From: robinson@ac.dal.ca
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals
Subject: Re: Closure on Sport Hunting.
Date: 21 Jul 92 15:00:51 -0300
Organization: Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

In article <1992Jul20.170659.11775@clpd.kodak.com>, black@che.serum.kodak.com (Robert Black (x37236)) writes:
> In article <1992Jul15.155857.6524@ac.dal.ca> robinson@ac.dal.ca writes:
> 
> [...]
> 
>>Objectivity, or its lack, has little to do with facts.  Facts have a nasty 
>>habit of just existing, with complete disregard for bias.  
> 
> You should have stopped here while you were on a roll.
> 
>>Actually, it is a miracle that they managed to rebound from a miniscule 
>>500,000 around the turn of the century.  This would have been virtually 
>>impossible without the advent of sport hunting and the revenue stream it 
>>creates.
> 
> "Miracle?" "Virtually impossible?" You'll have to provide some support
> for such sweeping claims. 

Well, I consider such a low population as being on the verge of extinction, 
especially when one realizes that market hunters, not sport hunters, were 
actively shooting as many deer as they could bring to market.  That this 
was stopped, and a method was found to satisfy both our desire for venison 
and our desire to have a large sustainable deer population is, given the 
historical rapacity of the human species, a miracle in my book.  I consider 
it a miracle that they didn't go the way of the buffalo, or worse, the 
passenger pigeon.

> 
> Suppose in 1900, some high percentage of hunters voluntarily agreed to
> stop shooting deer and to support a 10 year moratorium.  Even with the
> ensuing habitat reductions, wouldn't this have brought the deer back
> from the brink of extinction?  Especially in view of the fact that the
> great tree cutdowns were stimulating the growth of browse plants which
> deer thrive on?

Well, lets take a modern parallel.  The Atlantic Salmon sport fishermen 
have voluntarily restrained themselves for quite a number of years now.  
This is having some slight effect on the fish, but truthfully not much.  
Now why is that?  Because the by far the biggest threat to this fish is the 
commercial fishery.  The government just closed the northern cod fishery 
here.  Some say seriously that the cod stocks may never recover.  Fishery 
quotas are set more on the basis of politics and short term economics than 
on the basis of biology.  Until this situation is resolved, neither the cod 
or the salmon will fully recover.

> 
> For a short account of how early 20th century hunters fought against
> even minimal sensible restrictions and had to dragged kicking and
> screaming into cooperation, see THE ENDANGERED KINGDOM by Roger
> DiSilvestro, former official in the Audubon Society. 

I've not read this book, but it has always been my understanding that what 
ultimately salvaged the whitetail population was the elimination of market 
hunting and the close supervision of sport hunting by wildlife biologists.
> 
>>It would be a miracle if every Animal Rights Fanatic (ARF) would cough up 
>>an average of $60.00 per year 
> 
> Please stop!  Desist with these inanities!  Are you trying to wipe out
> the AR movement by inducing uncontrollable laughter until cardiac arrest
> sets in? :-)

Actually, I'd not be happy to see it disapear entirely.....

> 
> Let's do some simple arithmetic.  $60 per year is $1.15 per week.  If
> these people are "Fanatics", do you really think they wouldn't be
> willing cough up much more than this paltry sum? And if they aren't
> willing to fork over $1.15 per week, can they really be classified as
> fanatics?

Perhaps I should elucidate further.  Where, exactly, does the money go?  
Money from the purchases of guns, ammunition, and other hunting gear goes 
directly into the management of wildlife.  I suspect that much of the money 
spent by ARFs goes directly into organizations that advocate animal rights 
and gets spent in ways which most directly benefit said organizations, not 
in ways that have a direct and immediate impact on the animals themselves.  
I wouldn't be at all surprised to discover that the amount of money spent 
by ARFs, on average, which actually reaches wildlife in some tangible form 
is far far less than $60.00/person/year.  I doubt even more strongly that 
it is as consistent, predictable and sustainable as monies spent by 
hunters.

All of that notwithstanding, the amount of money one spends is not what 
dictates fanaticism.  Fanaticism is a mindset.

> 
> In your Bash Animal Rightists Fanaticism (BARF), you're losing all
> objectivity, which is the very quality that you started out lecturing us
> on. 

Perhaps I do lose my objectivity sometimes.  I feel that hunting is an 
effective and workable system of wildlife management, and I further feel 
that the evidence of the last 92 years, simply the numbers uncooked and 
unmassaged, indicate that.  And I feel that while the population at large 
has treated the environment with what can most charatibly be described as 
indifference, hunters have been actively supporting wildlife and wildlife 
populations.  Thus, when I see people suggesting that we dismantle this 
apparatus, I get upset.

I think there is a place in this world for ARFs, but I don't think it is in 
attempting to destroy a system that is working quite well to preserve not 
only the game animals, but their habitat and consequently many of the other 
animals that live there.
> 
> [...]
> 
>>-- 
>>John Robinson                  Only criminals, tyrants, and cowards have
>>robinson@ac.dal.ca                 reason to fear the armed, honest citizen.
>>DOD #0069
> 
> ---
> Robert Black 
> black@serum.kodak.com  - The ONLY email address that MIGHT work.
> These views are not necessarily the views of my employers.
> 
-- 
John Robinson                  Only criminals, tyrants, and cowards have
robinson@ac.dal.ca                 reason to fear the armed, honest citizen.
DOD #0069
Newsgroups: talk.politics.animals