Rooney: At a time when the United States population is growing by 2.5 million people per year, there has been a decline in the number of people engaging in hunting and fishing. While animal rights activists may look at this as a positive development, paradoxically I do not think this bodes well for animals. The dwindling number of hunters and anglers I fear mirrors the broader trend of Americans distancing themselves from nature. This is being driven mostly (I think) by a new generation of kids with more interest in video games than the outdoors (see http://tinyurl.com/2mbcpn).
STOWE, Vt. - Bob Shannon is an avid hunter, a fishing guide and owns a tackle shop, but he sometimes struggles to get his own son out into Vermont's woods and fields.
"He'll be sitting there with the video games," Shannon said of 9-year-old Alexander. "I finally had to lay down the law last summer: 'If it's a nice day, you're outside.'"
Shannon's challenge reflects a larger problem plaguing many state governments: Revenue from hunting and fishing license sales is plunging because of waning interest in the outdoors.
"We're losing our rural culture," said Steve Wright, a regional representative for the National Wildlife Federation. "There are so many distractions, and we're not recruiting young people into hunting and fishing."
Sales of Vermont hunting and fishing licenses have dropped more than 20 percent over the last 20 years, leaving the Fish and Wildlife Department pleading with lawmakers for extra funding.
Other states report similar drop-offs:
Arkansas hunting license sales dropped from about 345,000 in 1999 to about 319,000 in 2003.
Pennsylvania sold about 946,000 hunting licenses in 2006, down from just over a million in 1999, and a peak of 1.3 million in 1981.
Oregon had 100,000 fewer licensed anglers last year than in 1987, and 70,000 fewer licensed hunters.
West Virginia sold 154,763 resident hunting permits in 2006, a 17 percent decrease from 1997.
The trend means trouble for some fish and wildlife agencies, which use license revenue to finance preservation programs for endangered species like peregrine falcons, bald eagles and loons. Game wardens also help with law enforcement, joining searches for lost hikers and skiers.
In the search for new sources of revenue to support fish and wildlife programs, Vermont lawmakers are weighing legislation that would dedicate part of the state's sales tax revenues to the Fish and Wildlife Department.
"The issue here is that most of our fish and wildlife agencies were set up to fund conservation, based predominantly or entirely on one set of users" — hunters and anglers who pay license fees, according to Dave Chadwick, senior program associate with the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies in Washington.
"They're shouldering the whole burden for a benefit and an amenity that we all enjoy," Chadwick said.
Other fundraising strategies range from sales taxes on outdoor sporting goods, as in Texas, to Florida's surcharges on speeding tickets, said Douglas Shinkle, a policy associate at the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Some states are trying to boost efforts to recruit new people — especially young people — into hunting and fishing.
A West Virginia legislator has proposed offering hunters' training courses in public schools, allowing seventh- through ninth-graders to opt for instruction in topics ranging from survival skills to gun safety.
Arkansas has used some of its dedicated sales tax revenue to recruit new hunters. However, the state's hunter education program graduated 11,891 people under 30 years old last year, down from 16,596 in 1998.
Vermont sponsors youth hunting weekends, typically three a year. Oregon has started youth mentoring programs that match kids up with experienced hunters. Minnesota has two staff members reaching out to the state's burgeoning Southeast Asian population, said Jay Johnson of the state Department of Natural Resources' hunter recruitment and retention program.
Wright said it might be an uphill battle because of everything from video games to the growth in structured activities like team sports and music lessons.
But Shannon said he has met with some success. After he laid down the law with Alexander last summer, the boy went out fishing almost every morning, he said.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080329/ap_on_re_us/hunting_s_decline_2
Saturday, March 29, 2008
Monday, March 24, 2008
CONNECTICUT OPINION: Reducing Deer Population Key to Fighting Lyme Disease
Winston Churchill famously remarked to Franklin D. Roosevelt that Hitler's war ought to be called "The Unnecessary War" because responsible governments of the democracies could so easily have prevented it, had they acted in time. Connecticut's decades-old Lyme disease epidemic can be accurately called "The Unnecessary Epidemic" because it too could have been nipped in the bud.
From 1996 to 2006 there have been 29,000 reported cases of Lyme in Connecticut, the majority among children and many with tragic, long-term effects. A great many more cases go unreported or are misdiagnosed. A more realistic number of cases is estimated by some to be 29,000 every year.
The root cause of Connecticut's epidemic is an unnatural, environmentally destructive population explosion of deer. The deer are not infected with the disease themselves, but they feed, transport and disperse the deer ticks that pass it on to humans. Just one tick-infested deer can facilitate the delivery of about 1 million deer tick eggs that it scatters as it walks through our backyards, parks, playgrounds, meadows and playing fields. The eggs hatch and turn into ticks that then infect their victims.
Deer numbers have gone from an estimated 12 (yes, you read that correctly, 12) in 1896 to approximately 150,000 today. Neither this number, nor the resulting Lyme epidemic, needs to continue any longer. It started in Connecticut; it can end here.
What to do? Controlling the deer population, which means culling the herd, has ended Lyme epidemics in parts of three New England states — Great Island, a peninsula on Cape Cod; Monhegan Island in Maine; and Mumford Cove in Groton. No other method has reduced Lyme case numbers, either in New England or elsewhere.
When deer populations are reduced to around 10 per square mile, the deer ticks that spread Lyme and other diseases become locally extinct. It takes a lot of deer to keep the tick species reproducing successfully in an area. But when there are no ticks left, there is no Lyme disease.
