Columbus, OH -(AmmoLand.com)- The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and its Obama-appointed director have issued new regulations closing 77 million acres of land (an area larger than 45 of the country’s 50 states) in Alaska to state wildlife management, including predator control and other established means and methods of hunting.
The animal rights radicals at the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) have long pushed for these anti-hunting, anti-management rules and were the first to congratulate the administration and FWS for this illegal action. The blatant preemption of the State of Alaska’s rights to manage wildlife and set hunting rules on these millions of acres disregards more than 200 years of settled law, as well as recent Congressional enactments in 1980 and 1997.
The Sportsmen’s Alliance strongly opposed these rules and is working closely with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (AFWA), Alaska hunters and hunting guides, and the Alaska Congressional Delegation to block the Obama Administration from enforcing these new “HSUS rules.”
Since adoption of the U.S. Constitution, the states have had the primary authority to manage publicly owned fish and wildlife, including the authority to set hunting and fishing seasons and regulate the means and methods used to take fish and wildlife. And this state authority includes federal lands. It’s why we all buy our licenses from the states – not the feds. FWS has very limited rights to preempt this state authority and only when Congress provides it specific authority, as in the case of migratory birds (why we buy federal duck stamps) and endangered species.
Regarding these 77 million acres of Wildlife Refuge lands in Alaska, three times Congress has directed that the state – not FWS – has the primary authority to set hunting and fishing rules in Alaska: 1959 in the Alaska Statehood Act, 1980 in the Alaska Lands Act (that created most of the Alaska refuges) and 1997 in Refuge Improvement Act (which also made hunting and fishing priority public uses on all refuge lands). The Obama Administration is ignoring all of this law to make new rules for their buddies at HSUS and other anti-hunters.
Congress has signaled strongly its opposition to these illegal rules. At the strong urging of Alaska’s Congressional Delegation (Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R), Sen Dan Sullivan (R) and Rep. Don Young (R)), pending funding bills in the House and Senate bar FWS from spending any money to implement the rules. FWS has ignored these signals and proceeded with the HSUS rules. Furthermore, President Obama has threatened to veto these bills if they reach his desk and his Capitol Hill allies are blocking action on these measures.
The State of Alaska, Alaska hunters and guides, Alaska Natives, AFWA, and others including the Sportsmen’s Alliance are planning to sue to stop the rules if Congress cannot undo them.
If President Obama and his HSUS pals get away with preempting Alaska’s wildlife authority and imposing anti-hunting/anti-wildlife management rules, you can bet other states – and federal lands – will be next.
About the Sportsmen’s Alliance:
The Sportsmen’s Alliance is a 501 (c) 4 organization that protects and defends America’s wildlife conservation programs and the pursuits – hunting, fishing and trapping – that generate the money to pay for them. Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation is a 501 (c) 3 organization that supports the same mission through public education, legal defense and research. Its mission is accomplished through several distinct programs coordinated to provide the most complete defense capability possible.
Stay connected to Sportsmen’s Alliance: Online, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
So much for being a Constitutional Republic that represents the people. Now we watch in amazement as a new dictatorship expands its control over it’s people. What will the Alaskan people do to fight this abuse of power?
@Laura
Laura,,, Go find non lethal entertainment. GFY
Hunters through their payment for licenses save more animals than they kill.
Here we go again. Obama has it figured out that he will do as he likes and his depts will write what ever reg they choose. He will than have his stooges in congress block things or he will personally veto what is assed to block him. With congress out of the way he has almost free sailing. Hilary will be worse as sge will add three liberal gay judges to Scrotum .With thAT Move, there will be a premanent 5/4 vote always pushing and cementing liberalism . Vote for trmp or you help elect hilary and the liberal world… Read more »
So glad to heard that still some people care about wildlife and do whatever they can to keep things in balance!!!! 🙂
Hopefully the POtuS, his administration, czars, appointees etc. will all be gone soon!
And by natural causes or otherwise the celebration will be HUGE!
99.9 percent of people want our wildlife protected and treated with kindness. And not killed for fun. And there are too many people on the planet to justify killing our sold life for food. Please leave them alone. Find non lethal entertainment. Read a book.
Well mark me as the one who kill hopefully three deer this year, and eat every pound of meat it provides. By the way, I also reads books!! Maybe I’ll pick one up on new tactics in hunting.
Oh, Laura, 99.9 percent of people know you are wrong and just a troll. True hunters don’t kill for fun. Wildlife are killed so they can be eaten. The pursuit may be fun or an exhilarating challenge but pulling the trigger is not fun. It is deadly serious. Emotion makes for lousy marksmanship. Go read Bambi again and have some kale. Leave the hunters to fund wildlife conservation as they have done for the past century.
@Laura H, Animals are protected by having limited seasons. Animals that are not protected by limited seasons are hunted all year long (coyotes, skunks, civet cats, rats, opossums, armadillo, etc.)
@Laura H, Apparently, you are unfamiliar with the Robinson-Pittman Act. Funding from hunters through the Robinson-Pittman Act supports wild life and wild life habitat. The act is so successful that it has brought all North American wild life back from the edge of extinction more than any other act of Congress, more than the Lacey Act or the failed Endangered Species Act.
Laura, your comment just speaks to your ignorance. 99.9%? You made that statistic up on the fly like most politicians would. Approximately 25% of the population of the world depends upon hunting and fishing to supply their basic proteins. This is a true statistic. Research it! Whether they are pursuing game or catching the fish themselves or buying the harvest from others, without hunting and fishing in this world people would starve. Your comment also shows your ignorance in that sportsman are the biggest conservationists there are. We actually protect the game we hunt as well as the environment, Improving… Read more »
@Laura,educate yourself about wildlife management. Harvesting (hunting) wildlife is the most humane thing we can possibly do !
It would seem that everybody agrees that obama has again decided to create his own law. Why not just tell him to comply with the Constitution and existing law or kiss your ass and go on with established practices – regardless of what the gutless congress does?
@herb, The potential loss of funding from the Federal government to the state government (e.g. Federal Highway Funds) prevents the states from standing up to the federal bureaucracies.