Bad Hunter Image? Perfect Fisherman Image?

Are you kidding me? We have hunters and hunting groups expending so much time, energy and money attempting to promote their own special interests, most dealing with attempts to legislate ethics, and there are people like this guy in Denver. A guy by the name of Mark Jensen writes a rebuttal to a letter to the editor in the Denver Post concerning the decision of the Rocky Mountain National Park to essentially thumb their noses at volunteer hunters to cull out the overgrown elk herd.

Here’s what he wrote:

Letter-writer Mark Molberg is upset that that the National Park Service is using sharpshooters to cull the elk overpopulation problem. I believe that Mr. Molberg is a conscientious outdoorsman. But too many people are not. I have fished in pristine areas in most of the Western states, including Rocky Mountain National Park. Unfortunately, in most of these areas I have found beer cans and even used disposable diapers.

The Park Service’s charter is the protection of the wildlife and the environment. Using sharpshooters will help them avoid bull elk, deer, moose and other wildlife being shot. It will help them avoid off-road damage. There won’t be bullet holes in any signs. Nor will there be litter everywhere.

I agree with Mr. Molberg, but too many people can’t or won’t handle the opportunity to act responsibly.

Other than the fact this guy makes little sense, it is obvious he believes all hunters are a bunch of irresponsible slobs and of course, being a fisherman, who fishes in “pristine” places, he is not.

Stop and think for a minute. This guy is probably a stuck up fly fisherman! Isn’t that what I’m supposed to say? Aren’t I supposed to now lump all fisherman into the same kind of category this guy did about hunters and claim that fly fisherman are a bunch of elitists who look down their noses at hunters?

He also claims to have fished in Rocky Mountain National Park. I sure hope he didn’t kill any fish as according to his reasoning, the park officials are supposed to protect the environment and the wildlife. Fishing should be banned from the national parks just like hunting is. I mean killing is killing isn’t it? Then if the fish population gets too big, the tax payers can fork over some more money and hire someone to come in a slaughter the fish.

I mean really, get real! What’s this guy thinking? He says that the park officials have to protect the wildlife so hunters won’t kill them yet condones the actions of the same officials to use its own employees to kill the elk. He also points out that hunters will go into the park armed for elk and come away having killed, “deer, moose and other wildlife”. Please explain!

But back to my original statement at the top. I have said many times before that if hunters want to take up a lot of their time, money and energy doing things to protect hunting, then it is this sort of person that needs educating. I would bet that if a list could be generated showing the negative portrayal of hunters, the tops on that list would be as this guy describes – litter, bullet holes and included would be trespassing. This is where the real focus should be not worrying about other trivial issues that deal with philosophical reasoning.

Tom Remington

When The Cockamamie Call The Cockamamie Cockamamie

As most of you probably know by now, the park authorities at the Rocky Mountain National Park have decided to “Do It My Way!” The park has too many elk and they’re trying to figure out how to reduce numbers. The debate has gone on for some time and last week the park announced what it plans to do. It plans to use park employees and other hired guns to slaughter the elk. Even though they say they might use, with approval from the National Park Service, “qualified” volunteer hunters, it is very unlikely that they will or that they even seriously considered that method at all.

Once again the park’s announcement of its plans has set off yet another round of debate over the best way to proceed. Charlie Meyers, Outdoor Editor for the Denver Post, had an article on Saturday ridiculing the officials at the RMNP. In that article he says this:

The National Park Service is to be commended for taking action to reduce elk herds that are damaging vegetation over large parts of the park. Such initiative is particularly commendable in face of cockamamie proposals from the carnivore-promotion group, Sinapu, to reintroduce wolves.

To make sure you understand the context in which this was written, Meyers throughout the entire article is quite cynical in discussing the efforts of the park authorities. He is attempting to show readers, in a spoofy kind of way, that there are many things to be thankful for even though park officials don’t seem to really care one way or the other about the ideas presented by wildlife experts at the Colorado Division of Wildlife or the Wildlife Commission.

In the announcement by park officials, it was made clear that they had NOT removed the idea of introducing wolves into the park to help reduce elk numbers. As a matter of fact, one of the biggest complaints from DOW seemed to come on Saturday when Tom Burke, chairman of the Colorado Wildlife Commission, said the plan was so vague and open ended that it was extremely difficult to know what the real plan was and that it left too many unanswered questions up to the park to work out on their own. People can’t realistically comment on or understand what this elk management plan is when they’re not even sure if Abram’s tanks can be brought in and used.

