Free Republic

Despite a long process involving collaboration between local officials the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in Western Colorado, the federal land agency is proceeding with the closure of roads that have been traveled for 50 or more years. The road closures comprise a portion of the BLM’s Resource Management Plan (RMP) for Mesa County, of which, 73 percent is controlled by the federal government . ... public roads, used by off-roaders, hunters, farmers, ranchers and, during wildfire season, firefighting crews. ... Jody Green, a member of Public Lands Access Association and long-time activist working to preserve access into federally-managed lands,...

Believe it or not, there are some real advantages to hunting with muzzleloading rifles and smoothbores. Those advantages are not found in the ballistics or the rapidity of follow-up shots; the real advantages are found in making a good shot from the beginning and knowing that the hunter will be reticent to take a shot until a good hit can be expected. Those can be real advantages. There are more areas open to hunting this way as well. I’m making this statement in a very general sense, but many areas, sometime entire states, are closed to hunting with high-powered rifles....

Raising Girls to HuntIf you are a hunter and think that merchandisers and marketers are getting girly lately, you would be right. In recent years the fastest growing demographic of hunters are actually huntresses – women who head afield to put food on the table. This is no surprise to myself or those in my hunting camp. We have known for years that there would be a trend towards more women chasing game. Fifteen years ago my hunting partner, Chad Hurst, called one day to announced the birth of he and his wife’s first child, Brittany. Right away I began...

SANKUYO, Botswana — Lions have been coming out of the surrounding bush, prowling around homes and a small health clinic, to snatch goats and donkeys from the heart of this village on the edge of one of Africa’s great inland deltas. Elephants, too, are becoming frequent, unwelcome visitors, gobbling up the beans, maize and watermelons that took farmers months to grow. Since Botswana banned trophy hunting two years ago, remote communities like Sankuyo have been at the mercy of growing numbers of wild animals that are hurting livelihoods and driving terrified villagers into their homes at dusk. The hunting ban...

Jim Bryan III, 75, of Longboat Key, FL, died Sep. 1, 2015 at Arkansas Hospice from complications of pancreatic cancer. He was born in Harrison, AR in 1940 to the late J.W. and Jane Bryan of Bellefonte, AR. He was preceded in death by his son Joey (who died of a brain tumor in 1981 at age ten) and grandparents Witt and Zula Burns Bryan and Noah and Myrtle Eoff Dearing. He is survived by his beloved wife of 52 years, Ann, son Jim, IV and his wife Ann, son Chris and his wife Jennifer, grandchildren Laura and her newlywed...

A woman in Mecklenberg-Western Pomerania survived being accidentally shot in a hunting accident, Gadebusch-Rehnaer Zeitung reported on Friday – because her bra somehow stopped the bullet. The 41-year-old tourist from North Rhine-Westphalia was on a bike ride with her husband when the incident happened. The pair were crossing a field near the town of Gadebusch when they unknowingly entered the path of a boar hunt. Suddenly, the woman felt a pain in her chest. Looking down, she saw that she had been hit by a rebounded shot – but the underwire of her bra had deflected the blow. The woman...

This duck hunting protester in Australia was wading through a duck hunt in order to save hit ducks. She was then accidentally shot in the face. A duck protestor in Australia was wading through a duck hunt attempting to “save” the ducks that were shot down. A shot at a low-flying duck resulted in her accidental shooting. Back in March of 2011, these bold anti-hunters decided to interfere in a duck hunt in Australia. A 14-year-old duck hunter took a shot at a low-flying duck and shotgun pellets hit this anti-hunter in the face. Julia Symons was hit by at...

The Spanish philosopher, Jose Ortega y Gasset, wrote: “One does not hunt in order to kill; on the contrary, one kills in order to have hunted.” For the best among us, hunting is a devotional activity. It is about complete immersion in our humanity; it is about the long trek of evolution; it is the heartbeat of our species; it is our souls, for lack of a better word. But not one of the best hunters among this tribe of sportsmen would continue if we were not also serving conservation and the very animals whom we hunt. Cecil the Lion...

Every once in a while, common sense finds its way onto the pages of The New York Times. That was the case on Monday, when it published a piece on Cecil the lion and trophy hunting of large animals.

Hunting in Africa is big business. The African countries depend on hunters, willing to pay extravagant tag fees to the government and spend many thousands of dollars in the local economy, to fund their conservation efforts that preserve and protect these beautiful animals from poachers and extinction. Earlier this week Delta, United, and American Airlines all announced that they will no longer allow the shipment of hunting trophies on their flights. While the reaction from Americans was one of support, the African governments who actually understand the situation are saying that this PR stunt might be single-handedly responsible for eliminating...

