Thanks for returning my message. Before I comment on that I should tell you a little about myself. My wife and I took over a dental practice in Thermopolis in 1998. I believe you were already in college. My wife and I being UW grads couldn’t wait to return to the state after dental school in Nebraska. I had rifle hunted a lot in school but got the archery bug going to Sheridan College and UW. High School sports ate up the majority of time when I was younger and hunting filled that void as I got older. The preparation, staying in shape, and anticipation of the hunt. In the late eighties I got hooked on Bowhunter Magazine and made VHS copies of many of your grandpa’s movies and I believe your Uncle Rod’s Mule Deer movies. The years in Nebraska were painfully long. Hunting over pressured whitetails on 20 acres of “wilderness” listening to garage doors opening and dogs barking as the sun came up in the east as the farm houses woke up to go do chores about killed me. The reason I mention this is Dave from Tulsa ought to get himself out to the West and contribute to our economy if he wants to hunt out here so bad. I applaud you again on thoughtfully articulating the legal argument of states rights regarding wildlife management. Hopefully it won’t get overturned any time in the near future.

I know you guy’s follow the political climate on these issues closely. Do see this being changed or challenged much in the near future?

Thanks Again,

Carl

Dear Carl,

Thanks for the e-mail. I am sorry for the tardiness of this reply. I have been out in the field for the majority of the month now. I still go down to Thermopolis quite often to hunt antelope and fish the river during the summer.

As for your question regarding the political climate of states rights, I really don’t think you we will see this overturned in the near future. I don’t think the Federal Government under this administration wants to deal with game management and the hunting issue. They know that if they federalize game management there would be “no game management” and we would have CA game laws nation wide. The state management laws are in the constitutionalized, so it would take an act of congress and a signature from the president to over-turn the issue. I really think there are enough senators out west and in the mid-west that it would never get the 2/3 vote to overturn it in our immediate lifetimes. This is why it is extremely important to teach our kids to hunt and respect the sport we love so much. It will be the judges and senators that they vote for that will keep this tradition legal in America.

The only scenario I see jeopardizing this theory at this point, is the wolf issue. I really believe that the liberal, “tree huggers” and “anti’s” including the US Fish and Wildlife Department are pushing the wolf issue as a way to take hunting away from us. They have tried every way to Sunday to defeat hunting in the court system and it always gets struck down because of the need for the use of hunting as a game management tool. But, if the wolves and predators do the managing for us, the system no longer needs the hunter to manage the game populations. The wolves and lions have done it for us. Hunters out west are losing hunting opportunities on a daily basis due to the wolf re-introduction project/debacle. They (the US F&W Dept.) want to grow the wolf population and recover area from the Canadian border to the Mexican border, the ENTIRE Rocky Mountain region, no joke. That is why the Federal Endangered Species Act as it stands today, is probably the single largest threat to our hunting heritage, in my opinion.

I hope this clarifies your question.
Thanks for your input Carl and Merry Christmas.

Guy

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