I was in South Viet Nam when Hanoi Jane visited the North and was photographed sitting behind an anti-aircraft gun. Needless to say I despise the woman and never go to her movies. My niece and her husband live in Big Sky montana which I understand is close to Ted's ranch. Never heard them say anything negative about Ted. They did say you can shoot a Bison on the ranch for a small nominal fee.
As far as environmentalists and scientists go you need to follow the money to find the hidden agendas. Al Gore has made millions pushing the global warming thing. Anyone can call themselves an environmentalist. like any other group there are probably good ones as well as the bad.

it is absolutely amazing how many things that sportsman feel are common knowledge that other people(who don't hunt or fish are completely ignorant of) My wife for example grew up in portland and until moving to Idaho at age 17 was convinced that all gun owners want to kill other people (she thought she'd be dead in a week)and that hunters took machine guns into the woods and slaughtered animals by the hundreds leaving them to rot. The fault is in cultural differences the problem is that most anti's don't want to believe anything other than what they've been taught.

Gee the editors slammed me for giving my opinion of Fonda, so I'll try a different approach.

I meant to add; I met the b$!ch in person, Monterrey, Ca. May of '71. Never forget it. She had the most foul, vehement, anti American mouth I have ever heard. I had to walk away and wash my hands, I felt dirty.

My grandpa was a hunter for a living, well he also was a fisherman and made his living from nature on its own premises. And with that he raised 5 children. But since i was only 5 when he died, he never got to teach me the ways of the hunt and for that i think i have lost something, but he was also a man of moral and strongwilled and outright stubborn. If he could see the state of the world we live in now where money and power gangrape the land, poisoning our childrens future, i think this proud man would weep for our future. And in spite of being a hunter, all animals loved him and he loved the animals too. I am mostly self taught when it comes to hunting, booklearned to the hilt and have been making my own hunting experience since i was 13 and bought my dad a 22lr. (i couldnt be the owner, so my dad signed the papers knowing it was a deep urge in me to hunt!) It isnt an urge to kill, its an urge to have the ability to survive no matter what and to connect with nature on its own terms. And if u dont belive in natures own laws, try telling a big hungry animal that your not its food cos u love it so dearly. (ask if it worked for the grizzly man:P) Your either the hunter or its prey.. U choose. But as my granpa i also love animals, when its not hunting season i do some sportsfishing, and revel in natures own glory when in my wildlife treks i get to observe natures citizens in theire natural habitat.. where they should be and be able to survive and be happy.. cos animals that thrive are happy, its emotions, animals do have them, and animals do have compassion too.. its a natural process that makes sure that hunting animals dont kill off theire prey and by doing that eliminates theire own basis for survival.. A lion that has a full belly will just lay in the sun, watch the herds of animals trek by and maybe make love. If all the worlds people where as full as that then there would be no war in the world im sure.
How, will they ask me those fanatics that use the worlds wildlife protection agencies for theire own personal vendettas, can a man that loves animals and knows they have feelings go out with a gun and shoot them?? well i figure that 30 seconds of shock and trauma and maybe pain, is a much better death than nature itself provides with being eaten, die slowly of disease or damage etcetera. And small game are often shocked dead instantly never even feeling the pain. and when u then add modern societys way of getting dinner by imprisoning it for life in metal cages, slow torturing it and then slaughtering it on a non feeling mechanised assembly line so the modern man dont have to look his burger in the eyes as life ebbs out and then glasses over.. doesnt it make sense that having to do the killing and slaughter yourself makes u less prone to overeating, over taxing and in fact loosing all respect for life itself , just seing it as a number of resources on a paper making so and so much income for the few owners of everything today, making them a fraction richer and more powerfull. doesnt it make sense that hunters want to give theire children and grandchildren a plentyfull living world to harvest from. it does, and when my daughter is old enough i will teach her to hunt and respect nature as much as the memory of my grandpa has taught me, and not be a human sheep going along with the people that destroys nature for profit, but take a stand and bite the hand that pretends to feed u in exchange for your fleece your freedom and in conclusion your flesh. In the world of the sheeple id rather be a wolf. i have a better chance of survival and im in charge of my own destiny as much as one can be, and i dont need sheeple to survive, there is deer and many other animals to feed of. (besides our adaptation to and ability to eat meat gave us the strenght to survive through 6 known extinction events that killed most of everything else in this world including plantlife and it will do so in the future, and another event is comming, its a certainty, the only uncertain thing about it is when and what) wanna have the basic ability to clothe and feed your family or u want to be crow food????
peace out..

