What’s addling? Sounds like another way to prepare eggs weirdly enough.
Thinking of ‘population control’ and humane-ness of the practice in general, I think there have been programs to essentially give birth control to wild mustangs since public opposition to culls is so strong, though the cost of doing so has pretty much negated the program’s impact if I recall correctly.
@yerbasanta What’s addling? Sounds like another way to prepare eggs weirdly enough.
Addling eggs, if I understand it right, involves, um, “treating” the egg so it is no longer viable. They leave the, um, “inactivated” egg in the nest for the mother to sit on. Otherwise, if they remove the egg, she will continue to lay replacement eggs.
This is done because people believe there are more geese in the park than they like. But, it is not clear to me that there are more geese now than there were before European settlement in the area. Some early diaries of Spanish explorers might indicate otherwise.
Hunting is not actually that expensive if you’re talking about someone who already owns a gun and ammunition. Hunting licenses for residents in Pennsylvania cost about $20, and many people don’t have to travel far at all to hunt. We’re not talking about big game hunting in Africa, which is an entirely different story than duck hunting locally.
I already cited a case of a wetland preserved for other reasons. This same wetland preserve also has a decommissioned landfill that supplies methane to a power plant.
Wetlands preserved for practically any reasons are good. That’s nice that your area has non-hunting focused preserves, but in a lot of places, most remaining wetlands have been preserved because of waterfowl hunting. I can answer @yerbasanta’s question with confidence: in my area, without WPAs and WMAs, there would not be the space for nearly as much diversity and numbers of birds, insects, native plants. There would be a monoculture of (even more) corn fields.
My Federal Duck Stamps finally came! They are quite nice, and I plan to give a couple as presents to birder friends.
@ddubois2 Thank you for the suggestion.
I’m really glad to hear that, for a while there was a push to encourage conservationists and bird watchers to more fully support duck stamps. Sadly there have been some regressions on that lately, but it has all been very superficial the actual mission of the program is still buying wetlands for National Wildlife Refuges.
I think the black-bellied whistling ducks look really beautiful this year.
My approach is through the observation of wild animals. And the awful lives of the hunted ducks I observed, living upon a polluted river in France, make it quite impossible for me to see any benefits for duck hunting. I even wrote a book about them, entitled, The Spirit of Wild Ducks, because it was quite obvious that what hunters do in secret, and brag about as if they are right, is not going to be brought into the light of common knowledge unless people who care about other species enough to look into their worlds, speak out.
But you can see from this thread the opposition you incur if you say anything. Before I started writing books about wild animal behaviour I was a wildlife artist, and running into hunters in the bush is not safe for a young woman. These people are essentially primitive, violent by definition, and often drunk. By definition, they find it sporting to maim and kill innocent wild animals trying to pursue their lives on the impoverished landscape we have left them.
As for the funds they attract, hunting is a multi-billion dollar business that includes the arms industry. Maybe if the bush was safer so that other people could go safely into nature, then the public would demand that funds be allocated more fairly to include wildlife in general and not just hunters’ targets.
With good wishes,
Ila France Porcher
ethologist and author
People have their opinions, but on the whole this doesn’t seem like a particularly acrimonious conversation to me.
Perhaps the opposition you’re speaking of is related to this baseless name-calling of yours rather than a problem with humans in general, hmm? Please remember to be kind on the forum.
I think, that she is speaking out of her lived experience.
Not about this iNat forum discussion.
And I can sympathize with anyone who’s had negative experiences with other people out in the wild. But we should be careful not to make such generalizations. The hunters she encountered may be very different, but I also know that my grandfather was a subsistence hunter and fisherman for most of his life. I would not be here if not for his deer hunting as that’s how he fed his family. He is none of the things she described hunters in the bush as (he no longer hunts. His best friends are a herd of deer he feeds in front of his cabin every morning now. I find it difficult to hear anyone suggest, even tangentially, that he might be ‘violent by definition’). Again, I know it was not a personal statement, but a reminder to be kind and understanding does not go amiss either. I will cerainly try to remember as well. Apologies if I’m making more out of this than I need to be.
Obviously this is a topic that can elicit strong feelings, especially if we have related negative experiences.
Please try to avoid generalizations, and please try to come from a place of empathy and understanding so we can at least grasp each others’ perspectives.
Hunters are variable. I’ve known responsible hunters whose skill and knowledge of nature I respect. People I trust. However, there’s nothing like living on a farm within an hour’s drive of a city to make one aware of the others. Hunters who will trespass even if you’ve told them, yes, you can hunt there, but not in this other place where our cows are. (When I explained to one idiot that we don’t allow hunting in a certain area because of concern about the cows being shot, he sympathized – and explained that when he hunts through a cow herd he always does it carefully! NONE of our relatives hunted through the cow herd – too risky.) The more common hunters who trespass without asking. Individuals who will explain the importance of asking permission – but are known for trespassing in areas where hunters are kept out because the kids play there. My husband stopped hunting deer when hunters trespassing on our land shot over him at the deer (not knowing he was there). Sometimes it’s hard to remember that responsible hunters exist.
For any woman and especially for young women, there’s the complication that we have to evaluate every man we meet when alone as a potential rapist and murderer. Sorry guys – we know that most of you are fine people (we’d be dead if most of you weren’t!), but we can’t tell who’s who just by looking, or just by listening to what may be lies. Meeting guys with firearms raises the fear factor considerably, even if they’re fine people who would never harm us and would, in fact protect us.
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