[HUNTING HERITAGE]
Grassroots action stops
bill in Virginia
Virginia sportsmen stopped a measure that would have allowed owners of agricultural operations to indiscriminately kill wildlife that damage crops.
Senate Bill 868, introduced by Sen. Richard Stuart (R-Montross), would have required the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries to issue agricultural damage kill permits to any person claiming that deer, elk or bear were causing agricultural damage without first investigating if any damage actually occurred.
Current law allows DGIF officials to assess damage and issue depredation permits based on a scientific formula and population density needs. The proposed measure would have eliminated the DGIF's ability to assess and investigate crop damage and allowed agricultural operators to "call in" damage reports and begin harvesting offending animals without an investigation.
Thanks to aggressive action taken by the NWTF's Virginia State Chapter and local volunteers, the U.S. Sportsman's Alliance, the National Rifle Association and many other organizations and individuals, the bill has been tabled — hopefully indefinitely — in the House Agriculture, Chesapeake and Natural Resources Committee, but only after it passed 40-0 in the Senate before reaching the House.
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Scientific management of game species is proven to be the best method for determining quota limits, and removing DGIF wildlife experts from the equation is ill advised and could have disastrous ramifications on wildlife populations if left unchecked.
The NWTF is a proponent of the North American Model for Wildlife Management and firmly stands in support of science-based population management over individual animal control. Allowing indiscriminate harvests without an assessment goes against that model and dramatically decreases agency biologists' ability to accurately monitor and manage game populations.
Thank you to all our members who took action and called, e-mailed or wrote legislators to voice concerns over this short-sighted bill, and thank you to the wise legislators who listened to reason and tabled the bill, essentially killing it for this legislative session.
Though the bill is practically dead, it is still important for Virginia sportsmen and conservationists to monitor the legislation in case it's revived, and take immediate action if it is. — Matt Lindler
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Photo by Matt Lindler
More people are enjoying the outdoors and sharing the tradition of hunting with family and friends |
Hunter Numbers Up in 2009
The National Shooting Sports Foundation reports the number of hunting licenses purchased in 2009 increased 3.6 percent over the previous year.
While this number may seem insignificant to some, any positive turn is big news for state and federal agencies who depend on license sales to fund wildlife programs, especially since this is the largest year-to-year jump since 1974.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service data indicates there were 14,974,534 paid license holders in 2009, the largest figure since 2002 and an increase of 526,494 over 2008. A paid license holder is one individual, regardless of the number of licenses purchased.
"This is great news for everyone associated with hunting," said Steve Sanetti, NSSF president and CEO. "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."
NSSF cites several reasons for the increase, including recruitment programs launched by many state wildlife agencies over the last decade to increase hunting participation, and a difficult economy that motivated hunters to fill their freezers with game rather than store-bought meat. Also, hunters who were among the unemployed or had their work hours reduced used some of their free time to go hunting.
Coordinated efforts of state wildlife agencies, conservation organizations and the firearms industry appear to have halted a decades-long decline in hunting license sales, which since 2005 have held at the 14.5 million level until the jump in 2009.
NSSF points out that the actual number of hunters who go afield in any given year is greater than the total of paid hunting license holders in that year. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service figures do not account for certain state exemptions for purchasing a hunting license. Many states allow landowners and active military to hunt without purchasing a license; also, lifetime license holders and youth hunters who do not fall within the required license purchasing age are not included in the figures.
According to an NSSF-funded study carried out by Southwick Associates, the pool of hunters in America is much larger than previously thought. The study, released last fall, estimated that 21.8 million people purchased a hunting license at least once in the last five years.
Hunters are the backbone of conservation funding in America, contributing more than $1 billion each year through the purchase of licenses, tags, permits and stamps and through excise taxes paid on firearms and ammunition. For example, proceeds from the sale of Federal Duck Stamps, a required purchase for migratory waterfowl hunting, have purchased more than 5 million acres of habitat for the National Wildlife Refuge System. — NSSF and Matt Lindler