I've got an uncle who lives in New Mexico and has hunted with him several times,according to him Mr.Diehl, is right he is a stand up guy.
As for the people attacking Jim in Mo. they don't call her "Hanoi Jane" for nothing.
As for the QUESTION, you know the one that was asked,
WE ARE BOTH AT FAULT, you got to give a little to get a little and neither side wants to do that.

"The common man in our country have an inate sense of what makes sense and what is bull"

This is an incorrect and rather dangerous dangerous statement.

for instance,

As an object goes faster, time literally slows down. It takes longer for second to pass when you are going fast than it does when you are sitting still.

do you think that your proverbial "common man" would say this makes sense or is bull?

Its true, and if it weren't then the GPS in your car wouldn't work. Advanced science is almost never in line with "common sense", in fact it often runs contrary to "common sense"

-just one example but I could make many more.

dan gerbach-

It is quite clear that you are far too disconnected from science for me to change your opinion, However, for anyone else still reading this, I will point some things out.

"If you believe Al Gore,I don't trust you as far as I can throw you"
Thank you for clearly demonstrating the "nutjob syndrome" described above. Gore is not a climate scientist, he is a politician.

"You sound elitist in your views"
please define elitist?

This word was used quite a bit in last fall's election, I find it quite interesting. Traditionally it was used to describe the upper most socio-economic class. However, You know nothing about my rather dismal economic standing, so you cannot possibly be using the word in this sense.

Instead, it appears as though this word is being used to attack education, science, and rational thought. Are you really sure that's the way that we as a society want to go? ...like I said before, worked fine for Rome...

"how long did the advanced scientific minds believe the world was flat?"
Thanks for bringing this up! This is another perfect example of how "common sense" doesn't apply very well to science!

If your proverbial, uneducated "common man" were to stand in his front yard, look around and have a scientist tell him that the world was round, what would he conclude?

Of course he would conclude that the "socialist elites is about control/power and they will use any way to accomplish their mission" ...and he would be 100% wrong

The real difference here is the difference between scientific and religious thinking.

Unless you know what happened years ago to Kaibab and spent years outdoors in remote areas, how in the hell can anyone say from an armchair reading National Geographic or from the Sierra Club rag what some wild-eyed moon bat wrote! I see more critters closer to human habitat than in the most remote areas. I lived just a ½ mile away from the Alaska Pipe Line and you will find more animals especially in the winter by it than any place else. If saving Moose was a truly a goal for these rat tail freaks swooping in front of fishing boats trying to get there selves killed trying to stop fishing and get the head out of there armpits they just may learn something!

How about this, did you know more moose are killed on the train rails in winter than anyplace else in Alaska!

Every deer season some idiot that hit a deer blamed it on the hunters. I always ask what time of day it was and they all replied, NIGHT TIME! How about that, hours after shooting hours and the deer runs out and how come it didn’t happen during the day time when hunters are actively hunting!!!

You just can’t fix STUPID!!

Hey Chad, tell me young man, what do you know about Kaibab!

Most likely answer, what’s Kaibab!

They often forget that many of the original conservationist who saved what wildlife we now have today were hunters. More money has been spent on wildlife and wildlife habitat by hunters than any other group. This is not just the case here in North America, but world wide. Africa is a prime example, where placing a dollar value on wildlife can in turn save it from being wiped out. My favorite defense to anti hunters is to inform them that there is more wild game in Idaho today than when Lewis and Clark came through 200 years ago, and it is all due to the efforts of hunters and the state game agencies they support. If these groups who love nature so much would just realize that man is a predator as well, and holds a very valuable place in proper game management, and has for 1000's of years, then maybe time and effort spent on lawsuits could instead be spent on activities that actually benefit wildlife and wildlands.......

