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English Paper on Hunting

Old 04-03-2012, 06:57 AM
  #1  
Spike
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Default English Paper on Hunting

I'm writing a paper for my English 2010 class and need a little help and some input from the scholars out there. My main topic is the economic importance of hunting in America. I'd like to stay pretty close to this topic but anything closely related would be greatly appreciated. Any help or ideas please feel free to help me out.
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Old 04-04-2012, 12:11 PM
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Try to get your hands on a financial report for Cabela's. On the assumption they are a publically traded company, there will be an annual report. It would be fair to guess that half their revenues are related to selling hunting products. Of course, there are other hunting product stores out there, noteably Bass Pro Shops. Bass Pro Shops may have revenues 60% fishing 40% hunting, just as a wild guess.

You may be able to get information on-line from states that show the numbers of non-resident hunters for different species. Try looking up Colorado non-resident elk hunting numbers. Do a quick calculation of money provided for big game licenses. At $350/license for non-resident elk and up (I'm just ball-parking it here, y'all) you can come up with a rough figure of what one state takes in for one big game species. This is just a taste, and a full-up analysis is more complicated. Colorado is the biggest elk hunting state, so their numbers are not representative of all states. Different species, different states have different licensing fees and numbers of licenses issued.

Hunters spend money on gas, food, lodging, and entertainment as they go on out-of-state hunts. How much? That may be difficult to estimate. Maybe call some chambers of commerce and ask them what they estimate the economic impact of hunting is? Try Durango Colorado, Pagosa Springs Colorado, Gillette Wyoming.

All of this involves your following up on these leads to do your own research, but the information should be available mostly on line. How much time before your paper is due? It's getting close to the end of the semester, isn't it?
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Old 04-04-2012, 12:28 PM
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there are so many aspects to what your asking
think you need to narrow it down a bit
travel dollars, dollars spent on licenses/fees, equipment,
and a report of US hunting finances should include robertson pitman act
also if you look at individual state wildlife agencies they sometimes breakdown revenues received
this might be of interest
http://www.amfire.com/statistic.asp?page=32

Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act of 1937

In 1937, hunters successfully lobbied Congress to pass the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration Act, which placed an eleven percent tax on all hunting equipment. This self-imposed tax now generates over $700 million each year, and is used exclusively to establish, restore and protect wildlife habitats.[41] The act is named for Nevada Senator Key Pittman and Virginia Congressman Absalom Willis Robertson.
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Old 04-05-2012, 06:42 AM
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Just google:

"economic importance of hunting in America"

You'll get a wealth of well documented information for your paper.
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Old 04-05-2012, 10:10 AM
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I'm fairly close to being done and the requirements for the paper are to argue both sides of the arguement. Its becoming easier to argue against PETA when they warp the facts that they themselves write. Thanks for the input any help amd opinions are greatly appreciated. The Cabelas report seems like a very good argument. I'll look for that.
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Old 04-05-2012, 10:56 AM
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It sounds like you are having to argue two different positions in the same paper. That is kind of tough. Also, I assume PETA is not advancing solely economic arguments, so a solely economic response may not be very successful.

I like to guess the objections people have against hunting and develop my response to those hypotheticals. Here are some examples.

(1) Sport hunting makes species extinct.

Response: No. Legal sport hunting occurs in a context of carefully defined and enforced bag limits. If a species of duck is fragile, that species of duck will not be allowed to be hunted or will have a very low bag limit and maybe a more narrowly circumscribed hunting season: E.G., Canvasback ducks. Likewise with elk, deer, bighorn sheep, moose, etc. The bag limits and the numbers of permits in states are allocated to manage the population of these animals to desirable levels. For example, if you have too many deer, you have too many car-deer encounters. If you have too many elk, these elk cause too much economic harm to ranchers and property owners when they are pushed down out of the mountains in winter time. Now, PETA may take the position that these concerns of the general population -- avoiding car-deer collisions, avoiding depradations of elk on private property -- subordinate the value of animals to those of human beings, but that is not really an issue with hunters. The population figures are not set specifically with hunters in mind in many cases.

