Dec 22, 2010: Ramming Texas

[Lamplighter]

Come on Merc, lighten up.
Do you really think that living in Oregon and being married
to a girl from Montana, I would demonize the "right to hunt" ?

I do have a problem with hypocrisy when it's essentially only the landed-gentry
and the wealthy that can afford the "right".
If you follow the news about "trophy" hunts you already understand what I mean.

Public hunting of bighorn does occur in very limited numbers and the chance for a hunt is highly prized.
[Texas] Parks and Wildife issued a total of 15 permits in 2008-09,
11 of which went to private landowners near wildlife management areas.
Of the remaining four permits, one Elephant Mountain permit was donated to a
Wild Sheep Foundation auction and brought $70,000;
one was a part of the Texas Grand Slam drawing and two were public hunter drawings.

And the results are....

As the lucky winner of this year's Big Time Texas Hunts crown jewel, the Texas Grand Slam hunt package,
Garcia receives four separate guided hunts for Texas' most prized big game animals
- desert bighorn sheep, white-tailed deer, pronghorn antelope and mule deer.

All told, hunters bought 64,759 Big Time Texas Hunt entries during this year's sales period through the Oct. 15 deadline.
This generated about $620,000 in gross revenue to support wildlife research, habitat management and public hunting.