Hunting for our Freedoms...

I was reading a story about some rare African animal that just about went extinct in Africa. Some kind of curved horned creature. Fortunately, just before they disappeared from the savannah, a few of them got saved. A few of them went into the hands of a rapid environmentalist organization, and the others to the hands of a couple of Texans. The greenies intended to protect them from man, while the cowboys with guns wanted to breed them. Why? So they could find other idiots in blue jeans with expensive guns that somehow and for some unknown reason wanted to put a bullet through the gorgeous natural animals. They intended to kill them. Can you believe that? The poor Scimatar-horned Oryx being shot just for recreation? What kind of barbarian would want to kill something so beautiful - and something actually endangered - for the fun of it? What is next? Skeet shooting bald eagles?

Bald eagle hunting, anyone? I hear they are a little tough. Definitely tougher - and harder to shoot - than the Scimatar-horned onyx. The animal seems much safer and is thriving in greater numbers (by a factor of 200) on private hunting grounds, where texans raise them for the hunt. Not good, say environmentalists. They want it stopped and they want it stopped now. Those animals are endangered, you see. So is our freedom. At the hands of people that feel everything about us - from hunting to fishing to running our own businesses and maybe getting rich doing it - is not good for the God they called "Mother Earth". These people are the enemies of freedom, and fail to see that We are hunters. Progressives hunt for victims they can protect or save from danger or oppression. We hunt fish and Scimatar-horned onyx.

Here we are some years later. The environmentalists - who now have 150 of those creatures on their preserve in Africa - are fighing the Texans in court. Why? To stop them from killing the 10% of their stock each year. Killing those poor things are rich white guys with jeans and expensive, highly-accurate guns. The ten percent of their herds - which were raised on private ground with private funds for harvesting in the content of private hunts on those private lands - is more then one thousand six hundred animals. How the hell did one men get away with killing so many of those poor endangered animals?

The herd on the Texas ground numbers - according to a leading conservationist - somewhere between 6,000 and 10,000 animals. Penalty to kill, eat, and enjoy. The herd is completely sustainable with a 10% harvest.

Priscilla Feral is the president of Friends of Animals. It is Priscilla that leads the law suit to stop the hunts. It seems that capitalism, rich white guys with guns, and killing animals for the sport is something so disgusting, and so in need of her personal help, that stopping it is on her Agenda.

If you had the time to read this story today, think about this, and give some thought to writing a letter to Priscilla. You can tell her that you heard this story from a guy who owns expensive guns and cannot wait to shoot one of the scimitars. I will put the head on the wall of the office I am writing this story from. And think about her.

There is money in killing animals and fish...

Sorry to say this, folks,but there is money in killing stuff. There is money in killing those Scimatars and there is money in killing tuna, and in killing marlin once In a while. I am in fishing management, and not the protection of animals. If I was, I would argue that the animals being hunted by rich white guys in Texas on private land are one hell-of-a-lot safer than they are in the paltry herd being maintained by the greenies. Greenies cannot manage fish and they cannot manage animals. We cannot get on the red snapper grounds most days. Cutting the entire season to forty days for recreational fisherman shuts down millions in sales of goods related to fishing, and let us fish about twenty days all year for a delicious and abundant species. What the hell is up with that? Those snapper would be fine - and we still would never reach 10% of the stock in "takes" - if that season were open 9 months a year, and not one?.

Marine Spacial zones are covering the earth in ever-increasing areas. Fishing for sport - catch and release fishing - is now illegal in Germany and Sweden. Who is next? Hunting and fishing are in mankinds blood, and they mix well with capitalism. Man mixes well with capitalism. It was money that has 6,000 - 10,000 love and healthy Scimatar-horned onyx on private ground in Texas and a remarkable 150 on the ground of the greenies protecting them in Africa. Who do you trust with fishery management? People like Priscilla or people like Travis Palladeno, commercial anglers, professional guide, and strong battler against the environmental left. He is also the mayor of one of our country's finest coastal communities. Devastated by the ever-increasing regulations being shoved down our throats by people that do not fish, and do not like fishing or capitalism, for that matter.

There is a simple reason for this problem. In managing the animals, they have to manage something connected in magical and invisible ways to the animals they are attempting to manage. The human factor. And the human factor that is connected to those animals are the men and women who hunt them, or the men and women who find fishing magical and mystical, and important to the way they see life.

Being on the water, or being in the field about to take down one of those Scimatar-horned onyxes - gives us a connection that beauracrats, scientists, and certainly activist environmentalists cannot understand. Leave the onyx alone, Priscilla. Leave them and the hunters taking them down alone, Priscilla. Find something else to protect. Maybe you should do sex studies on the Scimatars, and by next year you might have 175 of them in Africa.