Hunting Sense

When you think of defense bills, the hunting of deer and elk aren’t something you’d expect to see discussed in them. That isn’t the case with the 2007 Defense Authorization Act though, as a Navy Times article reveals.

Two herds of deer and elk on Santa Rosa Island are at the center of a controversy between members of the House and Senate. This debate began after Rep. Duncan Hunter used his influence as chairman of the House Armed Services Committee to attach a provision to the defense bill repealing a federal court settlement ordering the deer and elk be removed or exterminated from the island which is a part of the Channel Islands Nature Park. His provision allowed disabled veterans the right to hunt the animals for free.

President Bush signed the bill into law, but now two California Democrat Senators are out to repeal the provision Hunter included. Diane Feinstein and Barbara Boxer have introduced a provision of their own to the 2007 military construction and veterans’ appropriations bills allowing the federal court settlement order to exterminate the deer and elk to be carried out. The House bill doesn’t contain the provision, so the House and Senate appropriation committees will have to decide the fate of the herd through negotiations Hunter will not be a part of.

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I’ve been meaning to do a follow up on the WHA (World Hunting Association), and after a readers comments on the original post, I decided there’s no better time than the present to do it. And guess what, it just so happens ESPN Outdoors has done an article on it recently as well.

Even though David Farbman has tried to make the WHA more appealing to the majority of the hunting community, it’s too little too late. And yes, I know, they’ve switched to a traditional harvest format (yes, it means killing the deer, not darting it), done away with the bounty in favor of a more general point system, and, after the first event, switched to the traditional “fair chase” hunt in open country instead of hunting high fenced ranches. The bottom line for me is that competetive hunting isn’t something I’ll ever be an advocate of.

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Judge Leslie Lewis, who garnered notoriety after a video of her berating a hunter was posted to YouTube, took the week off after Utah voters removed her from the bench in the November 7th elections. Lewis then filed for and was granted a paid administrative leave that allows her to not finish out her term, which ends in January.

This comes after Salt Lake County DA David Yocom said he would ask her to recuse herself from any case involving county attorneys. He feared she may show prejudice toward them since the DA office complained to the Judicial Conduct Committe about Lewis reducing the sentence of a sex offender without notifying prosecutors. Now it is unclear whether the JCC will pursue the investigation over the matter in light of the election results.

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Roger Barnett, an Arizona rancher, was on trial Tuesday for allegedly holding members of two Mexican-American families at gunpoint in 2004.

Roger Barnett, who has a ranch near the Mexican-American border made up partially of state trust land he leases, boasts of detaining more than 10,000 illegal immigrants over the last 10 years. On October 30, 2004, it wasn’t illegals he held at gunpoint though. It was US citizens out for an afternoon hunting trip.

Ronald Morales, a veteran of the United States Navy, and his hunting party, which included two young girls, were held at gunpoint by Barnett and verbally assaulted and threatened. Morales and his group were accused by Barnett of trespassing, but the state trust land he leases is open to hunting by the public. I’d say Barnett let racism and discrimination get the best of him.

What kind of world is it that we live in when a family hunting trip turns into a nightmare at the hands of a self-confessed border vigilante? And all because of the color of your skin and heritage? This shows exactly why the law needs to be handled by people capable of being intelligent instead of idiots.

I imagine this incident has limited the hunting trips made by Morales, which is sad if it did.

hunting, politics, immigrants, vigilante, News

Minnesota Department of Natural Resources has taken notice of the lack of interest in deer hunting by today’s youth and it worries them. They have every right to be worried, just as officials in every other state should be as well. The number of young people who take up the hunting tradition is rapidly falling and the average age of active hunters is rising.

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Hunting season got off to a tragic start in Simcoe County this last Monday when 67 year-old Marianne Schmid was killed by a gunshot wound to the stomach. Fredrick Paul Thomas, 60, has been charged with criminal negligence causing death and careless use of a firearm. Thomas is scheduled to appear in a Bradford court on Dec. 21st.

Following this unfortunate accident, there was some speculation that the Simcoe County Council may move forward earlier than planned with the banning of hunting in some tracts of Simcoe County Forests. The planned ban was adopted by the Council in June of 2006 and will be implemented in 2007. These tracts were chosen based on their close proximity to urban areas and concern over the safety of outdoor enthusiasts, other than hunters, using them.

