Never has there been a better time to be a predator hunter than right now. This suggestion might fly in the face of additional laws and regulations, of ceaseless attacks by anti-hunters or of the shrinking size of wildlands throughout the country. Regardless, there is one thing certain: Every day that we are not out hunting predators is one less day we’ll have in our individual hunting lives and in the collective life of predator hunting as a passion or a mission. In other words, use it or lose it. When we do what we do and when we are what we are, we are not only true to ourselves, but also, we’re being true to the hunting tradition and culture.
There is good news, bad news and goofy news on the predator hunting front these days, and all of it is at least confusing, at best. It’s difficult to list all the ways something as simple as hunting can become complex and confusing.
For example, in recent times, bear hunting seasons have been approved in both Florida and Louisiana. That’s nice and it’s about time, given the wins on the sustainable use conservation front. But there also is a judge in Montana who is clouding the waters concerning Northern Rocky Mountain wolves by questioning findings that show the wolves should be taken off the endangered or threatened lists. Seems as though we win some, lose some and, as they say, some just get rained out, so to speak.
And then there are the male jaguars who are violating The Wall between Mexico and the United States and showing up in southern Arizona. It is not legal to hunt jaguars in the U.S., yet it was a mountain lion hunter who spotted a jaguar and reported the most recent sighting. Southern Arizona is not jaguar country, so to speak, yet in recent years there have been a handful of sightings and/or images of jaguars captured on trail cameras in the area north of the border with Mexico.
Since none of the jaguars documented in Arizona were females or cubs, it’s assumed that it is not a viable habitat for them — just males expanding their cruising areas. Some observers suggest that The Wall has something to do with the jaguars being in Arizona. It’s curious to suppose that a wall would help them cross the border, but what does logic have to do with some of the stuff people say about wildlife these days?
Add to that the continuing quibbling over predator hunting “contests,” and there’s lots going on, but nothing to consider catastrophic or about which to be euphoric. What this means is that it is time to go hunting, have fun and do what it is we do — hunt predators.
Hunting is one of the oldest human activities. It is in our DNA. Certainly, hunting of any kind becomes complex when it finds itself intertwined with contemporary society. Just the human encroachment of wild places would be enough alone to complicate the situation, but factor in the anti-hunters and their lackeys in the media, government and the courts, and the picture becomes extremely confusing, at best. Bluntly, I suggest that hunting in general is overregulated, and that predator hunting is faced with a seemingly never-ending proliferation of rules, regulations and other barriers.
But so much for the soap box, because there is likely zero chance that there will be major positive regulatory changes (read that to mean fewer regulations) in the near future. What all of this amounts to is that there are specific wins and losses, which rarely result in good news overall for hunting and especially predator hunting.
In recent years, human/bear conflicts in various states have triggered the discussion about whether to hunt bears in some states, or what the bear hunting seasons should look like in other states where bears have been hunted in recent times.
This is a good example of what happens when an increasing and expanding human population encroaches into wild areas, or when wildlife decides that getting food is easier around human populations than it is in the wilds. Think garbage cans and the like. Regardless of the reason for increasing numbers of bears, the bottom line is that now there are more opportunities to hunt them than before, and that’s a good thing.
Other than the utter frustration of watching the wolf saga evolve, it seems like the best results have been two steps forward and one step back. And that applies to the various grouping of wolves, whether they are in the Rockies, the upper Midwest or in the arid Southwest where the Mexican wolf situation continues to amaze.
Speaking of things that continue to amaze, what about the ongoing controversy over predator hunting “contests?” The Congressional Sportsmen’s Foundation sums up the status of such “contests.”
“Predator hunting and hunting tournaments, often referred to as ‘contests,’ are time-honored traditions that have recently been subjected to extensive scrutiny by the anti-sportsmen’s community and misinformed general public,” the CSF reports. “Across the nation, both practices serve legitimate and effective purposes toward fish and wildlife conservation efforts. Hunting tournaments are effective management tools of varmint species, such as coyotes, whose overabundance results in increased human-wildlife conflicts and attacks. Unfortunately, predator hunting and hunting tournaments have both been misrepresented by ‘animal rights’ organizations such as the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and Project Coyote, who have been spreading emotionally driven misinformation to the general public, elected officials and state fish and wildlife departments, seeking the ultimate goal of completely eliminating predator hunting and hunting tournaments.”
Because such contests are the purview of the states in most cases, whether they are allowed and whether they serve a useful purpose is up to individual states. According to the CSF. “Several states (AZ, CA, CO, MA, MD, NM, VT and WA) have outlawed hunting tournaments in recent years.” So, with all of these comings and goings around the predator hunting world: Never has there been a better time to be a predator hunter than right now.
