In defense of hunters, trappers, etc.
I do not wish to use my website to spew my political beliefs such as many, if not most, birding blogs do, but I cannot stop myself any longer from venting about some of the junk (for lack of a better word) I read on other bird websites*. However, I'll try to keep this rather un-political.
What I want to address right now is how the liberal tree-huggers that blog for many websites try to paint republicans and hunters as hateful people that despise evrything good in the world. My main argument comes from an article1 on the popular (unfortunately) birding blog 10,000 birds. In one article in particular, the author begins their article by stating that "This is the kind of insanity that goes on with leghold traps." The article goes on to relate the authors experience when she was called to her friend's (or her friend's dog, rather) rescue when her dog stepped in a leghold trap. After freeing the dog from the trap, the two later met at the trap with a pickaxe and stole the trap. Upon calling the Dept. of Environmental Conservation to report the trap, she was dismayed to hear what she did was illegal and that an officer was coming to retrieve the trap and return it to it's proper owner. She contested that the trap should not be allowed in a public park. However, since the trap was 100 feet from the trail, it was perfectly legal (what was her friend doing 100 feet off of a marked trail, anyways?). But upon hearing that the trap was legal, she raised herself above the law and destroyed the trap. The officer informed her that she could be arrested, and personally, I am dissapointed that she wasn't arrested. She got away with breaking the law because she disliked what someone else was doing, albeit what the trapper was doing was perfectly legal. She didn't like the law and decided to break the law because of it. She acted like a spoiled child. Later in the article, she remarked that "it looked like the trapper was going to get off scott free". Perhaps because he didn't do anything illegal, you dingus. Did you ever think of that? Unfortunately the trapper had to go to court and pay a fine (even though he did absolutely nothing wrong). She concluded by posting a link to help ban trapping.
That is not the only instance that has riled me, however. One article (also on 10,000 birds), which I will not discuss because I will become exceedingly angry, is entitled 'Why are conservatives pathological jerks that hate the environment?'2. I have only one comment. Why is it that liberals think that they are oh-so-tolerant, yet they viciously attack anyone who dares disagree with them? Moving on, I come to my next point. I read a new article3 on 10,000 birds just today about a whooping crane that was killed. This is illegal, of course, as the birds are endangered. The article referred to the killing as 'murder'. It is not. There is no possible way that you can murder anything but a human. Look up the definition. I guess I should look at the bright side. At least this author didn't try to paint hunters as evil troublemakers.
Now comes my initial point. To quite a comment posted on one of the many articles opposing a sandhill crane hunting season in Tennessee, "You fools, hunters conserve what others photograph." I couldn't have said it better myself. What these liberal tree-huggers don't realize is that there are many, many deer accidents every year throughout the country. For my example, I will narrow down my example location to just Ohio. The 2013-14 deer hunting season was one of the lowest in regards to the number of deer harvested. That means more deer, more accidents. Just 50 years ago deer were almost unheard of in Ohio. Without hunters the state would be completely overrun. The same goes for rabbits, mourning doves, coyotes, and basically, everything hunted in the US. Raccoons have a surging population, as do squirrels. Without hunters and trappers the populations would be out of control. Hunters do what they do not only to conserve the populations of native species, but also, in most cases, for food. Deer, turkey, rabbit, mourning doves, quail... the list goes on and on. Most are used for food. Others are hunted just because it is necessary to maintain a healthy population. Hunters do what needs to be done that others either can't bring themselves to do, or are just wacky enough that they think it is wrong to kill animals. One commenter said somthing along the lines of this: 'It is wrong to kill animals, and God hates those who kill animals. God will kill off all of the bad people.' I have no idea where this person got their information, but they are way off the mark (but that is another article in itself). In conclusion, I just want to say that hunters are conservationists, and without hunters, trappers, fishermen, etc. The populations of certain species would be way out of control which would result in numerous problems such as human deaths (eg. more auto accidents involving deer), out of control crop damage, etc.
*Though all of the examples given in my article come from the same website, I have found many websites that say many of the same absurd things about hunters and coservatives (but as stated previously, in an attempt to keep this un-political, I will not go over those articles). I could post an entire list if I wished to do so.
Sources cited:
1https://10000birds.com/shutting-your-trap.htm
2https://10000birds.com/why-are-conservatives-pathological-jerks-who-hate-the-environment.htm
3https://10000birds.com/stop-the-madness-more-whooping-cranes-shot.htm
Homepage photo courtesy of Fir0002/Flagstaffotos