At 14, as I recall, I was first age eligible for a big game license, and shot, skinned, butchered, and ate a mule deer (with assistance, obviously, but still). The rule of capture applicable to this version of licensed killing back then was that we citizens "owned", collectively, huntable wildlife up to the point of the "harvest". Then the "tag holder" clearly and without controversy, converted the remainder of that once life form into an item of private property. And this was totally egalitarian, by the way.
So, fast forward to the present and we discover the modification engineered by the 1% to advantage their own (because none other will ever be the highest bidder) in the pursuit of trophy animals that previously required only some combination of luck and skill for first come to participate in the hunting of. But now our wealthiest citizens need only to first hunt for a tax deduction before going on domestic "safari". And, really, the animals that were ours in life, ought to remain collectively owned, should they not, if we're all paying taxes to make up for the taxes avoided by the 1% in their embarking on this new form of recreational pursuit?
I mean, since we Kossacks (along with the rest of our brothers and sisters) have bought a small share of "The Spider Bull" (478 5/8 Boone and Crockett points, 13 points more than the previous world record for a "nontypical" Rocky Mountain bull elk, and taken on a $150,000 "Auction Tag" in Utah in 2008) now hanging on the trophy wall of one Mr. Denny Austad of Idaho, shouldn't that illustrious gentleman allow those of us Kossacks so inclined to at least drop in occasionally for a quick glance at the natural wonder that we helped pay for him to acquire?
http://www.sltrib.com/...
(Remaining links to be provided at the end. Disclaimer, though: those who find graphic depictions of once majestic big game, now bloodied and fallen, to be exhilarating will be pleasantly entertained by my source material. And folks who prefer their big game animals fully alive, and respectfully treated visually and textually, may want to just take my word for how bad things have become.)
You can pay your twenty bucks to attend the "Western Hunting and Conservation Expo" in Salt Lake City (or something similar at some other appropriate location near you). You might not get Dick and Liz Cheney keynoting like our version had a couple of weeks ago. And you're twenty bucks won't get you into the ancillary concerts and banquets that the high rollers attend. But that's okay, in the larger scheme of things. With winning bids for the special "Trophy Tags" going for real money (Mr. Austad this time around bid "only" $305,000 to win the Mule Deer Tag auction) you can be pretty sure that no one really cares whether the riff-raff comes, goes, or otherwise.
The bad actors herein (not coincidentally) carry names like "The Mule Deer Foundation", "Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife", "The Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation", "Big Game Forever" (a particularly virulent anti-wolf group), etc. And the individual states create the special hunting rights auctioned off at these shindigs.
So, "why is any of this bad", you might ask? Or "why should I care?" The PR for all of this will tell you that millions of dollars are being raised for conservation. What's left out of the reporting, however, is that the very animals that our tax dollars are being used to raise only recently belonged to all of us in the greater sense. Similarly to "every child can grow up to be President", "every child might know the thrill of a trophy big game hunt" has now also gone by the wayside, and both, really because more and more of the opportunity in life in this country has been bought and paid for by the 1%.
Or look at Don Peay. Honcho in Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife, Big Game Forever, and the whole Trophy Tag Auction/Hunting Expo phenomenon. Ignore his rants about how the existence of wolves endangers our whole modern way of life (see links). How about the hundreds of thousands of dollars that the Utah Legislature has appropriated to give him to save Utah from the Wolf Scourge? Well, since Utah hasn't had any wolves in my lifetime, hasn't Peay earned his money? Have I mentioned the fact that the latest Tag payment by Denny Austad "gives" about $300,000 to the State of Utah for "conservation", roughly equal to the $300,000 that Utah gave to Don Peay, the promoter of said auction to fight a non-existent wolf thteat. How is that not, at best a wash?
But here was really the kicker in all of this for me. First the newspaper talks about how Mr. Austad has likely spent something on the order of $2,000,000 the last few years for the privilege of sucking up the cream of the big game heritage that has existed here since pioneer days. And then it quotes that illustrious and beneficient soul as stating "It all goes for habitat. It's a legitimate tax deduction, just like charity."
Just like charity, my ass. Well, sir, we don't allow you to go around exploiting the impoverished with impunity just because you may feel that you've earned the right.
So here's a better plan, motherfucker. Pay up to the taxman. Pay up your fair share, and the rest of us will help you to see that both habitat conservation and "charity" get taken care of in ways that obviously would just never occur to you.
http://www.mtsfw.org/...
http://www.sltrib.com/...
http://www.sltrib.com/...