king' s outdoor world - Index

king' s outdoor world - Hunting Illustrated - October/November 2007 - Index

Scott Grange
Hunting in the good old USA
is undergoing a sea change,
and I'm not sure it's the best
thing for our grand old heritage.
Increasingly, dollars determine who
gets to hunt and where. Tagging a
trophy has more to do with how
much you can spend than how well
you can hunt.
You can't argue that wildlife,
or the right to pursue it, has value.
That's why the king chopped off
peasant's hands for poaching "his?
deer - until we puny peasants rose up
and lopped off some kingly crowns.
This tradition of the aristocracy going
hunting while the peasants went
hungry ended with the radical idea
of a democratic republic called the
United States of America. Wildlife,
like air and rivers, would belong to
everyone. This was never a perfect
system, but it gradually developed to
save most species from exploitation
and return them to abundance. The
restoration of bison, elk, pronghorns,
turkeys and other commonly hunted
game became conservation's high
water mark. The system worked.
Everyone shared in abundance and
scarcity. Everyone contributed to
restoration. Everyone got the same
chances at hunting opportunities
through limited seasons, bag limits
and lottery selections for limited tags.
18 HUNTING ILLUSTRATED.com
THE
DUELING DUO
Hunting for Dollars
Are public game herds being privatized?
CON
By Ron Spomer
Views from both sides of the fence
A wealthy person could buy more guided
hunts into the hinterlands, but never more
tags for more game.
The rush nowadays is to buy a
chunk of land, post it, maybe high-fence
it, and farm it for wildlife. Most of these
land purchases are 15 to 100-acre plots,
but some are 10,000 to 100,000-acre
ranches. Nearly all are posted. Nearly all
used to be open to hunting. All you had
to do was ask. This easy access increased
hunter numbers which in turn increased
license sales, pumping more money into
hiring biologists and game wardens,
restocking, habitat improvement and the
like. This funding increased wildlife
numbers and maintained high hunter
participation which, in turn, increased
sales of guns, ammunition, calls, decoys,
boots and more.
Today, the average Joe finds
"No Hunting? signs on private lands
because most are reserved for hunting
by the owner or leased to outfitters who
take paying clients on canned adventures
- "Sit in this box and when you hear the
feeder go off, get ready.? This issue is
contributing to the continuing decline
in hunter numbers, a serious issue
now causing concern among Fish &
Game agencies. A decrease in hunter
recruitment means fewer license sales to
support conservation work. Recruitment
of young people is poor. Not many kids
can walk or bicycle from the house to a
pheasant field or deer woods anymore.
These youth have to wait for a rich
uncle to take them to Real Life Hunting
Adventures Lodge for a $5,000 deer
hunt.
5DUELING5
Ron Spomer
Fortunately, public lands
such as our National and State
Forests, grasslands, BLM lands,
wildlife management units, etc.
remain open to public hunting.
However, so many of us commoners
are squeezed into these public areas
that trophy quality suffers. In many
cases, experienced game flees public
land at the first gunshot and camps
on private ranchlands for the season
where they are not hunted at all or
selectively harvested by wealthy
patrons. In some states, landowners
are pressuring legislatures to give
them licenses and tags to sell to the
highest bidder.
I can understand a landowner
charging a trespass fee to offset the
costs of wildlife eating crops. Ditto
someone trying to keep the deer he
feeds and protects into old age (and
trophy size) on his property so the
neighbors can't poach it, but not when
this leads to privatization of wildlife.
One fairly equitable solution
seems to be some sort of Block
Management in which high-priced,
non-resident tag fees are used to pay
landowners to open their property
to general hunters. A few ranches
remain leased for wealthy clients, but
many others, formerly posted against
all hunting, are opened. Some tags
are reserved for non-residents only,
but residents still benefit because
those who do get tags have more
places to hunt.
Private control of public
wildlife sounds like a good idea when