For Every Dusk There Is A Dawn

During this semester I have really enjoyed writing this blog, in my busy life I would have never had the time to write about hunting in my own words. I loved my topic and found it natural for me to write about because I am an avid hunter that loves the outdoors and the hunting community. It was very interesting looking up topics that I was unclear about and learning more about the outdoor world, I found it easy to obtain information through my father and through this unbelievable world of electronics we live in today. It was simple for me to do my assignments but did run into some issues when it came to getting online to update my blog. In the end, I believe it came together quiet nicely. I am currently the Jr. Editor of Racks & Tails Magazine and have been writing articles for us for about a year now. I have always been interested in discussing hunting and really am intrigued when youth involvement is brought up in a conversation. I plan on continuing to write for the magazine and to push for more youth involvement in the hunting community. This blog has really allowed me to dig deeper into the topic of my interest and I know that the information I have learned from it will always be with me down the road. This all is a part of my life, it is something I will and always be apart of. I plan on continuing to right for this blog when I am not writing for the magazine so that I can put out as much as I have to give to better the readers on what hunting is and how great of an activity it is.

Sincerely,

Tanner Gianinetti

Anti-Hunting argument

Hunting Issues & Arguments

By

Tim Spencer, Anti-Hunting Writer

http://www.google.com/imgres?

In Tim's article, he writes about how killing animals is wrong and goes on to explain how hunting is not pest control, the inefficiency of hunting and the myths behind hunters statements. However, the main point of his article is an argument against fox hunting. He goes on to writes through the article that fox hunting is an unfair sport and is not needed in society. He also talks about the use of hounds and the harm that is done to both the dogs and the fox.

The author establishes his credibility by explaining who he is and the anti hunting business he is apart of. His purpose of writing this article is to inquire people to stop hunting foxes, he uses emotional appeal when he talks about people hunting fox cubs in order to decrease the population. He also uses emotional appeal through out his article when talking about the dogs, this is very affective due to the fact that most people like canines. He writes about how hunting dogs are mistreated and often become sick due to bites and infections from the animals and how the life style of a hunting hound can be considered cruel and abusive. Then after he gets the readers emotionally involved he changes his tone from a concerned appeal to an aggressive tone trying to get the reader to feel the same emotion which would overall lead to the reader sharing the same type of opinion as the author. I believe that his targeted audience would be people that are, "green" to the world of hunting and do not understand why people hunt. I think this is very obvious in his article because he talks briefly about the history of hunting and the reasons why some people participate in the activity. Then he hones in on the sensitive issues to attempt to stir up an emotional conflict with the reader in order to pull them to the negative side of the activity so that they become against the activity as he is. You can also tell that he is addressing this article to this type of audience through his one sided approach. He writes vastly on the negative appeal and only briefly describes what it is like on the other side of the fence. This ensures that the reader is not truly opened to his/her own opinion on the activity because it is a biased article. This leads to the subject being misunderstood and people disagreeing simply because they were coaxed into a daze by someone who only told them what they wanted them to know.

Article Link:

http://www.chaos.org.uk/~maureen/issues.html

Hunter's Safety

Before some one is allowed to hunt they must complete a class called Hunter's Safety. This is a two day coarse in which people learn how to participate in safe hunting. They are presented with safety information and are taught the rules and regulations when hunting or firing a weapon. Through out the program there are written tests to asses the knowledge the people are retaining, at the end of the two days they are presented with a final exam. If the person does not pass they are able to take the coarse again and again until they can pass. In order to take the the program the person must be at least eight years of age and there is an enrollment fee that varies depending on the instructor providing the coarse. The purpose behind the coarse is to ensure outdoorsmen safety and to inform up coming hunters of the laws and rules behind hunting and shooting. This program is mandatory in order to hunt any where across the nation. The hope is that if people are informed on laws and learn the knowledge of hunting there will be less accidents and less laws being broken. Sadly, this is not always true. There will always be people that try and manipulate the law and commit acts that are against it. Through having this program the rate of accidents has dramatically dropped as well as the amount of illegal hunting since the program was created on January 1st, 1954.

References:

Department Of Fish And Game

http://www.dfg.ca.gov/huntered/

Division Of Wildlife

http://wildlife.state.co.us/Pages/Home.aspx

Should hunters be limited for the amount of amuntion they are allowed to have in their magazine?

I strongly believe that hunters should have a limit of ammunition that they are allowed to have in their gun or magazine when they are hunting. I believe this because I think that it is fair to the animals because it gives them a chance to get away. Currently hunters can have as many bullets in their weapon that it can hold, some magazine are capable of holding over seven shells. Archery and muzzle loader are the only two forms of hunting that I consider to be true hunting due to the fact that the hunters only have one shot. If they miss the animal has the opportunity to escape because it take time to reload a muzzle loader or to string another arrow. If a rifle hunter were to miss he/she would be able to simply reload the gun at a fast enough time to take multiple shots at the animal. Because of this fact, I think rifle hunters have a tendency to be more bellicose when hunting. Their first shot may be well aimed but if they do not hit their target they go off on a shooting frenzy and simply just try to hit the animal. By doing so, reckless shots are being taken and this causes meat to be damaged and is an unsafe practice. If other animals are near by the may find themselves in the line of fire or a stray bullet may have to potential to find another hunter far off in the distance.

