Archives: Editorial
Official Statement on the Proposed Bears Ears Monument in Southeastern Utah
Sportsmen for Fish & Wildlife (SFW) strongly opposes the proposed creation of the 1.9 million-acre Bears Ears Monument in southeastern Utah. We recognize the proposed monument as a serious threat to Utahns’ and the native people of the region’s way of life and ability to live and pursue traditions that have been enjoyed by their ancestors for centuries.
SFW fears that this monument would take control and management of the land from locals and natives, who use it everyday and rely on it for their livelihood, and turn it over to the federal government thereby prohibiting the gathering of food, hunting, wood cutting and other important activities.
SFW feels that such an expansive designation would have negative affects on the wildlife and habitat that is critical to big game survival in the region. The creation of a national monument would severely threaten the expansion of wildlife and rehabilitation of healthy habitat that sportsmen and the state of Utah have invested millions of dollars building in recent decades.
SFW agrees with the beliefs of many members of the Hopi, Navaho and Ute Indian Tribes of San Juan County, who live adjacent to the Bears Ears, that a monument designation would put the Bears Ears at greater risk than ever before and that designating a monument under the Antiquities Act as a means of protecting archaeological and sacred sites of southeastern Utah is wrong.
SFW’s opposition to the proposed Bears Ears Monument is shared by the vast majority of Utah residents, according to a recent Dan Jones & Associates poll conducted for UtahPolicy.com, which found that only 17 percent of Utahns are in favor of President Obama creating the monument.
SFW calls on U.S. Interior Secretary Sally Jewel and President Barack Obama to take these points into serious consideration. We are hopeful that President Obama will show restraint and forego taking Executive Action to create another monument in the region.
Sign the online petition to let the White House know you are also opposed to a new monument.
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RMEF Critique of “Special Permits” Draws Response from Utah DWR
RMEF Calls for Transparency on State Special Big Game Permits (read more …)
Utah Division of Wildlife letter to RMEF points out concerns about critical comments (read more…)
Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife Issues Open Letter to Utah Sportsmen
(April 10, 2012 Salt Lake City) – Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife was founded nearly 20 years ago during a time of great challenge to hunting in the state of Utah. Since that time, thousands of unpaid volunteers of Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife have repeatedly risen to address challenges to wildlife in Utah and across the Western United States. As a result, the ability to enjoy and pursue many species of wildlife in Utah has grown. Not only has a tremendous amount been accomplished through these collective efforts, but pragmatic solutions are also being implemented to address new challenges to wildlife, hunting and our outdoor heritage.
Throughout its history, a central goal has driven the efforts of Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife: To secure and enhance abundant wildlife populations not only across Utah and the West, but also to ensure a continued legacy of hunting in America. These efforts have been backed by generous donations both large and small from passionate sportsmen from Utah and across the country. Tens of thousands of service hours and millions of dollars have been invested by volunteers and donors of Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife to ensure that wild places and wild things will exist now and for future generations.
Given Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife’s dedicated efforts to tackle some of the most difficult challenges to our right to hunt and fish, it is no surprise that opposition to our efforts have arisen. Recently, Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife, and its founder Don Peay, have come under some criticism. Many of these critics, rather than offering solutions for wildlife, have instead attempted to misconstrue and distort the record of Mr. Peay and Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife. We would caution well-meaning sportsmen from buying into hearsay, out-of-context communications or other attacks that appear intended to mislead and cloud the actual issues at hand. We apologize to the extent that a mis-quote or misstatement may have contributed to any confusion. We encourage sportsmen to consider our 20-year record of fighting for abundant wildlife as a true measure of our commitment to wildlife and hunting.
Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife remains committed to implementing long-term solutions for the challenges faced by both hunters as well as wildlife. While opinions over preferred policy alternatives may differ, the record of Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife in advocating habitat restoration, responsible predator management and protection of wildlife populations is public and plain. From the beginning, Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife has been unwavering in its commitment to the proven effectiveness of the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation, and will continue to do so despite what critics may infer to the contrary. We welcome open discourse and would invite all concerned sportsmen to not only join us in conversation, but to bring a pair of gloves and possibly a shovel to work together with us for the common good of wildlife and the legacy of sportsmen in Utah and across the West. We continue to encourage all sportsmen to join us and the passionate volunteers of Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife who are dedicated to providing real and proven solutions for wildlife.
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Trophy Hunts
Editorial Opinion
Published by The Salt Lake Tribune
Ron Mika's trophy bull elk
Most human societies have evolved past the point where hunting was the job of every man in the tribe. Today, hunting is a sport. And some Utahns believe that the alpha males and females in the tribe are taking more than their share simply because they have more clams than all the other hunters.
Sunday’s Tribune profiled how big-game hunters pay up to $79,000 at auction for a special permit to hunt a trophy animal — a Rocky Mountain bighorn sheep, mountain goat, elk, moose, mule deer, bison, pronghorn, cougar, bear or turkey. Ponying up thousands of dollars entitles the hunter to pursue a trophy animal in the most desirable game areas of the state.
The average Joe, by contrast, may have to wait years to win the right in a lottery to hunt certain species in certain areas, and may never have the good fortune to draw a permit.
The other half of this story, though, is that the $1 million or so the Division of Wildlife Resources earns from the auctions annually allows the agency to purchase wildlife habitat and transplant animals into and within the state. DWR officials point out that these programs benefit not only the populations of animals all other hunters and wildlife lovers enjoy, but they make life better for species of non-game critters as well.
So, while with one hand the policy of auctioning trophy permits is turning hunting into the sport of kings, or at those with princely incomes, with the other hand it is helping a much broader group of people, hunters and non-hunters alike.
