Great Job Brickburn!, very well written.
will you be sending that to Animal Justice adn the hotels once it is finished.
Here is my letter that will be going to Animal Justice and OFAH.
please use any parts you would like in your letter
This response is to give your organization a different perspective on how man affects the world and how hunting plays an important part in the role of wildlife management and conservation. Man controls and changes every part of the world we live in, both positively and negatively. We use the land: building cities and communities, development of all industries (oil & gas, forestry, etc) and primarily for agriculture to feed the world’s populations. We use the rivers, lakes and oceans: build dams for electrical power, irrigation for agriculture, drain wetlands and build levies for land use (New Orleans), and to provide seafood and fish as a food source. We use the earth’s air: to sustain all life forms, to travel vast distances quickly via transportation, and lastly to absorb all pollution from our industries and automobiles. Man has his fingerprint on all aspects of the world and we affect and control everything. With how the world is now, nature cannot adapt with all plants and animals living in equilibrium and balance because man makes too many continual changes to the environment, due to our ever expanding population.
First off, hunting is a vital part of man’s control of the environment and its inhabitants. Almost every country in the world, sees wildlife as a resource that requires management. That is why there are hunting regulations and harvest limits to control and utilize this resource effectively. There are millions of dollars spent on setting these regulations and enforcement. All ethical hunters abide by these rules willingly to ensure this valuable resource is sustained and maintained for future generations. I am an ethical hunter and I am proud of that fact. As a conservationist, I do my part to control animal populations, which involves hunting as an important tool. I value and respect the animals I hunt and harvest. This value has me spend countless volunteer hours and tens of thousands of dollars to conserve wildlife and their habitats. I have belonged to a number of conservation organizations that consist primarily of avid hunters and fishermen (+95%). History has proof that hunters belonging to conservation groups have been instrumental in bringing back wildlife from the brink of extinction in many cases. Because hunters value the sport of hunting, we put our efforts and money to protect that resource. It is a resource to use for recreation and subsistence.
Facts documented by the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation in the USA.
Why Hunting is Conservation!
1: In 1907, only 41,000 elk remained in North America. Thanks to the money and hard work invested by hunters to restore and conserve habitat, today there are more than 1 million.
2 : In 1900, only 500,000 whitetails remained. Thanks to conservation work spearheaded by hunters, today there are more than 32 million.
3 : In 1900, only 100,000 wild turkeys remained, today there are over 7 million. 4 : In 1901, few ducks remained. Thanks to hunters’ efforts to restore and conserve wetlands, today there are more than 44 million.
5 : In 1950, only 12,000 pronghorn remained. Today there are more than 1.1 million.
6 : Habitat, research and wildlife law enforcement work, all paid for by hunters, help countless non-hunted species.
7 : Through state licenses and fees, hunters pay $796 million a year for conservation programs.*
8 : Through donations to groups like RMEF, hunters add $440 million a year to conservation efforts.*
9 : In 1937, hunters actually requested an 11% tax on guns, ammo, bows and arrows to help fund conservation. That tax, so far, raised more than $8 billion for wildlife conservation.*
10 : An 11% tax on guns, ammo, bows and arrows generates $371 million a year for conservation.*
11 : All together, hunters pay more than $1.6 billion a year for conservation programs. 12 : As taxpayers, hunters also fund the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Forest Service, etc.
13 : Hunting funds conservation & the economy, generating $38 billion a year in retail spending.
14 : Hunting supports 680,000 jobs, from game wardens to waitresses, biologists to motel clerks.*
15 : Hunters are the fuel behind RMEF and its 6.6 million-plus acres of habitat conservation. More than 95 percent of our 205,000 members are passionate hunters.
16 : A wildlife management tool, hunting helps balance wildlife populations with what the land can support, limits crop damage and curtails disease outbreaks..
17 : Hunting has major value for highway safety. For every deer hit by a motorist, hunters take six. Deer collisions kill 200 motorists and cost $10 million a year.
18 : Hunters provide for conservation—and for their families. Hunting is a healthy way to connect with nature and eat the world’s most organic, lean, free-range meat.
19 : Avid hunter Theodore Roosevelt created our national forests and grasslands and forever protected 230 million acres for wildlife and the public to use and enjoy.
20 : With funding from hunters, RMEF helped restore wild elk herds in six states and provinces.
Imagine for a moment that there was no hunting allowed any where. What would happen to the game numbers, for example: whitetails in the eastern states, the population would explode creating an over abundance of animals that would eventually lead to disease and starvation for the majority. Farmers would be shooting the animals and leaving them to rot because the over population is totally wrecking the crops. Poaching would increase 1000 fold as hunting would not be regulated. Now, a once valuable resource is wasted with animals dying needlessly by the tens of thousands. Traffic accidents and death to animals and humans would definitely rise.
Not a great picture or a wise use of an important, renewable and viable resource.
I was just in Namibia on a bow hunting trip. The land in the NW part of the country is a harsh land with its only use for cattle farming and hunting. If no animals were harvested to control the numbers, with the drought currently going on in that country, there would be countless animals dying of thirst and starvation, again a total devastation of the populations. All animals I hunted were totally used for subsistence for the local population, the outfitter and myself. If these animals were not legally harvested through controlled hunting, the poaching of the animals would be rampant as all people of the area would be killing for a source of food (or money for selling of the meat, as poaching is still a problem happening today).
I hunt because I want to eat wild meat and not store bought meat. That is my choice and I have the right to it. I butcher my own animals and I use all of the animal, from the wild meat, to all the bones and meat scraps for my 2 dogs (from the SPCA). I get the hides tanned into leather to use in my home for furniture and for my hobbies. I am very proud of the fact that I make total use of the animals I hunt.
In Alberta, in 2014, there were over 15,500 elk and moose harvested, with an average of 300 lbs of meat, that is over 4,500,000 lbs of meat that was used for prized dinner fare for countless families.
A lot of areas in the US and Canada have food banks where wild meat can be donated for needy families. Another valuable use of the resource.
I hope you can see my view on the valuable and important side to hunting
and how it is definitely NOT
“cruel and senseless slaughter of majestic animals”,
“brutally kill countless endangered and threatened animals”,
how your organization perceives, describes and distorts it.
