Critters, Population Dynamics and Morals

The hunted population of the animals may not be as numerous as they were in the "glory days", but the human population has increased and taken over the original habitats. The need for using the animals for primary food source, shelter is also not as big of an issue either.
Elk & buffalo have been pushed into areas that we have decided not to populated yet. Yellowstone is a great example. When the herds became to large for the park, instead of letting hunts go on in a National Park, hay is brought in to feed in the winter. Forcing the animals into a set area increasing the numbers infected with brucilosis making a dying herd.
Then some desk jockey got this hair balled idea to buy wolves from Canada and introduce them back into this area. many have already been destroyed for killing domestic live stock.
With proper use of human predators the herds could be brought back to healthy numbers and the Canadians can have the wolves back (if they really want them). You bet put in quotas,I not for full out eradication of every game animal, but lets get these herds healthy for our kids and grand kids. Trying to tell my kids what animal acts like with chronic wasting disease is something I don't want to do!
As for gophers, or p-dogs if all of us shot one each day for the rest of our lives we might dent there population so lets shot 2:D
 
Hokay. Brucellosis in the Yellowstone-area herd is well known. The near demise, however occurred in the late 1800s. By the 1890s-1910 period, the total non-Canadian bison population was allegedly down below 100. At the time of the War of Northern Aggression, they numbered in the millions, having ranged from east of the Mississippi into the Rockies; south into central Texas.

There are numerous small herds around the U.S.; these keep the gene pool adequately healthy because of inter-herd trades.

Separately, and finally addressing Cato's query about Prairie Dogs, the discovery of the interactions of dogs, owls and ferrets has reduced the official government policy of eradication by poisoning. The reproduction rate is too high for present hunting methods to affect the populations.

Art
 
:D What, you want a *&$#% discourse on Alumgaters? Hokay.

Poaching for hides for shoes and purses was a degree of threat, but once the system of allowing only the purchase of hides with numbers stamped on them, available only through "channels", was instituted, poaching pretty much ceased.

As expected, we're now bum deep in gator poop.

Heck, they even have big--seriously big--gators on the Nueces River in Texas! Around Cotulla, which is a very arid area.

Gator tail tastes Serously Good. Chewy, though. Try 'em at Al T's Cafe at Winnie, Texas, at I-10.

:), Art
 
The PETA and Greenpeace people will never concede the fact that hunters are conservationists, and that we do so much more to help sustain populations than they ever do. It really chokes me that a small minority of these radicals can jeopardize our rights to hunt and fish. 'Catch and release fishing is cruel and psychologically traumitizing to those poor fish'.....reee-ally.

I have a good story from my neck of the woods, here in northern BC, Canada. Early 80's, Paul Watson and some other Greenpeace activists come to town in the dead of winter, -45 deg Celcius, to protest the wolf hunt. The local population of wolves is too great, so the Department of Fisheries and Wildlife is opening a hunt to check the numbers. With it being so damned cold, and not being the brightest people in the world, Paul and gang are NOT prepared for the weather. No helicopter company in town or surrounding areas will fly them out to the bush, for fear of being responsible for their freezing to death. Too bad they didn't. Anyways, they are forced to stay in town, and they protest in the town square. A local resident of Fort Nelson comes walking up to the protesters with a dead wolf draped over his shoulders, and proceeds to throw it at Paul Watson's feet. 'Here's your noble creature....' he says, or something to that effect, pointing out that the poor wolf is starving to death and is loosing half it's fur to disease.

Let the hunter manage his own affairs, and PETA can manage the food found in grocery stores. 'Poor chickens, forced to live like that....'
 
Take the following as constructive comments from a lifelong hunter...

Many 'civilians' - not just PETA fundimentalists - are repulsed by hunting that is not specifically intended to put meat on somebody's table.

Prairie dog hunts, in which guys do the 'red mist' thing from 1/4 mile away, are a good example of the sort of spectacle guaranteed to piss off people who otherwise are fine with meat hunting. Any arguments made of the 'PD holes make cows break their legs' variety are seen as excuses for men to go out and exercise their manhood at the expense of small animals.