Much of the work that led to this understanding was done here by the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, funded by the state. We now need a policy to let people know about this research and why it should lead to legislation to control the deer population.
The Connecticut Coalition to Eradicate Lyme Disease was recently formed for just this reason. It is supported by the Connecticut Audubon Society, the Merritt Parkway Conservancy, seven of Connecticut's Regional Councils of Government representing more than 70 towns, plus emergency physicians, pediatricians, Lyme disease task forces, veterinarians and many others.
But what may seem obvious to most people is not so to others. Some believe that ticks do not need large numbers of deer for survival, but can live just as well on other animals. Others claim that deer management only works on islands; or that it doesn't work at all and tick numbers go up instead of down when deer numbers decline.
Even more far-fetched is the notion that all the white-footed mice, mammals and songbirds in Connecticut would have to be killed to end Lyme disease. None of this is true. The towns that are now free of their epidemics liberated themselves by controlling deer numbers, nothing else. And the animals and birds are all thriving and do not sustain the deer tick populations.
According to a recent joint publication of the Connecticut Department of Public Health, Yale University and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, current attempts at prevention of Lyme disease through personal protection such as inspecting one's body for ticks and using tick-killing chemicals on one's property were "not found to be an effective strategy to prevent Lyme disease." These measures failed to stop the growth or spread of the Lyme disease epidemic.
This is why we need a reliable source of information, promulgated by the state Department of Public Health and the Centers for Disease Control. We can then develop a strategy based upon the work of our research scientists with 25 years of experience in Connecticut.
As the good news and its implications become more widely known, the next steps should include a public airing of the alternatives that confront us: Do we act now to control deer numbers and the incidence of Lyme disease? Or do we let both continue to rise inexorably?
It is to be hoped that Gov. M. Jodi Rell and state legislators will lead new statewide efforts to bring an end to Lyme disease. House Bill 5852, sponsored by the Environment Committee, is currently under review in Hartford to address the issue, but it needs the support of citizens and concerned legislators.
Source: http://tinyurl.com/273szl
From 1996 to 2006 there have been 29,000 reported cases of Lyme in Connecticut, the majority among children and many with tragic, long-term effects. A great many more cases go unreported or are misdiagnosed. A more realistic number of cases is estimated by some to be 29,000 every year.
The root cause of Connecticut's epidemic is an unnatural, environmentally destructive population explosion of deer. The deer are not infected with the disease themselves, but they feed, transport and disperse the deer ticks that pass it on to humans. Just one tick-infested deer can facilitate the delivery of about 1 million deer tick eggs that it scatters as it walks through our backyards, parks, playgrounds, meadows and playing fields. The eggs hatch and turn into ticks that then infect their victims.
Deer numbers have gone from an estimated 12 (yes, you read that correctly, 12) in 1896 to approximately 150,000 today. Neither this number, nor the resulting Lyme epidemic, needs to continue any longer. It started in Connecticut; it can end here.
What to do? Controlling the deer population, which means culling the herd, has ended Lyme epidemics in parts of three New England states — Great Island, a peninsula on Cape Cod; Monhegan Island in Maine; and Mumford Cove in Groton. No other method has reduced Lyme case numbers, either in New England or elsewhere.
When deer populations are reduced to around 10 per square mile, the deer ticks that spread Lyme and other diseases become locally extinct. It takes a lot of deer to keep the tick species reproducing successfully in an area. But when there are no ticks left, there is no Lyme disease.
Much of the work that led to this understanding was done here by the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, funded by the state. We now need a policy to let people know about this research and why it should lead to legislation to control the deer population.
The Connecticut Coalition to Eradicate Lyme Disease was recently formed for just this reason. It is supported by the Connecticut Audubon Society, the Merritt Parkway Conservancy, seven of Connecticut's Regional Councils of Government representing more than 70 towns, plus emergency physicians, pediatricians, Lyme disease task forces, veterinarians and many others.
But what may seem obvious to most people is not so to others. Some believe that ticks do not need large numbers of deer for survival, but can live just as well on other animals. Others claim that deer management only works on islands; or that it doesn't work at all and tick numbers go up instead of down when deer numbers decline.
Even more far-fetched is the notion that all the white-footed mice, mammals and songbirds in Connecticut would have to be killed to end Lyme disease. None of this is true. The towns that are now free of their epidemics liberated themselves by controlling deer numbers, nothing else. And the animals and birds are all thriving and do not sustain the deer tick populations.
According to a recent joint publication of the Connecticut Department of Public Health, Yale University and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, current attempts at prevention of Lyme disease through personal protection such as inspecting one's body for ticks and using tick-killing chemicals on one's property were "not found to be an effective strategy to prevent Lyme disease." These measures failed to stop the growth or spread of the Lyme disease epidemic.
This is why we need a reliable source of information, promulgated by the state Department of Public Health and the Centers for Disease Control. We can then develop a strategy based upon the work of our research scientists with 25 years of experience in Connecticut.
As the good news and its implications become more widely known, the next steps should include a public airing of the alternatives that confront us: Do we act now to control deer numbers and the incidence of Lyme disease? Or do we let both continue to rise inexorably?
It is to be hoped that Gov. M. Jodi Rell and state legislators will lead new statewide efforts to bring an end to Lyme disease. House Bill 5852, sponsored by the Environment Committee, is currently under review in Hartford to address the issue, but it needs the support of citizens and concerned legislators.
Source: http://tinyurl.com/273szl
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