Please call the House Committee members listed below and strongly urge them to oppose Senate Bill 868!
SB 868 eliminates the current provision in state law that requires officials from the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (VDGIF) to investigate and confirm claims of crop damage before issuing deer and bear kill permits to landowners. It also adds elk to the list of species that may be killed pursuant to these permits.
This bill is a response to the elk restoration program the VDGIF approved last year. The Virginia Farm Bureau Federation vehemently opposed the reintroduction effort and knows that this legislation will ensure the failure of the program by allowing the killing of reintroduced elk without government oversight.
While this bill targets the elk reintroduction program, it also authorizes the unregulated killing of deer and bear by landowners. Wildlife has always been held in the public trust and it’s not too much to ask to have state officials at least investigate claims of crop damage prior to issuing kill permits. This kind of unrestricted killing will ultimately harm hunting opportunities and could have devastating impacts on the populations of these game animals across the Commonwealth. Public hunting in agricultural settings should always be considered the primary means of managing wildlife.
It is impossible to overstate the irony associated with this legislation coming at a time when the Farm Bureau is adamantly opposing a dramatic expansion of hunter opportunity – Sunday hunting. The current Sunday hunting ban in the Commonwealth eliminates at least half of the time most sportsmen have to hunt. This increases the incidents of crop damage the Farm Bureau claims is such a dramatic problem.
The state’s game animal population should not be viewed as mere pests that can be eliminated by landowners in any manner they deem appropriate! There are times when control outside of hunting seasons is required but it should be used as sparingly as possible. SB 868 opens the floodgates to unregulated killing of wildlife and invokes memories from a dark past that involved the eradication of species that posed even the slightest nuisance behavior.
Many other national hunting and conservation organizations oppose SB 868, including Safari Club International, U.S. Sportsmen’s
House Agriculture,
Chairman Harvey B. Morgan
(804) 698-1098
[email protected]
Vice Chair Edward T.
(804) 698-1030
[email protected]
Delegate Beverly Sherwood
(804) 698-1029
[email protected]
Delegate Lee R. Ware, Jr.
(804) 698-1065
[email protected]
Delegate Thomas C. Wright, Jr.
(804) 698-1061
[email protected]
Delegate Robert D. Orrock, Sr.
(804) 698-1054
[email protected]
Delegate Daniel W. Marshall, III
(804) 698-1014
[email protected]
Delegate Charles D. Poindexter
(804) 698-1009
[email protected]
Delegate Brenda L. Pogge
(804) 698-1096
[email protected]
Delegate Barry D. Knight
(804) 698-1081
[email protected]
Delegate Richard P. Bell
(804) 698-1020
[email protected]
Delegate James E. Edmunds, II
(804) 698-1060
[email protected]
Delegate Tony O. Wilt
(804) 698-1026
[email protected]
Delegate John A. Cox
(804) 698-1055
[email protected]
Delegate Kenneth R. Plum
(804) 698-1036
[email protected]
Delegate James M. Shuler
(804) 698-1012
[email protected]
Delegate
(804) 698-1000
[email protected]
Delegate David L. Bulova
(804) 698-1037
[email protected]
Delegate Mark D. Sickles
(804) 698-1043
[email protected]
Delegate David L. Englin
(804) 698-1045
[email protected]
Delegate Matthew James
(804) 698-1080
[email protected]
Delegate Luke E. Torian
(804) 698-1052
[email protected]
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