http://espn.go.com/outdoors/conservation/news/2004/0312/1757798.html
Sportsmen protest Bush's outdoor policies
By Joan Lowy
Scripps Howard News Service — March 12, 2004
From the slopes of the Rocky Mountains to the primeval forests of Alaska to the prairie potholes of the Dakotas, hunting and fishing enthusiasts are rebelling against President Bush's public lands policies.
The nation's 47 million hunters and anglers tend to be conservative Republicans who voted for Bush in the last election, but many sportsmen say they have been imbued with a new sense of militancy by the administration's sacrifice of some of the best wild lands in America to economic development.
"It seems like no matter which area you look in or what shrub you look under, this administration has waged all-out war on conservation," said Tony Dean, who hosts a popular television and radio show for hunters and anglers in the Midwest.
Dean, who lives in Pierre, S.D., said he is most angered by a policy the administration proposed last fall that would have made it easier for farmers and developers to fill in wetlands. The wetlands of the Dakotas, called prairie potholes, provide some of the most important habitat in North America for migratory ducks and some of the best duck hunting in the world. If there are no wetlands, there are no ducks. If there are no ducks, there is no duck hunting. For hunters like Dean, the conservation issue trumps even gun rights as a top concern.
"I think I own 60 shotguns and rifles. I certainly am a Second Amendment believer," Dean said. "But if there is nothing to hunt, then guns don't mean that much to me."
The administration's efforts to open more public lands on the Eastern front of the Rocky Mountains to oil and gas drilling has driven some sportsmen to do something they never thought they'd do — make common cause with environmentalists. "People who couldn't even bring themselves to say the word Democrat a few years ago are now willing to join arm-in-arm with the Sierra Club to save the Eastern front," said Ryan Busse, 34, vice president of Kimber Mfg. Inc., a high-end gun manufacturer in Kalispell, Mont.
This year's presidential election will probably be "the first time in my life that I will have voted for somebody other than a Republican in a national election," said Busse, who spends over 70 days a year fly fishing or hunting.
Alan Lackey, 43, a former cowboy who is now a car dealer in Raton, N.M., came to Washington recently with a group of Western sportsmen to protest oil and gas drilling provisions in a major energy bill before Congress that is one of Bush's top legislative priorities. "I consider some of these places (where drilling has been proposed) to be heaven on earth," Lackey said.
In Southeast Alaska, the administration's decision to open the Tongass National Forest — one of the last old growth forests on the continent — to logging prompted Greg Petrich, an avid hunter and angler in Juneau, to ask contact gun clubs across the country to sign a protest petition. Nearly 500 gun clubs, from the Slippery Rock Sportsmen's Club of Pennsylvania to the Pinetucky Gun Club of Georgia, signed the petition, including 40 clubs from Bush's home state of Texas. The petition drive proved "that your conservative, rightwing gun owners are really attached to hunting and wild areas and keeping those areas intact for the next generation," said Petrich, a registered Republican with a degree in gunsmithing.
The White House is keenly aware of the problem and has taken steps to address the sportsmen's concerns.
"We've had a long and very constructive partnership with outdoors and recreation groups," said James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Policy. "The fact that they are coming to us (with their concerns) is something we welcome."
With regard to energy development and logging, the administration is merely administering public lands according to "multiple use" principles set out by Congress that require industry be allowed access to public lands in addition to recreational users, Connaughton said.
The administration is trying to preserve wetlands by providing landowners with financial incentives not to develop their land, Connaughton said.
In November, Interior Secretary Gale Norton met with the leaders of 20 groups who represent hunters and anglers, including Ducks Unlimited, Safari Club International, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership and the Boone and Crockett Club.
The groups told Norton that protecting wetlands and the Eastern front of the Rockies from development are their top priorities.
Three weeks later, some of the leaders who met with Norton were invited to a session with Bush at the White House.
The meeting was ostensibly to thank the groups for supporting Bush's bill to increase logging in national forests to reduce the risk of wildfires, but much of the discussion with the president — which lasted nearly an hour — was about protecting wetlands. Four days later, Bush killed the proposed wetlands rule. Sporting groups said the move was a step forward, but did not resolve the wetlands issue since federal agencies are still operating under guidance issued more than a year ago that allows landowners to fill in isolated wetlands that do not connect to other bodies of water.
Unrest among hunters and anglers could prove critical in some swing states where the presidential race is expected to close, such as Arizona, Florida, New Mexico, Oregon and Pennsylvania, said Jim DiPeso of Republicans for Environmental Protection.
"In a lot of these communities hunting is a way of life, a culture," DiPeso said. "Woe be it to an administration that takes away their hunting places."