Take cover, Central Florida bears, the Motor City Madman is coming for you. On the first day bear-hunting licenses became available in Florida, rocker Ted Nugent, known for searing guitar riffs and outspoken advocacy for hunting and gun rights, snapped up one to participate in the state's first hunt in more than two decades. He is one of more than 1,100 people who have gotten permits so far, state wildlife authorities said. State wildlife authorities began selling licenses Monday for the first bear hunt in Florida in more than two decades, but not everyone is happy about the bear hunts....

An interesting video about preparing wild rabbit for your dinner plate, from the hunt to the final prepared dish...

I sat back inquisitively, watching in amazement as Howard Meyer of Chipewa Kennels and dog trainer, handled his dogs with utmost patience. “C’mon, Violet, get in, get in here,” Meyer encouraged in a soft voice. Sure enough, Violet waded into the water and got into the canoe on her own. As Meyer began paddling across the small river, two other adult dogs followed, swimming by his side. Two pups, eight-month-old brothers, hesitated at first, but their anticipation mounted the further away Meyer and the other dogs got. “C’mon, hop in … C’mon,” Meyer kept enticing the pups in his calm...

Winston-Salem, N.C. — MY mind was absorbed by the biochemistry of gene editing when the text messages and Facebook posts distracted me. So sorry about Cecil. Did Cecil live near your place in Zimbabwe? Cecil who? I wondered. When I turned on the news and discovered that the messages were about a lion killed by an American dentist, the village boy inside me instinctively cheered: One lion fewer to menace families like mine. My excitement was doused when I realized that the lion killer was being painted as the villain. I faced the starkest cultural contradiction I’d experienced during my...

One Texas teen's hobby is stirring up controversy among animal rights activists by posing with big game she killed in Africa. Here's how KHOU introduced to her: "So 19-year-old Kendall Jones is a cheerleader at Texas Tech and an avid hunter. She's posted a lot of pictures on her Facebook page of the big game she has killed in Africa - everything from lions to elephants." But it doesn't look like Jones has earned herself many fans on Facebook. The first two comments featured when we went to take a look read, "You are contributing to the extinction of beautiful...

Until a few days ago, Dr. Walter Palmer was just a successful dentist from Minnesota who had a passion for trophy hunting; a highly regulated and extremely expensive sport. His most recent hunt took him to Zimbabwe, where he shot a male lion during a hunt with a licensed hunting guide. It was only when word of Palmer’s hunting success spread that the dentist discovered just how quickly and completely the Internet can be used to destroy a person. Overnight, Palmer’s prey, a lion dubbed “Cecil” by local Zimbabweans, became the latest Internet celebrity victim and Palmer the most recent...

AT LEAST five British national newspapers yesterday screamed in front page stories about Cecil, the lion that was killed by an American tourist, Walter Palmer, on July 1 at a game farm in Gwayi Conservancy. The Telegraph, The Guardian, Metro, The Mirror and The Independent — all British heavyweights — ran with the story, condemning Palmer, a dentist from Minnesota, for taking down Cecil after paying $50,000 for the hunt. The lion was also a big news item on Sky News, the BBC and CNN. Many American news outlets, including The New York Times gave Cecil much prominence too. Why...

Walt Disney’s got a lot to answer for.I blame Bambi and all the anthropomorphic drivel that followed, like the Lion King.That unfortunate part of the culture, more than anything else, seems to “inform” the view of nature held by effete urbanites who rarely venture out of doors.So, let me weigh in on the Cecil the Lion controversy.It was just another animal — and the outrage generated by its death is unreasoned, sentimental nonsense.People who claim to “love” animals more than people are emotionally damaged individuals incapable of weathering the difficulty required in a real relationship with something that can talk...

Unless you live under a rock, there is no way in Hades that you have not heard of Cecil the LionÂ’s dreadful demise. Matter of fact, there has been such an international uproar over his killing that Obama is now slated to do the eulogy at CecilÂ’s funeral. ItÂ’s also been reported that Michelle has already contacted CecilÂ’s pride to give them her and Barack's condolences. ItÂ’s true. Tell everyone. Now, before I give you my two cents as a big game hunter on the Cecil situation, right before I sat down to bang out this screed my editor pointed...

Until 2000 Zimbabwe had a successful wildlife-management program, with many big-game animals flourishing. But by 2003, a staggering 80% of the animals that had lived on Zimbabwean safari camps (which employed firm quotas to regulate animal population sizes) had died. By 2007, there were only 14 private game farms in the country, compared with 620 prior to the land seizures of 2000, according to a National Geographic report. With the protection of private game reserves nearly nonexistent, once abundant wildlife began dying off, hunted by desperate farmers with no other options for sustenance. Despite the passing of harsher laws for...