The uninformed might see this as a good thing, since hunting is "evil" and kills innocent animals. But that ignores two important facts. First off, every deer that is born will die. That death can either be a quick clean kill by a hunter, providing food for hungry people, or by slow starvation or being hit by a car and suffering on the side of the road for hours or days. I have personally seen both. In NJ deer have almost no predators, since coyotes, wolves, and big cats are scarce (and with good reason - the animals that hunt deer would also hunt our children and pets). The main predator left to keep deer populations from destroying the habitat is hunters.
Secondly, there is misinformation, pushed by organizations like the three above, that hunters are anti-conservation, when in fact the opposite is true. Hunters have every reason to conserve the natural habitat, as that is the only way to ensure that they are getting clean, healthy food. Income from hunting and fishing and the Pittman–Robertson tax produce over two billion dollars a year to support wildlife and habitat conservation. doing far more to help the environment than any anti-hunting group.
Hunting may not be popular in New Jersey, but it provides much needed relief for overpopulated species, like deer, and it provides most of the support for environmental conservation efforts. Don't break what isn't broken now.
Posts
0 comments:
Post a Comment