When I asked about the public reaction to the bans today, County Forester Graeme Davis, R.P.F. answered with:

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This morning CNN reported on a young deer in Michigan with a plastic jack-o’-lantern stuck on it’s snout. The deer hasn’t been able to eat or drink for a few days and officials are trying to determine what action to take to save the young buck.

Like goats, deer will eat or nibble on anything. That is why it’s important not to leave things like candy wrappers or string in the woods. It’s also wise not wise to leave things laying around that they may get stuck on their heads, as is evident by this article. Make sure to leave the woods as you found them, not just for beauties sake, but for the safety of the animals as well.

deer, Halloween, Michigan, news, CNN

With 98.88% of precincts reporting, the Salt Lake Tribune running the story, and it being 3:00 in the morning here as I write this, Judge Leslie Lewis has been made to pay for her mistakes by being removed from the bench. It should be a reminder that no one is above having to answer for their mistakes.

My wife and I watched the results as they came in on the Utah Election Results website all evening. The funny thing is, hunting and politics are low on her list, yet there she was with me, glued to the screen for each update. Why? It’s because the problem with Lewis went far beyond one dealing with only hunting and general politics.

During the evening it was apparent by her numbers that Lewis would likely not be retained as a judge in Utah’s 3rd District. The ‘No’ votes always outnumbered the ‘Yes’ votes and the gap between them only grew as the precincts reporting came in. Her fate was also evident in the drastic difference between Lewis’ numbers and those of her fellow 3rd District judges. While they held steady at an average of 74% ‘Yes’, Judge Lewis’ numbers never dropped below a 50% ‘No’ vote and ended with nearly 55%.

As we watched the results, I found it ironic that there were back to back episodes of Judge Judy playing on TV. Watching the outlandish behavior of the television judge, I had to wonder if maybe Lewis had watched one too many episodes herself. That kind of behavior may garner ratings, but it doesn’t retain seats. Too bad it wasn’t Nielsen ratings though, because maybe she would have won her time period if that had been the case.

As a hunter, I’m satisfied with the outcome. Even better, I’m happy with it as just an ordinary person as well. Justice was served on someone who was suppose to uphold it and had forgotten that somewhere along the way.

Judge Leslie Lewis, courts, election, judge, misconduct, ethics, hunting, vote, election results, morals, Judge Judy, Salt Lake Tribune, Utah, 3rd District

For Utah Judge Leslie Lewis, tomorrow is the day the judge shall be judged.

In a time when judges are seldom removed from their bench, it seems Lewis may have better than average odds of joining the ranks of those few who have been. Falling under very public scrutiny in the last few weeks, the voters in Utah’s 3rd District have more information to base their vote for the judge on and none of it is good. And to add to the recent rash of information on the internet, The Salt Lake Tribune urged readers to vote ‘No’ for her in their November 1st edition.

I wrote about the February incident Lewis was involved in when she had a spectator taken into custody and held in cuffs for 20 minutes for expressing his dislike of her opinion on hunting. I mentioned that it wasn’t the first time she had been in trouble. Judge Lewis is currently being investigated by the Utah Judicial Council and has been on two previous occassions.

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It’s hard to believe there are still states out there that don’t allow Sunday hunting, but there are. In an article published in October in the USA Today, it reports that there are currently eleven states which ban or restrict hunting on Sundays. Eleven of them! What in the world are they thinking?

Many of the laws pertaining to Sunday hunting are what is called “blue laws�? that were meant to restrict working, shopping, drinking, dancing, and other activities and sometimes date back to as early as the 1700’s. What? Yes, you heard me right, the 1700’s. You can’t tell me times haven’t changed enough since then that these laws should be removed.

In most instances, these laws banning or restricting Sunday hunting have religious reasoning behind them. Haven’t we got something called the separation of Church and State? If a person’s beliefs don’t allow them to hunt on Sunday, I respect that. I do have to question it being imposed upon people who don’t share the same beliefs, though. As a nation, we’ve given up so many things because of this separation that to allow the ban on Sunday hunting to continue is just plain wrong.

