Provincal Hunting Day
Great idea!!!
Alberta proclaims Sept. 22 Provincial Hunting Day
DAWN WALTON
Globe and Mail Update
September 14, 2007 at 8:48 PM EDT
CALGARY — The Alberta government has proclaimed Sept. 22 as Provincial Hunting Day in a bid to encourage aging hunters to pass on the tradition and to dispel the sometimes unsavoury image of the sport.
Sustainable Resource Development Minister Ted Morton, himself an avid hunter and outdoorsman, announced this week that the day is aimed at promoting the sport and recognizing the contribution it makes to conservation.
“We're losing the next generation of hunters to television, computers and shopping malls,” he said. He hopes the day will change the “negative perception” held by some non-hunters and pointed out that hunting cuts down on crop destruction and vehicle collisions. (Close encounters of the animal kind account for more than half of all crashes in Alberta each year.)
But big-game hunting is also big business in Alberta, injecting about $100-million a year into the provincial economy. Government officials say the younger generation has not embraced the sport, leaving an aging core of hunters. Only now, after years of falling numbers in the 1980s and stagnant interest over the past decade, has the province's economic boom ushered in a growing legion of hunters and anglers.
Last year, the province handed out more than 381,000 big-game and bird-hunting licences to nearly 105,000 hunters, compared with nearly 97,000 a decade earlier. Provincial officials say much of the increase has come only recently, while the number of youths taking up the sport has dropped dramatically.
The number of fishing licences has also risen in recent years. There were 237,000 fishing licences issued in 2006, up 27,000 from the year before, explained Kelly Semple, executive director of Hunting for Tomorrow, a coalition of hunting and fishing organizations that initially broached the idea to Mr. Morton.
Still, Ms. Semple concedes, it's tough to get urban folk to understand the culture. “Why does hunting matter? Why is it important? What value does it bring? Why should I, as a non-hunter, care if people hunt or not?”
The idea for a hunting day may be new to Canada, but it's been a tradition in the United States since 1972, when then-president Richard Nixon signed off on National Hunting and Fishing Day.
Now, every state has its own version of the event, which always takes place on the fourth Sunday in September. The national honorary chairman this year is entertainer Jeff Foxworthy, and past chairs have included former U.S. president George H.W. Bush, singer Hank Williams Jr. and golfer Arnold Palmer.
Joe Obad, conservation director for southwest Alberta with the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, said hunting is a legitimate activity, but only when wildlife populations are strong.
“It would be encouraging, however, if Minister Morton complemented the creation of Provincial Hunting Day with strong steps toward securing species struggling on Alberta's landscapes, like woodland caribou and grizzly bear,” he said.
Environmentalists have long lobbied for formal recovery plans to protect those animals. Mr. Obad also pointed out that motorized hunting that is taking hunters deeper in the backcountry is putting additional stress on some species that have not traditionally faced pressure from humans.
So far, the feedback has been positive, according to the province.
“A lot of people who are hunters are saying, ‘It's nice that someone is providing that voice that hunters aren't the evil bad guys out there,” ministry spokesman Darcy Whiteside said. “They're actually doing a lot of good for the province.”
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