Now, Charlie Meyers seems to be in a bit of hot water from his wolf-loving readers who think he went off the deep end calling the plan to bring wolves into RMNP, cockamamie. If you go to the site where the article is and scroll down to the bottom, you’ll see the comments left by readers. As of this writing, six readers weighed in with comments, all in favor of bringing wolves back and all because they favor “natural” wildlife management.

I wonder if this “natural” wildlife management makes for better wildlife viewing opportunities in our National Parks (Zoos)?

For Charlie Meyers, I guess it’s time to start looking for another job. With a nationwide movement toward natural wildlife management, what will there be to write about?

Tom Remington

Colorado Wildlife Commission Thinks RMNP Plan Too Vague

On Wednesday I told you about the Rocky Mountain National Park’s plan to manage elk. I also told you that the way the plan was proposed it said that the use of volunteer hunters to cull the elk herd would be only if park officials needed the extra help.

In what is looking like a great political maneuver to ward off the sensible thinkers in dealing with too many elk in and around the Rocky Mountain National Park, officials there, in revealing the elk management plan, say they will use “qualified” volunteer hunters to assist in culling the elk. Oh, I almost forgot to mention that those “authorized agents” will be used only if needed to help the park employees and the hired guns. All the meat, once tested for chronic wasting disease, will either be left to rot or given to Indian tribes and non-profits.

It seems that the Colorado Wildlife Commission has similar thoughts.

“The biggest problem I have is that there’s sort of a litany of items that are available according to the (plan),” said Tom Burke, chairman of the Colorado Wildlife Commission, which along with the Colorado Division of Wildlife criticized the plan. “But we don’t think they go far enough in actually saying what they’re going to do.”

This refers to what I described as the political maneuvering in the wording that would not require the park to do anything in managing the elk herd it didn’t want to do. From what I can gather, it’s so vague and wide open, park officials can import wolves if they want to.

Wildlife officials are saying that through this entire process, the efforts of the DOW and representatives to the U.S. Congress were to find ways in which qualified volunteers could be used at virtually no cost to taxpayers to achieve the goals of the park.

“I think our big concern is that through this whole process, we’ve asked and encouraged them to use qualified volunteers to remove whatever number of elk is appropriate,” Burke said. “But they haven’t said, ‘Yes, this is what we’re going to do.’ We’re just concerned that they have not defined exactly how they’re going to deal with the issue.”

Park officials say they’ll work out the details of the plan later and are stating that they believe the most cost-effective plan for culling the elk is the use of park employees. I just don’t see how that can be more cost-effective than bringing in volunteers. Elk hunters would be willing to pay a fee for the opportunity in many cases.

I still believe this is nothing more than a case of park officials being anti-hunting and that they are determined to do it their way. Have they forgotten who owns the park, the wildlife in it and pays their salaries? Evidently.

Tom Remington

Cost To Taxpayers To Reduce Elk Herd, “Only $6 Million”

In what is looking like a great political maneuver to ward off the sensible thinkers in dealing with too many elk in and around the Rocky Mountain National Park, officials there, in revealing the elk management plan, say they will use “qualified” volunteer hunters to assist in culling the elk. Oh, I almost forgot to mention that those “authorized agents” will be used only if needed to help the park employees and the hired guns. All the meat, once tested for chronic wasting disease, will either be left to rot or given to Indian tribes and non-profits.

It was never the intention of the RMNP authorities to utilize volunteer hunters to solve the over population problem and they’ve devised a system where they hope to appease enough people in order to do it their own way. Part of that plan was an announcement that they have “revised” their plan and have cut the cost down from $16 million to only $6 million. Another revision lengthens the plan out over twenty years with the idea of taking perhaps as many as 200 elk each year depending upon herd numbers, etc.

Another part of the plan will use $2 million to build fences around certain areas to protect the vegetation claimed to be destroyed by the elk. That construction will begin almost immediately while the rest of the plan has to go through public hearings and comment period. If approved, culling could begin by 2009 but there is one problem. LAWSUITS!

That’s right. They’re lining up already filing their lawsuits to stop RMNP from killing any elk this way. Instead, the local animal rights extremist organization SINAPU and others are planning to file a lawsuit to stop the killing. Instead, they are advocating to bring in wolves to get the job done.

Tom Remington

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