Conservative Sportsmen turn against Bush.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

I apologize, this story is four weeks old, but very interesting.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2004-01-27-jans_x.htm

"This is really some country," says my friend Arnie Erickson. He, his young son and I make our way down a steep slope toward Otter Lake, through a grove of centuries-old spruce, some of them with trunks 4 and 5 feet thick. We're scouting for spring steelhead fishing and next fall's deer in a rugged corner of Alaska's Tongass, our country's largest national forest, which encompasses nearly 17 million acres. The pristine landscape seems serene and timeless.
But as things stand now, this place is doomed. Late last month, the Bush administration announced it would exempt the Tongass National Forest from the roadless rule, set in place by former president Bill Clinton, which protected 58 million acres of public land nationwide. Former timber lobbyist Mark Rey, now undersecretary of Agriculture, spearheaded the rollback. Fifty industrial clear-cutting operations in untouched areas of the Tongass are set to move forward. The Otter Lake area, on Chichagof Island, is one of the first tracts scheduled for logging.

Little surprise that conservation-oriented groups such as the National Resource Defense Council, Greenpeace and the Alaska Rainforest Campaign are up in arms. They point out that the U.S. Forest Service's new logging plan targets 2.5 million acres of wilderness and contains more than half of the forest's remaining huge, old-growth trees — the very places on which the Tongass' abundant fish and wildlife most depend.

The tree-huggers fume that government subsidies to the timber industry cost taxpayers hundreds of millions, and the nearly 5,000 miles of existing logging roads are enough. But a powerful rumble of discontent is growing from what seems, at first glance, an unlikely source. Just weeks before the exemption was declared, Dale Bosworth, chief of the Forest Service, received a petition from the Northern Sportsmen Network of Juneau, Alaska. It was signed by 470 gun clubs from across the USA, 40 of them based in President Bush's home state of Texas.

[terryg11]

1. I've said it many times

there are alot of hunters out there who support the republcians solely on their stance of being for gun rights, and many of them hve slowly been coming over to the dems because of environmental issues.

[Jackpine Radical]

3. I'm a hunter & gun owner

for whom the woods serves many of the purposes of a temple. I have argued this point for years. Glad to see some people finally waking up.

[htuttle]

4. Did you do any work on the Crandon Mine issue?

The recent purchase-to-preserve of the Crandon Mine site in Wisconsin by two Native American tribes was assisted by both environmental and hunting groups.

I remember reading a piece by Zoltan Grossman on MadIMC a few months back that described how this rather unlikely alliance came about, and how it may be a portent for the future.

[Jackpine Radical]

9. Not on Crandon.

I put some energy into fighting the Ladysmith mine a decade ago, but haven't been very active on that front in recent years. My wife knows Zoltan & has had some interaction with him. Don't remember the exact details now.

This is my wife's website. You might find it interesting:

www.sandhillsociety.org

[democratreformed]

12. Yep. I'm seeing the tides turn on this issue as well. n/t

[displacedtexan]

2. This is why Michigan votes Dem now.

Repuke plans to slant drill for oil under Lake Michigan, polluting the lakes and forests, and not preserving the wetlands will destroy Michigan's tourism and recreation.

[peaches2003]

5. Fishermen

My husband is in Trout Unlimited and they are violently against Bush 100%. He has destroyed the fishing in the US.

[bmbmd]

8. Yeah-but those morons

in Ducks Unlimited still echo the party gun-owner line. I am a life member of both, and can't believe the difference in perspective.

[Screaming Lord Byron]

10. Yeah, I've noticed that, I know a couple of the Trout Unlimited guys

and they seem fairly enlightened.

[Arugula Latte]

6. "tree huggers fume?"

This is an acceptable phrase for a mainstream newspaper? Why not write "Bible thumpers rant X..." or "beer-drinking red necks belch Y.." ?

:wtf:

[Screaming Lord Byron]

7. It's an editorial I happened to come across on a work-related project

so I can make no comment on the content or author. It is a pretty lousy phrase, but perhaps it's intended to be ironic.

[zbdent]

11. Repukes are so afraid of one person getting more in their welfare check

than they should, yet they are happy to let loose an unlimited number of drunken snowmobilers on nature reserves.

Hmmm.

[historian]

13. gun owner and repukes

If gun owners (including the loonies) begin to question repukes then all is lost for them. After all what do the repukes have to run on? Gun control.

[htuttle]

14. What good is a hunting rifle...

...if there is nothing left to hunt with it.

THAT is the issue what is starting to be taken up by hunting groups -- who are NOT the same as 'gun groups', btw.

[Demonaut]

15. no trees mean the deer can't hide, no streams mean the fish can't

swim away.............just using a little bush* logic