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Larry, et al.

Just hoping that...


________________________
...this is the year.
https://youtu.be/tya5YDOn0Rs

Finally, at long last, BrentD makes a correct observation. Ethanol production really was a Liberal scam... one of many they use to dupe the people.

BrentD also says that:
"Climate Change is coming boys. And anthropogenic it is. Get used to it."

Actually, climate change has been coming and going for billions of years. And it will continue to happen, driven mainly by the sun, perturbations of the tilt of the axis, and volcanic activity, three sources that dwarf mans' influence on climate. But if you simply ignore the information provided by James (canvasback), or things like the following link, you can make it go away by simply mocking the truth:

http://www.hiltonratcliffe.com/the-myths-of-man-made-climate-change/

I'm surprised BrentD isn't blaming climate change and his observed or imagined lack of bugs on the use of lead ammunition.



Now just look at all of the great science in BrentD's statement above. "We have fewer birds. And fewer everything else."

Uh, no. That isn't true at all. We have a lot more hawks, which certainly prey on small game birds and animals. We have a lot more coyotes. Ditto for their predations. Geese are multiplying like rats in many areas, reaching nuisance levels. And we all see the expanded range and populations of wild turkeys. I can't blame herbicides, pesticides, and clean farming for the lack of pheasants in my area because a good percentage of the farms are Amish. And they are not using those chemicals and techniques. They're still using moldboard plows and ancient cultivators pulled by draft horses. There are still plenty of fallow overgrown fields, and plenty of fencerows. The topography dictates that we don't have huge contiguous fields of mono-crop production, but rather a checkerboard of corn, soybeans, clover, alfalfa, spelts, oats, potatoes, timber, orchards, brush, weeds, etc. And as I've stated earlier, nobody is spraying either herbicides or pesticides in our forested ruffed grouse habitat, and there is certainly no shortage of insects. Logging of mixed hardwoods is a big industry, so there is always a mixture of mature forest and recently timbered areas in various stages of regeneration.

I don't have the answers, but I'm still pretty sure it was a huge mistake to permit the harvest of hen pheasants when the population was declining. However I am certain that agenda driven Liberals like BrentD don't have the answers either. But that won't stop them from blowing smoke up your ass.

How many here are contributing time or dollars to conservation/environmental organizations that are attempting to curb some of the causes of habitat degradation?

I do. I'm a strong supporter of Delta Waterfowl as well as a partner in a significant project at Delta Marsh on Lake Manitoba to remove the Common Carp from the marsh.

Since the 1950's carp have had a profound and negative impact on the habitat and species range in Delta Marsh. A group that includes Delta Waterfowl, Ducks Unlimited and the Manitoba Government approached us (my brothers and me) to be able to build a series of dikes and weirs on our property as we sit on the main entrance to the marsh from the main body of Lake Manitoba. The project couldn't proceed without our cooperation. Our property and our access road/track, some owned and some on long term lease stretch out over about 2 miles from the start of our right of way to our lodge site, heading deeper into the marsh the whole way. That's important for us hunters as motorized vessels are not allowed. Given that rowing is the only way around, the deeper into the marsh you start the better.

The development has caused a major disruption to our property visually. It has required us to have a significant road built, allow heavy equipment across our lands for the build and weekly monitoring the weirs and collection of fish during the summer season. Don't quote me on this but I think they are taking out 40-50,000 pounds of fish each year. Those are significant negatives IOHO, to what was a beautiful, isolated and pristine spot in the marsh. However, the benefits to the marsh are already apparent after just a couple years.

Our lodge has been a hunting spot for over 100 years, built by the Hefflefinger family of Minneapolis. Our neighbors were the family of James Ford Bell, the founder of General Mills and a man who had the foresight to bring Aldo Leopold to the marsh in the 1930's to discuss the decline of waterfowl back then. While DU focused on habitat preservation, Bell sponsored biological research through his Delta Research Station (the forerunner to Delta Waterfowl) in partnership with the biology department of the University of Manitoba. Most of his lands have been turned over to Delta, although the family still has access rights.

Most of the hunting lodges at Delta were built by people who had made their fortune in the grain business. I like to think that because of their natural affinity for the land, nurtured by their profession, that they all took conservation seriously. Hanging on the wall of our lodge, until a catastrophic flood destroyed it in 2011, was a founding membership in Ducks Unlimited from March 1937 in the name of Mr Hefflefinger. That commitment continues to this day.

The pictures and video linked below are from our property.

http://www.ducks.ca/stories/science/cleaning-common-carp/

Chukarman, your post had the tone of a bit of a challenge in it. What are you doing?

The problem with your decision is not that it is wrong for you, it's that you are not speaking for the great unwashed masses. You're privileged, so am I, so are all here who can afford an expensive hobby in order to put $50/lb. + game birds on the table. You do not speak for the inner city people, the elderly on fixed incomes or the struggling single mother who needs food and fuel as cheap as possible. There's nothing wrong with you holding that opinion, Steve, it's just that you can't, and shouldn't, assume that you speak for anybody else.

SRH

I am a life member of California waterfowl and was a longtime board member. I am a contributing member of CalTrout.

I served on the EPA's SF Bay and delta steering committee.

I am active in issues that effect sporting dog owners in my state and in advocating public access to public lands.

Other than that, I just hunt birds, field trial and hunt my setters, and post on web bulletin boards.

Yeah, it was a challenge to everyone that isn't doing SOMETHING.

If you're not part of the solution...

Stan,
I fail to see how the Ethanol program feeds the poor. Help me out here, show me how those 5.6 billion bushels of corn that go in the gas tank help the poor. It drives up the cost of gas and mileage decreases. I see this as a net increase in cost to the poor and everyone else. This is for a good year. On a bad year the tax payer funded crop insurance pays the farmer for cultivating poor ground in addition to the poor quality gas.

I grew up on a farm Stan, still own my shares too. Our ground alternatives corn and beans depending on the year. I have nothing against farmers or the poor but firmly believe ethanol is garbage science and a bad idea.

I am all ears though, please tell me how this keeping us all fed....it is not.

I just buy hunting licenses in several states each year in pursuit of upland birds. I hunt CO, SD, and NE most years, sometimes ND or MT as well.

Steve, I'm not defending ethanol, or the infrastructure that got it there. My point was, and has been all along, that the so called subsidies to farmers are in reality subsidizing all American households who crave cheap food. When the government won't stay out of our (farmers) business, and uses our produce as a leveraging tool with other nations, such as with unilateral embargoes, the farmers are at the governments' mercy. I would love for them to institute a hands off policy as far as what we plant and what we receive for it. But, the government is much more afraid of the ire of households across the nation because of super-escalated food prices than it is of upset farmers.

If there were no incentives to farmers to influence what we plant, no incentive programs for certain crops, there would be extremely volatile swings in commodity prices. This would result in wild swings in food and fiber prices. For it's entire life, the overwhelming driving purpose of the Farm Bill has been to ensure a stable supply, and relatively cheap prices, of and for food. Their way of ensuring that has been subsidies, in whatever form they assume, from one Farm Bill to the next. This has, unarguably, insured the most stable and inexpensive food supply in the world.

As I said before, people shouldn't bit** about farmers subsidies with their mouth full.

SRH

Correct me if I'm wrong, CRP monies go to the land owner, not necessarily the farmer. Much of the ethanol belt is leased land. Most farmers in the upper mid west own but a small amount of the land they actively farm. There are other subsidies that do go directly to the farmer, such as LDP's.