LAST EDITED ON Mar-16-15 AT 07:34PM (MST)[p]Deerlove and BuzzH.
Deerlove, regarding SFW and Arizona. See below my comment to BuzzH.
BuzzH, your comment are absolutely correct, you and I have very different views of the world but this we agree and we should leverage those things with which we agree and disagree when we must. You and I have been preaching, teaching, begging, pleading, scolding, suggesting, encouraging etc. etc. for sportsmen in every State to unit. To cooperate. To plan, to be proactive, to be aware of the coming tsunamis, earth quakes, hail storms and anti-hunting legislation, for many, many years. Yet, be it Calif., Washington, Arizona, New Mexico, every time an issue that comes up that is going to reduce hunting opportunity and the outdoor lifestyle individual sportsmen cry out for help, when the horse is out of the barn. Why, oh why, oh why won't someone in these State decide to put their differences aside and unit for their own preservation? It's not rocket science, hell, Saul Alinsky, the despicable leftist, spells out how to take over the legislative process. If sportsmen can't come up with a better way to do it, read his crap and learn how the left is doing in, then turn it back on them, by doing it yourselves. It's called "community organizing", regardless of who's doing the organizing!
I wrote this before you post, in response to Deerlove's comment, it's redundant now but I'll put it out here again, one more time, just in case someone from Arizona, or some place will finally get motivated and get moving before our entire hunting world is obsolete.
Deerlove and anyone else with ears to hear.
I think there was a group in AZ that did try to get the F & G down there to offer some tags (primo tags I would guess) for auction. It might have been a group modeled after the SFW or at least proposing a similar approach. As I recall, there was opposition to the proposal and the AZ did not give the group the tags.
I have no quarrel with how AZ F & G and AZ sportsmen choose to fund their department or their conservation fund raising efforts. It AZ wants to charge more for their tags, ask for donations, run their own raffles, have a State Lottery for Wildlife Conservation, it's okay with me. There are a lot ways to raise money, if they even want to raise money for conservation. But if they're having a problem with anti hunters using wolf conservation group's to back door sportsmen by allowing wolves to management/reduce big game populations, it stands to reason they will be needing addition revenue from some source, or they will simply loose the fight and loose future hunting opportunities. AZ sportsmen clearly don't want to loose hunting opportunity.
The point of my previous post was not to suggest or infer that Arizona sportsmen should start a SFW group, or even a group that mirrors SFW or has any connection, any contact or any association with SFW or any of the SFW membership. They don't need SFW or any existing sportsmen's hunting and fishing organization. They don't need MDF, RMEF, SCI, NRA, or heaven forbid the National Wildlife Federation.
So what do they need?
Simple. They need a "State wide Hunting and Fishing Organization". Call it any thing you want but it's 100% made up of Arizona hunter and fishermen.
Here is what they need to do. Create the group, elect ambitious leaders, agree to disagree but support a majority vote, establish a two sentence mission statement that states that the group's entire mission is to preserve and grow public hunting and fishing opportunities and life styles in the State of Arizona, charge $30.00 for a membership, (so membership has value and membership believe their membership in an investment in their hunting/fishing future.) Finally, let every member and every potential member know that 90% of hunting and fishing is controlled by government and government influence is where the group will be spending it's time, it effort and it's resources, and members should know from the outset that electing and re-electing State and Federal Representatives will the primary focus of the "group's" efforts. Why. Because it the government Representatives and the government Bureaucrats that have always and will always decide the future of hunting and fishing in Arizona, based on the laws and regulations they put into law. These laws must be influence and controlled, as much is possible, to allow for hunting and fishing life styles and for hunting and fishing opportunities to continue and grow in the State of Arizona. This is done by large groups of like minded, committed, some times disagree but always cooperating, sportsmen that take control of who get elected and who get re-elected, and they do it at the grass roots level, not during the general election, because it's too late to hope to get it done at the general election level.
While it is distasteful for many, it will most likely become necessary to "pay" a salary to the executive body of the "Az Group" because coordinating and facilitating the united effort and the 24/7 necessity to stay on top of the hunting and fishing issues in the State. Salaries require an income form somewhere, it don't matter where the income comes from, so long as it's legal and it happens, because volunteers simple run out of energy, time and personal income to support the kind of time and effort that needs to going into a group that is organized well enough to "get the job done" when the "wolf is at the door".
If AZ and any other State would get such an organization established, keep it active, keep it funded (however it is they choose to do it), when issue like AZ is presently having their is a powerful force that can be put into action to address the issue, and in some case ward it off before it ever becomes and issue.
If sportsmen in AZ and others State don't, they will continue to be blind sided, taken advantage of, whipped and defeated by the anti hunting organizations that are already doing just exactly what I explained sportsmen need to do.
It has nothing what ever to do with SFW. Nothing. If sportsmen are going preserve hunting and fishing, they must get better at doing what their enemies are doing, and agree to disagree from time to time and stay united and supportive of what the majority want to do, regardless of their personal disagreements or personal dislikes with the "groups" leadership. Members elect the groups leaders, deal with it at that level, but support the leadership when the big fights need to be waged.
IF.....................at this time AZ had a State wide, united, cooperative sportsmen's group in place, influencing government, they would be out in front of this issue, leading the opposition effort as it were. At that time, the AZ group could then call on MDF, RMEF, SCI, NRA etc to join with them and create an more powerful united front. As it is now, there is no local organized politically powerful group in AZ, so their is simply not a hell of a lot that the rest of us can do to help now, because there is no one AZ group organizing the opposition.
So.......as much as I hate to say it.........we all know where this is going to end. There will be wolves in northern Arizona and their was absolutely no reason to have lost this fight. Like Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, we'll be fighting to get them out, rather than fighting to keep them out, we're always behind the curve on these issues, or so it seems.
DC