# Commercializing wildlife is wrong



## Bob Kellam (Apr 8, 2004)

*Commercializing wildlife is wrong*
By *MARK RUNYAN *
Bismarck 
There seems to be quite a bit of discussion about wildlife and the sale of it for personal gain. My dad must have had a vision into North Dakota's future, as I remember him telling me when I was very young that "it will eventually happen here, too." I didn't totally understand what he meant by "it" at the time. Today, I can look back and understand that "it" meant commercialization of our wildlife resources.

The availability of wildlife resources to the common man in Europe eventually went by the wayside when ownership of this resource was taken away from the public and set aside for the wealthy and elite.

It is surprising that with this fairly recent history lesson more people have not taken measures to combat the very cause to the end of hunting as we know it since most of us are descendants of these people and should be familiar with the story.

Why do you suppose that is? If you guessed money, you're right. If some of these so called "sportsmen" were worried about the future of hunting rather than turning a quick buck, they would be teaching youth about the true meaning of hunting, insuring that old boots are filled with new supporters of wildlife and conservation for the next 100 years.

Instead, guides/outfitters and others who commercialize wild animals are exploiting the resource and selling the opportunity to the upper and middle classes. Many of these people didn't grow up with the hunting heritage and have only seen recent hunting shows on TV. There, people brag about themselves and the huge buck killed behind a fence rather than talk about conservation and what hunting is really all about. "Suits" from big cities have money and are willing to pay large sums to shoot a "trophy" animal that was raised in captivity or have someone clean the very birds they harvested. Is there not something wrong with this? Where in this description do you see anything that resembles what hunting should be - family, friends, fair chase, admiration of the outdoors and an appreciation of wild creatures?

My letter is not intended to offend anyone but rather to sound a call to action to those who may have been thinking that people who commercialize wildlife are not such bad guys. They are not here to help the future of hunting. They have a definite mission in mind and that is making money. We do not suddenly have more people who actually care about the future of hunting, conservation or wildlife. We always have had these people, many of them landowners. What we do have are opportunists looking for easy money, many of whom have already proven in the last few months what extremes they will go to exploit wildlife.

Bismarck Tribune.


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## eaglehead6 (Nov 6, 2005)

Unfortunately in order for wildlife to remain wildlife we must commercialize it. Those that dont or oppose hunting would rather see your wild life lands either posted or sold to residents of the state/province. People that oppose hunting or do not hunt, like to see deer and wild birds in the wild or yes believe it or not in the subburbs of the city. Killing bambi is not appealing to everyone. This is where the comerialization of wildllife must happen. Who flips the bill hunters, fisherman . And yes Farmers who pay land taxes that let you hunt on there land each and every year. The fact that some farmers make some extra money from people useing there land to hunt does happen each year and that is they're right afterall who has the right to telll farmers that you cant charge me x amount of dollars when he is flipping the bill for your fun . Me i always make sure to take my landowner a bottle of crown royal each and every hunting season .


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## always_outdoors (Dec 17, 2002)

:eyeroll:


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## Drakekiller (Apr 3, 2002)

Eaglehead
Next year when your land owner has just leased his land to Mr Big bucks or to an Outfitter, you can crack that bottle and make a toast to the good times you had.


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## eaglehead6 (Nov 6, 2005)

of course i hope that does not happen, farmers here in Canada rarely if ever refuse to let people hunt on there land. But i have heard of some who lease quality land to people to hunt and there really is nothing we can say to stop them. this trend as of now is not a huge issue in Canada. but there are people that post there land or do not let people hunt on there land period.


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