gatorstick
Senior Member
Little late on the info but I wanted to share it with y'all anyway. In the future, if you see a call for action & letters to counter the lies of the HSUS, please respond. If we don't have some passion on our side we'll only leave tofu for future generations.
Thanks,
PW
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Florida Bears soon to have a Management Plan Formulated!
By Captain Phil Walters of GatorGuides.com
On June 8, the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) voted to remove the black bears in Florida from their imperiled species list. FWC staff had conducted a thorough and peer review of over 60 species on it’s list and made recommendations that over a dozen creatures did not meet the stringent scientific qualifications for listings and should be removed. The Commissioners followed staff recommendations opening the door for future management plans for each species.
The HSUS, Defenders of Wildlife and other animal and environmental activists voiced strongly not to delist the bears. Jennifer Hobgood of HSUS
http://www.floridatoday.com/article/CD/20110606/OPINION05/106060303/Jennifer-Hobgood-Trophy-hunting-no-answer
(My rebuttal: http://www.gainesville.com/article/20110601/OPINION/110609987
went even further by circulating a letter via pop media outlets blasting sportsmen, hunters and those proposing this move. Past FWC Chairman Rodney Barrreto blasted Ms. Hobgood at the meeting for publishing untrue statements and politicizing the delisting process as she was a participant of the review and apparently had supported the proposal only to later propagate falsehoods to the public in order to incite rejection of the science based staff recommendation.
In 1994, HSUS and other environmental & animal rights groups successfully fought a campaign to have the bears in Florida listed as a distinct “sub species” of the black bear, thus landing it onto the ESA “threatened” classification and ending all public hunting. In the meantime, the formerly stable populations in Florida have exploded leading to many unfortunate encounters between bears, pets, livestock, automobiles, homeowners, hunters and the like. Additionally scarce conservations dollars are wasted relocating problem bears which often end up dead, killed by larger established bears, hit on the highways while attempting to return to their problem home range or by continuing their bad behavior.
In the near future, FWC will be formulating a bear management plan. With delisting, the door to hunting will be open, however; popular support for public harvest is weak as the anti’s have done an outstanding job of “educating” the public to their beliefs and faslehoods. They have done this by placing curriculum into the schools, staging environmental education events, interviews on the news and writing letters and articles on the topic, all of which, we must counter.
If we’re to put sound science based wildlife management options into the plan, with public harvest being one, folks like YOU need to become involved by displaying some DETERMINATION and PASSION in presenting our logical suggestions. Please, when you see something against hunting or sportsmen published or spoken, take the time to call, write, e-mail or otherwise communicate YOUR VIEWS (short & politely, of course) on the topic and ask your friends and family to do the same as public perception must be changed. Folks with first hand experiences of destruction, fear or depredations from predators must make an effort to have their stories told to the public so the public will have a wider range of information to base their opinion of limited harvest of this top predator upon rather than only the slanted opinion of the anti’s.
Thanks,
PW
**********************
Florida Bears soon to have a Management Plan Formulated!
By Captain Phil Walters of GatorGuides.com
On June 8, the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) voted to remove the black bears in Florida from their imperiled species list. FWC staff had conducted a thorough and peer review of over 60 species on it’s list and made recommendations that over a dozen creatures did not meet the stringent scientific qualifications for listings and should be removed. The Commissioners followed staff recommendations opening the door for future management plans for each species.
The HSUS, Defenders of Wildlife and other animal and environmental activists voiced strongly not to delist the bears. Jennifer Hobgood of HSUS
http://www.floridatoday.com/article/CD/20110606/OPINION05/106060303/Jennifer-Hobgood-Trophy-hunting-no-answer
(My rebuttal: http://www.gainesville.com/article/20110601/OPINION/110609987
went even further by circulating a letter via pop media outlets blasting sportsmen, hunters and those proposing this move. Past FWC Chairman Rodney Barrreto blasted Ms. Hobgood at the meeting for publishing untrue statements and politicizing the delisting process as she was a participant of the review and apparently had supported the proposal only to later propagate falsehoods to the public in order to incite rejection of the science based staff recommendation.
In 1994, HSUS and other environmental & animal rights groups successfully fought a campaign to have the bears in Florida listed as a distinct “sub species” of the black bear, thus landing it onto the ESA “threatened” classification and ending all public hunting. In the meantime, the formerly stable populations in Florida have exploded leading to many unfortunate encounters between bears, pets, livestock, automobiles, homeowners, hunters and the like. Additionally scarce conservations dollars are wasted relocating problem bears which often end up dead, killed by larger established bears, hit on the highways while attempting to return to their problem home range or by continuing their bad behavior.
In the near future, FWC will be formulating a bear management plan. With delisting, the door to hunting will be open, however; popular support for public harvest is weak as the anti’s have done an outstanding job of “educating” the public to their beliefs and faslehoods. They have done this by placing curriculum into the schools, staging environmental education events, interviews on the news and writing letters and articles on the topic, all of which, we must counter.
If we’re to put sound science based wildlife management options into the plan, with public harvest being one, folks like YOU need to become involved by displaying some DETERMINATION and PASSION in presenting our logical suggestions. Please, when you see something against hunting or sportsmen published or spoken, take the time to call, write, e-mail or otherwise communicate YOUR VIEWS (short & politely, of course) on the topic and ask your friends and family to do the same as public perception must be changed. Folks with first hand experiences of destruction, fear or depredations from predators must make an effort to have their stories told to the public so the public will have a wider range of information to base their opinion of limited harvest of this top predator upon rather than only the slanted opinion of the anti’s.