Sportsmen protest Bush's outdoor policies
By Joan Lowy
Scripps Howard News Service — March 12, 2004
From the slopes of the Rocky Mountains to the primeval forests of Alaska to the prairie potholes of the Dakotas, hunting and fishing enthusiasts are rebelling against President Bush's public lands policies.
The nation's 47 million hunters and anglers tend to be conservative Republicans who voted for Bush in the last election, but many sportsmen say they have been imbued with a new sense of militancy by the administration's sacrifice of some of the best wild lands in America to economic development.
"It seems like no matter which area you look in or what shrub you look under, this administration has waged all-out war on conservation," said Tony Dean, who hosts a popular television and radio show for hunters and anglers in the Midwest.
Dean, who lives in Pierre, S.D., said he is most angered by a policy the administration proposed last fall that would have made it easier for farmers and developers to fill in wetlands. The wetlands of the Dakotas, called prairie potholes, provide some of the most important habitat in North America for migratory ducks and some of the best duck hunting in the world. If there are no wetlands, there are no ducks. If there are no ducks, there is no duck hunting. For hunters like Dean, the conservation issue trumps even gun rights as a top concern.
"I think I own 60 shotguns and rifles. I certainly am a Second Amendment believer," Dean said. "But if there is nothing to hunt, then guns don't mean that much to me."
The administration's efforts to open more public lands on the Eastern front of the Rocky Mountains to oil and gas drilling has driven some sportsmen to do something they never thought they'd do — make common cause with environmentalists. "People who couldn't even bring themselves to say the word Democrat a few years ago are now willing to join arm-in-arm with the Sierra Club to save the Eastern front," said Ryan Busse, 34, vice president of Kimber Mfg. Inc., a high-end gun manufacturer in Kalispell, Mont.
This year's presidential election will probably be "the first time in my life that I will have voted for somebody other than a Republican in a national election," said Busse, who spends over 70 days a year fly fishing or hunting.
Alan Lackey, 43, a former cowboy who is now a car dealer in Raton, N.M., came to Washington recently with a group of Western sportsmen to protest oil and gas drilling provisions in a major energy bill before Congress that is one of Bush's top legislative priorities. "I consider some of these places (where drilling has been proposed) to be heaven on earth," Lackey said.
In Southeast Alaska, the administration's decision to open the Tongass National Forest — one of the last old growth forests on the continent — to logging prompted Greg Petrich, an avid hunter and angler in Juneau, to ask contact gun clubs across the country to sign a protest petition. Nearly 500 gun clubs, from the Slippery Rock Sportsmen's Club of Pennsylvania to the Pinetucky Gun Club of Georgia, signed the petition, including 40 clubs from Bush's home state of Texas. The petition drive proved "that your conservative, rightwing gun owners are really attached to hunting and wild areas and keeping those areas intact for the next generation," said Petrich, a registered Republican with a degree in gunsmithing.
The White House is keenly aware of the problem and has taken steps to address the sportsmen's concerns.
"We've had a long and very constructive partnership with outdoors and recreation groups," said James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Policy. "The fact that they are coming to us (with their concerns) is something we welcome."
With regard to energy development and logging, the administration is merely administering public lands according to "multiple use" principles set out by Congress that require industry be allowed access to public lands in addition to recreational users, Connaughton said.
The administration is trying to preserve wetlands by providing landowners with financial incentives not to develop their land, Connaughton said.
In November, Interior Secretary Gale Norton met with the leaders of 20 groups who represent hunters and anglers, including Ducks Unlimited, Safari Club International, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership and the Boone and Crockett Club.
The groups told Norton that protecting wetlands and the Eastern front of the Rockies from development are their top priorities.
Three weeks later, some of the leaders who met with Norton were invited to a session with Bush at the White House.
The meeting was ostensibly to thank the groups for supporting Bush's bill to increase logging in national forests to reduce the risk of wildfires, but much of the discussion with the president — which lasted nearly an hour — was about protecting wetlands. Four days later, Bush killed the proposed wetlands rule. Sporting groups said the move was a step forward, but did not resolve the wetlands issue since federal agencies are still operating under guidance issued more than a year ago that allows landowners to fill in isolated wetlands that do not connect to other bodies of water.
Unrest among hunters and anglers could prove critical in some swing states where the presidential race is expected to close, such as Arizona, Florida, New Mexico, Oregon and Pennsylvania, said Jim DiPeso of Republicans for Environmental Protection.
"In a lot of these communities hunting is a way of life, a culture," DiPeso said. "Woe be it to an administration that takes away their hunting places."
:banghead:
