"...allowing novice adults to try hunting without a license, shortening safety courses, and, in Oregon, instituting a Mentored Youth Hunter Program".

This is absurd...there are likely a number of reasons people are shying away from this blood-thirsty "sport"...it's BEYOND unnecessary and makes most people cringe at the thought.

There are a multitude of contributions to conservation made by camera-hunting paraphernalia, camping/permitting/admission fees, conservation group land acquisitions and private donors.

To entice people to this egregious activity by shortening safety courses and targeting children is shameful and dangerous, to say the least.

Supposedly, Chaney had whatever required training and managed to shoot his friend (not to mention countless others that have succumbed to friendly-fire or accidents...) - do we really want INTENTIONALLY uneducated gun-toting people running through the sparsely-located and ever-shrinking wild lands?  No....i'm thinking not so much.

Hunting's not necessary for human survival and wildlife suffer enough of our (in)actions...we're driving them to extinction with habitat loss and pollution..sharp-shooting one-by-one shouldn't be included to the mix....

The above comment by nikki illustrates the very unfortunate gap between hunters and the traditional environmentalist crew.  Both of these groups want to see our wild places and natural resources protected, but unfortunately, due to old stigmas, the hunters don't want to hang out with the "leftist hippies", and environmentalists refuse to be in the same room as "those blood thirsty savages".

I myself, am both - and it saddens me deeply that these two groups can never seem to come together.  I'm pretty sure i do at least as much as the average enviro (if not way more) - drive biodiesel, recycle and compost everything, use all natural products, no plastics in my house, my business is a member of 1% For The Planet, etc, etc ,etc.  And guess what?  Once a year I take out my wooden bow and stone-point arrows and I shoot a deer or two to fill my freezer for the winter.

Humans have been hunting since forever and as long as it is done responsibly, hunting is GOOD THING for the environment.  Population control people.  If only we could control human population as well as we control deer population, we would be in a heck of a lot better shape than we are right now.  The day that Fish & Game tells me that populations are too low and tag limits have been reduced, I'll put my bow away.  But until then, I know I am not doing anything wrong.

Pick a better battle- we are not driving these animals to extinction.  In fact, I would assume that the over-population of most ungulates in North America is a larger environmental threat that the hunting of them.

..oh yes, and unless you are vegan, if you are anti-hunting, you are a complete hypocrite.  Know where your food comes from.

None of these do anything for habitat conservation on state lands. I'm not sure that the first does anything but create a profit for camera-makers. Second does nothing for habitat, and only for maintenance of campgrounds and trails and police protection. Second may do something, but nothing for the state and fed lands. The last one may do something, but generally there are no donations to states or feds, and usually for the likes of NRDC or defenders of wildlife, who do little besides paying lawyers for protracted legal battles further tying up government funds. I guess those NPGs do some positive things, but oftentimes they are not based on scientifically supported basis.

Hunters pay for habitats. And control deer populations, which are definitely out of control in the Northeast.

I have been a vegetarian for the past 20 years because of my dislike for factory farms, but I would make an exception for hunted game when my friends who were hunters offered it to me (alas, I live in the city now and have no such friends any longer, not close enough for a BBQ anyway.) I knew these men (and one woman) well enough to know that their ethic of sportsmanship was strong. They truly loved the woods.

I think the trend described above is very sad, reflecting the indoor-ization of American culture.  In my opinion, anything that gets people to 1) go outdoors 2) shut the hell up for significant periods of time and 3) pay attention to their surroundings will help educate people to fight for the preservation of the woods and marshes.  (Dick Cheney is, as in so many other ways, a tragic exception.)

So you can mark me down as a nearly lifelong vegetarian who supports hunting.  

It is also true that Aldo Leopold, as well as Teddy Roosevelt were both hunters, as well as environment enthusiasts.  I recall upon the passage of Aldo's message in Sand County Almanac, that he had an epiphany about the lives of predators while looking into the dying eyes of a female wolf, and realizing the wrongness of her death - that there's a level of respect that she and other wild animals deserve.

It is true that deer populations grow seemingly without bounds when there aren't natural predators around...apparently, so do humans - - let's point fingers as to who's more destructive.

I agree, people across the board are far removed from nature - - and this needs to change.  Our cultures "values" are manifesting themselves in continued destruction of said "nature".  What harm would come from a gentler and more compassion approach to interacting with nature?  None - for all involved.

