A wildlife controversy is underway in Nevada where sporting groups are splitting over ideological differences about whether state and federal wildlife funds ought be spent on improving diverse wildlife habitat conservation or whether they ought be spent solely on maximizing mountable species.

 

“For the past few years, the favorite greenie buzzword has been biodiversity,” Fredi wrote. “In layman’s terms, it means spending sportsmen’s money on tweety birds, lizards, guppies and hundreds of other non-game creatures.”

It’s an interesting article illustrative of the cleave that’s been widening between traditional hunters and commercial sportsman’s groups (Cabela Queens) throughout the west on exactly this issue. Reading the article leaves one recognizing a familiar aura… that sense of entitlement. Those who hope to diminish conservation efforts in favor of maximizing particular game claim an entitlement to the monies, despite, as the article articulates, the huge sums of money, effort, and time conservationist hunters have contributed to the wildlife department.

 

That entitlement-complex ought be familiar. Commerical sportsmen associations are frequently associated with, if they aren’t outright the same people themselves, those who have been able to maintain the pubic-land livestock industry, and other land-use industry associations’ strangle-hold over land-use decision-making.

 

These political connections might do well financially for what is quickly becoming an extractive industry itself, but for those who care about the experience of the traditional hunt, the diversity of wildlife one might encounter on such, or for the nature of what we understand to be the wild, the commercialization of the hunt is threatening the character of the land and its inhabitants on our public places all over the west.