Michigan Licences Doubling in price across the board

[drummer]

You don't own any land, deer or antelope, but you can go harvest them on land open to the public, much of which was purchased and maintained by revernue from license sales.When I say giving back, I mean giving back to nature and to the wilidlife from which we draw pleasure. No that's not a green concept- it's a conservationist concept that all true sportsman believe in.

I know this is a heavily conservative board and ideas contrary to the existing paradigms are met with suspicion and oftentimes downright hostility, but I'll give it a go.

The animals on your land do not belong to you, until you legally place your tag on it. The game and the nongame belong to all of us if to any of us and we have to work as a team to keep things going.

We live in a world full of people, most of which grow up in an urban/suburban lifestyle rather than a rural/ wilderness setting these days. That's a pretty recent development. Yes times are a changing. For thoses of you in deep west Texas or Wyoming, that hasn't reached you yet, but it will.

Anyway, alot of people are indifferent to hunting, but alot of people are against it. It takes very little to turn a nonhunter into an antihunter. It takes a little more effort to turn a nonhunter into a prohunter. I cannot help but belive as more people are born into a lifestyle removed from the land, they will have a hard time empathizing with hunters as a group and hunting as a past time. They might say something like"It isn't necessary to hunt to survive anymore" or "with so few natural places left, how can allowing hunting be a good thing?"

Ask yourself objectively if possible, "What do hunters contribute to society?" Ideally we contribute to the restoration and conservation of nature and wildlife. I'm not blowing my own horn, because my accomplishments are meager compared to many folks I know. However, I have been somewhat successful in winning over hunting skeptics by talking up the land stewardship aspect. Most open minded non hunters cannot dispute the positive effects of hunters working to save wetlands, restoring American chestnuts and native prairies. But you have to be sincere and be willing to back up your words with action.

Hunting is in a rather precarious position right now in our country's history, for several reasons. Hunters on internet message boards and at the sporting good stores might like to rant and moan about PETA and the Democrats, but one of Huntchat's members, Ward Clark, said that the biggest threat to hunting in America is the hunters (the irresponsible ones, who are much much more prevalent than we like to admit.) Therefore, we have a great responsisbilty, which is growing as the cards are stacked against us. We have to shoulder that responsisbility without complaint.

Despite the immanent threat of overpopulation and overdevelopment ( and its there regardless of what the neo con pundits say), we are living in a great time to be sportsmen, when whitetailed deer, wild turkeys, elk and bear are returning to the former ranges.Those restorations were done via sportsmen's license dollars and P-R money from excise taxes. In order to ensure that they stay there, putting a pricetag on them makes sense: For those who accuse me of being green/liberal, that idea of economic value is pretty fiscally conservative I'd say. License sales do the job. With fewer people going afield (because they have fewer places to hunt) those of us that stick with must shoulder the load.

I didn't mean to knock anybody on here. It wasn't my initial intention, but I guess my communicative skills are somewhat lacking.I'm just passionate about wildlife management, and there's so much more we could do with a bit more money.

BTW 2045 isn't all that far away in reality. If you want your grandchildren to have the opportunity to see an elephant or maybe shoot some real wild bobwhite quail, you better be doing something about it now.