I find that a lot of "environmentalists" don't know a fraction of what I know about the environment.

How sad it is.

I think that losing the efforts of one would have catastrophic effects on the other. We need the non-hunting environmentalist movement as much as they need us. Granted, I am in both camps and do not feel as though an ideological distinction between the two groups should exist. If you are a hunter, you should be an environmentalist.

Hunters and gun owners spend all their time preaching to the choir.

We all need to spend more time spreading the gospel to outsiders and defending our position with facts.

As far as Ted Turner goes, he did divorce Ms. Fonda....

Jim

I've got a degree in Field Biology. I'm published in the Canadian Field Naturalist. I've worn circles in my glasses from hours of observations. I'm not an environmentalist because I hunt. I don't belong to Greenpeace, Trout or Ducks Unlimited, or the Environmental Defense Fund, I do belong to the NRA. Environmentalists write checks. I'll bet the environmental lobby will make more money this year than the big three auto companies, and it won't be the first time. I've made twenty trips to Ak, Yukon, NWT since my first at the age of 19 in 1970. We can try, but the professionals in the Big E industry know which side of the bread is buttered. The Big E has the lawyers, the money, and the ignorance of the urbanites on their side. In terms of science, they have the best experts money can buy, and they have bought them. Eagles and osprey are now common but specials on dirty water abound. You can't have both poor water quality and ospreys. Who you going to believe, the "experts" or your own lyin' eyes?

People like that like to believe they can compete in a .50caliber world with a .22 caliber mind.

Labrador12-

Sorry for not being clear, by restoration I meant the entire program, not just the reintroduction that has worked so well for NY's bald eagles.

Mike Diehl

You posted:

"Gotta agree with Ken McCloud. When someone pipes up with some derogatory remark about "book smart" or "college boys" I can be reasonably correct to assume the speaker is an envious dumbass."

On that, sir, I totally agree! See, we don't always disagree?

WMH

60256

You keep on doing what you are doing, son. Don't let the current crop of nay sayers that permeate our public school systems influence your desire for achievement and excellence! If getting a good education was easy, everyone would do it.

Get a good education, gather your own information, and make your own decisions. Always beware of the talking heads in the media. They all have an agenda. It may be the same as yours, but it is their agenda nonetheless. There will always be some lawn maintenance engineers available to mow your grass. More and more of them will be speaking English!

A Kaibab's meat and vegetables on a stick, right?

A Kaibab Clay is alternating pieces of marinated shrimp, steak, tuna, onion, mushrooms, and green peppers cooked over a charcoal grill...just kidding.
Seriously, I have seen pictures of the Kaibab that were taken during the worst of it. There was literally no vegetation visible above the ground about as high as a deer can reach on its hind legs. I think they estimated that approximately 60,000 deer starved to death. That was a true disaster.
What I don't understand, and maybe it's due to my age, is why does something (such as this issue of environmentalism) always have to be someone's fault.
I swear I wouldn't be surprised if someone made it a national holiday. National Fault Finding Day; now there's a holiday to point one's finger at.
I will now answer my own question by stating that the real issue is that apparently no one wants to take responsibility for his/her actions anymore. It's easier to blame the other guy than to admit "I was wrong" or "I made a mistake!" Trial and error is not always bad. The scientific method as described above by Ken Mcloud is somewhat loosely based upon trial and error and often does not yield useful data or fact the first time a theory is examined. Sometimes the evidence used in an experiment to prove a theory is faulty and has to be discarded. Subsequent experiments will usually reduce erroneous factors until a true repeatable result is obtained. The moral I suppose is that its OK to be wrong as long as one strives not to repeat the same mistake. That can be applied to both camps (hunters and environmentalists). The problem as I see it is as I stated above; no one wants to admit to the possibility that perhaps I didn't take all the facts into consideration. That's just an old guy's two cents.

steve182

I hope so, just like what I read on another blog, one of the Machinists at one of the Nations M16 and AR15 manufacturing plants wrote, instead of cleaning store shelves of ammo, they should have called there Senators and Congressman’s!

I didn’t catch which bill it was attached to, but Firearms was linked to one trying to push it thru and failed souly because of it.

Individual State Rights are becoming the forefront and I see this is where the battle ground will take place!

Yes it does. IIRC the old Roman expression was something like "Qui Bono," but follow the money is the best modern equivalent. IMO, "follow the money" explains about 99% of what goes on around us, politically speaking.

http://www.violentacres.com/archives/361/how-to-be-a-human

Turd Turner is a creep. Ask any of his neighbors in Montana.

"Believe what you will, Diehl."

I believe what I've seen with my eyes and know to be true. Ted Turner is a stand up guy, no doubt about it.

to ken mcloud, I , in the 70's,attended college,under a fish/wildlife management degree.In one class,the teacher,who was a rancher/outdoorsman by trade,stated on the first day,"any species,be it animal or plant,will ,eventually,become extinct.No species on this planet lasts forever."One species of oak will be dominant for centuries, to be ecliped later,by another species of tree or bush.Change is the one constant in nature and nature seeks a balance, constantly. Today,politicians want to scare us over what changes naturally, in cycles and want to tax us to make changes over what they can't possibly change,anyhow.The global warming crowd wants to make hay while they can-they were disproven so they changed the title to climate change.See how foolish they think we are!So why are you buying it? The next time Al Gore says the artic ice cap is melting too fast which will flood the coasts of the world,think about Antartica,the other end of the planet.Wouldn't that ice cap become larger,since it would be away from the sun more.In nature,the earth finds a balance! To Big O, we've given too much already-all they want is to take,have you noticed?

Mr. Creosote-
That was Steven Colbert style ironic comedy... right?

labrador12-
Is your argument that:
1) The environment is fine, isn't being harmed, and dosen't need any protection?
-or-
2) The groups who have the largest voice in the environmental movement are largely corrupt?

Because, correct me if I am wrong, but they are two VERY different arguments that call for two very different courses of action.

Labrador12-

Overall, well put. I especially liked "measure twice, cut once"

On all of the fundamentals it appears as though we are in agreement.

I think the difference is that in general, I see the environmental improvement glass as half full, while you may see it as half empty.

when you said:
"we have reached a plateu where improvement is going to be expensive"

In some ways this is true, but there is still A LOT of low hanging fruit out there.

We still spend billions of dollars filling land fills with aquafina bottles when we could just as easily use a reusable water bottle filled from the tap.

Our trucks, though much better than the '66 chevy, still use than 10% of the energy in the gas to move down the road. The rest goes out the radiator and tailpipe as heat energy.

Most of our light bulbs turn about 2% of the electrical energy they consume into light, the other 98% goes into heat that we then use our air conditioners to remove.

I agree wholeheartedly that we have to be very careful whenever there is an expansion of government power. However there are still plenty of solutions our there that have very little impact on personal freedoms and make great environmental strides.

(the 5 cent deposit on soda and beer cans is one great example)

When I was in college my friends called me "Doc Doom" because of my environmenal expertise. Never in my wildest dreams did I expect to see the improvements in the environment that we have today. However, I never expected to hear the "living constitution" and gun control arguments that I hear today either. Be carefull Ken. Never in our nations history have so few people had a real connection with the land. We live in a polorized urbanized world where emotions hold sway over our politial world. We live in a world where people can make killing animals illegal without realizing that now they can't have steak for dinner. They believe that food comes from grocery stores, not farms. They believe that gas comes from gas stations, not from hard working people pulling it from the ground in a increasingly inimical environment. I'm proud of where we are today. I worry greatly that with the passing of the
WWII guys that individual freedom is in being limited. If people thought things through we wouldn't need a bottle bill. Bottle bills are as much a revenue raiser as they are a environmental bill. Our educational system could be doing a much better job.

to k mcloud, for how long did the advanced scientific minds believe the world was flat? you guys are an arrogant bunch.You can accept theories from the government/special interest groups,w/o question,yet,can't consider that the common man is just as smart as them.By the way,my Antartic example was tongue in cheek,poking fun at Gore's logic.And,if the government could convince you that the earth's tilt changed like they did with the ozone-depletion theory,then by God, they would in a heart beat.Don't you know that?My ignorance is exceeded only by your blindness.....gotta go,dragging my bleeding knuckles once again.

