Introduction Sunday hunting bans are one of the last remaining examples of the puritanical blue laws that were initially designed to encourage church attendance. At the time when these restrictions were first put in place, other activities that were illegal on a Sunday included opening a store for business, drinking alcoholic beverages, and tilling your fields. Today, …
Summary Recent advances in technology, such as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV’s), which can assist in the tracking and taking of game, have posed an ethical debate within the hunting community. Legislators and sportsmen should be mindful of Fair Chase issues and, on a state-by-state basis, determine if legislation is warranted to ensure hunting is practiced …
Summary Opportunities exist across the country to enrich the lives of terminally ill youth by facilitating hunting and fishing opportunities for them at no cost. This charitable mission provides truly invaluable life experiences for these children to take part in America’s sportsmen’s heritage. Many states have passed legislation allowing state fish and wildlife agencies to …
Summary Dogs play a critical role in the sporting community. One important role, blood tracking, is the practice of using dogs to assist in the recovery of harvested game. Contrary to the name, blood tracking dogs are employed when there is very little blood to track and instead find harvested game following its scent. The …
Summary Encouraging sportsmen’s involvement in the political process is an important method for protecting our outdoor heritage. Increased public participation, particularly at the ballot box, ensures that hunters and anglers are represented, which strengthens the ability of the sportsmen’s community to collectively defeat anti-sportsmen policy objectives. Facilitating voter registration for sportsmen and women, at the …
Summary In some areas, deer populations have exceeded population management goals, leading to increased deer-related damages in the amount of $2 billion annually. Recently, popularized alternatives in population control, such as sterilization and contraception, are costly and to date have not been proven effective for managing free ranging populations. Hunting continues to be the most …
White-tailed Deer Management: Hunting as a Preferred Management Tool Read More »
Summary Educating the non-hunting and angling public about the numerous benefits that sportsmen and women provide for conservation is one of the best ways to help the public understand our time-honored sporting traditions. State wildlife councils offer sportsmen and women the opportunity to pool their resources and educate the public about how conservation is funded, …
Summary Animal rights groups, such as the Humane Society of the United States, PETA, and many others, are widely known to adamantly oppose all hunting and angling and to proactively pursue ways to diminish the ability of sportsmen and women to continue these rich traditions. Using the legal arena and emotional pleas, these groups will …
Summary Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) is an always-fatal, progressive, degenerative neurological disease occurring in farmed and free-ranging deer, elk, and moose that is classified to the family of diseases called transmissible spongiform encephalopathies. Presently, state fish and wildlife agencies are forced to divert funds from other conservation projects to perform surveillance and monitoring of CWD …
Summary The North American Wetlands Conservation Act (NAWCA), passed in 1989, provides matching grants to carry out wetlands conservation projects in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. WATERFOWL STAMP: Federal Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamps were established in 1934 and have provided conservation funding to six million acres of waterfowl habitat across the United …
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