Payson Roundup

Tom_Garrett (Tom Garrett) says…

State lawmakers are moving to protect the right to hunt and fish by passing an amendment to the AZ Constitution. The move is designed to undermine future efforts to restrict hunting and fishing by initiatives sponsored by anti-hunting groups.

If passed in November, the referendum would prohibit any law or regulation that “unreasonably restricts hunting, fishing and harvesting wildlife or the use of traditional means and methods.” It also would make hunting “a preferred means of managing and controlling wildlife.”

Sandy Bahr, who lobbies for the Sierra Club, said her group is not seeking to ban hunting. But she says she is worried that the language would put legal constraints on efforts to use judgment, based on scientific methods to set reasonable limits on hunting.

I only have one question: If the Sierra Club is not seeking to ban hunting why should their lobbyist worry about a law which simply prohibits laws which “unreasonably restricts hunting?”

Surely they would want to be reasonable.

Wouldn't they? :-)

patrandall (Pat Randall) says…

Stop all hunting and fishing and see what happens to the wildlife.

fred_franz (frederick franz) says…

Here in this issue of the Roundup is an article which all hunters should read: http://www.paysonroundup.com/news/201…

Hunters using lead bullets may be responsible for the deaths of wild condors.
-Fred

patrandall (Pat Randall) says…

Fred,
To bad all that money isn't being spent on health research for humans, or feeding and housing the elderly poor and protecting our borders.
I remember when DPS used to rescue people with thier helicopters instead of birds.
I think my dad was probably the last person they took out of the wilderness when a horse fell on him and he was crushed under it. That was about 1980, he was 76 yrs old. Yes he lived to the ripe old age of 94 yrs. and nine months. He was a working cowboy at the time not out on a lark like the three riders that rode thier horses into a flooding river yesterday.
After that they would not use the helicopters to rescue people but went into somewhere by Lake Pleasant to bring out a baby eagle and then fly it back to its nesting place.
If I am cruel and heartless, so be it. People first.
Is the world going to end if we don't have condors, eagles, mexican wolves, and wild parrots?

Tom_Garrett (Tom Garrett) says…

“Is the world going to end if we don't have condors, eagles, mexican wolves, and wild parrots?”

Of course it will!

Just like it did when we lost the T Rex, eohippus, dodo bird, passenger pigeon, mastadon and 400 billion other species that have gone extinct.

We can solve the whole problem by removing just one species:

homo sapiens sierracrockus

fred_franz (frederick franz) says…

“sierracrockus” Tom?

-Fred

Tom_Garrett (Tom Garrett) says…

Perhaps I should have used the whole term: “sierraclubusbirdbrainiusemptyskulliuscrockus”

Doesn't really pay to speak in shorthand. :-)

fred_franz (frederick franz) says…

Thanks Tom. I should have guessed!
-Fred

Tom_Garrett (Tom Garrett) says…

“Thanks Tom. I should have guessed!”

You may have guessed that the Sierra Club is not my favorite outfit. :-)

Hm-m-m-m. Maybe this is a good place to make a general comment. I'll take a whack at it.

There are many, many things in this world which happen and which we would like to either stop or control. Extinction of species is one of them. Others are children who don't have everything we'd like to see them have, people who need help when they are out of work, people without health insurance, criminals who are not availed of their rights, degradation of the forests, and so on.

Within reason we would all like to see such things “handled.” But there has to be a balance between the problem and the solution. When the solution becomes more harmful than the problem it's time to rethink things.

It's not only stupid to worry about some 3 inch fish (like the infamous snail-darter), tossing away millions upon millions of dollars that cost every individual in this nation a measurable amount of his income, it flies in the face of science, not to mention logic. Species have become extinct through natural stresses ever since life was created. Extinction does little if any harm. It simply rebalances what species is eating what.

Doing things like reintroducing wolves into areas occupied by humans is not only stupid, it is dangerous. Better the wolves die off than a single human life be affected.

As for condors. They are nothing more than vultures. They may be big spectacular vultures, but vultures they are nevertheless. While I admire the attempt to keep them here, I do not admire the spending of vast amounts of money on them. Where's the balance? Is there no project related to human welfare which could not make better use of such funds? None at all? Must we forever sit still while the federal government taxes us into poverty while at the same time spending money to hire God only knows how many men and women to monitor a vulture?

Look. Here's the solution to such controversial activities: This is a democracy. If you want to spend money on such a program then lay it on the line. Give the people an honest accounting of how much is being spent on, or will be spent on, a program and then ask the people to vote on it. If the people are for it, the full speed ahed. If not….

Tom_Garrett (Tom Garrett) says…

“Hunters using lead bullets may be responsible for the deaths of wild condors.”

Let me precede this comment by saying that I am not a hunter.

Also, most of this comment is pure science.

The problem is not with the lead bullets. It is the fact that the animal has hydrochloric acid in its stomach (so do you). Anything, and I mean anything, which is dissolved in hydrochloric acid forms a compound which is soluble and can be carried right into the bloodstream. ALL chlorides are soluble.

It is for this reason that probably half, or perhaps even more, of the medicines you take end in “hydrochloride.” (Go look at their names and see.) Since all chlorides are soluble, and since the drug companies want drugs to be readily taken in by your body, they add a chloride ending to each compound when they can.

So, if the birds were not having lead chloride in their bodies they would have iron chloride (from iron bullets) or copper chloride from copper clads. Iron chloride is not as poisonous as lead chloride, but it IS poisonous, and it can kill, and so can copper chloride. So are most metal chlorides. That's why we worry about kids ingesting button batteries and creating mercury chlorides in their stomachs.

The solution to the preservation of condors, if that's what you want to do, is to put them in areas where hunting is not permitted. Putting them into areas where hunting is allowed means that you are deliberately placing them in areas where they are at risk. Blame yourself if the birds die, not hunters. Quit trying to reintroduce an animal into a place where it is doomed because of human activity. Then your program will prosper.

We are here to share the planet with animals, not to die off and give it back to them.