Don't get me wrong, I hunt myself, however, I unlike the hundreds of hunters in the woods near my home have respect for the land. They always say that there are more good hunters than bad, but I have a hard time believing that now. These idiots leave their garbage lying around, couldn't shoot the broadside of a barn and will wound but not pursue an animal (probably because it would recquire them to get out of their truck and walk) and drive like a bat out of hell on roads not meant to be driven on that fast.

I live in a residential town with children and pets running around, but they don't respect that and drive like they own the land. My husband and I are volunteer firefighters and my husband spent over a hundred hours on the Meriwether Fire that made national news, but these people wouldn't do something like that, they rape the land and take what they want and give nothing back.

If I had my way there would need to be a marksmen's and IQ test before they issue a license in Montana. I shudder to think how things would turn out providing "free" licenses to unexperienced hunters. I'll probably end up with my dog and my windows shot out!

"For as long as space endures, and for as long as living beings remain, until then may I too abide, to dispel the misery of the world." - Shantideva

Marylou Noble

Marylou Noble

Subsistence hunting as practised by indigenous peoples, such as the caribou-hunting Gwich'in, has to be evaluated differently, however.  We are given to understand that within their traditions they have thought deeply, and not without remorse, about the grave cosmic and ethical significance of hunting.

That is not to say that Native Americans can always automatically be absolved.  The renegade Makah whalers who made a disgracefully botched and futile kill a couple of months ago clearly were not respecting any tribal wisdom, or showing much thoughtfulness of any kind at all.  But far stranger and more disturbing, the otherwise admirable Hopi of Arizona, whose renowned annual dance with rattlesnakes is a glorious instance of humaneness and interspecific concord, also have the practise of capturing golden eagle chicks, and raising them in cages on the roofs of their homes, exposed to the hot desert sun.  I observed this at Oraibi, on Third Mesa; but for some religious reason, the Hopi do not want anyone even so much as to look at the captured eagles.  Eventually the eagles are sacrificed.

Hunters such as CliffHodges, who kill only one or two animals a year, and who intend the bodies of those animals to be a food source, should similarly not be simply categorized with the Dick Cheney type.

In the case of CliffHodges, the arrogant Bestimmtheit and unflappable certitude of "hunting is [a] GOOD THING for the environment ... I know I am not doing anything wrong," is not at all like the attitude of constant thoughtfulness and regret of Aldo Leopold (to which Nikki refers), and wise environmentalists like him who have at one time or another hunted.

Also, CliffHodges' use of a bow and arrows does not seem likely to minimize the suffering of the victim.  But certainly the unconstrained life of that animal, prior to its fatal encounter with CH, was far better than the lives of countless animals kept captive by the meat industry.  And CH is absolutely right to urge us non-vegans to consider where our food comes from.  And Eriqa would probably agree with that.

So while I am not sure I can go quite so far as Eriqa, and simply say that I "support hunting," CH is right to deplore the "unfortunate gap" that exists between hunters and environmentalists, some environmentalists at least, by no means all.  We who are interested in animal welfare and promote animal rights must try to understand the historical and sociological circumstances that have kept so many from embracing that cause, so far.

As for the subject of the "In the News" story, from a couple of weeks ago:  Hunters and fishers are certainly not the only ones to benefit from the conservation of wildlife and habitat; that is a responsibility of all society, and so should not depend on the fees paid by the hook-and-bullet crowd, as though they are the owners of the wilderness.

Also, Meadow20 makes some very good observations on the effectiveness of how conservation funds are put to use.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

The program was administered by the Southwest Wisconsin Community Action Program in Dodgeville, WI, and the Community Action Coalition for South Central Wisconsin, Inc in Madison, WI. The Wisconsin DNR provided some funding, but hunters paid $20 for the privilege of donating each deer, a total of over $10,000, to cover costs of testing the venison for safety and distributing the meat.

So, hunters reduced the population of deer, which are over-browsing native vegetation, and paid to help distribute over 24,000 pounds of venison to food pantries. [Bunch of communists!!!]

Information from The Mount Horeb Mail, Thursday, January 24, 2008.

Most "environmentalists" probably never imagined that conservative rural yahoos actually care about the environment and might want to ensure that people they've never met don't starve to death, eh?

Caring for our environment can help feed people.

Are there similar programs in other areas?