If you really want to end up with no hunting for anyone except the well-h eeled, the way to do it the fastest is to allow hunting leases. Pretty soon th ere won’t be any other kind of land available, and only clubs and people with m oney will be able to hunt. That’s the way it is in England and Ireland and Ger many, thanks to hunting leases. Want that here? Then keep on allowing and enco uraging the selling of public property for private gain.
If you want to have a ccess to hunting for your kids and grandkids, the way to do it is to tell lando wners they can’t charge lease fees for hunting native game species, and more th an they can go out into the public parks, pick flowers, and sell them at the fl orists shops. WRT to the TP&WD’s charging of fees for hunting on some land, I have no problem with that. They are the appointed stewards of the game, and they can set what rules they think best in given areas.
They are most certainly NOT a “private agency” in any sense of the word. They are authorized to make some money to su pport their operations, which benefit all of the state’s game populations. Nor does my censure extend to people who sell exotoc games, e.g., the Y-O Ranch . Exotics are livestock, like cattle, which native species are not. And to pr ove that that is the case, most exotic game ranches have some sort of control t o keep their herds from wandering away.
Exotic game ranchers pay out of pocket for their kudus, blackbucks, and so forth, and they charge whatever they want to shoot them, with my blessing. But they don’t put a single darn penny into n ative game species beyond what everyone else does in tax dollars and license fe es, and it’s indefensible to allow them to get the value of those deer and put it into their pockets. People who have put up with the lease hunting scam all their lives are so brain washed they can’t see the truth: they’re being robbed.
Hunters in other areas had better wake up before it happens to them. If you really LIKE spending the price of a new rifle EVERY YEAR to go deer hunting, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to tell you about. Okay, enough on that subject. Here’s another one to get you riled up: the wide spread practice in Texas and many other Southern states of shooting animals ove r baits is not ethical hunting. In fact, I would argue that putting out an oil drum full of feed with a clockwork mechanism to dump it on the ground and then shooting the critters when they come for their evening meal is not even huntin g. Baiting is illegal in most states, and here in Virginia will get you a stif f fine and/or a jail term, which is as it should be.