By having a set limit of bullets that hunters are are allowed to carry there would be more true hunting. Hunters would have to work harder to make their kills and would be conservative on their firing. There would be better sportsmanship taking place in the field because they would be have to make good shot and would not have such a wide margin for reckless shooting. The animals would have a fair chance to get away making hunting more so hunting than simply just shooting. It is also better for the
animals because many rifle hunters are capable of shooting far distances, but very few hit their mark. When they do not, they fire and fire until they hit the animal. If they are limited to their ammo they would have to get closer to the animal and develop better shots there for lessing the factor of reckless firing.

I believe that by enforcing this concept there would also be a down fall in anit-hunting attacks saying how hunting is unethical and unfair to the animals. This would be a great regulation to have to protect hunting against these blast from organizations against hunting. The question of hunting being unfair would be sized down dramatically and the out look on the sport/activity would be considered more moral then it currently is. I think the regulation should state that any rifle hunter is only allowed to carry five shells at a time and only two may be in the rifle or magazine. I know that many rifle hunter will be apposed to this but it will better them down the road as well as the image of hunting in societies eyes. The main concern that would be

brought up would be safety. I know that there would be people that would argue that if they have limited amounts of ammo and there was, for example, a bear or mountain lion attack, there would be a safety issue. But the reality of the matter is that any hunter can and should carry a protection pistol incase of these attacks. I know as an archery and muzzleloader hunter that I do when ever I go out. So the case that this regulation would be a safety hazard would be a small and weak one.

Youth, Missing In Action?

As an avid youth hunter I try to spend as much time as possible in the outdoors. I have always loved to be out hunting and fishing with my friends and family, but lately I have been noticing an upsetting fact in society today. That fact is that youth involvement in these activities has been a declining factor for years now and is continuing to become less and less popular in our society. I recently did a pole on my blog to see how much time students spend hunting and out of 18 teens that completed the pole, twelve of them had said that they have never gone out hunting. This put a little belief in my heart that my opinion of a decline in youth involvement was true, but 18 high school student could not stand as enough proof. So then I researched this issue on line and came to find that it was not only in my area that this was an issue, it was nation wide. Each site I went to went on to explain that youth hunting as well as participation in shooting sports is at a steady down fall, youth numbers have been an issue since the year 2000 (http://www.nwtf.org/images/Youth_Hunting_Report.pdf). I wenton to find that adult hunters now had been hunting at early ages and were introduced to it by there parents/families and today many of our "technology-pampered" children/teens do not find the sport amusing and would rather be doing something at home. Because of this many parents do not force this upon their children which allows them to avoid going out.

All across the nation, states have programs and have set up youth categories when purchasing tags. They have done this so that youth participants do not have to pay the same price as adults and so that if

a youth had to draw for a tag they would almost be guaranteed the license to hunt that animal. This increases the amount of animals the youth are able to hunt allowing them to have a chance to be apart of a successful hunt. When this happens the young teen or child usually wants to take part of the experience again. After years of this process the hope is that as youth participants mature they will continue to hunt. States are trying to promote youth involvement but even with these strategies applied the numbers of youth tags are still not increasing.

The current predicament is that the youth is growing up in a different world than they did in the 1980's. Surrounded by this vast world of technology they have other ways to occupy there time that they find more amusing then to go out hunting or fishing. Whe

re a kid in the 80's did these activities for fun, they did not have all of these activities such as video games and computers to spend their time on. In conclusion the only way hunting can live on is through the youth because they are our future. With out youth involvement in the outdoors today, hunting and fishing will fall into a memory and will not be able to continue. But the issue is not as easy to address and it would seem otherwise the decline in youth involvement would not be happening.

References:

U.S. Sportsman's Alliance, National Shooting Sports Foundation, National Wild Turkey Foundation

-http://www.nwtf.org/images/Youth_Hunting_Report.pdf

Blogger Pole

Division Of Wildlife

-http://wildlife.state.co.us/Pages/Home.aspx

Current Issues

In the hunting world, there is always people that dislike and disagree with hunting and its practice. The reasons are endless, these are some of the issues hunting faces today: some people just think its wrong to kill animals, some dislike it because it is considered killing for recreation, others believe that certain hunting equipment give hunters an unfair advantage over the animals and some believe that it is wrong to hunt an animal during matting season. However, the hunters claim that not only is it a right to hunt but it actually keeps animal population at a healthy lever and that it is no different then killing an animal on a ranch to be sold in a market. Both parties endlessly battle over morals and perspectives on whether or not hunting is human but there is one issue that both pro-hunters, as well as anti-hunters agree on as being a problem and that is poaching (Arguments for and against hunting). But to every issue, there is both sides of the fence so it is hard determining which side is right or wrong and it is up to each state, individually, to have certain regulations for hunters.

