Who Cares?

Posted: November 02, 2012

POMA member Tim Flanigan shares an article he wrote that reminds us how hunters, trappers and fishermen care for wildlife, by funding management programs. Thanks, Tim, for sharing this and helping those of us who legally hunt, trap and fish remember how our enjoyment of these activities helps care for wildlife, so everyone can continue to enjoy it.

“Who cares?” That short phrase can be a serious question or a brusque dismissal of a point made by another. With regard to wildlife, caring occurs on various levels ranging from generally passive and appreciative to real hands-on care. This point was made quite clearly several years ago when I enjoyed the opportunity to debate the value of sport hunting with a professional anti-hunting zealot, on a live radio program known as US Radio Daily.

The radio in my state wildlife conservation officer’s official vehicle was always set on an AM news/talk station. Upon cranking the vehicle’s engine, early one fall morning, to begin a day of patrol, the radio sprang to life with words that grabbed my ears and wouldn’t let go; “Our topic for today is Sport Hunting – Pro or Con.” Returning quickly to my home office, I dialed the 800 number for the Call-in format talk show.

The show’s guest of the day was a young lady who headed one of the country’s top animal rights organizations. Her opening remarks about the many wrongs of sport hunting equaled a slap in the face and a challenge to a duel. My call was immediately accepted and when the show’s host learned of my wildlife-related profession, he chortled, “Oh this ought to be good.”

Waiting to speak, on-air, provide time to prepare a list of the many things that hunter’s do to benefit wildlife. When the show host announced my call as coming from a wildlife professional in Pennsylvania, the guest, let’s call her Heidi, launched into a tirade about a well known annual live pigeon shoot that attracts throngs of protestors.

Her tactic was typical of the anti-hunting segment of our society; change or pervert the subject. She was unsuccessful because pigeons are not considered wildlife in the state and as such are not regulated by game laws or hunted. Upon suggesting that we address the actual topic of the broadcast, “Sport hunting – pro or con,” the show’s host agreed and gave me an opportunity to speak. I began with a question for Heidi: “What does your organization actually do for wildlife?”

Eager to promote her anti-hunting group, she quickly responded that they run ads and write magazine articles to promote the protection and care of wildlife. The main point of their public communications is highlighting the purported atrocities of hunting. When she breathlessly completed blowing her horn, I again asked: “That’s nice, but what do you actually do to benefit wildlife?”

She made several attempts to illustrate their deep caring for wildlife, but failed to list any actions that actually benefit wildlife on the ground. The sum total of their organization’s caring was, and is, a PR campaign to denigrate sport hunting in America. With that point made abundantly clear, the door was thrown widely open to list the numerous real benefits to the welfare of wildlife that hunters make generously and without reserve. Proof of the hunter’s generosity is visible all around us, but the hunting community is generally quiet about their support of all wildlife, game and non-game.

In fact, it is very rare to hear a hunter complain about the cost of hunting licenses and or privilege stamps such as the wonderfully successful Federal Waterfowl Stamp, commonly referred to as the Duck Stamp. The purchase and possession of a duck stamp is mandated by law, nationwide and the vast proceeds from their annual sale purchase protect and enhance the prairie pot-hole regions of Canada and mid-western states where many North American ducks nest.

These dollars also fund ongoing research and population monitoring as well as enforcement of hunting regulations deemed necessary by this hunter-funded science. For many years, the wonderfully beautiful and absolutely delicious wood duck enjoyed total protection. That protection was enforced by federal and state wildlife officers and in reality, hunters paid to not hunt this coveted species. In the interim, many thousands of duck hunting enthusiasts built and erected wood duck nesting boxes at their personal expense.

The purchase of migratory bird hunting permits is also mandatory for those pursuing woodcock, snipe, doves and rails. Many states also require the purchase of state-specific stamps or permits to hunt migratory birds. All of these licenses produce revenue streams into which hunters pour buckets of money to keep the research ongoing. They do because the love wildlife and care about its welfare.

America’s sportsmen and women can boast of a proud history of generously funding wildlife conservation practices as well as providing and enhancing millions of acres or wildlife habitat so that a myriad of wild critters can thrive – not just game animals. From mice and songbirds to deer, bear and elk, our sportsman’s dollars in license fees are complimented by a targeted tax on firearms and ammunition that makes my home state of Pennsylvania an ultra-friendly place for wildlife.

This heavily populated eastern state supports one of the largest whitetail deer populations in North America, an exceptionally large black bear population with the largest overall average size black bear in the entire nation. Pennsylvania’s wild turkeys have been trapped and transferred all across the eastern half of America to restore turkeys in many states and the big birds thrive in tremendous abundance and in every one of Pennsylvania’s counties including Philadelphia.

Much of this fantastic wildlife management success is due to the existence of 1.5 million acres of wild lands, scattered throughout the state and known as State Game Lands. These lands are managed by law “for the benefit of wildlife,” and every acre was purchased by hunter’s monies yet these pristine public lands are open for everyone, from bird watchers to anti hunters to enjoy. In Pennsylvania, hunter’s monies also fund extensive wildlife habitat enhancement on private lands that are open to public hunting.

One of the greatest examples of hunter’s monies benefiting the non and anti-hunting public is Ohio’s MaGee Marsh located on Lake Erie’s south shore just east of Toledo. Every May, thousands upon thousands of northward migrating warblers use this rich marsh as a bed and breakfast where they pause to refresh and refuel for the strenuous flight across the broad Great Lake and on to their nesting grounds in the distant north.

These colorful birds are met by similar numbers of avid birdwatchers and photographers who marvel at this natural phenomenon while traversing the dense marsh on a user friendly boardwalk. This site too, was purchased and is maintained by hunter’s dollars yet hunters demand no user fees, stamps or licenses of the non-hunting public. That fact is subtly noted by a small sign posted beside the entrance to marsh’s modern visitor’s center.

The amount of state and federal hunter-generated dollars from license fees and Pittman-Robertson tax on firearms and ammunition, is staggering yet this dynamic is similar to that innocuous little sign; few know about and the antis don’t care. Perhaps such modesty by America’s hunting community is why so few outdoor writers extol the vast virtues of hunter-funded wildlife management that benefits the entire public. The same is true of fishermen contributions to conservation and water quality management via license, permits and the Dingle-Johnson, tax on fishing equipment.

This is a story begging to be told and the facts and figures are available with a phone call or a Google search.

(Back to the radio show debate) - Our intense (on-air) conversation continued uninterrupted, for twenty minutes until the show’s host was forced to call a halt to fulfill commercial responsibilities. He did so with the exclamation; “Wow!” “This has been one very informative program.” “We’ve all learned a lot about wildlife and sport hunting today.”

The most illustrative point of the entire conversation was the exceptional benefits of sport hunting to all manner or wildlife via hunter funding. Secondary was the revelation that anti-hunting organizations, such as the one that Heidi represented, spend their entire wealth of donations to support an emotional appeal, yet provide no actual benefit to the survival wildlife.

How sad it is that Heidi had no answer to questions such as: How many acres of wildlife habitat has your organization purchased and set aside for wildlife? How many wildlife food plots, cover strips, brush piles, tree plantings, forest edge enhancement cuts, and more, have you provided for wildlife? How many wildlife nesting structures such as wood duck, bluebird, wren, kestrel, bat, and barn owl boxes have you built or purchased and placed for wildlife?

Quite interestingly, Pennsylvania’s Game Code mandates that $4.25 from each resident and nonresident license sold and a minimum of $2.00 from each antlerless deer license issued must be used for wildlife habitat improvement, development, maintenance, protection and restoration conducive to increasing the natural propagation of game and non-game wildlife. Similar funding streams exist in most states and it is reasonable to believe that Heidi and her ilk know this but, they don’t care. Hunters care.

What she does know with absolutely certainty is her audience, and it is not hunters and fishermen. It is the non-hunting, non-fishing public whose ears and minds are fertile and generally unbiased, ground for the seeds of misinformation. We hunters and fishermen must also understand that reality and target the non-hunting audience with the truth about who truly cares for America’s wildlife, because they care too. They just need to know that hunters and fishermen care enough to put their money where their mouth is.

We must tell our story of funding America’s rich wildlife conservation heritage to the world outside of our fraternities and we must demand that our wildlife and fisheries management agencies join the chorus. We have sung to the choir for much too long.

America’s hunters and fishermen don’t limit their financial support of natural resource conservation to mandatory license fees and self imposed taxes, but provide additional support through membership in specialized wildlife organizations such as the Ruffed Grouse Society, the National Wild Turkey Federation, and Ducks Unlimited, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, Trout Unlimited, Pheasants Forever and others.

Our radio conversation ended with an admonition that the best thing that Heidi and her fellow anti-hunters can do to benefit wildlife is to purchase hunting and fishing licenses. And they can further prove their care and concern for wildlife by purchasing guns and ammo and paying the wildlife-habitat- improvement-targeted, Pitman-Robertson Fund, (PR), taxes on such items.

This fund is generated at the point of sale and distributed to the states in proportion to the number of hunting licenses sold in the state annually. Pennsylvania is commonly in the top three states in license sales, and as such, garners a major share of these taxes. During the fiscal year of 2008-2009, this wildlife restoration grant returned the largest amount ever to Pennsylvania: $12,236,088.

That notable increase reflected the public’s apprehension of a pervasive political uncertainty of the right to keep and bear arms. How very fitting that thinly veiled, but real threats to our Constitutional Rights act to benefit wildlife through hunters.

All across America, outdoorsmen and women will notice signs, posted on certain public lands, noting that they were purchased with Pitman-Robertson Fund monies. Wildlife habitat management on these lands is also funded, to some degree, by PR Fund monies.

In my local area, a 600 plus acre scrub oak improvement on a state game land is attracting wildlife to feast upon its, now more accessible, wealth of scrub oak mast. It’s attracting hunters too. On the opening day of the recent deer season, one of the best bucks ever taken in the county was bagged in the vicinity of the regenerated scrub oak thicket.

One of this project’s publicized key goals is improving habitat conditions for Golden-winged Warblers; not a single hunter has complained. Quite the contrary, we are proud to be a vitally important part of habitat improvement projects that are costly, but yield priceless returns in wildlife health and abundance. America’s vast wildlife wealth; from salamanders and songbirds to rabbits, squirrels, deer, bear and wild turkeys is encouraged, enhanced and cared for by hunters and fishermen, generously and without complaint.

So who really cares about wildlife? If you’re a hunter, trapper and or fisherman, pat yourself on the back. You truly care and you prove it by generously funding wildlife management that benefits a myriad of game and non-game wildlife species that can be enjoyed by all Americans. Be proud of your wildlife stewardship and tell your non-hunting friends about it.

Thank you, fellow hunters.

Biz Tip Provided by Tim Flanigan, Freelance Writer, Photographer, Speaker ~ Owner Nature Exposure