Ridecamp: Re: [RC] [RC] [RC] Hunting Season

At 12:15 PM 11/17/02, heidi@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> EXCUSE ME???  Here in the West, virtually ALL of the commodities you
> describe are on public lands.  There IS no "somewhere else" to purchase
> these things, for the most part.

I said "in theory".  In practice you actually can lease pasture from a 
private landowner, you could cut trees on someone's private land.  Don't 
know if you could mine on someone's private land - in NM most of the 
mineral rights are owned by the federal government, might be that way 
everywhere else.  You could even hunt on private hunting preserves as well.

> As a recreational user, the FIRST people I'd like to see
> back in these woods are the loggers!

Yup, I've ridden on many a logging road.

> Please show me where hunters get refunds?  He buys the privilege to hunt
> just like you buy the privilege to ride an endurance ride by paying an
> entry fee.  What's the difference?

I don't know.  I'm agreeing with you.  Somebody else suggested hunters 
should get refunds if they couldn't hunt because I said if I couldn't have 
access to public lands paid for with public money then I should get a tax 
refund (hah - like I believe the gov't would ever do that!).  I absolutely 
agree that hunters buy the privilege to hunt.  But I believe that's because 
he gets to "harvest" something.  Riders paying for an endurance ride are 
paying for land use too, but plain old everyday recreational use - what's 
being harvested there?  None of these fees mentioned are paying for just 
walking on the land!

>  Personally, wouldn't it make a lot more sense to tighten up your local 
> hunter safety regulations, if they are lacking (states that have them 
> have demonstrably better safety among hunters than those that don't), 
> etc., than to pick on one entire group of the public that also enjoys 
> using public lands--and pays handsomely for the privilege.

Yes, I agree absolutely that tightening up safety regulations, encouraging 
the creation of mandatory firearms education, etc. would be the way to 
go.   That's what I've been trying to say - that no one group has more 
rights than the other, that other users should not have to forego using 
lands so that one special group can, that a group which causes problems 
should become educated and encourage themselves to self regulate so that 
these problems can stop rather than the whole rest of the world working 
around them to accommodate them!  I am NOT arguing any other way!


       _________________________________________________
           Lif Strand * Quemado NM USA * www.fasterhorses.com
                               ** You speak, I listen, We talk  **


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