License to Kill

G

Gautier

Joined
Aug 31, 2006
Messages
461
Well, now that I've got your attention, let me first make the disclaimer that, due to my good buddy Jake Daniel, I'm somewhat inebriated. Bearing that in mind, I'd like to pose a question, a sort of informal poll, that will hopefully spawn some discussion.
Now, as some of you know from my previous posts, a lot of my wilderness posts are slightly less about the wilderness and more about how society at large, and laws affect our "wilderness experience". For those that don't, this is exactly one of those posts and if you don't care to get into semantics and rhetoric and natural law .vs. man's law, responsible harvesting .vs. poaching, and other such controversial subjects, now would be the time to click the X and bow out.
As they say in Hollywood..."On with the show"; My question is a simple one, with complicated answers I'm sure. I know that most of you here are responsible, law abiding adults, but;
Do you believe that the state or federal government has the authority to require fishing and/or hunting licenses? I'm not just talking about in a "survival situation", where all bets are off and you WILL procure food by whatever means necessary and either pay the piper later, or be deemed within your rights, given the extenuating circumstances.
This is something that I've thought about at length, and personally, I don't believe that the government has an inherent right to regulate how a man obtains his food. Yes, I realize that preservation of certain species play a big role in why these laws exist, but if there were fewer sport hunters and more subsistence hunters, would this be a "necessary evil"?
With ever expanding urban and sub-urban areas, I fully understand the reasoning behind such laws. That doesn't make them sit any easier with me. I find it akin to saying that because I choose to eat soy, and so do my neighbors, we will commandeer your livestock's grazing area to grow soybeans.
I'm sure that any of you who have trapped for your own food or hunted for your own food will understand where I'm coming from. The average "Joe Blow" in today's society would likely starve before getting a meal by primitive or less than ideal(read $10 lure and $50 rod/$60-75 trap/$100-1000 rifle) methods of obtaining food.
This was a reality for our forefathers and distant ancestors, the ability to patiently stalk and observe game animals for the purpose of food. The creativity and ingenuity to put meat on the table. Something that has long been forgotten by the majority of the population.
So, then, why is it so imperative that we be monitored and regulated by the law as to what and when we kill for the sake of food?
My personal opinion is that this falls under the constitutional rights of every American citizen. The rights to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness"; Providing food for your family without depending on someone else(e.g. Safeway, Kroger, Wal-Mart, Piggly-Wiggly, etc.) is a RIGHT, without food there is no LIFE and therefore no liberty, or happiness.
I may be wrong, and it wouldn't be the first time, but I don't think I am. I believe that the few, and well-to-do have ruined this RIGHT for the majority, coupled with the government's insatiable need to gain revenue by taxing the citizens on anything they can.
Please, tell me how YOU feel about game regulations, fishing/hunting licensing, poaching, trapping, and all related matters.


Gautier
 
January is a expensive month for me... I have to pay for my spear fishing license (liability insurance... coz we can always shot someone by accident) and my climbing/mountaneering insurance.

As far as I am concerned... the fishing licence is more oriented to keep a record of how many of us do fish here and to make sure anyone who does it has liability insurance. I don't think it is that bad... they are not expensive.

Mikel
 
The money I give to the feds for my licence and tags is suposed to be fed right back into conservation and regulation enforcement.

Im down as long as that happens.
 
Don't know for sure but those regulation exist since middle age and even before. In medieval england, if I remember correctly poaching was a very serious crime.

Reason is "game doesn't belong to anyone", it is easier to get deer than to get a cow: you have to raise a cow, feed it, take care of it for a very long time before you get the meat, while for a deer all you have to do is harvest it. Sure the "harvest" is more complicated, but still easier than take care of a cow for months. That's a huge opportunity for poor people resulting in a rush in the activity that would reduce wild population, particularly if not managed at all. And that was already true in the middle edge.

Now nowadays, with cheap industrial food and few hunters situation might be different, although we don't know what would happen if they deregulated it completly ("industrial" hunting? explosive fishing?...)
 
Much of the revenue from liscencing is used for restockig and conservation of game animals and fish not to mention commercial hunters and fishermen who much of the tie seemed to have little respect or concern for proliferation of the fish and game they take.
Groups like peta appear to do little for actually incresing fish and game numbers.
Liscencing seems to be the only way tokeep things moving in a positive direction. IMHOif there wasn't looking out for fish& game (outdoorsmen) habitat would disappear then the fish and game.
 
