Nestled in the Pacific Ocean approximately 30 miles from the mainland of Santa Barbara sits a beautiful island where majestic Roosevelt elk and Kaibab mule deer roam free. Ferried across a treacherous channel, these grand species were brought to Santa Rosa Island some 80 years ago, but their days are officially numbered. A complete slaughter of these magnificent animals is scheduled to occur before the midnight tide rises on Dec. 31, 2011. Sharpshooters will be en route to the island soon to comply with a 1996 court settlement and 2007 legislation that reinstated the extermination order.<\/p>\n
The 83-square-mile island was privately owned for more than a century before being sold to the National Park Service in 1986 for $30 million. Used as a cattle and sheep ranch for much of its modern history, overgrazing disrupted the balance of the island`s ecosystem. The 1996 lawsuit settlement required the removal of all cattle, sheep and feral hogs from the island, followed by a phased reduction of elk and mule deer to culminate at the end of 2011 with complete extermination.<\/p>\n
As this is a government-mandated animal slaughter, you may ask where the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) have been in the process. They have been curiously absent, giving us a clear picture of their definition of “conservation.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
I don’t hunt much myself any more, got a friend who loves freezing his ass off and\/or getting soaking wet who does, and I get as much meat as I want. Still I can recognize bull shit when I see it.<\/p>\n
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This seems yet another silly lack of common sense. Instead of using permitted HUNTING to manage the herds… Just kill ’em all?<\/p>\n
It’s an island that hasn’t had an indigenous ecosystem for decades, and as the article points out:<\/p>\n
Regulated hunting of Roosevelt elk and Kaibab mule deer on Santa Rosa Island has been employed and celebrated for decades, keeping populations in check that have no natural predators. Although the presence of such majestic beasts enriches the experience of all who visit the island, HSUS and PETA seem to prefer total extermination of the elk and deer populations rather than allowing one more hunter to take to the field. Again, these anti-hunting extremists refuse to acknowledge that hunters are largely responsible for preserving America`s wild lands and the wild things that Roosevelt held sacrosanct.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
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Bow (deer) season is underway here. Aside from a few poacher\/road hunter types deer season is … Rats With Antlers or…<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":467,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172,97,47,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geezer-alert","category-its-science","category-liberals-suck","category-society"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/467"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26972"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26972\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}