Ridiculous article in National Post

The article:

Jody and Jason Wilson's pet pig Izzy was shot by a hunter. The shooting has them worried about their safety and clamouring for more rights from the Alberta government.
There is no wild pig problem in Southern Alberta. In fact, there are, as far as sharp-eyed locals can tell, no wild pigs at all.

Tragically, not every hunter evidently knows this; tragically, anyway, for Izzy, the 1½-year-old Vietnamese pot-bellied pig that was, until a few weeks ago, the pet of Jody Wilson. On Nov. 8, a hunter pulled up next to Ms. Wilson's house near Nanton, where her cattle and horses were grazing in a field, pulled out his rifle, and shot the pig through the neck, claiming, when confronted by a devastated Ms. Wilson, first that he had shot nothing, and then that it was "only a wild pig."

It was the last straw for the Wilsons: this season was the worst they've yet had, with their pet killed, thousands of hunters trespassing and shooting on their property without permission, and their cattle harassed by aggressive hunters on horseback and truck. Jason Wilson earns part of his living as a hunting guide. Ms. Wilson has been hunting since she was 14. Yet, they couldn't be more relieved to say goodbye to the 2008 rifle season.

"Thank God," Ms. Wilson says. "I'm so happy it's over."

Living in the rolling foothills west of Kananaskis Country, ranchers in these parts get a mixed blessing. They have rich grassland and the most breathtaking vistas anyone could hope to spy over a cup of morning coffee. The grass, perfect for grazing cattle, though, is the same that attracts big game, including elk, deer and moose. And they, with the romantic scenery, attract caravans of outdoorsmen who see this as among the best hunting spots in the country. And with shrinking rural space, growing numbers of hunters, and a province struggling to manage wildlife numbers, cattle country becomes something like a war zone on weekends in hunting season, as four-by-fours tear up the fescue and gunfire echoes across the foothills.

Alberta's Fish and Wildlife Department says it doesn't keep statistics about things like these, but anecdotally, farmers all around here seem to know a tale of a shot horse, or a cow mistaken by nearsighted hunters for a moose or even a black bear.

Last year, about 200 kilometres north of here, seven wild horses were shot to death by someone either reckless or stupid. Hunters this fall twice illegally shot bighorn in Sheep River Provincial Park. Closer to Edmonton, one hunter last month killed his pal after firing blindly into a thicket of bush. And down south, around Pincher Creek, parents in recent years have complained to local reporters they're terrified to let their children wait for the school bus, for all the bullets whizzing through the air.

Ms. Wilson had the same thought about her own daughter after Izzy the pig was hit.

"A year from now, that little girl," she says pointing toward the bassinet of her four-month-old daughter, "would have been running around in the grass with that pig."

His pickup truck pulling itself up the steep ridge where the edge of his 7,000-acre cattle ranch meets Crown forest, Callum Sears notices fresh tire tracks in the snow. He hasn't been up this way since the snowfall last weekend; someone else clearly has. A "No Trespassing" sign that was once here is gone, its broken stem left poking out of the ground. Someone must have just driven over it, Mr. Sears suspects. He loses the sign every year. Could he just hang them from a tree?

"They'd just shoot at 'em," he shrugs. He's used to finding cattle gates left open, or broken. "If you tried any of this in Texas, you could get shot," he says.

This ain't Texas: People here can't do much to keep hunters from tramping around their land. Much of this region is Crown-owned, but leased to ranchers for cattle, on the condition that they allow hunters access to it -- for free. Hunters are supposed to first check with the family occupying the land before barging in, but they don't always. Mr. Wilson figures several thousand people have ambled their way through his property, elbowing his cattle off the spot where he'd been trying to graze them; maybe two dozen had permission.

"We have no rights compared to what they do," he fumes. "We cannot protect our property, families, livestock, anything. Our hands are tied."

Mr. Sears managed to get enough information from uninvited guests this season to file six different charges of trespassing. That takes guts: it means confronting guys armed with loaded firearms and, often, a bellyful of beer.

In November, the province did announce a pilot project in its southwest corner that would see stepped-up weekend patrols to crack down on trespassers and hunters shooting from the roadside. It is also experimenting with compensating ranchers in that same area, paying them for the hassle of having hunters on their land.