I see the commercial fishing and hunting aspect, and contend that the only reason they exist is that people are too lazy and ignorant to harvest their own game. As for the medieval laws, I can't speak to fact as I wasn't there, but I'd wager that poaching was a crime not only for preservation's sake, but so that the "nobles" would have a "prime" stock to hunt. Afterall hunting and sport was primarily a well-to-do past time.
Like I said, I see the side that conservation and preservation plays a role in where the revenue goes, as far as licensing. I'm just not confident that our government is allocating all the funds or excess funds towards that, nor do I appreciate some other man telling me when and how I can provide food for my family.
Yes, if EVERYONE did it, then we would be up the creek without a paddle in a timely manner. How many are capable of a subsistence lifestyle though? Aside from that, it brings to the table the point of global overpopulation, and that we truly are living and unsustainable lifestyle. My grandfather was 1 of 14 children, did all 14 survive, not hardly. Today, with medical care and preventative medicine will the standard "welfare family" producing 14 children live to fruition? Almost certainly.
That kind of irresponsible living and parenting also affects the way wildlife resources are managed, as opposed to livestock.


Gautier
 
I think you answered yourself in your own post. Most people wouldn't be responsible hunters. Could you imagine what sheeple would do to the animal stock if they could go around wildly collecting trophies, and they would. Your food source wouldn't last to long. Your ideas on de-regulation would work if everybody was responsible, sadly they are not.
 
Gautier said:
I'm just not confident that our government is allocating all the funds or excess funds towards that, nor do I appreciate some other man telling me when and how I can provide food for my family.
Yes, if EVERYONE did it, then we would be up the creek without a paddle in a timely manner. Gautier
Click to expand...

There will always be the fight and struggle between laws and our freedoms. I know there's plenty of waste when our Government tries to handle taxes and a licensing fees (I'm in the Military...I've seen plenty of waste!). Now, I do think hunting, fowling and fishing licenses for individuals are a good thing up to a point. This really needs to be kept at the State level, but I've seen them really take care of Wildlife Management Areas and other public hunting areas. Here in Texas, if you don't know someone, you'll be paying a large fee on top of your hunting license as most land is private and leased out for hunting...that, I don't like. Licensing can force many out of hunting...look at Europe. It's priced so high that the majority of Europeans just can't afford it. When that happens, poaching will pick back up, because you are right, a lot of legitimate, law-abiding hunters hunt for food for the family.

Hunting is big business, and that's okay, just don't force the "common" guys/gals out of hunting for food or for taking their son or daughter on their first hunt without having to take out a second mortgage loan.

It shouldn't be a license to kill, but a license to preserve, conserve and manage future hunting for everyone.

ROCK6
 
“I think you answered yourself in your own post. Most people wouldn't be responsible hunters. Could you imagine what sheeple would do to the animal stock if they could go around wildly collecting trophies, and they would. Your food source wouldn't last to long. Your ideas on de-regulation would work if everybody was responsible, sadly they are not.”

Exactly that! And it is a situation that used to haunt me here in England. Even as a child I would go out stealthy armed with a humble air-rifle and take rabbits, squirrels, pigeons, crows and so on. Kinda early sniper school. Get within 40 paces of what you want to kill, and be seen by no person with anything that looks like a rifle on you way out or in. Ah the lament. These creatures are vermin to most but I will get pinched for a clean kill and eat, because there is no such thing as common land, and all these creatures are pwnd by someone...without permission... Ah, the lament went...

But was I glad that the sheeple were restricted, damn right. Every time I heard another miraculous tale of air-rifle power and fantastic marksmanship that would make bell-target shooters blush I was glad. The off the shelf legal [puny 12ft/lbs] that apparently reliably takes foxes at 50yrds in the hands of a nerk that couldn't consistently hit 10 table-tennis balls cleanly at the end of the lawn left me happy he was legally restricted. Then we move through people that can't set snares effectively – people with their silly wire contraptions that catch domestic animals, let alone the mutilated wildlife from these incompetent bastards. And so on, and on.

As we move up the firepower through the shotgun and hover at the popular .270 the “wildly collecting trophies” would surely kick in if every moron was unleashed. It might not have the same gravitas as 'tards mutilating lions on a trophy hunt, but seeing a deer struggling half alive with bolts sticking from it, or badly shot, is no less sickening.

