Mark Audino
AH veteran
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2019
- Messages
- 142
- Reaction score
- 650
- Location
- Honeoye Falls, NY USA
- Media
- 89
- Articles
- 3
- Member of
- SCI, DSC, WILD SHEEP FOUNDATION, NRA, GSCO
- Hunted
- C.A.R., Zambia, Zimbabwe, South Africa, Namibia, Tanzania, Benin, Botswana, Cameroon, Mongolia, Turkey, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Argentina, Australia, New Zealand, New Caledonia, Spain, UK, Romania, Mexico, Canadian Provinces, Multiple States in USA
Before the USA's most recent "iron curtain" came down denying imports of legally taken polar bears in Canada, the US Fish & Wildlife Department opened up the pending import ban for public comment. This is a standard 90-day procedure allowing the citizenry at large to express their views and rationale to back them up.
So, as with all such pending US F&W decrees, I wrote a lengthy position paper in support of polar bear imports. Regrettably, when US F&W eventually went forward with the ban, I learned that there were only 150 letters against the ban, and something on the order of 9 million post cards in favor of the ban. This was an organized campaign by anti-hunting groups. Please don't hold me to these numbers because like many things in government, it is hard to secure facts and truths. But suffice to say we lost by an overwhelming order of magnitude. That's the nature and scope of the anti-hunting wall that we have to climb to beat it. You very where know how hunting in Africa is being affected by virtue signalers and politics.
I'll go out on the line and say that we need to get our act together and fight like we are going to lose hunting if we don't. The death by a thousand cuts that we are seeing in Europe mirror what we face in USA. Altitude Sickness was spot on with his comment. Whether it's called racism or neo-colonialism, the US government projects arrogance in overseeing and second-guessing the wildlife departments of other countries. If the biologists in those countries determine there are huntable populations and also implement sound conservation policies, why do we often say, "we know better"? It's embarrassing, egoist, and political. Wildlife suffers. Humanity suffers.
I can tell you a story for a fact. I spoke with the very famous Canadian Arctic outfitter, Fred Webb, the day after the curtain came down on polar bear imports. He sadly reported that one of his longstanding Inuit guides committed suicide, apparently distraught over the prospect of not being able to support his family and carrying on the work he had done for years. True, this may be one of the extreme examples of fallout from policy, but there is carnage everywhere that you only know about if you're in the business, or hunt a lot, or get close to the people on the ground an immerse in their cultures.
I am even saddened by some of our great hunter-conservationist institutions have not integrated their strategies and resources to help hunting and fight unnecessary regulations. Saving hunting is warfare, and the first principle of warfare is the principle of force. We are missing the force of unity. Could it be that each organization wants credit given to them? I can't say for sure. But the better question is, why not rally together and be a greater force for hunting?
So, as with all such pending US F&W decrees, I wrote a lengthy position paper in support of polar bear imports. Regrettably, when US F&W eventually went forward with the ban, I learned that there were only 150 letters against the ban, and something on the order of 9 million post cards in favor of the ban. This was an organized campaign by anti-hunting groups. Please don't hold me to these numbers because like many things in government, it is hard to secure facts and truths. But suffice to say we lost by an overwhelming order of magnitude. That's the nature and scope of the anti-hunting wall that we have to climb to beat it. You very where know how hunting in Africa is being affected by virtue signalers and politics.
I'll go out on the line and say that we need to get our act together and fight like we are going to lose hunting if we don't. The death by a thousand cuts that we are seeing in Europe mirror what we face in USA. Altitude Sickness was spot on with his comment. Whether it's called racism or neo-colonialism, the US government projects arrogance in overseeing and second-guessing the wildlife departments of other countries. If the biologists in those countries determine there are huntable populations and also implement sound conservation policies, why do we often say, "we know better"? It's embarrassing, egoist, and political. Wildlife suffers. Humanity suffers.
I can tell you a story for a fact. I spoke with the very famous Canadian Arctic outfitter, Fred Webb, the day after the curtain came down on polar bear imports. He sadly reported that one of his longstanding Inuit guides committed suicide, apparently distraught over the prospect of not being able to support his family and carrying on the work he had done for years. True, this may be one of the extreme examples of fallout from policy, but there is carnage everywhere that you only know about if you're in the business, or hunt a lot, or get close to the people on the ground an immerse in their cultures.
I am even saddened by some of our great hunter-conservationist institutions have not integrated their strategies and resources to help hunting and fight unnecessary regulations. Saving hunting is warfare, and the first principle of warfare is the principle of force. We are missing the force of unity. Could it be that each organization wants credit given to them? I can't say for sure. But the better question is, why not rally together and be a greater force for hunting?
