Quote:
Originally Posted by 59whiskers
95% of the licenced hunters would be gone. We would be just like Europe where the wealthy can pay to play. Beginning to believe what a fellow from Europe told me 40 years ago. All this is okay if you are rich. How would you like to see fish and wildlife resources privatized as well.
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Where already at the point where most poor people can't afford to hunt, it is simply not cost effective. If you only have a few dollars most people are going to spend them on food. Outside of a few rural poor who might shoot animals because they are accessible to them and they don't have to spend money to hunt, don't buy licenses or spend money on equipment, fuel and time, the vast majority of hunters hunting today are not hunting for food, they are hunting because they like hunting. The meat is just a bonus. In places like rural America where there is a lot of poor and most hunting is limited to landowners, their friends and people who can afford a hunt club or pay for a hunting lease there are tons of people who don't hunt, not because they don't want to but rather because they simply can't afford it. Eating road kill is very popular, down there, even gaining popularity up here in Canada though most who eat road kill would probably rather hunt for it if they could afford to.
As time goes by hunting everywhere is becoming an activity of the more affluent. Allowing landowners the right to charge for access will be just another nail in the coffin.