Free Republic

I’m ready to make a lot of you mad, and I’m ok with that…. I’m not against hunting, it helps control animal populations that otherwise would grow too large and starve a lot of them. It also feeds people. I’m not even really “against” what I’m going to talk about here, I’m just saying that I simply do not get it. I’m talking about trophy hunting. I get that in a lot of cases trophy hunting helps support the animals and keeps populations alive – an animal that provides incomes to tribes and/or governments will be protected and less likely...

Radical environmentalist groups that actively back Democrats have hunting in their crosshairs. And unsurprisingly, they’re exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic to target this pastime. The Center for Biological Diversity and Natural Resources Defense Council, two organizations who’ve made suing the government a cottage industry, are directly petitioning the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to undermine wildlife management practices, including hunting, here in the U.S. If accepted by the government, they’ll undermine the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation that’s allowed our nation to successfully recover imperiled species and restore critical habitat. Here’s...

It’s time for the Commonwealth of Virginia, my adopted home state, to repeal antiquated blue laws prohibiting public land hunting on Sundays. Not only are they outdated, they go against the very principles inset in the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation. One of its seven principles, the democracy of hunting, stipulates the government must allocate “access to wildlife without regard for wealth, prestige, or land ownership.” The Virginia General Assembly will convene on January 13th for the 2021 legislative session to deliberate, among many bills, House Bill 1799 to undo these prohibitions.Lawmakers will have until February 27th to advance...

The water is open. What are you waiting for? It’s time to go fishing and boating. The sound of water induces relaxation and makes one feel at ease. Studies also show adopting a “blue mind” state of mind through activities like boating and fishing—a theory popularized by marine biologist and bestselling author Dr. Wallace H. Nichols—rests our brains and appeals to our senses while enabling awe, wonder and happiness. It greatly contrasts the “red mind”—or today’s “anxious, over-connected and over-stimulated state” world.Being on a boat, for instance, resets the human brain, is meditative, awe-inspiring, inspires creativity, and directly appeals to...

President Trump signed a bipartisan bill on Monday that makes certain acts of animal cruelty a federal felony, saying it’s important for the nation to combat “heinous and sadistic acts of cruelty." The Preventing Animal Cruelty and Torture Act (PACT) prohibits extreme acts of cruelty, including intentional crushing, burning, drowning, suffocating, impalement, carried out against "living non-human mammals, birds, reptiles, or amphibians." “Aaaw isn’t this wonderfully heart-warming!” respond some amigos. “Especially as President Trump cited the hero military dog Conan during the signing ceremony!”Perhaps. But let’s look more closely at the issue—especially at some of this legislation’s most fervent sponsors:“The...

“Honey, can you shoot me a bison?” I’ll never forget the summer of 2005, when my gorgeous wife walked into my office, while I was cleaning my guns and talking to my two hunting bros about our next adventure, and asked me to hunt a buffalo. ‘We’d get a freezer full of meat and a bison shoulder mount would look beautiful on our walls,” she said. Let's see… a wife asking her husband, in our paranormal state of aggravated pussification, to go hunting, bank some grub and then have the beast mounted and displayed proudly upon the walls? All I...

“If some animals are good at hunting and others are suitable for hunting, then the Gods must clearly smile on hunting.” - Aristotle Last week the animal right activists went into full doofus mode when the happy huntress, Melissa Bachman, posted pics on Facebook and Twitter of a lion she shot on her recent safari to South Africa. Being the most unhinged bipeds sucking air right now on God’s green earth, the anti-hunting lunatics, in a full-on hissy fit, demanded that Bachman be banned from South Africa for legally hunting a lion and stimulating their needy economy. In addition, they...

Hunting show hostess Melissa Bachman recently shot a lion in Africa, posted the triumphant picture on Facebook and now ABC (among many other enlightened parties) are all over her. An ABC World News segment shows New York-based Lana Zak petting a tame and cuddly cub on location in a South African zoo, while purring that: “lions like these are beloved in Africa.” Maybe by some of Zak’s yuppie counterparts in places like Capetown and Nairobi. But not by Africans who live among wild ones. Lions are certainly beloved in Hollywood, the Upper East Side, Georgetown, etc. It’s a different story...

My buddy, Green Beret badass Bryan Sikes, shot a massive whitetail buck last week during our South Texas Purple Heart Adventure. He whacked said muy grande with a LaRue Tactical OBR chambered for the glorious .308 Win. round. Oh and BTW, Sikes used a high capacity magazine during this hunt. For those of you who aren’t hip to the LaRue, it is a weapon that progressive darlings say we should not have because we don’t “need” such a weapon for hunting. Hunting, according to these wizards of odd, is what they think our founding fathers had in mind when...

The Southern Ute Tribe is close to re-establishing hunting rights for its 1,300 members on 3.7 million acres in western Colorado - in accordance with an 1874 federal treaty. The tribe and the Colorado Division of Wildlife are discussing an agreement that would determine when tribal members could hunt game in parts of nine counties and four national forests, an area defined under the 1874 Brunot Treaty... The agreement included a provision allowing the tribes to hunt in the area "as long as the grass grew." Since then, the tribes' two reservations have shrunk by many more millions of acres...

Animal rights terrorists have won a battle in New York, and all it took was a few gallons of paint and a little trespassing. On the evening of November 15th, according to a press release from the Animal Liberation Front, these thugs went to the home of Lloyd Harbor mayor Leland Hairr. They painted anti-hunting slogans across the home, gained access to the garage (the Animal Liberation Front says the garage door was open), and painted more anti-hunting slogans on both cars. Then they put a statement on the internet containing the mayor’s address and home phone number, adding, “His...

No one would argue that a well-trained hunter is a safer hunter. Yet, a rural county in Virginia seeks to prevent Orion Sporting Group, LLC. from encouraging safety practices prior to legally sanctioned hunts at its 450-acre hunting preserve. The Nelson County government has filed a legal injunction against basic firearms safety in an effort to stop safety warm-up practice before hunters conduct actual upland game bird hunts. "Orion's safe hunting practices are not against the law anywhere in America," said Orion Estate Managing Director Morris Peterson...

State Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) commissioner Bradley Campbell made it clear earlier this year that he was against a black bear hunt in New Jersey in 2004. The problem he faced was that rules and regulations regarding hunting and fishing are legally within the realm of the independent state Fish and Game Council. And, despite Campbell's opposition, the Fish and Game Council included a second bear hunt in its new game code. The code says would-be bear hunters need to submit their applications for a permit by Sept. 30.

Proposed amendment passes easily The Senate on Monday easily approved a change to the state constitution that would protect the tradition of hunting and fishing. Senate President Pro Tem Eric Johnson (R-Savannah), the amendment's author, said hunters and anglers are worried that "activist judges and increased urbanization" could take away their rights. "You may not think this is a big threat, and neither was the right to bear arms 200 years ago," Johnson said. "There is a growing anti-hunting and anti-gun group out there. That's why I think we need to do it now before they get stronger." Johnson said...