Interesting read for Oregon hound hunters

[mike martell]

Check this out. Written by a retired Oregon State Police Game Enforcement officer. Most of you old time hound hunters will recognize Stan Steele from the West side of Oregon back in the earlier years. Stan is now active with OOC and is a board advisor member. We are fortunate to have Stan as an ally for Hound and sport hunter rights. Stan rebuts our opposition with some serious facts. This is a little long but worth the effort and time to read.

Remember. None of this will matter if you do not register to vote and on Election day Vote!

The Real Conservationists Have Stood Up - For More Than a Century!


By Stan Steele, OOC Board Member


A recent article by Oregon Wild’s Rob Klavins titled “Will the Real Conservationists Please Stand Up?” is a classic example of a liar’s paradox. The author opens his article saying that he is quite literally a card-carrying wildlife advocate and is comfortable in knowing that he is joined by the vast majority of Americans who also share his desire to protect our nation’s native wildlife. Noble enough in theory, but shallow in substance!

Everyone who hunts, fishes or traps in America today carries cards or licenses issued by their respective states and the federal government to participate in biologically sound, well-regulated seasons. The licenses, tags, stamps and permits purchased by 37.4 million American sportsmen and sportswomen are the financial cornerstone of the world’s most effective conservation strategy: the North American Model of Wildlife Conservation.

Not unlike the author, I too have been lucky enough to spend my professional career, and now my retirement years working tirelessly to protect wildlife, the wildlands, and waters that played such an integral role in defining who I am as a human being. Our shared love for all things wild is not so different, but how we individually choose to protect and interact with our nation’s native species is philosophically speaking, worlds apart. Most hunters, anglers and trappers like me, have more in common with a somewhat well-known conservationist who said: “Conservation is the application of common sense to the common problems for the common good.” (Gifford Pinchot, 1865-1946)

Mr. Klavins laments that in our not too distant past citizens from all walks of life regardless of their political persuasion or where they hung their hat, agreed that having healthy and abundant wildlife populations was desirable. He apparently believes that present day Oregonians care much less about protecting wild things and wild places than past generations who once marched on Washington D.C. demanding the end to uncontrolled market hunting; this assertion is simply untrue. It is quite true, however, that Oregon’s population demographics have changed dramatically in the last half century and with that change more Oregonians including Mr. Klavens gravitated to and continue to promote an unrealistic utopic view of how society should preserve rather than sustainably use our renewable natural resources. It is a sad fact that rural and urban Americans often have divergent attitudes on how to best manage our nation’s public trust resources, and his article is a prime example of that continuum. The editorial overtone of the article, however, insinuates that if one does not hold the same conservation values as Oregon Wild, you are somehow unworthy of being included in the natural resource management policy debate. Oregon Wild’s “my way or the highway” policy dynamic expressed by Mr. Klavins is exactly why organizations such as the Oregon Outdoor Council exist.

We believe that protecting the rights of all present and future Oregonians and U.S. citizens who lawfully engage in science-based hunting, fishing and trapping activities is at least as important as protecting any and all of our other constitutionally guaranteed civil liberties. Rest assured, Mr. Klavins, the Oregon Outdoor Council, our sponsors and our affiliate organizations will be undaunted and unwavering in our unified quest to protect the right of all Oregonians to unfettered access to our nation’s public lands. We will staunchly defend our right to hunt, fish and trap on those lands based upon the sound principles of modern wildlife science!

It is once again a liar’s parody for Oregon Wild’s Klavins to state that the Oregon Outdoor Council is anti-wildlife! To describe a group of concerned sportsmen and women united in the common cause of protecting Oregon’s wildlife and the rights of hunters, anglers, trappers as being anti-wildlife is an oxymoron. Oregon Wild professes that they are not against hunting and they justify this assertion by saying that several of their founders come from the hunting community, isn’t this really just more smoke and mirrors?

