Anti-Hunting Ballot Initiative being Circulated for Signatures at the North Dakota State Fair!

Don’t Allow Radical Animal “Rights” Interests to Infiltrate North Dakota!

North Dakota sportsmen should be aware that a group cleverly calling itself North Dakota Hunters for Fair Chase (NDHFC) is circulating petitions for signatures to place an anti-hunting initiative on the 2010 General Election ballot.  There are reports that the group is active at the North Dakota State Fair collecting signatures.  Make sure that you and your family and friends do not contribute to this misleading, anti-freedom effort by signing these petitions!

Initiatives pertaining to hunting laws, by their very nature, politicize the state’s wildlife management policies.  This is contrary to the North American Model of Wildlife Management that has made North Dakota’s wildlife populations and rich ecosystems the envy of the world.  Laws related to hunting and wildlife management strategies should be firmly rooted in science, not driven by a wealthy few who can produce the most emotionally-appealing 30-second television commercial during an initiative campaign.  For this reason, NRA has always opposed “ballot box” wildlife management.

This initiative effort is supported by the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), a Washington D.C.-based lobbying organization that spends $120 million a year in an effort to end all hunting and animal agriculture in the United States.  Misinformed supporters of the initiative and NDHFC have claimed that HSUS has not been involved in the initiative or its predecessor in 2008, but one needs only to visit the HSUS website to find, “In North Dakota, HSUS members and supporters helped to gather signatures to place a measure on the ballot to halt the captive shooting of wildlife behind escape proof fences. Unfortunately the measure was not approved, but we will continue working to end the egregious practice of captive hunting.”  Here are just a few quotes from Wayne Pacelle who serves as President of HSUS:

• Interviewer: "About fishing ... do you avoid campaigning against it because there isn't a ground-swell movement in our culture to eliminate it?"
  Pacelle: "That is correct. We're out to minimize suffering wherever it can be done, and wherever our limited resources can be utilized most effectively—abusive forms of hunting for now, all hunting eventually." Bloodties: Nature, Culture, and the Hunt
• “If we could shut down all sport hunting in a moment, we would.” – (Associated Press)
• “Our goal is to get sport hunting in the same category as cock fighting and dog fighting. Our opponents say hunting is a tradition.  We say traditions can change.” – (Bozeman Daily Chronicle)
• “We are going to use the ballot box and the democratic process to stop all hunting in the United States…  We will take it species by species until all hunting is stopped in California.  Then we will take it state by state.” – (Full Cry)

The proposed initiative would ban private big game hunting preserves in North Dakota.  This violates basic American principles of private property rights and sportsmen deciding for themselves how and where to hunt.  Hunting ethics should be decided by each individual hunter, not by politically-motivated laws supported by radical animal “rights” interest groups.  Further, the group behind this initiative falsely advertises preserves as very small pens or cages, when most preserves amount to thousands of acres.

This effort threatens to establish a precedent that will allow Wayne Pacelle and others to further pursue their ultimate agenda of banning all hunting.  These anti-hunting radicals are learning how to circumvent the standard policy-making system that has stymied them through the years and will be emboldened to further utilize deceptive 30-second sound bites to advance their radical agenda.  Please work to inform your family, friends and fellow sportsmen in North Dakota that they should not sign these anti-freedom petitions now being circulated!