"It's a very difficult balance to work through," says Darcey Whiteside, a spokesman for Alberta's Sustainable Resource Ministry.

Hunting in Alberta is estimated to be a $100-million-a-year industry. And ungulate populations are thriving -- there are 100,000 more white-tailed deer than a decade ago, 50,000 more mule deer -- as a result of warmer winters and year-round availability of food. Often the biggest impact is on ranchers themselves: a herd of elk, 500 strong, breaking into the haystack pens can gobble up a season's supply of feed. Plus, road collisions with Alberta wildlife have doubled in the past decade.

This year, the wildlife department was literally giving away second and third hunting tags to hunters coming in for just one -- hoping they might bag an extra animal or two. And for the first time, hunting was opened on Sunday. September 22, 2008, was Alberta's second ever "Provincial Hunting Day," a way, said Sustainable Resource Minister Ted Morton -- an avid woodsman himself -- to encourage hunting among youth and "change the negative perception held by some non-hunters."

The province has had success in encouraging hunting, despite Alberta's increased urbanization: It counted 109,000 licensed hunters last year, up from 96,000 in 1996 -- although it still lags total population growth. In the meantime, though, lobbying from environmentalists has prompted the government to close off more and more areas to hunting. That, with the sprawl of Alberta's towns and cities, means more shooters crammed in less space, stalking more creatures. The result, says Mr. Wilson, isn't just greater stress on ranchers, but a lower-quality hunt for everyone. "There are tensions," Mr. Whiteside admits.

It is a juggling act governments commonly find themselves in, says Jim Pissot, executive director of Canmore-based Defenders of Wildlife Canada. In one role, they appoint themselves stewards of public land and wildlife, but, in another, must react to the interests of local economies, which inevitably push for greater exploitation.

"Government has not proven to be a good resource manager," he says. He's not convinced that giving ranchers more rights over the property they occupy, and the wildlife on it, would solve the problem. But something has to change, Mr. Pissot admits. With pressure on rural spaces and what he agrees is unmanaged hunter mischief and poaching, "it's about as close to hopeless as you get."

National Post

klibin@nationalpost.com

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Wow, thousands of tresspassing hunters...they must have a big ranch.

I started to draft a letter but that article is so fraught with wild speculation, inuendo and outright lies that it seems pointless...ugh....my head hurts!
 
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Managed to send this off.....I'm off to bed....

Dear Mr. Libin:

I started to draft a letter but your article, Hunters Go Hog Wild, is so fraught with wild speculation, innuendo and outright lies that it seems pointless...ugh....my head hurts!

Your obvious disdain for hunters and hunting has certainly allowed you to abandon any journalistic integrity that you may have had. Shame on you.

I'm not sure what else to say other than that was one of the trashiest examples of yellow journalism I've ever read. It's a sad commentary on our society when a respected publication like the National Post will publish drivel like this.

Yours truly,
 
Drivel. Absolute drivel.

Here's a great one for you that happened this year - someone outside our family posted OUR lease-land with "no hunting" signs! Needless to say I took down as many as I could find and was outraged... the city mindset of "I rent it, it's my property, you can't even set foot on it" is polluting the countryside more and more every day.

I just couldn't believe that someone put a sign on OUR land... probably someone just as "well-informed" as the author of the article.

I'm almost waiting for the day when someone plants some kind of roadside IED on one of my hunting trails... goddamn eco-terrorists. Filth.

-M
 
Both Barrels said:
Is it not allowed in Alberta now that if you lease the land you can post it? I agree it is a stupid law, but I think that is how it is now.
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I don't know the exact law, but I think you are on the right track. I thought you needed permission from the grazing area manager, not the farmer leasing it. But again, I am unsure of the exact reading.

Bottom line, the aticle is wrong.
 
I just sent a quick note to Mr. Libin.

Funny how a Rancher/outfitter who has allocations in the WMU that encompasses his lease is the one that has all of these problems with the thousands of trespassers on his lease?

Combine a jounalist with no integrity and a leaseholder with a ton of vested interest in stopping resident hunters from accessing lease land and you get a story like this in a National paper.
 
