The largest concentration of enironmental group headquarters outside of Washington D.C. is located in Missoula, MT, 52 miles north of here. First, I am not trivializing the anti's, I can't stand them. Second, who cares about Ted Turner? The man is dispised in this state. We also have the initiative process here in Montana and in November passed the right to hunt and fish iniative making it a constitutional right. Jim Posewitz, author of "Beyond Fair Chase" and director of Orion-The Hunters Institute was recently quoted as saying that the iniative passed here in Montana was not really necessary, in fact the single greatest threat to hunting was access to hunting area's due to the privitization of hunting lands. Whether hunting is legal or not becomes quite irrelavant if there is no place to hunt. You are all correct that sportsman need to band togather, but equally important is that we maintain a solid hunting population. I personally know people in the midwest who have quit hunting because they have no place to go, thus shrinking the ranks of hunters. Hunters are already a minority, but are bouyed by the fact that the general public accepts hunting, primarily because most have an uncle, cousin, dad etc that hunts.
Let me be clear that I do not take the Anti's lightly, but I wish they were not the sole focus of many hunters. Beat em up Slee, hell I'll help if it will do any good. I simply don't feel that the Anti's are the number one concern facing hunting today.