There has been a lot of discussion about H.B. 2345 the Right to Retrieve and H.B. 2343 the bill to allow baiting year around. Many of the comments are well made and many opinions are pretty close to accurate but their seems to be some issues that are not really hitting the nail on the head. Make no mistake, challenging the existing RTR law and allowing baiting all year long are nothing short than endeavors pursued by the advocates of Commercial hunting. The process started last year with their push for Sunday hunting. The VaHDA lost that fight, a lot of it was because of our approach to the subject. We failed to expose the commercial hunting interest until it was too late and because of that we hurt our own cause. In order to establish commercial hunting in Virginia some things have to change. #1 - have to be able to hunt on Sunday #2 - the ability to bait wildlife onto your property is a necessity. #3 - Reduce or eliminate the chances of dogs interfering with the hunts. This was already accomplished in Texas, parts of S.C. and in Georgia. The argument about land owners rights is nothing short of distractions and cover to hide the main agenda. If the advocates were to advertise their desire for commercial hunting they would get chewed up and spit out. So, they must find Va. citizens that will carry the argument for them all the while they will pour the money into the lobbyist to fight their cause. I will be the first to agree that landowner rights should be respected. retrieving dogs outside the guidelines of the present RTR law is a violation of the law and should be addressed as such. But, the real argument of retrieving a dog from property where it is not wanted (by the land owner or the dog owner) is mute. They both want the dog off the property. Most hunting dog owners have invested 1000s of dollars in tracking equipment just to be able to retrieve the dogs as expeditiously as possible. The idea that they would have to contact the land owner to get permission is ludicrous. So many times, you dont have any idea where the land owner lives, there is rarely any contact information given on posted signs. And, no one wants to be called at 9:00- 10:00- 11:00 at night to be asked if a stranger can enter the property to get a hunting dog. How much problem do you think this will cause? Doesnt the dog owner have the ethical and moral responsibility to the animal to take it home, feed it and provide it proper housing? yet, some are standing on the argument of land owner rights. Let me give you this analogy: What if your child was to wander onto someones property where they are not wanted and yet, the law says you have to obtain permission from the land owner to get your child back - what would you do? You would break the law and go get them woudnt you? But that is a child right? Does anyone realize just how much the majority of dog owners feel about their dogs? What if it was a horse, a champion bull or other animal - does that make it different? Not one of the owners wants their animal on someone elses property. Oh yes, there are the few that break the law and go upon others properties without permission BUT, THEY ARE BREAKING THE LAW! We dont need to change the RTR law because of them. There are already laws in place to address that behavior. Let me give everyone some facts. VDGIF information obtained through the FOIA. 2013- 6185 convictions for all hunting interest 158 convictions involved dogs there are 250,000 hunting licenses sold with 186,000 of them participating in hunting with dogs. 3/4 of the hunters hunt with dogs yet, less than 3% of all game law convictions were done by people using hunting dogs and obviously, not all of those convictions were about trespassing. So in short, we could only hope that any facet of our society could operate within the boundaries of the law as well as those who use hunting dogs. The present RTR law has withstood the test of time. It is not written only for the benefit of the dog owner nor is it written for the benefit of the land owner. For once, the General Assembly got it right, that bill is written for the well being of the animal. The animal deserves to be retrieved and cared for, how can anyone argue with that?
Posted on: Mon, 26 Jan 2015 23:27:08 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015