[Nj_federation_alert] Star Ledger - Panter/Karcher/Chaifetz Dog Don't Hunt

[ap.maurosr at verizon.net]

Someone asked me where Chaifetz has been the past few days. Well, while Panter was trying to bamboozle the editorial board at the Star Ledger with his ever-changing bill that no one else knows about but Panter himself - his sidekick Chaifetz was trying to bamboozle Paul Mulshine of the very same paper hoping to convince him that the Panter/Karcher bill was an All-American piece of legislation.

Based on the Star Ledger editorial calling the Panter/Karcher bill a "lobbying effort by animal activists" and Paul Mulshine's response to Chaifetz (see article below) - I would say that Panter, Karcher, and Chaifetz are so far from the mainstream that that do not even recognize America for what it is. 

As a reminder Panter, Karcher, Chaifetz - America is the embodiment of FREEDOM. The very freedoms you are so desperately trying to take away from us.  

Ant

http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/columns-0/1193895698172210.xml&coll=1

Sorry, but this dog won't hunt 
Thursday, November 01, 2007
The typical animal-rights activist responds to tough questioning with increasingly loud tones of voice or, in the case of e-mail, increasingly large type sizes. 

Stu Chaifetz is different. He's the kind of guy who can hold a civilized conversation with someone with whom he disagrees. And he and I disagree on a bill now before the Legislature that would change the makeup of the Fish and Game Council to reduce the role of hunters. I agree with the hunters that it represents a thinly disguised attempt by the activists to eventually ban hunting. Chaifetz, who works with an animal-rights political action committee, disagrees. He argues the bill represents nothing more than an effort to give the public equal representation on the panel. 

But Chaifetz is honest enough to admit that a total phase-out of hunting is his goal. Chaifetz told me he would prefer to see wild animals controlled through some sort of nonlethal means such as birth control. 

That led to the following conversation: 

Me: "If you were an animal, would you prefer not being born compared with running around the woods with some chance of being shot?" 

Stu: "Let me put it this way: If the end result is that we had some form of birth control or other nonlethal means, I would much prefer that to guys with guns, arrows, nets and bolts through the head." 

I tried to narrow him down a bit. Suppose, I asked, you were a grizzly bear in Alaska that had only a small chance of being shot, with a large chance of dining on lots of salmon sushi: Would you prefer to be born and take your chances? 

"Alaska's different," said Chaifetz. New Jersey, he said, is "mostly a suburban state." 

Indeed it is. And bears don't belong in the suburbs, certainly not in such suburbs as Highland Lakes in Sussex County. When I traveled there recently, I met with a couple of nice suburban moms who didn't want their toddlers toddling around the same backyard as bears. 

That seems understandable to me, but when the ladies requested that the state put bear traps in their yards, the local bear activists objected. One activist was caught allegedly spreading male urine in the traps to keep the bears away. 

"Stu," I said. "You can support the idea of bears wandering in the woods and be perfectly sane. But when you support the idea of bears wandering in the neighborhoods, you're nuts." 

Chaifetz pointed out that we have squirrels in the neighborhoods

"I think that what is amazing about our state is that we are so built up and we have bears, who by the way have not killed anyone in 150 years," he said. 

That's true enough. And I think Chaifetz gives an excellent summation of the debate on this bill between the hunting and anti-hunting factions in the state, both of which held rallies last weekend. 

The hunters seem to be winning, if my discussion with the bill's sponsor in the Assembly, Monmouth County Democrat Mike Panter, is any indication. When the bill was introduced early in the year, it called for a seven-member council with all seven members appointed by the governor. This, said Panter, would take politics out of the process, 

"There's been a lot of squabbling over the bear hunt," said Panter. "Every time they make a decision, there's a political maelstrom." 

But if the goal is to take politics out of the decision, handing control of the panel to the same governor who bowed to political pressure and canceled the bear hunt seems like a strange way to do it. The current system is much better insulated from politics. The 11 members of the panel, primarily named by hunting groups, have for years been following the recommendations of biologists who set the annual quotas based on science. And science says the state with the highest density of black bears in America needs an annual hunt, no matter what the politicians say. 

Politics works both ways, however. Panter is fighting for re-election in perhaps the most closely fought district in the state. As of yesterday, he was circulating a new draft of the bill that would restore the panel to 11 members from a variety of interest groups. Panter's theory is that the decisions of such a panel would be acceptable to the animal activists. 

"I think it would actually take politics out of the decision," said Panter. "We'd say, 'Well, it's a fair council and you have to live with it.'" 

The new lineup calls for seven members to be from farming, hunting and fishing groups. The remaining four seats would go to environmentalists and animal lovers. Moms with toddlers aren't represented. 

But they should be. 


Paul Mulshine may be reached at pmulshine at starledger.com. To comment on his column, go to NJVoices.com. 



Anthony P. Mauro, Sr.
Chairman, New Jersey Outdoor Alliance http://www.njoutdooralliance.org