Why doesn’t Oregon Wild promote a broad science-based conservation strategy of public land and wildlife management that includes biologically justified predator control when needed and the creation of early successional habitat through anthropogenic disturbance such as clear cut logging or prescribed burns? All hunters, anglers and trappers recognize that habitat and species diversity is critically important to the long term viability of Oregon’s native species, evidently Oregon Wild does not. Why did Oregon Wild oppose two biologically balanced timber management activities on the Willamette National Forest -- the Goose Project and the Jim’s Creek Project -- that were scientifically designed specifically to create a mosaic of habitat types that sustain species diversity? The U.S. Forest Service projects remind me of the buzz line from a popular baseball movie, The Field of Dreams; “If you build it, they will come.”

These projects would have created a more diverse forest habitat and could have, at least, partially arrested the 86% decline in Roosevelt elk numbers since 2005 on the Willamette National Forest. What is Oregon Wild doing about the rapidly declining western Oregon deer and elk populations other than seeking court injunctions whenever our forest managers try to create early successional habitat?

Once again, according to the article, many of Oregon Wild’s members are hunters. With that in mind, wouldn’t it seem logical for Oregon Wild to show at least some concern regarding the 60% decline of blacktail deer in the coast range’s Alsea Wildlife Management Unit since the 1994 implementation of the Northwest Forest Plan?
Why aren’t they working collaboratively instead of confrontationally with groups such as the Mule Deer Foundation, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, the Safari Club International, the Oregon Hunters Association and the Oregon Outdoor Council to reverse these disturbing trends? By publically ignoring these horrific and rapid declines to western Oregon’s deer and elk populations, is Oregon Wild really deserving of being called a conservation organization? Has Oregon Wild stood up? Are they the real conservationists? Oregon Wild says that the Oregon Outdoor Council is anti-wildlife. Who is really guarding the hen house?

I agree that, perhaps, it’s a sign of our times that even broadly held public values like wildlife conservation have been twisted into something partisan and divisive. But how can self-anointed conservation organizations such as Oregon Wild, who continually discredit the unsurpassed conservation achievements of the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation or the Safari Club International, be so arrogant as to expect those organizations to graciously offer them a seat at the public lands management and wildlife governance table. “You can’t keep trouble from coming, but you don’t have to offer it a chair at the table.” (University of California Basketball Coach, Mike Montgomery.)

There are over 200,000 Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation conservationists worldwide, including 17,000 Oregonians, who have directed more than 41 million dollars towards Oregon wildlife habitat restoration projects. You would have to be totally ignorant of ecosystem processes to think that the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation’s projects only benefit deer and elk!

What difference does it make that the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation’s CEO David Allen, (who is an avid elk hunter and has brought strong leadership and business management skills to the conservation organization) was a former NASCAR executive, or that singer-songwriter Ted Nugent is a hunter? Will you please publically explain, Mr. Klavins, why you believe that these two ardent American conservationists deserve less constitutional freedom of speech than you and other anti-hunting zealots enjoy? Are you worried about Mr. Allen’s and Mr. Nugent’s ability to manage, energize and shape the wildlife conservation discussion?

Oregon Wild’s Klavins accused once proud hunting organizations of fomenting fear to aid in their fund raising efforts and say that hunters prize dead wildlife over live wildlife. These comments are absurd and again a liar’s parody. But I do have a couple of nuggets that I wish to share with him, “if the shoe fits you must wear it” or “sounds like the pot calling the kettle black!” Your “once proud” organization statement referring to the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation would lead an uninformed reader to conclude that the nation’s leader in big game habitat restoration is fading – 200,000 RMEF members compared to Oregon Wild’s 3,000 members. Obviously, nothing could be further from the truth, and thank you, Mr. Klavins, for aiding RMEF’s membership recruitment campaign!

Oregon Wild’s forest and wildlife management positions are a vivid and shocking reminder of the ideology that permeates the very soul of today’s anti-resource management, anti-hunting and anti-trapping movement.

“Our real problem, then, is not our strength today; it is rather the vital necessity of action today to ensure our strength tomorrow.” (Dwight D. Eisenhower, 34th President of the United States of America.) All hunters, anglers and trappers must remember this quote and join the hunting, fishing and trapping organizations that best represent their personal point of view.

The term “cherry picking” refers to when one side of a debate presents data or misapplies the data in such a manner and context that it supports only their preferred political position. Most of us involved in fish and wildlife politics know exactly what “cherry picking the data means.” Sad to say, but nowhere was “cherry picking” more evident than in this past week’s cougar management testimony presented by Scott Beckstead, Oregon Senior State Director for the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) to the members of the Oregon Legislative Assembly’s House of Representatives, Agriculture and Natural Resources Committee.

