BigGameHoundsmen.com

My name is Norm Green I am a pig dog man. GPS is only legal for bird dogs in CA. We started a online petition asking help from everyone, on my face book wall. Through chnage .org. Getting support from Texas, and other states as well. We need to be united, on more issues. You can sign the petition right on line. Please help us get gps thank you!!!!!

12/10/10

In Defense of GPS 1511 words, Full Cry Feb. 2011
by Peter Meyer

No matter where you stand on the debate regarding the use of GPS tracking collars there are a few key facts those opposed to allowing GPS tracking collars for California’s houndsmen seem to refuse to acknowledge. First it is not about using

technology to hasten the hunt and make the kill as soon as possible. That is definitely not what hunting bears, bobcats, cougars, and

coons with hounds is about. It is about freedom. The freedom to pursue your passion to you and your hounds maximum potential. The

freedom to participate in and help insure the future of a grand American tradition that stretches the breadth of our country’s history all

the way to George Washington, an avid foxhunter and houndsman. It’s about the freedom to hunt your hounds the way an avid, ethical

houndsman should. It is about the freedom you feel when you hear your pack go treed on a hot bear track. It is the freedom that

we as Americans are blessed with, a freedom that few other countries on the face of this Earth can boast. Another fact animal rights

and anti-hunting groups probably have failed to consider is that houndsmen are a fiercely independent, patriotic, bombastic, and

slightly, yet rightly so, paranoid about threats, perceived or real against hunting with hounds. Hunting with hounds is not a hobby, it

is a way of life. Our founding fathers came to America to escape British tyranny. An ocean away from the crushing monarchy, the

Colonials brief freedoms they experienced in America lit the fuse of revolution. They didn’t defeat the British with bureaucracy and

politics. They secured the future of America with the musket and cannon. And while this rag-tag band of rebels handed the world’s

mightiest standing army some of histories greatest military defeats more than a few of them found the time to run their hounds.

For me the GPS issue is about dog safety. Any advantage I can get when rounding up my pack after a busted hunt ,split race, or stupid

civilian picking up my dog , I am going to take.

By foreseeing trouble ie : highways, game preserves, private land, especially ranch land with livestock and ranchers with itchy trigger

fingers, GPS tracking can add a level of security above a hound’s natural instincts and training. Houndsmen have invested hundreds

of hours of training their dogs and usually spend a good chunk of the household’s monthly budget on feed and the inevitable vet bills

during the season. VHF tracking is more an art than a science. When your line of sight is the other side of a very steep river canyon,

very common on the West slope of the Sierra Nevadas, and not the inside of your pickup truck’s windshield as you sit with a loaded

weapon riding shotgun, a beer between your legs, the radio mike in one hand and the yagi in the other waiting for the treeing ‘

switch to activate, as some anti-hunting groups have routinely portrayed California’s houndsmen, their arguments against

allowing GPS tracking seem to ring hollow.

Groups like the Humane Society of the United States, the Mountain Lion Foundation, the Sierra Club, and In Defense of Animals

could really care less about the capabilities and limitations of GPS tracking. They only see it as positive, forward progress

for California’s bear hunters and houndsmen. Notice I didn’t mention bird hunters. GPS tracking is legal for them in California. So the

door to GPS tracking for houndsman is already open. Animal rights and anti-hunting groups want to slam it shut. They want to put

California’s houndsmen and bear hunters and ultimately all California hunters out of business. They can’t allow California to increase

the annual take of 1700 bears. They can’t allow San Luis Obispo county to be opened to bear hunting. They can’t allow the

introduction of new technology that enhances dog safety, or if you are on the other side of the argument they can’t allow the

introduction of new technology that will reduce bear hunting with hounds to a handheld video game resulting in an increase

in bear poaching and the eventual extinction of California’s estimated 40,000 plus black bears.

Bear poachers are so far outside of the law they were probably using GPS tracking before it was even available from Cabela’s.

Just as Mexico floods the United States to quench its’ dying thirst for drugs, bear poachers operating in all the Western states are

feeding the appetite of the great beast from the East, Oriental culture that use various parts of big game animals and even

endangered species for use in holistic remedies that date back centuries.

California’s wardens are caught right in the middle of both these issues. California wardens have become de facto DEA.

