DComeaux wrote:Rick wrote:One more time: what solution does he or you or anyone propose to stop flooding feed that won't have negative consequences for most Louisiana waterfowlers? Even if the powers that be don't take a baiting rewrite in unintended directions?
And never mind that the habitat loss and hunting pressure here wouldn't let you turn back the migration clock, even if it were within man's power.
To be determined
Crawfish ponds using rice as food should not be an issue if not hunted, especially if fished regularity and surrounded by cannons. I wouldn't want to hunt near there anyway.
Rick, I'm curious as to your thinking on this. Are you really content with the status quo, are you really okay with the wait and see, don't poke the bear attitude you seem to have?
Again, the flooded rice in crawfish ponds would, in fact, be a major issue, not just for those who can no longer hunt the ponds, themselves, but within who knows what distance birds might be trafficking to and from them, as the current law reads. Can't allow hunting in remotely close proximity to bait, or folks with the wherewithal will be hunting whatever distance might be allowed from truckloads of feed.
Rule that nothing man's planted can be flooded, and those with the wherewithal will be hunting the absolute best moist soil feeds adaptable to their areas a year after that ruling is made. Only way to stop that is to stop the artificial flooding that makes that feed available, so there went manipulated water. Which leaves whatever waterfowlers can't find another way around that competing in the market for completely natural habitat.
And never mind the value of all that lost man-made wintering habitat to the birds' overall wellbeing, as you and the likely great majority of us who currently do will no longer have vested interest in it.
I am by no means "content" with how things are developing for us or the birds. But I am resigned to the facts that people are going to keep making more and more people (some of which will earn or inherit more privilege than others), and the influence of all those new people and their technologies combined with natural forces no one seems to begin to understand are producing changes well beyond the control of our little special interest group. And I am resigned to counting myself blessed to have lived at a time when it was still possible for me to enjoy the natural bounties, of all sorts, that I have.
But I'd much rather devote my waterfowling energies to enjoying what we still have than to convincing the world that our share of the resource should be larger than theirs, much less "kicking a bear" that's more apt to put me out of the game than effect meaningful change.