And all this rant before I consider conservation, protected species, and townie scum that couldn't different one species from another.


Dismounting to avoid reader fatigue.

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I may be off-base but I've read that DNR was put in place by the request of sportsmen. Deer were almost wiped out completely by market hunting and the sportsmen didn't want that. Could you imagine everyone going out and shooting deer or anything else for that matter, wherever and whenever they want without regulations ? Wildlife preservation is probably the only place that mankind has conducted himself correctly. Actually, we've almost done it too well. In my state, the deer are becoming a nuisance in some areas. My hunting buddy has permission to hunt a coworkers property. She told him to wipe 'em out. They are tearing up her flowers and bushes. When I met my wife 14 years ago, there were no turkeys around for miles. Now they are everywhere-COOL. Saw a flock down the road Sat. About 10 hens and 10 toms. Yes, PETA and their ilk must be missing some common sense compound in their diet. They never spend money for wildlife restocking or relocation programs.They do manage somehow to hypnotise hollywood actors into becoming spokespeople against fur and meat. Could you imagine the devistation to the economy alone if eating meat was banned? No restuarants, bar-b-que's, hunting ,fishing, meat markets, farmers, cooking T.V. shows, Etc... They don't want animal testing:confused:. Sorry, If my kid gets sick and they need an animal to test some new drug or vaccine, my dog will be the first to go. One of the twisted quotes from some goofball was " a rat is a pig is a dog is a boy". Sorry again, WHACKJOB!! My son is and never will be equal with an animal. Animals have instinct ONLY!
 
Sorry, but it is a necessary evil. There are not enough responsible sportsman out there to be able to hunt or fish without some regulations. There were no regulations at one point, and a lot of fisheries and game animals got nearly whiped out.
 
I have no objection to my fishing license fees going to stocking streams and enforcement.
 
How long do you think the fish and game would last if the population would have to hunt and fish for their meals? We have a deer herd that numbers about 120 in our immediate area. Sustenance hunters would take that out in no time. The 56 to 60 geese and 20-30 mallards on the river here would disappear. The fishing season starts here in late march and continues till ice out. The human population is too big now to be sustained by natural means. One farmer can feed X amount of people. The hunting regulations are to preserve game and maintain a healthy breeding population. If you want to hunt you can get multiple deer by hunting bow, primitive weapons and rifle seasons. You can obtain special permits to take extra deer in high population areas and hunt in other states. I have friends with 5 deer in their freezers. This old argument sounds like it came from the early 1900's when the first fish and game departments were established.
 
When we lived in the country and needed meat we went out and shot it or caught it. If I lived out there now I would do the same thing. However in time when game was scarce we didn't take that species or did so sparingly. At this point there are so many deer that they beg for more hunters to take more and more deer. When all is said and done, if the sportsman's dollars are going where they are supposed to go, I have no problem with it.
 
udtjim said:
However in time when game was scarce we didn't take that species or did so sparingly. At this point there are so many deer that they beg for more hunters to take more and more deer.
Click to expand...
It's all about ressource management:
* if left completly free people can quickly extinct some species, that's particularly true with fragile species or species that have some sort of value (fur, medecine...)
* on the other hand, people have disabled most of traditionnal predators (wolves, etc...) because they could on occasion cause a threat to people, and also because... they were a competition in hunting.
* That would work "fine" as long as people kept hunting, but when hunting slows down, "prey" species population quickly grow (thanks to no predation) with undesirable side effects such as road crashes, or damages on agriculture. Over population can also harm the species has it creates conditions favorable to epidemic diseases in their population.

All in all, that's a subtle balance to maintain.
As for hunting licences, it's not really where the money go. Sure it's important and should be linked to the hunting activity, but the primary mission should be to regulate hunter population.
 
Wow, this is getting deep.

The first thing I will say is that the much of the human race outgrew the resources to support itself on wild food thousands of years ago. Even in ancient Egypt hunting was considered "sport". However, there will always (hopefully) be a portion of humanity that supports itself, at least partially, by hunting and to a lesser extent gathering.

One thing that I just can't get is the hunter who complains about paying for the right/priveledge to harvest game, and then pays to have someone else butcher his kill. When I was a kid my dad almost never hunted, but he processed deer for many hunters that only wanted the trophy and maybe the backstrap. Our family ate quite well on these "castoffs". In my opinion these people have an unhealthy view on the world and their place in it. Nowadays, killing is the easy part and takes very little creativity or ingenuity.

