Reports Afield
News from the hunting world
Hunting makes critical contributions to the future of wildlife populations around the world.
"Sustainable hunting will continue to be a major conservation tool in the 21st century. It conserves wildlife populations and biodiversity in general, whereas hunting bans can speed up extinction," said the President of the CIC Tropical Game Commission, Dr. Rolf D. Baldus, at a conference during the international IWA-Outdoors Classic trade fair in Nürnberg, Germany. The conference on "Hunting and Sportshooting in the 21st Century" was organized by the "World Forum on the Future of Sport Shooting Activities" (WFSA). The WFSA represents over one hundred million sport shooters from all around the world.
A proposed bill may help stop frivolous lawsuits by animal-rights groups.
Legislation introduced in Congress could axe what has amounted to federal subsidies for environmental extremist and animal-rights groups making big business out of suing the U.S. government.
The legislation, a House Resolution and companion version in the Senate titled Government Litigation Savings Act, would amend the existing Equal Access to Justice Act (EAJA). Though well intended, abuses of EAJA have escalated into a serious conservation issue with long-term consequences. Costs of defending unnecessary lawsuits against federal agencies such as the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (over the wolf issue, for example) are an increasing drain on conservation funding and agency personnel today.
The Government Litigation Savings Act was prompted by a coalition (member list below) of wildlife, agriculture, energy, mining, and other resource-based groups led by Boone and Crockett Club.
READ MORENew survey shows more people went afield in 2009.
Hunter numbers are on the upswing again. The National Shooting Sports Foundation calls the 3.6 percent rise in paid hunting license holders for 2009 one of the most encouraging signs for hunting in recent years.
"This is great news for our industry and everyone associated with hunting," said Steve Sanetti, president and CEO of the National Shooting Sports Foundation. "Many efforts are at work to build hunting participation, and they are paying off. More people are enjoying the outdoors and sharing the tradition of hunting with family and friends. Also, more hunting license sales translate into more funds for wildlife conservation."
READ MORENew data reveal a massive one-year decline in elk populations at ground zero of wolf restoration—Yellowstone—and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation is renewing its call for Congress to delist wolves legislatively.
Reports also indicate that moose in the Yellowstone region are nearly nonexistent, adding even more urgency to the RMEF call for Congressional action.
RMEF President and CEO David Allen says two bills in Congress, a House version (H.R. 509) and a new Senate version (S. 249), hold the best promise. RMEF is asking lawmakers to remove unnecessary federal protections on burgeoning wolf populations and grant science-based wolf management authority to the states.
“Both bills would end the ridiculous lawsuits that are preventing a fully recovered species from being managed by conservation professionals,” said Allen. “And both bills would end the profiteering and abuses of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) by environmental and animal rights activists who need a wolf controversy in order to protect their revenue streams.”
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