Updated: see new link to restraining order in original notice.
Let me second that "good work". If we are to keep our right to hunt we are going to have to be activists, all of us. Thanks for getting it done Dan.
My question is why do they want to destroy the Pheasants and close the place? Are they citing some kind of health issues?
They want to do it because the state is having serious financial trouble and they are looking for anything they can to cut.
I have been watching this pheasant farm issue from the get-go and I have real mixed feelings about it. On one hand, I certainly don't like to see anything happen in this state or any other that can be construed as anti-hunting or anti-hunter. On the other hand, as a conservative, I have grave misgivings about the appropriateness of pheasant raising (and a whole lot of other things) as a valid function of government. If the figures I've seen published are true, the Reynolds pheasant farm consumes $750,000/year of our tax money to raise 25,000 pheasants. I don't know if this even includes the cost of distribution and I don't think they raise the pheasants to maturity. I know a little bit about raising pheasants. We have a preserve license for our farm and some years (depending on what else we have going on) we raise some pheasants to stock our place for family and friends. I can assure you that, even on a small, casual scale, it shouldn't be costing $30/bird to raise pheasants to releasable maturity. For what the taxpayers of this state are spending to raise pheasants we could be buying twice the number of pheasants from the big-time commercial breeders, probably more. It's just one more example of governmental waste and inefficiency.
All license fees must go to an account separate from a state's general fund in order for a state to qualify for federal Pittman-Robertson money (that is collected on excise taxes on all firearms, ammo, etc, purchases). NY's separate account is called the Conservation Fund. All sales of assets from the Fish and Wildlife department, as well as their products, income from leases, etc, must go back into the Conservation Fund. The upkeep of the pheasant farm is *supposed* to be paid from these two sources, AND, the income that *could* have come from selling pheasants or the land should also have been placed into the Conservation Fund unless a separate piece of legislation were enacted directing otherwise. In other words, even if the State did this, it would not offer ANY relief from the budget problems the state is facing.
My question to hunting writers: What triggers interest in tracking down stories like this and getting it into the sporting press?