Apparently, Mr. Beckstead does not believe that Oregon’s burgeoning cougar population is negatively impacting Oregon’s big game population, and that the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s cougar population estimates are exceedingly high and cougar hunting opportunities should be further restricted! I certainly hope that in the future before HSUS’s Beckstead testifies in front of legislative committees or panels such as the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission regarding cougar management he takes the time to review the findings of NE Oregon’s, Mt. Emily Cougar Predation Study. Reviewing the applicable science would have made his presentation much more science-based and credible. Ironically, anti-hunting environmentalists do not want good science; their failed attempt to stop a cougar predation impact study conducted in five eastern Oregon game management units in 2001 is evidence of this. In the western United States, deer and elk are the staple food of mountain lions. Cougar do not just select the young, old and sick animals as prey; they kill what they can catch or ambush, and, in other words, they are opportunistic carnivores. It is an urban myth that predators only kill the sick and weak.

It is common for cougars to kill one adult deer or elk weekly. If Oregon has six to eight thousand cougars, each killing one deer or elk a week … well, Mr. Klavins, after doing the math, do you still think hunters are barking up the wrong tree? No pun intended. The studies that the environmentalists tried to block revealed that cougar predation accounted for 54 percent of big horn sheep mortalities. In NE Oregon, elk cow-calf ratios have declined from 35-40 calves per 100 cows to less than 20 calves per 100 cows and hunting opportunities are also trending downward.

The Oregon Outdoor Council and the Oregon Chapter of the Foundation for North American Wild Sheep certainly realize the importance of predator management, especially in areas of recent big horn sheep transplants such as this past fall’s release of fifty sheep in southeastern Oregon. These sheep were captured and transplanted with hope of providing genetic diversity to stagnant herd. The effort was 100% funded by hunting license dollars and contributions from Oregon Foundation of North American Wild Sheep. Unmanaged predation could doom this project’s success!

It is quite evident why the extreme environmentalists, like the members of Oregon Wild, try to block well-designed wildlife and forest management research projects. The findings simply will not support their unrealistic “everything will live in harmony if only man would butt out” management agenda. Sportsmen are keenly aware that the extreme environmental movement preys on the emotions of the uniformed when promoting their self-serving anti-hunting, anti-trapping and anti-fishing agendas; nowhere may that be more evident than in Oregon Wild’s and Trap Free Oregon’s ongoing effort to have an anti-trapping measure placed on the November 4, 2014 statewide ballot.
What Oregon Wild and their brethren so arrogantly refuse to publically acknowledge is the fact that nationally hunters, anglers and trappers have protected and restored millions of acres of wildlife habitat that benefits not only game animals but all wildlife, established and continue to fund the national wildlife refuge system, acquired countless species saving conservation easements, funded thousands of local, regional and national species diversity research projects, and initiated fish and wildlife under-graduate programs at land grant universities nationwide.

In one game changing swing, sportsmen and women hit a record-breaking homerun by imposing a tax on themselves to fund the aforementioned activities. The nation’s hunters, fishers and trappers stood up, unified, proud and tall in 1937 when Congress passed the Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act (also known as the Pitman-Robertson Act). In the past 75 years, sportsmen and women have raised over 7.2 billion dollars which has helped rescue from the brink of extinction such notable creatures as the colorfully plumaged wood duck drake, and the speedster of the Oregon desert, the pronghorn antelope.

One can only imagine the public’s outrage if Oregon’s general fund tax dollar contribution to wildlife management (currently less than three percent of ODFW’s Budget comes from the general fund) was increased, thereby, reducing the general fund tax dollars available for our public schools and public safety. But proudly sportsmen’s hunting, angling and trapping license dollars have been and still are directly responsible for providing the bulk of the funding necessary to protect and conserve our native Roosevelt and Rocky Mountain elk; Oregon’s state insect, the Oregon Swallowtail butterfly; state bird, the Western Meadowlark and the state animal, the American beaver.