This brings me to the question at hand, does the state (I mean state in the broad sense) have the authority to regulate the harvesting of wild game? Obviously the "authority" does rest with the state, they have the most and biggest guns. The Rights you speak of (life,liberty,pursuit of happiness) are not peculiar to American citizens, but to all "men". Requiring a hunting license is no different than requiring a drivers license, many people would find it very hard to put food on the table if they couldn't drive. Furthermore, to provide food without depending on someone else is practically impossible. Where did you get your gun, ammo or anything else required to harvest and process that wild game? Even the most primitive hunters depended on the cooperation of others to insure a succesfull hunt. And when they returned with that food, they often shared with those who weren't as fortunate.

I think regulation of game harvesting is just another part of living in modern society. It may be uncomfortable at times and some aspects may be countrproductive, but without it things would probably be much worse.

As to animals having ONLY instinct, I once held this belief, but I have come to realize that animals do actually have thoughts and feelings. The PETA people are definately on the lunatic fringe, but as the dominant species we should attempt to minimize the cruelty inflicted upon animals that we depend on for our own welfare and enjoyment.
 
“As to animals having ONLY instinct, I once held this belief, but I have come to realize that animals do actually have thoughts and feelings.”

Yes, that is demonstrably untrue. In many species thought can be seen to mediate between stimulus and response. And feelings are an even older motivator amongst species, although humans tend to only discuss feelings as the tip of the ice-berg bit - that bit they have conscious awareness of and can report.

If a dog sees three bears go into a cave and only watches two come out, yet he is still reluctant to enter, it might be reasonable to infer something about his ability to count too.

Anyway, I digress. Gonna be quite now.
 
When I was 12, my uncle bought my lifetime hunting and fishing license for me. It's so much a part of my life, that I carry it in a little paper sleeve in my wallet. Do I like having to have it? No. Did I like buying one for my son who isn't even old enough to hold a gun? No. But I did it.
 
well, i grew up hunting and i grew up pretty poor - so hunting for me as a child was the difference between having meat on the table or just having spam. and i don't like spam very much.

on opening day of deer season i'd be sitting in my stand and as the first light of dawn appeared - it began. it sounded like the beginning of a war, the hundreds upon hundreds of rifle shots, one after the other of various hunters everywhere opening fire. i would always cringe and try to make myself small, wondering what the realistic probability of a stray bullet finding it's way to me really was. what were they shooting at? i'll never really know but i honestly don't think they were shooting at deer - maybe a few of them but there is no way there just happened to be hundreds of deer within earshot all presenting a clean shot on opening day. i think it simply got light enough and all the idiot hunters that are out there just started shooting at something they thought they saw moving through the brush. it happened every year - the dawn light of opening day always sounded like a war.

the fact is, there are a lot of really idiotic hunters out there. the game laws and regulations serve to offer some protection from all those idiots that don't respect the land. i agree with you that ultimately governments don't have a right to license your right to get food, but as a practical matter the natural world needs to be protected by laws because we don't have a culture that instills the necessary values for people to learn to respect the land. if we did, maybe the laws wouldn't be necessary.

but here's a perhaps more interesting question to ponder.... in Finland, there is something called Everyman's Right: http://www.ymparisto.fi/default.asp?contentid=49256&lan=en

my question is, if you don't think the government has the right to regulate your capacity to procure food, does anyone have that right? does the private property owner have the right to restrict or regulate your capacity to obtain food on their land? if you think the government doesn't have the right to regulate your procurement of food, but a private property owner does, i'd really like to know what you think is different about the two cases.

i think if Everyman's Right was instituted in America, it would be a disaster. A lot of property owners would be constantly picking up beer cans around trashed campfire sites, that's for sure. But Finland must have a culture that instills the necessary values to allow something like Everyman's Right to work. Game laws and regulations are necessary if there aren't the cultural values in place to protect the resources necessary for hunting.

that's my opinion, and i'm sticking to it :)
 
I have no problems with limits and fees.

However, I live in Canada. I would like to see better enforcement. I would also like to see non-racially based limits. I really hate the fact that in this country, your hunting and fishing limits are dependent on your race. What a freakish throwback.


I believe the "fish cops" as we call them should be expanded and more heavily armed, because, sadly, the main problem they have in some places is armed interference from the locals. But mainly I want an end to racial politics.
 
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