WILDLIFE WATCH ATTENDS WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT CONFERENCES TO DOCUMENT THE URGENT NEED FOR OVERHAUL OF CURRENT PRACTICES, POLICIES, AND LAWS

Wildlife Watch attended the 2003 Canada Goose Symposium in Madison, WI. We are transcribing a packed weekend of video tapes, and copying them from Hi-8 to VHS for distribution to people who are interested in knowing more about how the government operates.

2003 Canada Goose Conference at the Monoma Terrace in Madison, WI.

Just one of many programs of the FWS is the following:

FWS Takes Food from the
Mouths of Inuits And Crees, their babies and elderly

According to Larry J. Hindman, Waterfowl Project Leader of the Maryland DNR, the USFWS is “working with” (their euphemism) indigenous people to reduce their subsistence hunt in order to increase populations of geese for sport hunting. Indigenous people actually EAT the geese for survival. What irks the game managers is that indigenous hunters don’t conform to sport hunting regulations. They kill out of “season” (the dates set by game managers for killing) because the geese aren’t there at other times. They also exceed the “bag limit” allowed sport hunters. (The “bag limit” is the number of animals the FWS or state deems can be killed while maintaining or increasing the overall population for the following year of hunting.) Indigenous hunters kill in larger numbers than would be allowed with a sport hunting permit because they are feeding entire villages. Fortunately, there are very few indigenous hunters.* The editor of this publication attended the 2003 Canada Goose Symposium in Madison, WI, in March. She asked the presenter “What motivated the Inuits to reduce subsistence harvest for the sake of sport hunting studies?” In typical arrogant fashion, the response was: “They realize it’s in their best interest.” In other words, if they don’t reduce the take, who will? Certainly it won’t be the sport hunters or the game managers who cater to the hunters. *It should be noted that in another presentation at the same conference, a retired game manager said that indigenous people couldn’t make a dent in the population of the geese. It’s clear that restraints have to be placed on sport hunting.

[Please be assured that C.A.S.H. is very concerned about the individual geese. However, the attempt by the FWS to reduce indigenous subsistence hunting for the sake of sport hunting is contemptible. We tried to no avail to encourage the New York Times to do a Magazine piece on this years ago when we first became aware of it. That effort should be revived.]