News out of New Jersey where a bill to move oversight for wildlife to the environmental protection and to severely reduce sportsmen representation on the board to two while putting tree huggers on the board. There is an emphasis being placed on non lethal control by creating a special committee to address these issues.
Tom over at the Black Bear Blog had a post about this alerting me and I’m sure many others to this issue. Now two members will be sportsmen but who else will get a seat;
And five members will be “individuals with experience in environmental protection or other fields relevant to animal welfare and with a background in the preservation of wildlife, recommended to the Governor for appointment to the council by the New Jersey Animal Rights Alliance, The Bear Education and Resource Group, and the Humane Society of the United States, and chosen with due consideration to achieve balanced geographic representation of all regions of the State.”
What a ridiculous plan but I caution you it’s coming to a Wildlife Commission near you if you’re not careful. Our license, tags, and taxes on our hunting equipment are traditionally the revenue source to fund our wildlife departments but more often these funds are diverted, misused, or used on non wildlife projects. Now these kooks want a seat at the table when it comes to wildlife management even though their main agenda is to end all forms of hunting, trapping or fishing drying up the funding sources that support many game and non game species. We need to be ready to take these kooks on because no matter how they want to present themselves they are not mainstream but fringe kooks.
