More Anti-Hunting Lies
May 14, 2008
The Committee to Abolish Sport Hunting is continuing their campaign of spreading lies to the people. In an editorial in the Adirondack Daily Enterprise by Joe Miele, president of CASH, says that young people are against “killing”.
The average age of these “sportsmen†is increasing because hunting and fishing no longer appeal to the younger generation, which has shown for the most part to be uninterested in killing animals for recreation.
According to data supplied by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, since 1996 the number of anglers and hunters in New York has decreased by more than 25 percent and 5 percent, respectively. This has been occurring because sportsmen who choose to interact with wildlife in violent ways are dying or otherwise dropping out of the sport faster than new hunters and anglers can be recruited. Despite the waning interest in the blood sports, nonviolent forms of outdoor recreation are becoming more popular every year; hunting and fishing have been declining in popularity as wildlife watching in the state has been showing encouraging growth.
It is despicable that CASH has taken some data from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that shows the interest in hunting and fishing has declined of late and wrongfully concluded that the reason is because young people aren’t interested in killing animals. Miele offers no data to support his claim because there is none available.
Certainly, the information that USFWS puts out that Miele refers to, does not include any conclusions as to what is affecting any of the trends referred to in this editorial. His assumptions and conclusions are absurd, unfounded and this is nothing more than a cheap trick to influence public opinion.
Tom Remington
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It is a cheap trick. The problem is that most people won’t do the research necessary to discover its a cheap trick. That’s why PETA and groups of that ilk are so successful. People tend to take things at face value.
When I was younger,I’m 52 now,myself and many others would tie our fishing rods to our bicycles and sometimes ride miles to the fishing hole.Now we have computers.Less younger people fish and hunt.Just my 2 cents.
You are absolutely right G Mock! There is a whole host of reasons why fewer people fish and hunt and I wouldn’t even deny that some of that reason might be because kids aren’t interested in killing animals. At issue is that this organization is laying claim that it is THE reason kids don’t want to hunt anymore.
Tom,
I work with a lot of great youth. I think the lack of interest in outdoor blood sports like hunting and fishing among young people today is the result of many factors – none of which have to do with the killing of animals.
1/ Modern teens are unaccustomed to acting by themselves; they work, play, and converse in groups – isolation is anathema, some actually fear it. (There are many positive aspects to this group dynamic, but this is one negative.)
2/ Loss of easy access to hunting. When we were pups, you could ride your bike to an area to hunt or trap. Today most live in cities or suburbs which do not permit hunting. Running a small trapline, as I did when young, is illegal in most locales.
3/ Disassociation from a semi-wild/wild environment. Many youth assume “nature” is the city park.
The above are, of course, generalizations – I hope tens of thousands of exceptions can be found.
There are exceptions but our hunting base is shrinking along with many of the values we were taught as truths.
But the truth is, it is our friends on the left who have been attacking our most fundamental rights and freedoms for decades; forcing their will on the rest of us through unelected judges, the media and most effectively, our education system. Not only are our children subjected to textbook screeds on the evils of Western Civilization, but our college campuses, once the home of independent thought, have become dreary domiciles of forced conformity which oddly claim to champion the goal of ‘diversity’.
Well put George.
To emphasize the extent of Miele’s delusion, here is one from a Louisiana paper from earlier this year where he suggest that hunters should be required to pass a psychological examination before being given a license to hunt because someone somewhere happened to commit murder with a hunting rifle.
Meile’s Louisiana Rant
[...] lies to the people. In an editorial in the adirondack daily enterprise by Joe Miele, presidenthttp://mainehuntingtoday.com/bbb/2008/05/14/more-anti-hunting-lies/Adirondack Daily EnterpriseAdirondack Park Agency Essex County Franklin County Lake Placid/Essex [...]