Statistics show 1 percent of the state’s residents have a license to hunt. The composition of the state Fish and Game Council should reflect this. This is a fact of the democratic process and not “slick maneuvering in order to satisfy a political agenda.”
This piece of work came from an opinion rebuttal in the Asbury Park Press in New Jersey. This also reflects the ignorance of those who choose to pretend they understand wildlife management.
I’m not sure where the writer came up with the 1% figure but it is really irrelevant to the statement made. First let’s clarify something. Even if it were true that only 1% of New Jersey’s population has a license to hunt, there is a reason for that. Those in government in New Jersey are so anti-hunting, they have for all intent and purposes stripped the residents of any opportunity to hunt.
A more accurate fact that the writer doesn’t want readers to know is that nationwide there are approximately 12-15 million licensed hunters, depending upon whose data you choose to use. That reflects an approximate 5-10 percent of the total population – not eligible hunters (meaning of age). People, like those who write such nonsense, don’t want to tell you that around 90% of the population support hunting and understand it as viable means of managing our wildlife.
Now, the totally biased and those ignorant of facts, want to blame hunters and fish and game biologists for creating overgrown wildlife populations in New Jersey. I’ve not heard anything so ridiculously absurd in all my life. Excuse me a moment while I lie down on the floor and beat my head on the tile in hopes that I am heard and get my way.
Bill Anderson at Muskoga Outdoors reminds the opinion writer that there are consequences that need to be paid for actions by anti-hunters.
My question to the writer is (as in my post title), How do you manage wildlife without hunting and fishing? Allowing wildlife to max out the carrying capacity of their particular environment has consequences that should be known to anyone who knows (and understands) basic ecological principles. The writer must have missed those classes.
Wildlife managers also know these principles. That is why in areas where hunting or fishing is not allowed they also initiate the following expensive (meaning cost to the state or province) measures:
* culling – Called in government ‘Trained’ snipers (usually expensively payed hunters)
* poisoning – as the name indicates poison is left in strategic areas that are supposed to target the correct species
* sterilizing – involves capturing animals and injecting them with the sterilizing chemical
I will add this to Anderson’s list. New Jersey has, after the latest ruling by a judge, eliminated hunting bear as a management tool. Those in charge, namely Gov. Corzine and his little puppet Lisa Jackson, have tossed science out the window in favor of appeasing the very tiny but vocal anti-hunters, animal rights groups and urban biologists who are spreading lies about wildlife management. When you combine this with everything else that the state has done to take away hunting and trapping opportunities, there becomes a serious problem of unmanaged wildlife populations.
The childish behavior exemplified by this writer now wants to blame this problem on hunters too. Should I ask if higher gas prices and global warming, are they caused by hunters too?
Bears and coyotes are predators. There are too many in New Jersey as is being shown with the increase this summer of human/bear conflicts and attacks on people and pets by coyotes. This is not the fault of fish and game and hunters manipulating population numbers for selfish reasons. If that were true, there wouldn’t be any coyotes around, I can assure you of that.
There is a series of events that occur when predator populations are not kept in check. The first is these animals run out of space. Young males are forced out the area where coyotes or bears live. They spread out looking for a place to call home. All too often this has become your back yard.
They compete with each other for food. Anderson calls it to “max out the carrying capacity”. Natural food sources are limited and when those are depleted they go looking for your garbage, your cat, dog, pet food or even your child and in some cases full grown adults.
Many of these same animal-lover types who refuse to understand the facts of wildlife, intentionally feed wild animals, including predators such as bears, coyotes and sometimes unknowingly, mountain lions. All of these actions remove any natural fears the animals should have for the one animal that is tops on the food chain – man. The danger from this is that these animals will no longer sneak about in the darkness of night searching for prey and food but have shown to become brazen enough to appear in daylight and not even run off when confronted by humans. This is extremely dangerous and is a recipe that is sure to result in serious injury or death to someone.
Statistics show that the vast majority of attacks on humans by predator-type animals happens in areas where these animals are not hunted. Hunting reminds this animals that humans are something to avoid.
Wherever the writer of this editorial got their information, it is bad information and when this is allowed to be printed unchallenged, someone is going to get hurt.
Some in New Jersey want to change the make-up of the Fish and Game Council to be comprised of those who have no background in wildlife management – even members of anti-hunting and animal rights groups. The writer is even suggesting that the council should reflect the population she says has only 1% hunters. Is this what should be done? This is science not a local bridge party!
If we used this same mentality in the composition of all our committees state and nationwide, what would it look like? Should we have criminals make up the representative population on law enforcement committees? Should we pull a mechanic out of the garage and let him sit on the board of directors at the local hospital? Should our public school administration be made up the same way? Are people so ignorant of facts that they haven’t any clue that wildlife management is a science and not a political action committee?
What this writer shows all of us is the extreme to which some have allowed their thinking to become. First it was just that they were opposed to hunting because they don’t like killing. Some have dumped millions of dollars into the effort to get it stopped. They have been very successful in New Jersey, a state that seems notorious for extreme left-wing socialistic views, much like California. In other words, they are an easy target for groups like PETA and HSUS.
But that isn’t enough. Their actions are coming back to bite them in the foot, yet they are so blinded by their emotion and lack of sane reasoning skills, they now want to blame hunters and fish and game authorities for manipulating the game in order to give us more animals to hunt. So utterly ridiculous. Just plain laughable.
Tom Remington
