A Warning To Outdoor Users About Echinococcus, From Worms

by

Tom Remington

This is a warning to outdoor users about a potentially deadly biological event that could result from one’s curiosity to poke at and kick through scat from wolves, coyotes and foxes. Of course not everyone knowingly does this but many hunters, trappers and simply the curious, want to know what these animals have been eating. Read more

Picture This!

With all the great stories, equipment, adventures and people out there I thought it would be great to get some pictures.  If you have any pictures from a hunt, your gear or best of all you geared up that would be great.  If you send in pictures I will post on our site as well as putting some of the best pictures on all our sites.  Things I am looking for, but not limited to.

•    Gear: Clothes, utility tools, ATV’s…
•    Favorite weapons: guns, bows, sticks, stones…
•    Best Duck Blind or Hide…
•    You, family or friends dressed for the hunt…
•    Where you hunt

All I need is a digital picture in any PC compatible format and a description of the picture.  You can make the description as long or short as you would like.  If there is a story behind the picture we would love to hear about it.

Send Pictures to:

Todd Krater
U.S. Hunting Today
Managing Editor
todd@ushuntingtoday.com

Note: If you want a picture posted and do not have a digital copy I would be willing to scan it for you.  Please contact me for details.

US Hunting Today reserves the right to refuse any picture for any reason as well as edit it where appropriate.

The Peasant Wars

(Republished by permission)

Opinion by George Dovel

George Dovel is Editor and Publisher of The Outdoorsman.

In 2003, North America’s foremost wildlife scientist, Dr. Valerius Geist, made the following observations:

“The miracle of North American conservation is that it is basically a blue-collar system, grounded in the political and financial support and the active participation of large numbers of middle-class citizens who bring their basic honesty and decency to bear on important issues. This is just the opposite of the elitist system that has existed throughout Europe for centuries and is spreading like cancer around the world today, even right here at home. Read more

Can We Conclude There Are More Wolves?

What a confusing mess! I guess this is another classic example of government making shambles out of anything they touch. Idaho Department of Fish and Game in their most recent wolf report shows they have confirmed wolf kills on livestock outnumbering last year. The same report shows more wolves have been killed than last year but the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said in September that wolf populations were on the decline in Idaho, Wyoming and Montana. So what gives?

According to IDFG, since January 1, 2008 until November 24, 2008, they have 325 confirmed kills by wolves – 100 cattle, 212 sheep and 13 dogs. For all of last year, there were 278 confirmed kills – 57 cattle, 211 sheep and 10 dogs. Can we conclude that there are more wolves? Read more

“On Property” By James Madison

My god it is late at night – much later than I am accustomed to for doing work but when feeling compelled, as I am at this moment, I have to at least begin this article and finish it in the morning. If I wait until morning, I fear little sleep and good rest.

Today, I was reading two opinion pieces in the Bismark Tribune out of North Dakota. One piece was written by Roger Kaseman, perhaps the self-appointed leader of the North Dakota Hunters for Fair Chase. Kaseman uses “deceptive” practices in order to convince readers that a group, also in North Dakota, called the, “Citizens to Preserve North Dakota Property Rights”, is using “deceptive” practices in doing battle against the Fair Chasers who want to outlaw hunting on game ranches. (Make sure you read all the comments that follow) Read more

For Sportsmen, Clean Water Restoration Act Goes Too Far

Peyton Knight of the National Center for Public Policy Research is warning sportsmen that the proposed Clean Water Restoration Act sponsored by Representative James Oberstar (D-MN), “would do more to threaten the cherished pastimes of hunters, fishermen and other outdoor enthusiasts than it would to ensure the cleanliness of our nation’s water.”

I’ve written a couple times over the past few months about the CWRA (here and here) but Knight brings to the attention of American sportsmen what could await us should this act be approved. Read more

Death Of Three Cougar Kittens Irresponsibly Represented

Three cougar kittens less than a year old were killed by Idaho Fish and Game officials because they believed that the kittens were malnourished and they could not be returned to the wild. They also stated there was no place to place them either, an unfortunate series of events, some of which aren’t setting well with some people, myself included.

What I’m bothered with is that without any evidence to base a claim, Idaho Fish and Game personnel are saying that the reason the kittens were malnourished is because hunters with hounds were so busy treeing the mother lion she didn’t have time to kill a deer and feed her young. Read more

Is Government Two-Faced When It Comes To Domestic Elk Industry?

Fascism takes on many forms some of which are difficult to spot. I see far too many groups and individuals attempting to force ideals onto others. When this happens an assortment of tactics are employed in order to manipulate the system and sway public opinion to achieve an end result.

Take for example the state of Idaho. Idaho is home to one of the best run domestic elk industries in the United States, in my opinion. It is well run, clean, disease free and brings a substantial economic contribution to the people of that state as well. Some people don’t like to see elk trapped behind fences even though elk have been domesticated world wide for centuries. Read more

Time To Toss The Endangered Species Act

The Endangered Species Act is unconstitutional. It is nothing more than a strong arm tool used by out of control animal rights groups and power hungry administrators. It strips Americans of their constitutional rights and is probably doing our wildlife more harm than good in many ways.

The ESA when it became law in 1973 was a plan to help protect disappearing species of wildlife. I can’t believe that it was designed to do what history has shown are the results of such an act. Because of extremists and special interests an American landowner is forced to give up their rights to prosper and protect their own property in order to save an animal. Not only is this wrong, the landowner has to do it at his/her own expense.