If the rest of Utah’s hunters don’t like the idea of the capitalist elite buying trophy permits at huge prices, there are other options, but none of them is particularly attractive. The DWR could simply drop the auction program, but that would kill off valuable habitat preservation and management programs because of lack of funds. The DWR could raise the prices of tags for everyone to make up the difference, but that would do more to price the hunter of humble means out of the sport than does the status quo.
Another alternative would be to look for general government revenues to pay for wildlife programs. For years, hunters have paid the bills for wildlife management through their license fees and taxes on ammunition and outdoor gear. People who oppose hunting on ethical grounds complain that the DWR listens only to hunters, but it is natural for the agency to listen to the folks who are paying the bills.
Since state governments are struggling today with budget deficits and an economic recession, it is not realistic to expect them to come up with bigger contributions for wildlife management from general revenues. State income-tax check-offs to raise funds for non-consumptive wildlife have been a bust.
But if non-hunters are serious about funding wildlife management and habitat preservation, maybe they should propose taxes on water or real estate that would benefit wildlife directly. After all, every drop of water or square foot of ground that is taken for human use reduces resources for wildlife.
Until reforms like this are enacted, auctions for coveted big-game tags may remain the best shot at preserving wildlife and hunting for the everyday member of the tribe.
Copyright 2001, Salt Lake Tribune
What is a Western Wilderness Hunt Really Worth?
If more sportsmen and sportsmen groups don’t engage in the wolf wars, then western states’ big game hunting will become a mere shadow of what it has been for the past 50 years. Some sportsmen are starting to realize this fact, and I will share what we are beginning to do about it, and what more needs to be done in the wolf wars. Interwoven in this story about my son’s Wyoming wilderness deer hunt in 2009, where we saw the dramatic negative effects of wolves up close and personal. I will share with you why I have fought so hard to get wolves delisted, and now moving forward, how to keep wolves at minimum numbers.
Suffice it to say, thanks to the members of Sportsmen for Fish & Wildlife (SFW), I was able to meet with President Bush, VP Cheney, and several US Senators, finally resulting in wolves being delisted so states could manage them. Since the delisting, SFW has also been in court – both in Wyoming and Montana – fighting the anti-hunters who want no wolf management. When the dust settles, I will write a tell-all book about what event really led to the delisting of wolves. It is an interesting piece of history, and this significant event would not have happened if left to Washington DC bureaucrats.
What do we really want to leave our children? A large bank account that provides for their every need yet robs them of the passion, desire, hard work and heartache that yields the sweet satisfaction of climbing their personal Mount Everest mostly on their own?
To my fellow 50-year0old+ sportsmen, we have enjoyed some incredible wilderness hunting experiences, from catching a salmon and hunting grizzly bear in Alaska’s wild places, to bugling bulls in the Selway-Bitterroot of Idaho and Montana, to bighorn rams in the Absoroka’s of Wyoming, and monster mule deer bucks in the Gros Ventre of Wyoming and the rugged and remote Arizona Strip.
I have had a unique life. Growing up poor as hell, I never left the county I grew up in until I was out of high school. I worked like crazy, saved and invested, took some calculated risks and have since been to many of the world’s most beautiful and spectacular places. From the Oval Office of the White House with the most powerful people on earth to partying with some of Entertainment’s and Sporting’s biggest stars, I have seen a lot.
The experiences I value most are those I have had with my common working-man friends and family hunting elk, bighorn sheep, moose, bison, mule deer, antelope, bear, cougar and wild turkey on our GREAT PUBLIC LANDS of the Western United States: wild things in wild places. It is extremely rewarding to hear thousands of sportsmen say thanks when they take their monster buck, bull or ram. And know that our team helped produce that opportunity of a lifetime!
To many of us, passing on abundant game herds to our children and grand children – to hunt if they so choose – is one the greatest American freedoms we possess.
SFW has done the impossible: won anti-hunting battles in numerous statewide ballot initiatives and political fights, helped restore millions of acres of public lands, helped create tens of thousands of additional game herd animals of multiple species, and changed the public and leaders in industry and politics to know that hunters are the good guys in the white hats that create jobs in renewable resource industries, and teach our family values. SFW has proven that we can do the impossible. Give me a handful of motivated sportsmen warriors and we can move mountains and create more wildlife.
Last fall’s hunt up in the big, wonderful Wyoming high country wilderness with my son and good friends Lee and Becky Francis is one of my most meaningful and important life experiences, and one I will always deeply cherish. I grew up finishing concrete and hauling hay. Your children and mine live in today’s modern world of sports and academics – they work hard, but are the mentally and physically tough enough?
After our great physically demanding Wyoming hunt, I can say I was so proud of my 15-year-old son Kyle. It was a great experience in a wild place with wild things. In order to get back to school, the morning started at 4 a.m. and after hiking and packing out a deer all day into the late evening, we drove home into the wee hours of the next day. After a successful long shot, and a long grueling pack out, as we neared the truck, my son who did not complain one word, said, “Dad, am I ready to go to Arctic Red and hunt sheep?” I was so proud, this hunt proved many things to a father about his son.
My fellow sportsmen, if we want abundant herds in the future on our great public lands we must ALL get involved in the effort to keep wolf numbers to a minimum. If not, there will be a 60 – 80% reduction in game herds, and with all those compounding factors, hunting and conservation programs will collapse, and the greatest freedoms we can experience as American’s will be lost.
Please join us at www.biggameforever.org. I promise you our unrelenting pursuit, total passion, all our brainpower to win the wolf wars. It is a legacy for our children that is worth fighting for. And to all our 30-year-old hunter friends, please get involved so you can live the same dreams we have shared on our great public lands of the west.
Don Peay
