General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Hunting - horrifying to see 12 year old girls and grown men slaughtering animals and feeling [View all]NickB79
(19,483 posts)Please, tell me how many dollars a year you pay towards habitat protection, or how many acres of land you've planted into native trees, shrubs and prairie?
Hunters do these things. They contribute hundreds of millions of dollars a year, through taxes on the guns, ammo, and shooting gear they buy. These were taxes the hunters and fishermen ASKED for; they were not forced upon them. They also contribute money and time directly by assisting in land conservation, invasive species removal, and species reintroduction where needed through non-profits.
Ducks Unlimited has protected 5 million acres of land: http://www.ducks.org/news-media/du-celebrates-more-than-5-million-acres-conserved-in-the-united-states
Pheasants Forever has protected 1.4 million acres: http://www.pheasantsforever.org/Newsroom/2015-January/Pheasants-Forever-Annual-Report-1-4-Million-Wildli.aspx
Trout Unlimited has protected 13 million acres of land: http://www.tu.org/conservation/conservation-opportunities/protect
There are also non-profits for whitetail deer, elk, quail, geese, bears, bass, walleye, you name it.
Your moral outrage would go over a lot better if you could show that you do some real, concrete investments to actually protect the habitat wildlife needs to survive. Hell, I was planting thousands of trees a year on our family farm, many that I grew myself from seed, when I was 15 years old; the carbon those trees has sequestered by now is likely in the thousands of tons, and the millions of acorns, walnuts and crabapples they produce every year keeps the wildlife fat and happy through our brutal Minnesota winters. I'm currently a member of the American Chestnut Foundation, and am hopeful that I'll get the chance to help replant this near-extinct species once blight-resistant seedlings are available so that it too can nourish the native wildlife like it did for millennia before.