Animal rights groups continue their assault on Americans by filing lawsuit after lawsuit while using the ESA as the basis of many of their attacks. What’s sad is that too often they are winning.

Let’s take a moment and look at a few of the more recent events taking place across the country that should give readers a chance to at least ask if the ESA needs to be reworked.

Today in the Colombian, a newspaper out of Washington state, Erik Robinson shares examples of how twisted the ESA interpretation has become and how extreme views are becoming costly to innocent wildlife species at the behest of saving another.

In the far west, the U.S. has been protecting the spotted owl for some time. Forget that some scientists believe the owl was never endangered to begin with. Its protection has cost American industry millions of dollars. It has gotten to the point where the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is prepared to start shooting barred owls in hopes of saving a few more spotted owls.

Another incident involves the saving of salmon. Sea lions are hanging around the Bonneville Dam looking for an easy meal of salmon as they work their way up the fish ladders. Government officials are considering killing many of those lions in order to save some more fish.

Is this how it’s done?

In Maine the Animal Protection Institute has filed a lawsuit against the state of Maine in order to stop all trapping in most of that state where the Canada lynx habitat is. In 8 years, trappers have inadvertently trapped and killed two lynx and API wants all trapping to stop. Reports have been circulating that if API is successful in winning this suit, they will file a similar one to stop fishing in any waters in Maine where endangered species of fish live – namely the Atlantic salmon.

Is this the intent of the ESA?

Crosswalk.com republished an article from CNSNews writer Randy Hall about a Montana rancher who has been charged with violating the Endangered Species Act because he shot and killed two wolves that were part of a pack destroying his livestock. As many as five head of cattle had been consumed by this pack of 13 wolves.

The owner of this particular ranch, Roger Lang, has spent huge sums of money in order to protect his property all for the sake of protecting a wolf that no longer needs protecting. This is out of pocket money, an expense he should not have had to incur in order not to infringe upon the ESA.

I am not alone in calling for the ESA to be either abolished or completely revamped. Brian Seasholes, an adjunct scholar with the conservative National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA), says that the main threat to all wildlife is the encroachment by man into their habitat. For wildlife to be protected, agencies such as local fish and game and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, depend on the landowner’s cooperation. Clamping down on a landowner like Lang will have very negative effects.

“Wildlife authorities can’t be everywhere, and more often than not, they aren’t,” added Seasholes, the author of an NCPA report entitled “Bad for Species, Bad for People: What’s Wrong With the Endangered Species Act and How to Fix It.” As a result, “landowners are the ones who bear the true cost of living with wildlife.”

Because farmers and ranchers tend to be “land rich and cash poor,” they may decide to quietly “shoot, shovel and shut up” or, more detrimentally, “make their land inhospitable to wildlife by erecting high fences or eliminating sources of water, he stated.

“That’s the great tragedy of the Endangered Species Act,” Seasholes added. “If one had deliberately tried to write a law that would do enormous harm to wildlife, it would be hard to top the ESA.”

As this assault on landowners rights continues, who can blame a landowner for “shoot, shovel and shut up”? I have often said that animal rights groups have very little real interest in what is best for wildlife. Their target is the end to all hunting, fishing and trapping nationwide – at whatever the cost.

We see first hand that this insane influence on our authorities now has them easily willing to shoot and kill other species in order to save another. Is there science behind that? Is this what the creators of the ESA had in mind when it was written?

In Maine, the API wants trapping stopped in order to protect three species – the bald eagle, the Canada lynx and the gray wolf. The bald eagle has been removed from protection in Maine because it is thriving and there are no confirmed cases of any wolves living in Maine. That leaves only the lynx but this brings me to another point which the way the ESA has been administered creates another bad situation.

Those who spend perhaps the most time in the woods are the hunters and trappers. They are the ones who see what’s really out there. Tell me what incentive is there for any hunter or trapper to report or help to document the existence of gray wolves or mountain lions in the Pine Tree State? It would be a death sentence for the hunter and trapper.

Once anybody can document that these animals exist in Maine, groups like the API will move in with more lawsuits to end many hunting and trapping opportunities. This is a clear example of Seasholes’ “shoot, shovel and shut up”.

I have all but gone public in telling people I know to keep your mouth shut if you see any wolves or mountain lions in the woods of Maine. While I wouldn’t condone the needless shooting of these animals, I certainly don’t consider shooting them for self protection and the protection of my property as being wrong. In those cases, I believe a shoot, shovel and shut up method would be in order.

The way the ESA is being administered is wrong, it’s unconstitutional, and if allowed to continue, will have a complete opposite effect than what its written intent was in 1973.

Tom Remington

After All the Fighting And Lost Jobs, The Spotted Owl Is History

Or so it seems. I have been reading two articles in the Oregonian about the spotted owl, that little creature that cost thousands of people their jobs and closed many logging industries, when President Bill Clinton signed into law the protection of the spotted owl.

Environmentalists then knew, beyond a doubt, that if they could stop the cutting of old growth timber, they could save the spotted owl, a creature they knew very little about.

They stopped the cutting and even in places where no cutting ever took place, the spotted owl’s population is racing toward extinction while at the same time, the barred owl population is growing leaps and bounds.

Some scientists attribute the loss of the spotted owl to the influx of barred owls but they’re not exactly sure why.

Makes you wonder how many of these environmentalists and scientists ever stop and think how much of this stuff is just going to happen anyway?

For those wishing to learn more about what is going on out in Oregon with the spotted owl, you can read these two articles.

So much for saving the spotted owl

and

To Oregon timber towns, it was the owl that roared

Tom Remington

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