Just in case you didn’t know, Oregon’s hunters, anglers and trappers are very proud of paying their own way and financially supporting the conservation of Oregon’s non-huntable, fishable and trappable wildlife. Some respect and acknowledgement of our accomplishments and financial contributions would be appreciated!

We didn’t go down swinging when our nation’s wildlife and public lands were under attack in the 20th century. It would be rather foolish for Oregon Wild and others to believe that sportsmen will shy away from these ill-advised attacks on our hunting, fishing and trapping traditions in the 21st century. Today, Oregon’s and our nation’s hunters, anglers and trappers are united, politically savvy and more committed than at any time in our history to fight back aggressively against those who challenge the validity or social significance of our proud conservation heritage.

The nation’s 37.4 million hunters, trappers and anglers are most often just plain ordinary every day working people; they come from all walks of life, from all levels of education, from all economic and social classes and, contrary to your beliefs, most do feel that their recreational interests do reflect their conservation values. Incidentally, within the last five years, hunting participation increased 9% and angling participation increased 11%. Obviously, these two outdoor activities are becoming more popular and important (not less as Oregon Wild’s Klavins tries to portray in his article) to our modern society.

These proud American outdoor enthusiasts spent $43.2 billion on equipment, $32.2 billion on trips, and $14.6 billion on license and fees associated with hunting, fishing and trapping in 2011! Yes, that’s right even during a recession hunters, anglers and trappers continued to fuel the nation’s conservation engine. I realize that sometimes the truth is hard to stomach. In light of these numbers, does Oregon Wild still think that this “once-powerful interest” is declining as mentioned in your article? Is it really that hard for Oregon Wild’s Klavins and other extreme environmentalists to accept and tolerate other socially and economically relevant outdoor lifestyles?

For Oregon Wild to mention sportsman and women in the same sentence as powerful white plantation owners is downright despicable. The connotation is abundantly clear and repugnant!

Oregon Wild’s Klavins article’s title is simply a liar’s parody and above all else is just a another “slick marketing campaign” of written falsehoods, half-truths and flaming rhetoric riling against the nation’s, and most likely the world’s, first and foremost accomplished conservationists -- hunters, anglers and trappers. It is just another futile and desperate attempt to make their organization’s anti-hunting agenda look legitimate and relevant to the uninformed. Oregon Wild and their ilk are simply milking the emotional money trail when they proclaim that modern forestry practices and responsible predator management will cause the sky to fall. Their tactics kind of remind me of the Chicken Little fable. Did the acorn cause a bruise?

Yes, perhaps it a sign of our times that Oregon Wild and other extreme environmental groups so perversely ignore, twist, and financially benefit while preying upon the exemplary record of our nation’s first and longest enduring conservationists -- hunters, anglers and trappers. Oregon Wild’s warped, self- serving application of Gifford Pinchot’s concept of managing our nation’s resources “for the greater good” is shameful and is quite possibly the most irresponsible conservation agenda before the American public today.

Mr. Klavins and I and a vast majority of Americans have been emotionally hooked by the charisma, mystery and importance of our nation’s wildlife and wildlands. However, I know that Rumpelstiltskin is a fairy tale character, but evidently, Mr. Klavins, is a real life Pinocchio!

Keep Oregon hunting, fishing and trapping,

Stan Steele



Join the Oregon Outdoor Council Today!

[catdog360]

Great article. Thanks for sharing Mike. I'm proud to be a life member of OOC.

Mic O'Brien

[mike martell]

Thanks Mic.

I just got a phone call from Jerod Broadfoot and Stan Steele has been promoted to President of OOC. Key players are positioned to benefit our cause.I happen to have a temendous respect for Stan. He patrolled the Oregon coastal region back in the early years before Oregon's hound ban. He was tough but fair and will serve sport hunters very well! We need to stick together in all states....

For all the guys in Oregon who own trail cams....Start collecting your best predator pictures and get ready. OOC is going to have a trail cam picture drive contest with prizes awarded for the best trail cam predator pictures. This serves two purposes. 1. You can win for simply having fun. 2. Pictures will be used to build a case for sound predator management and nothing speaks louder than an actual picture.

OOC needs memberships.....Lets make sure and join!

Thanks