04-18-2012, 05:16 AM
With a front page story today on the record of more than 6,000 firearms registered last year in this county, I doubt that is fear of guns is a huge problem here... (ADD: an increase of over 17% statewide over the year before!)
There were enough huntable food mammals & birds here, like turkey, dove, pheasant, pig, mouflan sheep, goat & feral cattle (that is right, hundreds-thousands of them are feral here) that adding one that can destroy the mesic & dry forests WAS NOT GOOD. It was a selfish act by those who felt it was too much of a bother to go to one of the islands that already has these invasive species & help them out by hunting their nuisance population of deer!
One reason to get a license is to be REPRESENTED...when the numbers of hunters declines, their vote does too! CBS 2007 report on the decline of hunters (purchasing hunting/fishing licenses is done by way less than 10% of the populations & surveys also show less than 10% of the population is fish/hunt...sorry for 2006 data, but the 2011 data is not yet out...should be in a couple of months):
http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-201_162-3228893.html
Background USFWS 2006 data:
http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/fhw06-nat.pdf
There were enough huntable food mammals & birds here, like turkey, dove, pheasant, pig, mouflan sheep, goat & feral cattle (that is right, hundreds-thousands of them are feral here) that adding one that can destroy the mesic & dry forests WAS NOT GOOD. It was a selfish act by those who felt it was too much of a bother to go to one of the islands that already has these invasive species & help them out by hunting their nuisance population of deer!
One reason to get a license is to be REPRESENTED...when the numbers of hunters declines, their vote does too! CBS 2007 report on the decline of hunters (purchasing hunting/fishing licenses is done by way less than 10% of the populations & surveys also show less than 10% of the population is fish/hunt...sorry for 2006 data, but the 2011 data is not yet out...should be in a couple of months):
http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-201_162-3228893.html
Background USFWS 2006 data:
http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/fhw06-nat.pdf