future of the resources without listening to the least educated hunters in the state then that money is noting but a hindrance toward the future of our resources.
It is time for change because what we have now no longer works toward a solid future. I am sorry if that offends you but the facts are still the facts andpretty much the way I see it at this time.
R.S. Bodenhorn