At 09:49 PM 10/10/97 -0700, Don wrote:
....snip.....
>
>All taxpayers pay a portion towards conservation, and Congress has made
>it very clear over decades they won't fully fund conservation efforts
>from the general fund.
>
>Hunters recognized this like 60 years ago, and prodded Congress to pass
>P-R.
>
>60 years later, birders still are asking if we can't dodge our responsibility
>and make all taxpayers pay the full cost to implement our desires for
>habitat aquisition and the like. The hunters were right, 60 years ago,
>Congress won't. Birders should stop asking a question that we know the
>answer to.
>
You know, I have to agree with Don. I think the hunters (cringe) are on the
right track. Sadly, if you want something in this country you have to buy
it. Nothing will be allocated. When hunters first set up Ducks Unlimited.,
it was to preserve their sport (I think Don may have alluded to this some
time ago in another discussion). Inadvertently they managed to preserve
habitat by doing so.

My biggest complaint has always been that birders and hunters use the same,
what are laughingly referred to as, "sanctuaries" (I still wonder how they
can get off calling someplace a santuary when the animal can and will be
freely killed). I do believe birders and hunters should have separate areas
at least some of the time. It was quite frustrating to have to give up good
fall birding at Fern Ridge (near Eugene) because it was hunting season.

So what do we do? Fork over the funds.

Peggi "dressed in asbestos" Rodgers
Ben & Peggi Rodgers
Aptos, CA (near Santa Cruz 122 W, 37 N)
USA
woodduck at cruzio.com
http://www2.cruzio.com/~woodduck/


"A bird does not sing because it has an answer,
It sings because it has a song"