Scientific Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act
In August 2014 we passed the very important Scientific Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act (SFWCA) confirming our Legislators and outdoors savvy Michiganders still support management of our natural resources using principles of sound science instead of the ballot box and emotion.
The anti-hunting, anti-fishing radical animal rights group Humane Society of the United States (H$U$) is making a habit out of attacking hunting and fishing in Michigan. This latest excuse to attack us – using our wolf hunt as cover – has helped them raise millions of dollars from anti-hunters and confused animal lovers who think they’re actually helping animals. (Only 1% of the money H$U$ raises actually goes to pet shelters.)
H$U$ couldn’t have asked for a better outcome for their radical ends than were we almost ended up. They were able to take a shot at our whole, longstanding scientific fish and wildlife management system and the Natural Resources Commission while getting far too many people to believe they were only voting about wolves. The Natural Resources Commission was formed in 1922 to take emotion out of natural resource management.
The danger of this H$U$ attack to the future of Michigan hunting and fishing can never be overstated. H$U$ has more than enough money to buy multiple referendum petition drives and run bigger publicity campaigns to mislead voters about what they are voting for as they almost did with bears in 1995-96, as they successfully did with doves and as they did this time with wolves masking an attack on scientific fish and wildlife management.
H$U$ will use the majority vote on the two referendums last November 4th as justification to put more pressure on our politicians, raise more money to promote their radical animal rights agenda and continue pouring it into attacking hunting and fishing here and elsewhere like their attack on the Maine bear hunt and fishing rights in California.
We had no choice but to raise money and run the more complicated Citizen’s Initiative petition that requires almost 100,000 more signatures than ballot referendums. We had to do this so H$U$ couldn’t just referendum our sports out of existence. With almost $200 MILLION in assets H$U$ can more than afford to do just that.
We were successful this time thanks to a large number of volunteers from many outdoors organizations including both bass federations! People like H$U$ still expect to win in the future and they will probably continue to raise large sums of money.
We had to pass the SFWCA to ensure the Natural Resources Commission had the authority to vote on our new Michigan bass season as they did on April 9, 2015. We need to keep and support the SFWCA to keep sound science not emotion and the ballot box making the right decisions good for the management of our Michigan natural resources.
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