Dear Editor,
It’s interesting that Brenna Galdenzi’s opinion piece starts off with a Walt Disneyesque description of animal behaviors.
They are not humans and should not be treated as such. Every second of every day, a bear kills a deer, a coyote kills a woodchuck, a hawk kills a chipmunk. They don’t talk with each other.
She notes that our history of hunting is not in tune with the times and that our traditions are no longer viable. I guess she forgets about the hunting, fishing and trapping communities self-regulating that everyone — herself included — benefits from.
I am referencing the billions of dollars made available through taxation of which the hunting and fishing communities levied upon themselves have paid for untold millions of acres of lands for wildlife to live in — dollars in the amounts of which non-consumers of wildlife will never equal or exceed. But they, too, receive the benefits of our largess.
Those dollars have supported our country’s fish and wildlife departments for many decades, allowing the scientific results of wildlife biologists’ studies to benefit viable numbers of wild animals. To denigrate their professional efforts is to be totally out of touch with reality.
Wildlife management is a work in progress. With human influence in our land becoming greater every day, it is now, more than ever, the time to use science to solve problems — not simple emotions.
Devon Craig
Plainfield
