Hunting And Trapping

Trenton Republican-Times ^ | January 15, 2009 | Jeff Berti

[jazusamo]

In a world where any type of food you can imagine is just a trip to the grocery store away and where much of what we eat comes from factories or corporate farms, you might think of hunting and trapping as unnecessary. You couldn't be more wrong. While hunting and trapping no longer are the only means of putting food on the table, they are indispensable for helping humans and animals coexist.

With ever-expanding city boundaries and growing wildlife populations, hunting and trapping are the only practical means of managing conflicts between people and wildlife. Americans in several states have learned that lesson the hard way following enactment of laws to ban trapping and/or hunting.

In Massachusetts, a ban on trapping led to increases in the number of coyotes, which contributed to a tragic attack on a small child in 1998. Some residents of the Denver, Colorado suburb of Greenwood Village are being stalked by coyotes and losing pets to the predators because voters prohibited the use of leg-hold traps in that area.

Fortunately in Missouri we don’t have the wildlife nuisance problems other states are having because we use scientific-based, lethal methods for managing wildlife. In many of the states experiencing problems, trapping or hunting bans were passed based on emotional appeals from animal-rights groups. These groups don't care about the problems they can cause, and they don't have to take responsibility for the cost of their actions. The Missouri Department of Conservation does.

The goal of responsible wildlife management is to maintain a balance between people and animals. Wildlife professionals are constantly researching ways to control wildlife populations while ensuring their survival. Without fail, that research finds hunting and trapping are the most effective methods for keeping animal populations in check.

A recent study by Utah State University found that approaches suggested by animal-rights groups, such as animal contraception, trap-and-relocate programs and "letting nature take its course" are not effective and are not a practical means of addressing animal overpopulation problems.

The approach of doing nothing to manage wildlife can result in unexpected and serious problems. If allowed to grow out of control, an animal population can threaten the health of other species by destroying shared habitat and increasing the risk of disease transmission.

While animal contraception is promising for a few species, it does not address all problems. The costs of such programs for widely dispersed wildlife populations are astonishing, requiring millions of dollars. Contraception creates ecological risks, too. Contraceptive vaccines can cause long-term genetic and physiological problems for wildlife populations.

Relocation has also proven cost prohibitive for most species. Even if it is well funded, relocation usually fails to control wildlife numbers. This is due to the tendency for animals from outside the area to move in and replace the animals that have been removed. In many cases the relocated animals return to their original homes within days.

Relocation simply moves the problem, rather than solving it. Although relocation is an appealing idea for people who don't want to see wildlife harmed, injury usually occurs anyway. The stress of being handled and released in strange surroundings often proves fatal. If the relocated animals survive, they face competition with resident wildlife for food and territory. Relocation also creates the potential for spreading disease and disrupting the ecological balance of the area.

The Utah State University study found that without hunting and trapping several animal populations could more than double in ten years. It is estimated that without hunting, the whitetail deer population in the Midwest would increase by 350 percent. With the frequency of deer-automobile accidents already high in many areas, and complaints of deer related property damage on the rise, it seems unlikely that such a population increase would be acceptable to most citizens. In contrast to non-lethal methods of controlling wildlife populations, hunting and trapping are efficient and cost-effective. Hunters and trappers pay for the privilege to participate in these activities through the purchase of licenses. Those fees, in turn, pay for wildlife research and management programs.

Humans have altered the ecology of the land and several wildlife species do not have any natural predators. People created this situation, not nature, and we have to take responsibility for it. People tend to have this belief that nature will take care of itself, and natural systems will allow predator-prey relationships to balance out. But the bottom line is, we don't have any natural systems anymore . . . people are a part of all our ecosystems, and we have to manage wildlife with people's needs in mind, too.

[Flycatcher]

There are many conservative environmentalists,

I agree with you. But unfortunately, the word "environmentalist" doesn't mean what it used to. It's been co-opted by the Left by the Green agenda, which is nothing more than thinly disguised socialism.

I prefer to use the phrase "old-school conservationist." (See my Post # 13)

And, yes, I'm a proud old-school conservationist.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

I hunt and fish. Nearly everyone I know hunts & fishes. We take what we NEED and USE what we take.

And we never, EVER soil our own nests. :)

[CrappieLuck]

I always chuckle when I see “HUnting and fishing is no longer a means to put food on the table”.

I just finished up 30 lbs of WIld boar Bratwurst, Sweet Italian sausage and breakfast sausage and I still have 40 lbs of venison to get packaged for freezing and donation to our church.

Hunting and saves my family about 400 lbs of store bought meat per year not counting what we consume in fish.

I would guess our $$ savings to be over $1,000 per year if you add in the garden