State regulations are what determines each states laws on hunting and each year there are new amendments. These changes are made in order to better hunting as well as try to come to level terms for anti-hunters as well, but this is hardly ever reached due to the fact that they wish hunting to be eliminated. However while regulations are being made to please one party they sometimes enrage the other, so it is very difficult for the individual state to create laws that pleases both sides. For us in Colorado, many of the hunting laws are very conservative. Our laws are well set and do a very good job addressing the issues that are commonly debated back and forth between the two sides. In the state of Colorado we do not allow certain types of hunting techniques such as baiting and trapping without a special permit for example. All animals also have set seasons in which you are allowed to hunt them and are labeled either as small game or big game. To ensure that every one understands these laws the DOW ( Division Of Wildlife ) Distributes brochures annually across the state for free so that all hunters are kept up to date on the laws. This ensures that every one can be considered liable if they break any of the laws. If any of the laws are broken, there is usually a fine that the individual must pay and depending on the law being broken, they could lose their license for multiple years as well as equipment they had used when breaking it. These fines can be very substantial when you consider that if you not only get find but the gear you used at the time is confiscated as well as the vehicle you had used to get to the area, you are looking at some serious losses.

Yet people still insist on breaking these laws, and the one that is constantly being enervated is poaching. Poaching is defined as when an animal is killed out of season or illegally. People poach for multiple reason like for the animals antlers or fur, for food or cruelly for "fun". This is a serious problem around the world because poachers kill regardless if the animal is endangered, threatened or considered to be non-game. Each year thousands of geese, bears, moose, elk, antelope, swans, cougars, turkeys, wolves, foxes, coyotes, bobcats, boars, and other woodland creatures are killed by hunters (Compiled by The Fund for Animals with data from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and state wildlife agencies.) It is estimated that poachers kill the same number, if not more animals as paid for hunters do each year. There is no question that poaching is a serious issue in the world of out doors, and worse yet, there is no true solution that would automatically resolve this issue. But the D.O.W. does its best to eliminate these crimes and prevent them from happening through there heavy law enforcement and strict regulations.

Sources:

- Arguments for/against hunting

http://www.idausa.org/facts/hunting.html

- Division Of Wildlife

http://wildlife.state.co.us/rulesregs/lawEnforcement/operationGameThief/Pages/OGT.aspx

History

Since the dawn of time, man kind has hunted for survival. Hunting was the way of life, it was a necessity for survival from the time of the cave-man to colonial times. All across the world there are different forms of hunting for various types of prey, every culture has relied on it and has a history of its practices. Today we can simply just travel to the town market and purchase our foods but there was a time when that was not an option and what determined whether you ate or not was if your family had managed to successfully bring home a animal. The world of hunting today is not as big of a deal as what it was then and is commonly frowned upon due to people protesting against it claiming that hunting is needless and just used for sport and nothing more. When in reality a harvested elk or deer will feed a family for multiple months and almost all of the animal put to good use. Whenever a tag is purchased so that someone can hunt an animal, the money is put towards wilderness protection as well as animal protection so that wild life can remain in tact. Hunters actually give more money to animal rights and protection facilities then any anti-hunting organization ever has. Another advantage of hunting today is to actually control animal population (Division Of Wildlife). When human kind staked their grounds in wilderness, there were many predators such as bears, wolves and mountain lions. But humans quickly began killing these animals off because they were scared of them, resulting in no predators which meant that their prey was no longer being killed. This resulted in over population of these animals and they began destroying plant life and all the vegetation they needed to survive. So society needs hunters so that these animals population is monitored so that they can actually survive. Many people today actually do not partake in hunting as much as we actually think, which is something we would not expect here in colorado considering that about one in five people have hunted or know of people that do hunt. But only a mere 7% of the US population actually hunts (Hunting Facts).

Now a days, hunting is considered sporting activity but is commonly mixed up for "hunting for sport". This term means that people hunting are just killing animals for bragging rights and for show and yes, some people do go about this but the vast majority of the hunting community is against this concept. Take these images for example, Some people wish to just embark on hunts to harvest trophy animals such as this massive bull elk.

But in this image below this is more of the average bull elk that most people harvest and are happy with. Notice the size difference as well as the facial expressions between the men in the images, who truly looks more satisfied with their kill?

Hunting is not thought of as about just killing animals. It is cherished by those that partake in it because of the connection to nature and because of its unique characteristic that brings families and friends closer together. Its because of these attributes that people love hunting as well as the outdoors.

Sources

-Division Of Wildlife

http://wildlife.state.co.us/Pages/Home.aspx

-Hunting facts

http://www.idausa.org/facts/hunting.html