They continually come across huge, commercial marijuana grows under the auspices of Mexican drug cartels on public lands

they patrol. There isn’t the time or manpower to man tedious stakeouts, follow up on Cal-TIP calls, or investigate the bear

parts trade from the woods to San Francisco’s Chinatown and put a dent in it when you have to pull 25,000 five foot tall pot

plants out of some poison oak infested, remote canyon with a more than likely chance of the gardeners escaping deeper into the

woods toting AK-47s three or four times a week all summer long.

California desperately needs more wardens. In 2009 they took a ten percent paycut across the board. California

is also facing a multi-billion dollar budget gap. Do the math. In a state with the population of California there is going to

be a certain percentage of people vehemently opposed to hunting, especially hunting bears, and especially hunting bears with hounds.

California also has thousands of miles of freeways and interstates and lives in its cars. The California Highway Patrol wasn’t subjected

to the cut. It is unfortunately evident where California’s priorities lay with regards to wildlife management principles and law

enforcement.

California also routinely sells over 25,000 bear tags every year with a 2010 resident tag setting you back $40.70 you’re talking over a

million dollars and that’s not including out of state tags which run $245.75. So let’s sell even more bear tags because the annual take

has been increased to keep pace with California’s healthy and growing bear population. A bigger budget would mean more wardens,

which would lead to more of those nasty bear poachers being run out of the woods and put behind bars.

In fact Nevada just announced its’ first bear hunt in the history of their statehood. The Nevada Department of Wildlife estimates that

there are 200-300 bears in Nevada with an annual growth rate in their population of 16%. An increase in revenue, however small from

bear tag sales was cited as a factor in the Commission’s unanimous 8-0 vote to have a bear season. The first hunt will have a tag quota

of 45 with five tags going to out of state hunters and a harvest quota of twenty bears. Houndsmen holding a tag might not even get a

shot at a bear if the quota is filled during the earlier, archery only, no dog season. A training season is a distinct possibility.

It may not seem like much and probably won’t bring in millions of dollars to cash strapped Nevada but it’s a start. I see the

harvest quota being increased within a few years of the initial hunt as California’s bears push out of the Tahoe basin and further

East into Nevada. I’m putting in for my out of state bear tag, and while I am at it I think I will pickup a cougar tag too. Nevada

has a liberal, year round, 24 hour a day lion season that rarely reaches its’ harvest quotas. When California’s bobcat season closes

my wallet and tailgate will be opening in Nevada and my dogs will be sporting brand new garmin tracking collars. Now

we’ll see about getting that trophy cougar mount into my office.

On the surface the whole GPS tracking issue really boils down to one word and how one interprets it. The word is the

cornerstone of everything America is. Of course the word is freedom. Some people feel the freedom to impose their will,

their dogmas, and their vision of what they think American’s should and shouldn’t be able to do, upon me. I take freedom

to mean I have the right to freely remind those who stand against us of the hallowed words our founding fathers penned in the

Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. Words like life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. Mottos like “Don’t Tread on Me.”

Hunting with hounds is a thread in the history of America. Groups opposed to bear hunting, bear hunting with hounds, and generally

all hunting are tugging at that thread, gradually unraveling everything that holds America together . So let me used the damn

GPS collars. See you all at the California Fish and Game Commission meeting in February in Sacramento.

Wow! Very well said my friend. Don't know what to say wish you were running for president. You would have my vote. I hope many of you guys will sign my petitione on Face book Norm Green. Thanks.

NORMZILLA44 wrote:My name is Norm Green I am a pig dog man. GPS is only legal for bird dogs in CA. We started a online petition asking help from everyone, on my face book wall. Through chnage .org. Getting support from Texas, and other states as well. We need to be united, on more issues. You can sign the petition right on line. Please help us get gps thank you!!!!!

Do you have the link you can post up?

I don't know how to do that with links. But if you have facebook it is on my wall Norm Green. Or just go too change .org. It was posted by my friend Michelle christman, and should have my name next to it. I am getting signatures, and support from Texas and Colorado, and some other states too. Trying to unite all for a bigger voice.

signed!

http://www.change.org/petitions/califor ... ction-265d

Thanks brother!

Signed!

signed!

Signed. Not sure if non-residents do you folks any good, but I signed it anyway. I wish you all the best.

signed. I will post and share this link everywhere and with everyone I know.

signed.

signed

Signed, get everybody in your family to sign it.

Signed x2. Posted it to Facebook also!