Just for the sake of discussion, how many hunters here have ever admonished our fellow participants if they are out of line? I find it very difficult to do, and the Canadian hunting culture has been saying "no comment" about hunting misdeeds for so long that it is not likely to change soon. Like it or not, there ARE far too many hunters with bad manners. We need to clean up our own act, or the antis and sloppy reporters will do it for us by getting our activities banned. One of huntings greatest values is the freedom that we enjoy to pursue our avocation. Unfortunately some people are not up to the ethical challenge that comes with the freedom. I think the best way to make improvements in hunter behaviour is from within, not from outside critics. Or do most hunters seriously believe there is no problem?
 
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Longwalker said:
Just for the sake of discussion, how many hunters here have ever admonished our fellow participants if they are out of line? I find it very difficult to do, and the Canadian hunting culture has been saying "no comment" about hunting misdeeds for so long that it is not likely to change soon. Like it or not, there ARE far too many hunters with bad manners. We need to clean up our own act, or the antis and sloppy reporters will do it for us by getting our activities banned. One of huntings greatest values is the freedeom that we enjoy to pursue our avocation. Unfortunately some people are not up to the ethical challenge that comes with the freedom. I think the best way to make improvements in hunter behaviour is from within, not from outside critics. Or do most hunters seriously believe there is no problem?
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Of course there is a problem. On a parallel basis there is a problem with drunk drivers- and I am sure the majority of drunk drivers hold a drivers license. Is this good enough reason to lump the good drivers with the drunks? There is no line of seperation in the article between "hunters" and poachers, trespassers, and drunk drivers.

The point of this thread is to point out the inconsistencies within the National Post article for the piece of biased trash journalism that it is.

As sportsmen we have Fish and game laws, enforcement, hunter education, and peer pressure to do the right thing. At the end of the day the vast majority of hunters are law obiding and the other guys are criminals of varying degrees. Seems Huning associations are more active in education and awareness than they have ever been.

Not to sure what more hunters as a group could do?
 
LongDraw said:
I just sent a quick note to Mr. Libin.

Funny how a Rancher/outfitter who has allocations in the WMU that encompasses his lease is the one that has all of these problems with the thousands of trespassers on his lease?

Combine a jounalist with no integrity and a leaseholder with a ton of vested interest in stopping resident hunters from accessing lease land and you get a story like this in a National paper.
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BINGO.
There is a rider on the lease land in question. Hunting MUST be permitted on the land he is refering to. It is a courtesy to inform the rancher of the hunters intentions. On lease land, the Crown can put whatever riders and restriction on the lease it desires. This lease land is likely the only access available to the non-leased crown land ajoining the property.
 
Someone shoots a pig and it's national news?

Not hard to see an agenda here. I wouldn't condone whoever shot the pig, but I hardly think it's worthwhile news.
 
2fat2fly said:
BINGO.
There is a rider on the lease land in question. Hunting MUST be permitted on the land he is refering to. It is a courtesy to inform the rancher of the hunters intentions. On lease land, the Crown can put whatever riders and restriction on the lease it desires. This lease land is likely the only access available to the non-leased crown land ajoining the property.
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Maybe where you are from but not in Alberta. Certain types of grazing leases, even though owned by the provincial government, still require the permission of the leaseholder to access.....it can be granted or denied depending on circumstances.
 
sheephunter said:
Maybe where you are from but not in Alberta. Certain types of grazing leases, even though owned by the provincial government, still require the permission of the leaseholder to access.....it can be granted or denied depending on circumstances.
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Much of this region is Crown-owned, but leased to ranchers for cattle, on the condition that they allow hunters access to it -- for free. Hunters are supposed to first check with the family occupying the land before barging in, but they don't always.
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There is a big difference between "supposed to" and "required to".
I suspect the reason the rider exists on these lease parcels is to allow access to un-leased Crown land adjoining the lease land.
 
2fat2fly said:
There is a big difference between "supposed to" and "required to".
I suspect the reason the rider exists on these lease parcels is to allow access to un-leased Crown land adjoining the lease land.
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You are required to.......what rider are you talking about?
 
sheephunter said:
You are required to.......what rider are you talking about?
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The one I quoted from the article.
Much of this region is Crown-owned, but leased to ranchers for cattle, on the condition that they allow hunters access to it -- for free. Hunters are supposed to first check with the family occupying the land before barging in, but they don't always.
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I looked into leasing some Crown land in Saskatchewan three years ago, and very nearly purchased an outfitting camp and lease. The Crown can impose restrictions OR easements on lease land as they see fit.
 
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