(2) Killing animals through sport hunting is cruel.

Response: Relative to what? All animals and human beings are going to die. Animals in the wild rarely die a peaceful death in a comfy bed. Death is often being ripped apart in the jaws of a predator, starving to death in a time of over population/under supply of food, or from exposure to cold. The issue of cruelty must be weighed in the balance with what inevitably comes their way. Which is the less painful -- and hence less cruel -- death? Getting shot with a bullet in good health and dieing within about a minute or dieing as described above in the wild?

(3) Killing animals merely to put a trophy on the wall is morally wrong.

Response: Last I checked, all the states I hunt in have laws against wanton waste of game animals. You are required by law to harvest the meat of these game animals, care for the meat, and put the meat to good use. Thus the phrase "merely to put a trophy on the wall" is not a valid hypothesis from the get go. Indeed some hunters are intensely interested in taking a trophy -- an above average male specimen. Even then, they have to put the meat to good use. Is doing the right thing morally (harvesting and consuming the meat) wrong because your motivation is not pure (just compying with the law)? I don't think so. Also, my experience is that only a small proportion of hunters are in it as trophy hunters. Without any specific information to back me up, I would say 20% or less of the elk hunters are in it for trophies. Now, just because you KEEP the antlers or get a head mounted doesn't equate to being a trophy hunter. Colorado requires you to harvest the antlers of your bull elk to demonstrate compliance with antler restrictions and obliges you to keep this proof until your meat reaches its final processing point -- my house, because I butcher my own meat. Am I a trophy hunter because then I take those antlers and mount the skull cap on a panel of wood and put it up on the wall, making it as pretty as I can? I think not.

Personally I don't think PETA has any reason to have a special greviance with hunters, for the reasons given above. I would understand their principles to be that killing animals under any conditions -- including in a commercial slaughter house of domestically produced steers -- is morally wrong. If you are a vegetarian and will not eat meat . . . I have no argument to fight against this moral position. If you are not a vegetarian, however, you have no cause to hold anything against hunters.

By the way, I'm not saying I cannot advance an argument to morally justify eating meat, I'm just saying I feel no need to do so and have not invested the thinking time to get there.

Last edited by Alsatian; 04-05-2012 at 10:58 AM.
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Old 04-10-2012, 06:33 AM
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Thanks for all the help. If you don't mind telling me your real names I can use this information as a personal interview type of thing.
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Old 05-04-2012, 09:37 AM
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For a paper like this, for school, any state DFG booklet would provide a wealth of information. Their internet website would do so as well.

Economically speaking, it will all come down to fee revenues received by the state.

For example, my state has about 200,000 deer hunters, who each pay about $100 per year to hunt deer. This equals $20,000,000 that these hunters will pay to the state, which is not paid by bird watchers or nature hikers or hippies, and which is used for wildlife management. So the hunters are bearing the full financial burden of the state's wildlife management program.

If you eliminated/banned hunting, this $20 million would disappear, as well as the jobs and additional economic spending it supports. Even if that makes the bird watchers, nature hikers, and hippies happy, it won't be good for the state or the business.

Scientifically you would want to point out that hunters only take excess game populations that the wildlife biologist determine can easily be spared. Normally this excess is the drone male buck population, which does not breed anyway.

If human hunters do not harvest these excess bucks, then other natural predators will take them, as will traffic vehicles, or they will die uselessly.

That much is the common sense no-brainer part of the discussion.

Trophy hunting versus meat hunting is probably not relevant in the USA. Trophy hunting is an African continent issue, not American. So this is a red herring that you might as well dismiss as smoke screen coming from the bird watchers, nature hikers, and hippies. You would have to smoke a lot of dope before these red herring arguments make any sense. Smoking dope is a relevant issue, though, for bird watchers, nature hikers, and hippies.

You can call me Fred Bear. He was a famous bowhunter. His memory lives on. That is also what he would tell you.

Last edited by Shoobee; 05-04-2012 at 09:39 AM.
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