assateague wrote:Woody wrote:DeadEye_Dan wrote:Option 3.
Reduce the number of animals doing damage....but that hurts their license revenue.
How do you reduce the population responsibly?
The state has no responsibility to the wildlife, they have a responsibility to the citizens.
What tangible benefit is there to having the numbers we do now? Aside from generating revenue for the state, I can think of none. Before anyone puts out the "it's for everyone to enjoy" argument, I'll list these tangible drawbacks:
Wildlife causes damage. That's real money, from real people's pockets. Quite tangible.
Why SHOULDN'T the federal government get a bill from US Airways for their geese crashing a plane? Are the lives of 200 people not "tangible", but "enjoying wildlife" is? There is no excuse for the lack of responsibility, and government in general has got quite good at avoiding it.
-A building inspector controls what and how you build something, but if they screw up and miss something, and your house burns down in an electrical fire because of it, they have no responsibility.
-The FDA controls what drugs the pharma companies may bring to market, but if they screw up and people die, the FDA has no responsibility for it.
-The state controls what and how you may hunt, but if the wildlife damages something, they have no responsibility for it.
The whole idea is repulsive to me. I'm not advocating anarchy, and if you bothered to read what I said, you would see that that is true. I am advocating for either taking responsibility, or abrogating control. You cannot have one without the other. Right now, they have no skin in the game. Their decisions on wildlife and population numbers have ZERO consequences for them, and I'm tired of government being the only ones who don't suffer consequences. You said they couldn't afford to pay damages if they assumed responsibility- fine. Then I bet that rather quickly they would figure out a way to manage the wildlife which wouldn't cause so much damage.
I'll just speak to this area, and my particular experience. Deer cause an insane amount of damage. That is why I get crop damage tags. The state official who issues these comes out every two years to assess the crop damage done, and that is how they determine the number of damage tags. However, the amount is capped by the state, I believe at 30. And I'm not allowed to shoot bucks. Why? Do bucks not eat beans? I could care less what I shoot, but when I watch a bachelor group of 15 bucks browsing through a corn field, it's pretty damn stupid that they get a free pass.
An acre of corn averages about 155 bushels an acre on the farms I hunt. Last year, when the damage assessment was done, he averaged out a 14% loss due to wildlife (yes, that includes geese eating wheat, but good luck getting rid of those) Fields are small here, and the guy who farms this land has a total of a little over 440 acres to tend. A bag of corn seed is $300, and will seed around 3 acres. So that's $44,000 in seed alone. We won't even get into fertilizer, chemical, fuel, and time. 14% of $44,000 is $6160 worth of seed which will not produce anything, but which has to be paid for, anyway. Then factor in the lost revenue- 61 acres eaten, which will grow no corn. At an average of 155 bushels per acre, at an estimate of $5 a bushel, that's $47,000. Now add the $6,000 worth of seed, and you get a total of $53,000 lost to deer, and that's just one farmer. Don't tell me there's no real loss due to wildlife.
What is the state's responsibility to him? Their decisions cost him almost $60,000 a year. But yet I have to hear about how wildlife is held "for the good of all". Bullshit.
:lol:
