The Independent
ASHLAND —
Bill Haycraft, president of the League of Kentucky Sportsmen, is leading an effort to place a “right-to-hunt” amendment to the Kentucky Constitution on the 2012 ballot, an effort that is supported by the politically powerful National Rifle Association. But from our vantage point, the amendment is unnecessary. There is no move afoot to ban hunting in this state, and it would take a 180-degree shift in the political winds for such a ban to be approved by the Kentucky General Assembly or by individual counties within the state.
Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Minnesota, Montana, Oklahoma, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin already have constitutional amendments protecting the right to hunt, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures, and Arkansas, Arizona, South Carolina and Tennessee have right-to-hunt referendums on the November ballot.
Haycraft said if Kentucky voters are given the opportunity to approve an right-to-hunt amendment in 2012, it will curtail efforts of animal rights activists to ban hunting in the state.
“They have lots of money,” said Haycraft of the anti-hunting forces. “They’re highly educated. And if they can swing it with the legislatures, they will do it.”
“The threat is very real,” said NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam. “These folks want to make hunting a crime.”
Animals rights groups have pressed for restrictions on hunting in several states, including Kentucky where they tried to stop bear season from opening last year and in Minnesota where they pushed to ban dove hunting. However, efforts to stop an extremely limited bear hunting season in Kentucky were not successful, and the one-day season was approved with no bears being killed.
Certainly, there are people in Kentucky who oppose hunting, but only a small minority of state residents want to ban hunting. Even those who do not personally hunt recognize that regulated hunting helps control the wildlife population in the state. Even with hunting, the state’s deer population as grown so large that some deer ae starving because of a lack of forage. In addition, vehicle accidents involving deer have become common on the state’s roadways and deer continue to destroy gardens and field crops. We know of a number of area residents who no longer plant gardens because of deer.
Deer also have wandered into urban areas. The deer population inside the city limits of Ashland has grown so large that a case could be made for the city allowing a limited bow-hunting season for deer.
If hunting were banned in the state, the deer population soon would be out of control. The same could be said for elk, turkeys, geese and other wildlife that have grown in number in Kentucky because of successful efforts by the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources, which, by the way, receives much of its revenue from the sale of hunting and fishing licenses. Without hunting, the state department that does more than any other entity to preserve wildlife in Kentucky would not be able to exist.
Hunting is good business for Kentucky. One of the main reasons the Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources reintroduced elk to the hills of eastern Kentucky was to promote a new type of hunting in the state. And it is working. The sale of elk hunting permits has proved so lucrative for Kentucky that neighboring Virginia, which just a few years ago complained about elk from Kentucky wandering into the state, now is importing elk into its western counties. Meanwhile the elk brought into Kentucky are doing so well that the state no longer imports elk from western states.
Urban areas like Louisville and Lexington may reap few economic benefits from hunting, but the rural counties that make up the bulk of the state look forward to visitors coming into their communities each year to hunt deer, turkeys and other wildlife. Instead of seeing hunters as the enemy, the residents of rural counties see them as a source of much needed tourist dollars.
And let’s not forget that many Kentuckians — including many low-income residents — put meat on their tables by hunting.
A ban on hunting in Kentucky? No way is that going to happen. If a right-to-hunt amendment were placed on the Kentucky ballot, we have no doubt that it would be approved, and that would solve what? Nothing that we can see.
There are issues that should be voted on by the people of Kentucky — prison reform, restoring voting rights to convicted felons who have served their time, expanded gambling, tax reform, etc. An amendment to protect a sport that is not threatened may be good politics but it is totally unnecessary in the state with thousands of avid hunters.
