I Want Wildlife To View But I Don’t Want To Pay
Posted by Tom Remington on July 2, 2008
The Boston Globe has a typical article today that shows the media’s desire to disregard hunting in favor of wildlife watching at the expense of hunters. It really kind of irks me, the ignorance that exists and then the arrogance from the wildlife watching community as they are continually told they outnumber hunters and are gaining the upper hand politically to have things their way.
And it appears that the Maine Office of Tourism isn’t exactly jumping up and down in support of the state’s thousands of hunters.
“It’s a challenge,” said Phil Savignano, senior tourism official for the Maine Office of Tourism. “Maine is changing . . . There is clearly a decline in hunting and a growth in wildlife viewing. But we want both to exist.”
According to officials at the Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, hunting participation has held pretty steady in Maine. I’m sure Savignano is referring to the USFWS survey that I have said for months is not an accurate measure of who hunts and who doesn’t, yet even state officials use that data instead of information from their own agencies. Go figure!
The difficulty, as I see it, does come from the power of the dollar. I don’t want the wildlife watchers taking over fish and game departments. Lee Kantar, a biologist with the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife and who has recently been put in charge of looking out for the moose, had this to say about the pressures put on the department in managing the moose.
“Our job is to balance the interests of all people - the hunters, wildlife enthusiasts, people concerned about road collisions, and people who don’t care,” said Lee Kantar, a wildlife biologist for the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife. Population numbers, he added, “can be the stuff of battles.”
Perhaps this is what it has evolved into but it’s not supposed to be the function of the fish and game department to be managing game animals for the wildlife watchers and those trying to make a buck off charging people to go on wildlife watching safaris.
Once again we see history being lost in our society. People forget what state the moose was in not that many years ago and whose dollars it was that were used to restore the moose population. Now we have a seemingly abundance of moose and some hunters are demanding more permits to hunt the creature while at the same time wildlife viewers, who pay nothing for the management of the animal, are demanding more moose to watch.
For many reasons there are people who don’t want the two entities to coexist. I won’t go into all the reasons. The media does little to help as is shown in this article.
I want to see the wildlife watchers pay their share to meet the demands they are putting on MDIFW but separate from the fish and game department. I have said this repeatedly. Fish and game needs to be shrunk in size to a function of, well, fish and game and NOT as Mr. Kantar says: “Our job is to balance the interests of all people - the hunters, wildlife enthusiasts, people concerned about road collisions, and people who don’t care.” This is not a function of a wildlife biologist or the fish and game department in my opinion. Why should my license fee be used to satisfy those wanting to go moose watching, or for pandering to the insurance companies to reduce collisions, etc.?
There are no sour grapes here toward those who want to make a buck or two by schlepping those interested in canned photo opportunities and wildlife viewing safaris across the state. What irks me is their demands that hunters stop shooting the animals in order that they have more animals to watch. All this without paying a red cent to the agency they are demanding provide them more opportunities.
It’s been said countless times. If it wasn’t for the millions of dollars paid by hunters over the years, these viewers would have little to watch and safari organizers would be doing something different. Hunters generally speaking do not resent that people want to go wildlife watching. What we do resent is these groups looking to promote their new-found activity at the expense of running the hunters off the face of the earth.
Tom Remington
If you enjoyed this article check these out:
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Good point. Makes me feel sort of stupid that I never thought of it before.
July 2nd, 2008 at 12:17 pm
From what I see this is a typical scenario in most states. Looks like the management is suffering from a mental disorder called “Political Correctness”.
The shoe is on the wrong foot. Instead of us hunters paying for a license and tags, they should be paying us for our service of Animal Population Control. After all it does seem like we are being used for that purpose for the good of all. Are they trying to take the excitement out of hunting like they have taken the excitement out of Capitalism? It’s kind of like making us pay to work a job rather than the other way around. The objective of the fish and game dept’s. inverted 180 degrees?
July 5th, 2008 at 9:26 am
BA - I think you have hit on something not everyone can see. You asked if they (not sure who they is) are trying to take the excitement out of hunting like that of capitalism and the answer is yes.
Like with every aspect of our society “they” will not be happy until it has all become socialized, dumbed down to veritable uselessness, IMO!
I suppose in time all hunting will cease. The game animals will be for the people (actually the government) and certain individuals will be appointed by the government to become animal population control personnel. Of course all harvested game is the property of the state and the meat, once the state takes its share, will be apportioned back to the peasants.
July 5th, 2008 at 9:54 am
Thank You, Tom. For the most part we’re on the same page! This reminds me of when the big change occurred in this country. I’m not sure of the date. But when you pulled into a gas station, the attendants rushed out to wash your windshield, put the gas in your tank, check your oil and tires, took your money and brought back the change and said thank you. When you went to a grocery store and pushed your cart up to the checkstand, the clerk unloaded it and checked out your order. A bagger bagged everything and helped you carry everything to the car and helped you put it in the car.
Bingo! All of a sudden this kind of behavior all came to a screeching halt. Now we the customers are their slaves. We need them, they don’t need us type of attitude. Most of these workers? act like they’re doing you a favor to wait on you.
When this change took place, that was the end of America as I knew it. That was the end of Capitalism. Does anyone else remember these days when the customer was always right? Or am I the only one? Whenever we went to a relatives or a friends place to hunt for the weekend, we always took a truckload of groceries with us. I don’t see this attitude anymore either. Things have really changed and looking at the political landscape, they’re going to change again in a sharper turn in the same direction. To the left. If you dare say anything against the way things are, they say you’re being Negative. Or they say you’re a radical. In that case it wasn’t too long ago that the radical was the Standard Operating Procedure for decent people. Will the pendulum ever swing back to Decency?
July 5th, 2008 at 11:42 am
We’re enduring the same thing here in Arizona. Hunters pay for all of these programs. Let the “wildlife viewers” pay as well. Just recently, the Legislature here “swept” funds form Game and Fish that were dedicated to Game and Fish - to add insult to injury. http://arizonahuntingtoday.com/desertrat/2008/06/20/679/
Something else struck me in the quotes above - how do you weigh the interests of people who “don’t care”?
July 5th, 2008 at 8:16 pm
Rat - I wondered the same about that comment concerning those who don’t care. I thought it was rather odd. It sounded more like a comment from someone that was a bit angry about how things were being done maybe but I agree with your question. How DO you weigh the interests of those who don’t care. I always thought that if someone didn’t care, they had no interest.
Good point!
July 6th, 2008 at 9:11 am