60 Minutes Segment On Big Game In Texas

[Turkey Trot]

I was flipping through the tele on Sunday night and just happened across a 60 Minutes promo about big game hunting in TX. The game on the ranches are endangered species. The debate is whether placing commercial value on them through hunting has helped increase numbers and whether it would be good for the species. Predictably, the liberals have attacked in the courts and the ranchers will lose for now. The oddity is that the critters involved are native to Africa, not the US. I suppose the libs can link it all together under treaty, like CITES, and contend that the US has an obligation to protect non-native species under the Endang. Species Act. They are going to have to try to create a system with USFWS under the ESA, but the libs will attack that too and it may not be worth it in the long run.

I recommend that you watch this and inform other hunters that you know.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18560_162-57368000/big-game-can-hunting-endangered-animals-save-the-species/

[stinkpickle]

Awesome video!

[lightsoutcalls]

Interesting that the tree hugger's last name is "Feral". 

She mentions the animals would be better off in "Senegal".  The animals mentioned are native to South Africa.  Senegal is extreme West Africa (went there in 1999).  The game reserve near Senegal was created -  it is not natural habitat for the animals there.  Maybe ms feral should take a look at how African poachers have effected the numbers of animals left in Africa.

[Neill_Prater]

I saw most of the segment myself. Although hunting exotics isn't exactly my cup of tea, nor within my budget restraints, but I am not going to knock those who do it. The gal is typical of an anti in that she doesn't have a clue what hunter dollars do for wildlife, and not just endangered exotics, or if she does, she doesn't care. A true anti tends to ignore all the facts and concentrate only on the idea that hunting means killing an animal, and, therefore, must always be wrong. It is kind of like the warped idea that wolves should be protected from hunting, even if they decimate the local big game populations. Much better to have no elk for hunters to hunt, than to bag a few wolves.

[gobbler777]

For you "oldsters" here, they did a little better job in reporting than the first big show on hunting "Guns of Autumn". Put on your helmets; the attacks on hunters/guns are going to be serious and relentless.

[Neill_Prater]

For you "oldsters" here, they did a little better job in reporting than the first big show on hunting "Guns of Autumn". Put on your helmets; the attacks on hunters/guns are going to be serious and relentless.

I agree, but I did get the feeling that the interviewing reporter wasn't totally unbiased. I believe she sided with the anti's, but at least was trying to remain neutral. I might be wrong, but there seemed to be a slightly different tone to her questioning of the hunting side of the equation.

[Tail Feathers]

Their home countries did such a good job protecting them that they wound up on the endangered species list.
Smart lady...

[Turkey Trot]

The telling fact was that the anti would rather see them extinct than living in an environment in which commercial hunting ensured their survival.  Does she care about the animals or just being able to control everything pertaining to them and everybody's actions?

She and the antis that work overtime at putting the MENTAL in environmentalist clearly have no idea of the conservation value of commercial hunting.  In sub-saharan Africa, the countries with the best animal populations are the ones with commercial hunting.  Sure, the govts have some preserves and national parks, but the acreage and head counts don't equal up to those in the private sector.  They also all have expansive electric fences.  Tourists and hunters are not routinely shown the fences to keep up the facade of total wildness, but fences are a fact of life in Africa.

The commercial hunting in Africa means foreign tourists and foreign currency being pumped into rural economies, outfitters invest capital and create jobs for locals, a profession of school trained and certified Professional Hunters springs up, outfitters pay fees to local tribesman that enables them to buy food and materials that diversifies their diet and raises their standard of living, the locals can buy food from commercial ag sources and do not have to worry as much about patchwork, subsistence gardening and farming, it relieves the pressure to kill animals or snare them to keep them out of crops, it relieves pressure from subsistence hunting, meat killed in the hunt is distributed to the locals, outfitters buy and sell stock animals and move them on cattle trucks and dynamically manage them for numbers and quality, and the populations thrive.

Rhodesia/Zimbabwe used to have a good farming industry, wild animal populations, and good commercial hunting.  Civil war and destruction of the economy changed all of that, the animal population was hammered by the loss of commercial ag and consequent increase in subsistence hunting and poaching, and the population is much worse there than it used to be and pales in comparison to SA, Namibia, Botswana, etc. 

[Turkey Trot]

Lovett Williams does not post much over here, but he is running a program to hunt Ocellated Turkeys down in Guatemala that will help and perhaps save the birds there.  His experience there is a lot like what has happened in sub-saharan Africa.  He does not post much in the other forums, but perhaps he'll come over and tell us about it.


http://www.lovettwilliams.com/

The ocellated turkey is in decline in much of its historic range of the Yucatan region–an area about the size of Florida. Although we promote hunting, our sights are on conservation of the ocellated turkey. Our program, supported by the National Wild Turkey Federation and the Wildlife Conservation Society, is designed to show the local subsistence hunters that they have a valuable resource in the ocellated turkey—it can be the "goose that lays golden eggs" if they manage the populations properly primarily through conservative harvest management practices. We give the local community over half the proceeds and the villagers love our program. We believe that the turkey populations where we hunt have reversed course and are now on the increase. It seems easier every year to maintain our 100% hunter success rate.

[TauntoHawk]

the one liberal nut actually said she'd rather see the animals go extinct than managed for hunting on high fence ranches..yep that makes sense

[dirt road ninja]

I saw the show and thought the rancher did an excellent job of representing his case. Endangered or not the animals are his and he should manage them as he see fit.

[turkey slayer]

Cool video, thanks!

[Turkey Trot]

The attitude of that econut in the show affirms what I have observed and said for a number of years:

The further away from the farm the people in this country get, the dumber they get.

On the one hand, she attempts to minimize the animals being in the US and TX behind a fence as being inferior,  but on the other they assert the animals should be viewed as if they were wild on the range in Africa and therefore treated as an endangered species.

Further, they trivialize what the ranchers are doing and ignore the fact that they provide a refuge that may be relatively better breeding environment than the historic range and can and have sent breeding stock back to Africa.  If there were private, third party support in the US and public and private financial support from African countries, it could lead to a major restoration of the species in its historic range.

Finally, those animals are not going to live forever irrespective of whether humans hunt them.  They die from predation, old age, disease, drought, etc., and hunting is not necessarily additive to mortality, and can be merely compensatory.   

[GobbleNut]

For you "oldsters" here, they did a little better job in reporting than the first big show on hunting "Guns of Autumn". Put on your helmets; the attacks on hunters/guns are going to be serious and relentless.

As one who was around when "The Guns of Autumn",...a very biased national news report against hunting shown in primetime back in the seventies (as I recall),...I think there has been a major shift in attitude by a lot of the media in reporting hunting objectively.  Although, I agree that we as hunters must be vigilant in combating the anti-hunting nonsense that is spouted daily by PETA, FOA, HSUS, and others, it seems to me that over the last thirty years, the threat posed by those groups has lessened as more and more people are educated by the myriad pro-hunting and conservation groups that have sprouted up because of things just like that "Guns of Autumn" report. 

I am of the opinion that the threat to our way of life is much less severe now than it was back when that program was aired.  ...But I fully agree that we have got to stay on our toes at all times....