Folks,
I want to thank each of you for your efforts over the last week in killing a very bad anti-hunting measure. This week, we were able to stop the inclusion of Senator Baucus’ language in the omnibus spending bill. This language was to be included in 1900 pages of the appropriations bill that hit the Senate yesterday. It appears that once introduced, this language would have passed through Congress without amendment.
Thousands of sportsmen from 43 states took a few minutes and emailed or phoned their members of Congress through Big Game Forever. We could not have been successful without these emails sent from across the country. Thank You! As millions of sportsmen in America join the fight to stop the assault on our hunting and fishing rights we can preserve the future of wildlife in America.
Here is what happened: Representatives from Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife and Big Game Forever have spent months back in Washington D.C. working on wolf delisting legislation. Six days ago we learned that Senator Baucus and Tester were pushing language that appeared to allow for wolf management. Upon reading the bill we learned that this was basically the same language that had been rejected by the Governors of Idaho, Wyoming and Montana and that was full of poison pills for state wildlife management. We tried unsuccessfully to negotiate the inclusion of a different wolf bill that (1) did not increase wolf minimum numbers; (2) would return wolf management to the states instead of the Obama administration; (3) would delist wolf states in both the West and Midwest; and (4) was not full of poison pills. Our smart but fearless efforts the last 6 days allowed us to prevent the dangerous language from being included in the must pass bill.
We owe a huge debt of gratitude to Senator Hatch, Senator Bob Bennett, Senator Barrasso, Senator Risch and Senator McCain as well as several other Senators who helped behind the scenes to prevent this very bad precedent from passing through Congress.
We look forward to continued efforts next year to pass wolf delisting language that will restore state wildlife management with no strings attached.
Ryan Benson,
http://biggameforever.orgryandbenson@msn.com
(801) 870-5307