Ken

It's not just NY. I have been seeing large numbers of Ospreys and the odd eagle all accross the northern tier of states on my Alaska trips. I have a nephew living in NC who sees osprey regularly and the odd eagle as he fishes too. The logical conclusion is that the habitat that these top of the food chain animals utilize has become at least good enough to meet minimum requirements for their proliferation. Another example would be loons. Loon recovery is apparently stong also.

Why isn't the story of environment recovery on the front page of Field & Stream? Bad news sells. Every story needs to add to the guilt, so the Big E boys can keep raking in billions to lobby for their agenda. Big Green buys adds in media publications. Their agenda is to restrict access and to limit individual freedom for the good of the planet, or to stuff their pockets with money.

Del in KS, On an unrelated note. Have you ever seen (used) the HanoiJane Urinal Target? It is quite satisfying to use.

Environmental groups, ie "Big Green", are very much like ACORN. They receive government grant money, sue the government, deprive taxpayers of their rights, and repeat the process. Relying on experts, or the reporting of F&S for that matter, in many cases fails to provide knowledge of the problem. Shoddy reporting, big green lobbying, and pandering pols are getting us into some real problems. In the late 60's and early 70's big green helped the environment greatly. Today they are the problem not the solution. Media manipulation of the general issues has made big green into a multi billion dollar industy. Ol' Ted is holding a backstabber with our blood dripping off the blade. Part of Ted's billion dollar fortune was made from mis-reporting issues on CNN. Remember, a dead bald eagle is a story. The real story is that bald eagles are no longer extinct.

My argument would be that the environment as a whole in North America north of Mexico is on a path to a cleaner better situation. The recolonization of beavers, turkeys, bluebirds, ospreys eagles, wolves, grizzly bears, black bears, etc. is proof of that. The scientific consensus in the 70's was that the environment was going to continue to get worse in every direction. Eagles, ospreys et al indicate that theory was incorrect.

The attitude of Big Green is that every other entity in the US is corrupt but them. Why are they not trumpeting the plus side of the issue? In NY State the DEC did a historical bald eagle study in 1975 which found a total of 72 nest sites for the species in the entire state. In the spring of 2008 154 pairs were nesting in the state. Isn't that a tremendous achievment over the 0 pairs nesting in 1975. The US population in 1970 was 150 million, today its over 300 milliom. The total population doubles for humans and for eagles. I could show ten thousand dead salmon rotting on a shoreline, if you didn't know the life history of pink salmon you would be horrified by the picture. Big Green has mastered publicizing the horrific moment to stuff their pockets.

We don't need to pander to Big Green. If you realistically look at where we were in 1970, where we are today and look forward, the future looks very good without new laws which are restrictions on individual freedom. I'm not ready to repeal all environmental laws, but I'm not falling for the slick publicity of Big Green either. Try to look at the big picture Ken.

CJ

When it comes to Conservation and the Sportsman, I find those that should know don’t and don’t give it a rat’s ass to find out!!!

To damn ignorant I say!!!!!

I keep talking about Kaibab were the Government got involved as usual and screwed everything up. My favorite hunting area is now closed to ATV and during turkey season I decided to take the chance and hunt it on ATV to find out what’s going on and my findings where very startling. Out of the entire season, I only found one turkey track. Not only that, lumber companies are stripping the hillsides and not cleaning up there mess and leaving petroleum 5 gallon buckets and the place looked like they were doing oil changes and dumping the oil straight onto the ground, not to count the beer cans along the roads!

I tell you why Magazine Writers will not take up Kaibab and other points of fact; it has to be their very own finding and idea. And second everyone is running around saying it sucks and this reminds me of my troops in the Air Force. My troops knew better to tell me something sucks knowing full well that’s the best way to really piss me off. If you’re going to tell me something sucks you’d better know why it sucks and have a fix or request help for the fix.

I tell’ya, if everyone don’t get there head out of there armpit we are going to lose it all!!!

And yes, I’ve been talking to a fine Gentleman named Zack in Congressman’s John Boozman’s office and they are fully aware of the problem and working to fix it!

How many of you contacted your Senator or Congressman lately?

None of you I bet!