For outdoor enthusiasts who may also hunt and fish, it seems as though we’re always faced with one challenging policy or law change after another. It’s bad enough that we must constantly be battling with our own state government over major issues that negatively would impact both conservation as well as our long established heritage activities, but that’s been the case in recent years.

What is confusing to many is why all these proposed changes, laws and regulations are being pushed on us, one after the other? If certain activities such as hunting, fishing and trapping were truly causing a problem, okay, we could live with the need to make some changes to correct it. But that’s not the case. In fact, these activities are critical to generating money for conservation as well as managing many species that would otherwise truly present major problems if left to their own natural devices.

When I was a youth, thanks to what is supply and demand in the fur industries, fox pelts were worth next to nothing and the NYS Conservation Department allowed them to be hunted or trapped year-round to attempt managing their ever-swelling population. Despite that, the fox population kept increasing to the point that a serious rabies epidemic occurred because responsible hunters and trappers hated to waste what might have been or could eventually be a valuable natural resource. The state finally had to enlist paid government trappers to help cull the overabundant fox numbers, and eventually the disease played itself out.

Now jump ahead a few decades. Pressure and heavy lobbying from well-funded animal rights organization were demanding that all hunting, trapping, or domestic use of animals, even pets, be banned. Radical animal rightists in larger cities threw red paint on anyone wearing leather or natural fur, trashed or burned medical test labs, demonstrated at dog and cat shows and harassed hunters in the fields and woods. Unfortunately the news media greatly helped the cause by sending crews to cover the events even if only a dozen or so animal rightists were there.

By and large, this was the first real indication that a surprisingly large percentage of the uninformed public and some officials could be easily swayed by media coverage, even though the cause went against common sense or facts. Send money, join us, and get on TV seemed apparently more attractive to some than accepting the complete idiocy of the cause. The organizations pushing the cause neither cared nor would face up to the consequences of their actions. If one truly analyzes the long-term effects of this, it’s no small wonder that we now find ourselves in a them-versus-us situation when it applies to managing our renewable natural resources and those who’ve successfully done so for decades.