to this entire subject-I found it on the Trout Unlimited website, and it nicely sums up the situation.



Unfortunately, politics never really disappear from the conservation conversation. A decade ago, many in the Republican camp assumed that, because sportsmen often champion the traditionally conservative mission to back the Second Amendment, hunters and anglers were fully invested in other right-leaning policies regarding resource extraction, industrial development and privatization. Democrats, on the other hand, assumed sportsmen and women resided in the political back pocket of the conservative agenda, and therefore listened more closely to those in the environmental movement, thereby marginalizing the hunters and anglers who were interested in a more moderate approach to landscape-level protection.





It wasn't until 2005 that TU's Sportsmen's Conservation Project really began to help anglers and hunters flex their political muscles. Efforts were afoot to sell off public lands to mining interests, and energy development policies were put in place to make drilling for oil and gas an expedient process that bypassed bedrock environmental laws put in place to protect the public's land and water … and fish and game.





It was then that we, as hunters and anglers, convinced politicians that protecting habitat also protected our opportunity to hunt and fish – now and for generations to come. Politicians began to understand that sportsmen and women were approaching conservation not from a political perspective, but from a deeply-held cultural point of view. With guidance from the SCP, sportsmen stopped the proposed liquidation of federal public lands, and played prominent roles in the campaigns to protect Montana's Rocky Mountain Front and New Mexico's Valle Vidal from unnecessary and intrusive oil and gas drilling.
-----
Brad Chambers

WWW.HCU-TX.ORG



Breeder of:

Green Tree Pythons

Pastel, Pinstripe, FIRE, Piebald, Clown, Lavender Albino, Leucistic, and Spider Ball Pythons

Striped Colombian Boa Constrictors

Kenyan, Rufescens, and Conicus Sand Boas

Red Phase Western Hognose Snakes

Spider Western Hognose Snakes

Albino Western Hognose Snakes

Locality Trans-Pecos Mexican Hognose Snakes

Southern Hognose Snakes

Eastern Hognose Snakes

Tricolor Hognose Snakes

Hypo Checkered Garter Snakes

Eastern Blackneck Garter Snakes

Stillwater Hypo Bullsnakes

Patternless Bullsnakes

S. GA Eastern Kingsnakes

Locality Desert Kingsnakes

Albino Desert Kingsnakes

Hypo Desert Kingsnakes

Mexican Black Kingsnakes

Desert Phase and Striped Desert California Kingsnakes

Locality Mexican Milksnakes

Spotted Mexican Milksnakes

Tangerine Mexican Milksnakes

Locality Alterna

Abbott Okeetee Cornsnakes

Mexican Baird's Ratsnakes

Cape Housesnakes

Tangerine Albino African Fat -Tailed Geckos

Locality Spotted Turtles

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