Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 11:05:54 -0500 Reply-To: Maryland Birds & Birding Sender: Maryland Birds & Birding From: Gail Mackiernan Subject: Re: Sunday Hunting bill hearing In-Reply-To: <148.83c7b1c.297f2270@aol.com> Mime-version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Hi all -- Actually, the major reason I am opposed to House Bill 9 is because (as an ecologist) I don't think wildlife management approaches should be legislated. This has been an unmitigated disaster for fisheries management both nationally and locally, and a road we should avoid for wildlife. Better that the House of Delegates sets a goal for DNR to develop means to increase the deer take, and then give them enough funds and personnel to implement their ideas. Let the wildlife biologists and experts think outside the box and develop some new approaches, because the old ones aren't working! The numbers of hunters in Maryland continues to decline, more and more lands are posted against all hunting thus become a "safe haven" for deer, and (as Steve says) not enough resources are being brought to bear on the problem. To answer Steve's question, no, despite the fact that hunting brings in (according to FWS) about $80 million a year in benefit to the state, I would bet that far less than that goes back into supporting hunting and hunting access. (I may be wrong, hopefully someone has the exact figures). It is even worse for wildlife watching, which according to the same report, in 1996 benefited Maryland to the tune of $500 million (!!) and we don't see a particle of that in return. I am awaiting the 2001 USFWS survey figures, and assume both amounts will have increased considerably. It may be that if the CARA bill is passed at full amount, we might see some more attention to wildlife and habitat needs in this rapidly urbanizing state. Before it is too late, that is... Gail Mackiernan ======================================================================= To leave the MDOsprey list, send e-mail to listserv@home.ease.lsoft.com with the following message in line 1: signoff mdosprey ======================================================================= =========================================================================