At 12:32 PM 10/9/97 -0400, you wrote:
>Grrrr to Baccus. I can't not reply to his off the cuff, (censored) remark.
>Let's start with my annual, continuing, and substantial contributions: The
>Nature Conservancy, The Sierra Club, Earth First! Washington Wilderness
>Society, green candidates, and any poor louse on a dark, rainy night who
>knocks on my door begging for money to stop a road building effort, preserve
>a forest, et cetera et cetera et cetera.

Many hunters donate to the same groups - we have two hunters on the board of
Portland Audubon (both retired USF&W types) - not to mention Ducks Unlimited,
the National Wildlife Federation, and other groups more closely allied to
conserving game species.

To be consistent, hopefully you feel the excise tax on ammo should be repealed
because so many hunters donate money to non-profit conservation groups?

Or are we special just because we're birders?

> And then I'll finish
>with the newly instituted $3.00 trail fee, which I grit my teeth and pay
>because I recognize the necessity even as my bile mounts into my throat when
>I think about our congressional inability to appropriate adequate money for
>the Park Service coupled with our congressional zeal for LOGGING ROAD
>appropriations.

Oh, I certainly agree with your being pissed off at Congress's inability to
properly fund conservation and recreation programs on public lands. Hunters
apparently got so pissed off at the inability of Congress to pay for (mostly)
wetland conservation in the 1930s that they told Congress to tax ammo.



- Don Baccus, Portland OR <donb at rational.com>
Nature photos, on-line guides, and other goodies at
http://donb.photo.net