Please, think about this kind of stuff carefully. I can think of no moral justification for killing animals for enjoyment, and I'm a hunter. I believe that the africa 'kill an elephant/lion/baboon/etc cause it's cool' videos are a PR disaster waiting to happen: the sight of these animals dying, and of the clients celebrating, makes me real angry.

If we want to keep being able to hunt, I believe that we must find a way to minimize the slob hunting stuff, and reinforce hunting as a way to eat honestly, or to deal with real habitat issues. Hunting should not be excuse to kill things for our own pleasure.

db
 
We each need to inform as many non-hunters as possible about the true value of hunting within the natural world. An un-informed majority can do a lot of damage in a democracy. Setting a good personal example is always the best first step as well as involving newer & younger hunters-to-be. Then read-up on the subject; history, philosophy, biology, ethics of hunting, etc. in order to be a convincing hunter/spokesman.

At the same time we also need to work on reining-in some of our hunting brethren, and it's not just the "slobs", whose damage to our image is obvious. When "trophies" are engineered via artificial insemination and selective breeding behind tall game-proof fencing, and then harvested under supplimental feeders from air-conditioned blinds - hunting as a tradition, is deminished. These "trophies" deserve no recognition.

Now, Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) is threatening wild game herds after jumping the fences of "deer & elk farms".
 
Dave B: I follow your point about the "Red Mist". There are two problems, here.

As with pro sports in this country, Americans seem to always operate on the basis "If some is good, more is better." I don't care if it's football or NASCAR. For that matter, I've watched the unending sales pitches of "Our small car is bigger than their small car."

Thus we have the PD shooters hyping the Red Mist stuff, and working toward ever more accurate rifles to shoot more PDs at longer distances. This is followed by the "Look what I did!" pride of accomplishment.

Now, from a PR standpoint, it's bad. Which gets us back to modern America and "Perception is more important than fact."

I get irate every time I hear this "the cow steps in the hole" nonsense. But what do I know? I've only been around cows since 1940, so maybe I've got much yet to learn. The fact is that PDs eat a lot of grass. Or alfalfa. This does not help a rancher or farmer when its time to pay his ad valorem taxes or the loan at the bank.

The government has poisoned prairie dogs by tens of millions. The PD Shooter can barely keep up with the reproduction rate, if that.

I realize that in modern America, it's merely abstract to folks if farmers and ranchers go broke. After all, bread comes from the grocery; who needs wheat fields? Alfalfa hay for Ms. Yuppy's horse comes from the feed store--who needs a farmer who'd kill a prairie dog? And there are jillions of ranches in areas besides PD country.

So let's recognize the perception problem, and not join the folks in assuming that Red Mist is anything more than maybe just a touch of "bad manners".

Art
 
BluRidgDav: As one who began hunting "chee-chee"birds with a Daisy Red Ryder in 1940, I'm uncomfortable with the idea of the "game farm" and stylized "hunting". My problem is that I really hate to say "No!" to folks who do their thing on their own property. I guess my limit would be to not acknowlege the validity of B&C points to "created" trophy animals.

Except as we come to your final "...Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) is threatening wild game herds after jumping the fences of "deer & elk farms"."

I know this is suspected. Do you have any definitive proof that this is the case?

Art
 
As Art mentioned earlier.
"Bambi" will haunt us forever.
Locusts, rats, mice etc are fair game for control.

Deer, prarie dogs etc are "cute" and therefore off limits to the PC.

Good deeds by hunters go largly unnoticed. Bad impressions spread rapidly.

Sam
 
Urban deer are a good example of what happens when you remove predators and prevent hunting. A local suburb has experienced some 700 car/deer collisions per year. That's 700 deer dead or injured, and about a million dollars worth of damage to cars.

And this isn't a BIG suburb!

But will the tree-huggers even consider hunting? No way, no how. After all the deer were here first, and having people shoot them - or even bowhunt - isn't NATURAL. So they propose things like deer contraception. (Hmmm . . . One buck, one doe, one condom . . . )

One of these tree-huggers really got upset when I told her that if she wants the deer population managed by nature, we'll have to reintroduce mountain lions, bears, wolves, and Indians into her back yard. ;)
 
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