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Florida Fish & Wildlife Commission says not to expect an open season on alligators in todays Palm Beach Post.

By the number of times I’ve seen alligators being removed from residences in Florida on television, I’d say it was a good bet that they could be reclassified as game animals. The over 8,000 taken by hunters in a controlled hunt this year is a good indication that the gator numbers are good enough that they not be considered a species of special concern. All Florida needs to do to make this happen is remove them from the state’s list of imperiled species.

This year there were 2,155 hunters who were issued permits during the controlled hunt, which was longer than last years by 41 days. Isn’t this proof that there are enough gators to open a season? Instead of the lucky few issued permits getting roughly four gators each, there could have been four times that many allowed one each. The same rules and regulations for the controlled hunts could be used for the open season.

At least the FWC does say that an open season isn’t out of the question, it’s just one or two more years down the road. So Florida sportsmen, it sounds like just a matter of time to be able to hunt gators.

news, Florida, hunting, alligators, gators, seasons, sportsmen, hunters, FWC

Utah 3rd District Judge Leslie Lewis made headlines recently when she had a man taken into custody for disagreeing in her courtroom with her views on hunting.

The incident happened while she was recusing herself from a case against Michael Jacobson in February on a third-degree felony count of wanton destruction of protected wildlife for helping a friend transport a trophy deer he had poached. After giving her reason as being biased against deer hunters, Lewis began questioning Jacobson if he had ever looked at a deer while it was alive and if it bothered him to see its heart beating. When he didn’t reply, she demanded that he answer. At this point, Kent Jacobson, the defendant’s brother, stood up, sighed, and left the courtroom. Lewis ordered a bailiff to go after and escort him back to the courtroom, at which time she began questioning him. While trying to answer her question, she cut him off, saying that he had no right to chastise her. Kent Jacobson was taken to a detention cell where he was held in handcuffs for approximately twenty minutes before he was released.

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It seems David Farbman, the Commissioner of the joke called the World Hunting Association, is at it again. You can read about it more in an article posted by Ron Reddon titled ‘They do not speak on my behalf’ at his Ron’s Journal blog.

The more I learn about this guy, the more I realize my initial gut feeling about him and his WHA was dead on target. Luckily, most hunters are wise to him but the general public is likely to not know this. Anytime this man does something stupid, it helps add to the negative image of all hunters we have to deal with all the time.

legislation, laws, hunting, David Farbman, WHA, Michigan

Jim Braaten recently raised the question of what would happen if hunters went on strike in his Sportsmans Blog. Like he states, many groups of people use strikes to bring attention to issues in their plight. If hunters were to do the same, do you think the economic impact it would have be enough to get the general public
to recognize the role hunters play?

I’m not sure it would. How often do you hear of someone going on strike only to hear the public comment negatively on them? It happens pretty often. And if the impact of the hunters striking hit the everyday person in the pocket book, how much animosity do you think it would create between the two groups? It could actually have an adverse effect, just like happens
when pilots or transportation workers go on strike.

It is definitely an interesting concept. I have no idea of whether it would work or if it would backfire on hunters, but it would send a wake up call to all those who think hunters don’t play an important role. As Jim says, it’s not something we should do just to prove a point, but I have to wonder how well hunters striking would actually work. I’m like that, I always explore the other side of the issue.

What do you think?

hunting, strikes, economics, rights, issues

A news article released by CNN yesterday reports that the recent E. coli outbreak that affected 26 US states and one Canadian province may have been caused by wild hogs that contaminated a California spinach field.

The E. coli outbreak is over, but investigators are also looking into other possible sources, including deer, as possible ways the bacteria may have been spread into the spinach field.  Droppings of these animals are possible suspected ways the crops became contaminated.

Does this news raise concern for hunters who hunt for and eat the meat of wild hogs and deer?  It shouldn’t, since E. coli is a bacteria present in the intestines of cattle, wildlife, and humans.  If the proper care and handling of meat during field dressing and the thorough cleaning of the meat before packaging can cut risks of becoming infected drastically.  Any E. coli left will be killed during the cooking process, that’s why it’s so important to always make sure the meat is properly handled and cooked.

You can read more about E. coli at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

disease, e. coli, outbreaks, health, wildlife, deer, hogs, CNN, news

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