A number of readers questioned both the validity and sourcing of a blog post I wrote last week concerning threats to the Clean Water Act. My information came from the New York Times, you see, so it must have an agenda.
 
Fair enough. But here's one that says basically the same thing, and it was published in that bastion of liberal socialism, Wildfowl magazine. And not to be outdone, those left-leaning folks at Ducks Unlimited have voiced their radical agenda on the issue as well. So what other liberal groups out there ar throwing their support behind this un-American, anti-free market legislation?
 
Let's see... Trout Unlimited. The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership. The American Sportfishing Association. Whitetails Unlimited. The North American Grouse Partnership. The list goes on and on and on.
 
Glenn Beck and James Inhofe must be apoplectic at the thought of so many granola-crunching socialist hippies.
 
I can't think of one mainstream, sportsman-based conservation organization out there that doesn't support the Clean Water Restoration Act, and there's a very good reason for that: clean water is the basis, the keystone for everything. Without clean, unpolluted water there's no trout, no ducks, no deer, no elk, no bass, no birds, and no us. But there are people out there who would have you believe that every piece of environmental legislation is unnecessary, wasteful, anti-business and a radical socialist plot.  Who are you going to believe?

Much has been written about south Florida's problems with non-native giant snakes, but according to this story officials are now faced with the frightening prospect of hybrid "super snakes" slithering amok.

Fears of a new "super snake" emerging in the Everglades grew this week during a hunt to track South Florida's invasive python population. A three-day, state-coordinated hunt that started Tuesday had, by Wednesday, turned up at least five African rock pythons -- including a 14-foot-long female -- in a targeted area in Miami-Dade County. Those findings add to concerns that the African rock python is a new breeding population in the Everglades and not just the result of a few overgrown pets being released into the wild, according to the South Florida Water Management District.
 
In addition, state environmental officials worry that the rock python could breed with the Burmese python, which already has an established foothold in the Everglades. That could lead to a new "super snake," said George Horne, the water district's deputy executive director. In Africa, the rock python eats creatures as large as goats and crocodiles. There have been cases of the snakes killing children. "They are bigger and meaner than the Burmese python. It's not good news," said Deborah Drum, deputy director of the district's restoration sciences department.
 
Personally, I think this is a great cast-n-blast opportunity for outdoorsmen from boring old native-fauna-only states like mine. I've always wanted to fish for peacock bass in the canals around Miami-Dade. What if you combined that with a trophy hybrid "super snake" hunting trip? Lots of guys travel to the southern states to hunt alligators. Why not giant snakes? It's becoming more and more apparent that exotic constrictors are established, and they're there to stay. And I have to admit, the prospect of hunting a creature pushing twenty feet long is intriguing. If the price was right, would you travel to hunt such a super snake?

Here's an interesting story via the blog of former Field & Stream editor and noted vampire expert Scott Bowen.
 
Researchers at the University of Rochester have discovered that exposure to nature can actually change how we view the world.
 
From the story:
"...a recent article by researchers at the University of Rochester shows that experiences with nature can affect more than our mood. In a series of studies, Netta Weinstein, Andrew Przybylski, and Richard Ryan, University of Rochester, show that ...

... exposure to nature can affect our priorities and alter what we think is important in life. In short, we become less self-focused and more other-focused. Our value priorities shift from personal gain, to a broader focus on community and connection with others.

"...These results are part of a growing body of evidence showing the powerful effect of natural experiences. And, for people like me who enjoy spending time in nature, the results are encouraging. However, when viewed within a larger societal context, the results also provide an intriguing perspective on some noted shifts in the values and priorities or Americans over the past 40 years. People living in the United States are spending much less time outdoors today than ever before. Data from a variety of sources show that on average, Americans are spending less time outdoors today than they did 30 or even 20 years ago. Children tend to spend more time outside than do adults, but that number too is declining. With the growth of Internet, social networking, on-demand programming, and computer games, there is more to keep us inside than there is to draw us out into the natural environment."

We've discussed the topic on this very blog a number of times, so far be it from me to continue beating a dead horse. It is, however, nice to see some empirical data to support our anecdotal certainty that the therapeutic and life-enhancing qualities of an HD-free lifestyle are very real. That's why I've always believed that people who hunt, fish, hike, birdwatch or engage in any other nature-based activity tend to be - on average - much happier, less stressed and more laid-back than their angst-ridden concrete-dwelling cousins.

It's becoming an accepted scientific certitude that having some individual relationship with nature - in whatever form it takes - is a touchstone of a healthy, well-adjusted person. The big question is: how to achieve it? Greener urban planning? School programs? More public land? Shooting the Playstation and smashing the cell phone? Good ideas, all.

But I see it as a perfect, gift-wrapped opportunity to promote the holistic and mental-health qualities of hunting and fishing. Hell, market it as shotgun-based Tai Chi. Whatever it takes to get the message out there, because the old paradigms and the old arguments - however valid they still are - are falling on deaf ears. Reinvention, re-making, rebranding; that's the lubricant of modern society's engine. Change, adapt or die. May not be right, but it is what it is, and if I were a state game agency, a hunting or fishing/based conservation organization or, yes, a hook-and-bullet magazine, I'd be firing my marketing department if they didn't run with all this new research. I hate to say it, but we've got to figure out a way to make hunting and fishing...trendy.

Sometimes you read something that - to be perfectly honest - leaves you feeling hopeless and doomed. Something so depressing it makes you want to throw up your hands, shout "to hell with it all!" and head straight to the nearest bar. Something like this, from the LA Times.
 
The latest figures from Nielsen have children's TV usage at an eight-year high. Children's health advocates warn of adverse effects.
 
More than an entire day -- that's how long children sit in front of the television in an average week, according to new findings released Monday by Nielsen.

"They're using all the technology available in their households," said Patricia McDonough, Nielsen's senior vice president of insights, analysis and policy. "They're using the DVD, they're on the Internet. They're not giving up any media -- they're just picking up more."
 
While this has obvious implications for the future of hunting and fishing, it also goes beyond that and straight to the core of our fundamental appreciation for nature itself. No one is born a hunter, an angler or a hiker. We all start life as a blank slate and what gets etched on that slate in our early childhood shapes who we will eventually become. You, I and everyone else who enjoys the outdoors, be they a hunter, an angler, a hiker, a birder or whatever, didn't get that way by mainlining 32 hours of high-definition methadone: we got that way by crawling around in the dirt catching bugs, climbing trees, building forts in the back yard and stomping around in creeks. You know, being kids. That childlike wonder, the curiosity, imagination and self-guided exploration of your surroundings. That's the base from which everything else rises. Lose that - as we most assuredly are - and you've lost an entire generation of children. And for what? So they can grow up to be the same mindless, self-absorbed zombie consumers their parents obviously are?
 
Seriously, anyone who lets their small child watch 32 hours of television, video games and Internet a week should be smacked in the head with a rolled-up copy of Richard Louv's "Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature-Deficit Disorder."
 
American parents, WTF are you thinking? Put down your go*****ed cellphone, get your fat a***s off Facebook, turn off the TV and pay some attention to your kids. Take them outside, let them get dirty. Let them think and explore for themselves without the help of corporate-sponsored storyline.
 
Good gawd, didn't this used to be called common sense?