By: Ted Nugent
This Saturday, Sept. 27, 2014, represents the 42nd annual National Hunting and Fishing Day celebration across the USA.
On May 2, 1972, spurred on by American hunters, fishermen and trappers, then President Nixon signed the initial proclamation of National Hunting and Fishing Day, writing, “I urge all citizens to join with outdoor sportsmen in the wise use of our natural resources and in insuring their proper management for the benefit of future generations.”
These many hunting seasons later, American sporters are well into another phenomenal year of our annual celebration for another very exciting, record-breaking natural season of harvest. There are critters running everywhere, and hunting, fishing and trapping are as pure as life itself!
This simple sustain yield science is envied the world over as the most successful wildlife management model in the history of man. With more deer, bear, cougars, turkey, geese and other game than ever in recorded history, there is much good to celebrate.
The Nugent family is genuinely thrilled to join the tens of millions of American families that sincerely value this hands-on conservation perfection as we pursue the challenge, and dine on and share many millions of tons of the purest, healthiest, most nutritious real free-range protein available to mankind. These truly are the good old days of hunting in America. God bless the hunting, fishing and trapping families of America and beyond.
Unfortunately, in this world of politically correct freakzoids, the inexplicable self-inflicted curse of denial has festered the big lie of so-called animal rights, and these dishonest zealots remain maniacal in their clamor to ban hunting, fishing and trapping.
These are basically the same lying scammers that allowed the Chicago community organizer to weasel his way to the presidency, nearly neuter America’s defense system, increase the national debt like a crack whore in an opium mall, abandon security 101 in Benghazi and elsewhere, ignore a gunrunning attorney general, allow an IRS to operate like a third-world gang, unleash U.S. Fish & Wildlife agents to raid Gibson guitars and get away with it, cause America to lose all respect around the world with a foreign policy straight out of the Ann Arbor Hash Bash and cause myriad embarrassments by a government completely out of control.
These dangerous cultists continue to do all they can to destroy successful wildlife management wherever they can scam an increasingly ignorant society, many of whom wouldn’t know a zebra from a pterodactyl.
Since the anti-hunters scammed California into banning cougar hunting, no fewer cougars have ever been killed, but now tax dollars are wasted to capture, tag, study, release, capture, tag, study, release, then eventually kill and bury the magnificent big cats. And of course, tax dollars are shoveled out by the millions compensating cattle, sheep, goat, alpaca, llama and horse ranchers for all the livestock these overpopulated killers destroy each and every year.
No licenses sold, no more millions of revenues for the state like in all the legal lion hunting states, on hotels, food, sporting goods, guides, outfitters, travel, taxidermy, butchers, supplies and more. And of course there is no wise use of the meat, hide, skulls, bone, claws or untold family hours of recreation.
Animal-rights freaks have taken advantage of politically correct ignorance to turn cougars, bear and all kinds of precious renewable wildlife resources from assets into liabilities, and in the process create a very dangerous anti-nature condition.
The recent death of a 22-year-old Rutgers University student from a black bear attack in a “no hunting” preserve in West Milford, New Jersey, has all the ingredients for guaranteed problems.
No hunting is unnatural and wrong. This area of New Jersey has more than three bears per square mile, and all bear biologists know that one bear per 2.5 square miles is the limit for all safety concerns and a healthy bear population.
In every jurisdiction where bear or cougar hunting is banned, dangerous conditions arise. Annual bear hunting with bait and hounds is the only system by which we can keep bear numbers manageable. New Jersey actually thinks their six-day, overly restricted emergency bear season makes sense.
The experts know that bears, like all big game, must be managed for populations within the carrying capacity of any given habitat.
New Jersey, like all bear states, should have an early archery bear bait season for the month of September, then a firearms hunt with bait the first two weeks of October, then hound hunting the last two weeks of October.
Until denial ends, this will never happen, and bears will continue to be a liability instead of an asset. Write that down.
Here’s my testimony to the New Jersey professional wildlife managers many years ago:
The professionals of our scientific wildlife community have concluded that the black bear population in New Jersey exceeds the reasonable carrying capacity of primary habitat to the point where bears now pose a serious life and death threat to the safety and well-being of our citizens and children. No one of decent conscientiousness would stand idly by and let such irresponsible conditions go unchecked when the remedy is universally known.
We implore the professionals of New Jersey wildlife agencies to stand with all caring conservationists demanding a regulated bear hunting season for the state in order to bring the population into healthy check.
By providing maximum quality outdoor opportunities for the families of New Jersey, by placing tangible value on these precious big-game resources, we will intelligently reduce the threat of maulings and death, while at the same time benefit the balance and health of the wildlife itself.
Damage control after the fact is always more costly, and in the case of black bears, like with cougars in other states, a human death is a very real probability. This is unacceptable, and we implore the powers that be to do the right thing before such a tragedy takes place. The evidence in Ontario, California, Colorado and elsewhere is irrefutable, and must not be ignored before it is too late.
As I write this, I am on my way to God’s country in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for a bear hunt with my son. We call it the rugsteak boogie, because we might get a beautiful rug and some delicious meat for the grill.
We are proud to be supporters of the more than $2 billion hunting, fishing and trapping industry of Michigan, and even more proud to know that responsible game management is alive and well across most of America.
This will indeed be a very happy National Hunting and Fishing Day for many millions of us, and we encourage everyone who knows the truth about this essential and proud tradition of hunting, fishing and trapping to spread the word to everyone you know in order to increase opportunities and revenues and respect for these precious renewable resources and bring an end to the scam artists like the Humane Society of the United States, which spends less than 1 percent of their hundreds of millions of scam dollars doing anything except trying to end hunting, fishing and trapping.