No child left behind--this gun deer season

Martha Rosenberg

No child left behind--this gun deer season

In Pennsylvania they're arguing about children's access to firearms and how to improve it.

Last year Pennsylvania lawmakers passed National Assembly of Sportsmen’s Caucuses (NASC)sponsored "Families Afield" legislation making it legal for a child of any age--yes including your toddler--to hunt under the supervision of an adult, in an effort to groom new hunters for the state.

More than 13 states have passed such legislation which scraps safety training and lowers the age at which children can hunt, "barriers"according to gun groups.

"We need this law because for every 100 hunters who retire, only 62 take up the sport," said Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell at a ceremonial signing ata gun club last year. "If this trend continues, our ability to manage wildlife will be severely affected and Pennsylvania's economy will suffer."

But this year staffers at the Pennsylvania Game Commission (PGC) had second thoughts about juvenile deer hunting. (Kids hunting groundhogs, squirrels and turkeys sailed through.)

Could kid hunters with no harvest tags make it more difficult to track the deer harvest?

Could adults hide behind kids to shoot illegal game?

And what about antler rules?

Adults are prohibited from shooting deer with at least one antler less than three points to improve the size of bucks of the state. But children would be subject to older antler rules that prohibit shooting deer with at least one antler less than two points. You see the problems.

Of course the gun rights community viewed the PGC dissembling as gun grabbing, decrying the wildlife agency's "waffling" and plans to "gut" and "undermine" youth hunting programs.

"Many youth who experienced hunting with an adult mentor in 2006 because of the new program are eagerly waiting to pursue the crown jewel of hunting, the white-tail deer," wrote Ron Fretts of Scottsdale who headed the protest. "We stand to seriously disappoint those families."

"You are tearing the heart out of this very important program," agreed Janet Nyce, adviser to the Governor’s Youth Advisory Council for Hunting, Fishing and Conservation.

But not to worry. In January the PGC board approved children deer hunting without even hearing arguments and the first all-age child gun deer season will begin this year.

"Any program that gets kids out in the woods learning about wildlife is always a good thing," lauded Patrick Stauch of West York upon hearing the news.

Who better to teach kids the "dangers of hunting" than a mentor remarked Dan Oberdick of Spring Garden Township.

Of course the PGC has another program for kids, too. Breeding pheasants for canned hunts on public land with "hunters" like Dick Cheney. (See: "pull")

For 78 years the PGC has run its pheasant propagation program profitably but last year the declining number of hunting licenses and lack of new hunters forced them to cut the offerings in half--from 200,000 to 100,000.

Not only are states afraid to add new taxes, how do you defend a program that provides pen-raised birds that can barely fly or see according to outdoors reporters--raised and even debeaked like battery hens--to lazy and unskilled hunters ?

Wouldn't it be cheaper to just buy them buy them Cialis ask critics only half jokingly.

So an out of the pen thinker at PGC lighted on the idea of enlisting the kids. If kids raised the chicks--hey kids; would you like a fun, new hobby?--the state would save the ten to $13 it's been spending per bird. And maybe create a new generation of pheasant hunters at the same time!

This is a "wonderful opportunity…to get young people involved in raising birds," says Carl F. Riegner, Pennsylvania Commission Pheasant Propagation Division chief. "In the process they can learn about the food and habitat pheasants must have to survive in the wild, and they’ll have the chance to see the chicks mature into adult game birds in response to their efforts."

Of course kids will also have the chance to see the chicks who matured in response to their efforts blown away by Dick Cheneys but that might not dawn on them until later.

When they're getting ready to go deer hunting with their parents.

Ends

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