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Pope & Young Club To Sponsor National Hunting And Fishing Day
NHFD To Take Place September 24, 2011.

National Hunting and Fishing Day

Pope and Young Club

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. --(Ammoland.com)- The Pope and Young Club will be a key sponsor of National Hunting and Fishing Day, the official federal commemoration of hunters, anglers and conservation.

NHF Day continues to grow and reach new outdoorsmen and outdoorswomen each year with the continued support of generous sponsors. Through licenses, permits and special taxes, hunters and anglers generate $100,000 every 30 minutes–totaling more than $1.75 billion per year–for fish, wildlife and habitat. No one contributes more for conservation.

NHF Day is set to take place Sept. 24, 2011.

The Pope and Young Club is one of North America’s leading bowhunting and conservation organizations. Founded in 1961 as a nonprofit scientific organization, the Club is patterned after the prestigious Boone and Crockett Club. The Club advocates and encourages responsible bowhunting by promoting quality, fair chase hunting, and sound conservation practices.

The sponsorship by the Pope and Young Club supports the Wonders of Wildlife museum–the official home of National Hunting and Fishing Day. The Springfield, Mo., facility oversees educational initiatives to help the American public understand the indelible relationship between hunting, angling, healthy habitat, and wildlife and fisheries conservation.

Each year National Hunting and Fishing Day chooses an honorary chairperson, and this year T. Boone Pickens is serving in that capacity and will deliver the message of NHF Day.

A strong advocate for alternative energy in the United States, his renowned “Pickens Plan” is designed to decrease dependency on foreign oil while harnessing domestic energy alternatives such as wind power. He is the author of “The First Billion is the Hardest” and “Boone Pickens: The Luckiest Guy in the World.” Pickens also is a noted philanthropist, his gifts to charitable causes exceeding $700 million.

“In our 50th Year of ensuring bowhunting’s existence for future generations, the Pope and Young Club is proud to continue our support of National Hunting and Fishing Day,” noted P&Y President Roger Atwood. “NHF Day is a great opportunity to remind folks of the many cultural values that the hunting lifestyle provides, including patience, perseverance, skill development and mastery, the value of practice, applying personal ethics, and woodscraft, as well as a true understanding and appreciation of the natural world.”

“The Pope and Young Club has been a proponent of conservation from the day it was created,” said Misty Mitchell, director of Conservation Programs, Wonders of Wildlife. “They are exactly why NHF Day is such a big day for sportsmen around the country. Through our combined efforts we will continue to conserve our heritage.”

In 1972, Congress formalized NHF Day to remind the public that conservation depends on funding and leadership from hunters and anglers. Every president from Richard Nixon through Barack Obama has issued official proclamations of support for the annual commemoration, now recognized as one of the most effective grassroots campaigns ever undertaken to promote traditional outdoor sports.

Sponsors for NHF Day 2011 continues to grow, and includes Wonders of Wildlife, NSSF, Bass Pro Shops, Smith & Wesson, Sportsman’s Channel, Realtree, Cabela’s, GunBroker.com, Yamaha, Academy Sports + Outdoors, Izaak Walton League of America, Pope and Young Club and Fresh Air Educators.

For more information about NHF Day, visit www.nhfday.org and check out our Facebook page.

Filed under: Conservation News, Hunting News by Ammoland No Comments »

Wolf Debate – Sportsman’s Groups Calling for Order
Sportsmen are not wolf-haters. Hunters in America pushed for laws to regulate hunting. Ours is a history of self-restraint and respect for wildlife.

Letters to the AmmoLand Editor: Got something on your mind? Let us know and you can see it here.

Manasqaun, NJ --(Ammoland.com)- Many hunters are rightfully angry that a federal judge has put the gray wolf back under federal protection based on legal technicalities.

Taking management away from state authorities allows wolves to multiply and spread.

Wolves are already so plentiful they are cutting down herds of elk, moose, and deer, and are also killing livestock and pets. Wolves need to be controlled and we must continue toward that goal in an orderly fashion.

We sportsmen want to bring wolves under state management because this will sustain wolves, control the problems that wolves cause, and protect wolves from poachers. To do so, we look forward to working with other affected citizens, government, and other allies to clear up the legal technicalities and finalize the transfer to state management. This way wolves will be managed the same way as other wildlife based on the best available science with protections against illegal killing.

State management of wolves is best for the wolves and people, and wolf populations are so large now that the time is past due.

State management will be the best deal wolves have ever had. Wolves have never been managed sustainably in the lower 48 states. State and federal governments purposefully eradicated wolves, and then restored them under complete federal protection. This full protection has restored wolf numbers far beyond recovery goals: all 6 states with gray wolves in the lower 48 have at least doubled the number of wolves beyond their recovery goals. Idaho is at least 8 times over its goal. There are about 3,000 wolves in Minnesota, 600 each in Wisconsin and Michigan, at least 800 wolves in Idaho, 500 in Montana, and 300 in Wyoming.

Switching to state management will not be easy: federal and state managers have tried it 3 times in the last 7 years, having each effort struck down either because the law was fuzzy on how it could happen or too strict about why it cannot. These interpretations in federal district court are the latest examples of judges second-guessing government experts – an error for which the next highest appeals court has admonished its judges.

To achieve state management, hunters need to turn their anger into passion, speak up, and ask for hard but fair commitments from state and federal government. We need passion the way Theodore Roosevelt had passion in creating American conservation, which is our legacy and heritage to perpetuate. We need to stay in the arena of debate and decision and stay out of the bogs of blame and bad-mouthing. It is self-defeating to blame or antagonize federal and state officials. They agree with us on what needs to happen and we need their help. We need hard commitments from them to try new approaches within current law and, ideally, to change law and policy to close loopholes.

This complex task is already underway through a cooperative partnership between the state and federal governments. The Obama Administration has already filed an appeal of the recent federal court ruling. States have petitioned for greater management authority. Legislators from Montana, Wyoming and Idaho have begun meeting to devise a solution and have invited the federal government’s participation. We appreciate these straight-up attempts that demonstrate the resolve of our government. We acknowledge the sovereign authority of each state to manage its own laws and budgets.

Finally, as we seek hard commitments from government, we also need to draw a hard line for ourselves: we are sportsmen, not wolf-haters.

Statements on the Internet about poaching wolves are an affront to the American conservation ethic. Illegal killing is wrong, self-defeating, and exactly opposite of how sportsmen created conservation and the privilege of ethical hunting in the first place. Hunters in America fought poachers and pushed for laws to regulate hunting. Later, sportsmen paid fees and taxes on our own licenses and equipment to fund wildlife restoration that brought wildlife back to abundance, including the game we hunt. Ours is a history of self-restraint and respect for wildlife.

Today we are asking for wolves to be brought under modern state management. We will pursue this goal with the diligence we take to hunting itself, working professionally with the agencies, seeking allies, and pushing forward the policies that will prevent this tragedy from happening again with other wildlife.

• Boone and Crockett Club
  Lowell E. Baier, President
• Mule Deer Foundation
  Miles O. Moretti, President/CEO
• Pope and Young Club
  Roger Atwood, President
• Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation
  M. David Allen, President/CEO
• Safari Club International and Safari Club International Foundation
  Dr. Larry Rudolph, President
• Wild Sheep Foundation
  Gray N. Thornton, President/CEO
• Wildlife Management Institute
  Steven A. Williams, President

Filed under: Conservation News, Featured Articles, Hunting News, Shooting Industry News by Ammoland 1 Comment »