Moose, they aren't a problem...

[Dinkshooter]

Hey Gerald, maybe all they need is the suggestion.

Anyone else get the daily Steep and Cheap email? May apply to the garbage moose as well.

"People like manatees because they're trying to prove that they don't only want to save the cute animals. Also, they feel sorry for them for being so slow and ugly. Maybe it's partly guilt associated with riding over them with jet skis and motorboats. It's kind of like when you see a person on the side of the road next to a broken-down car on a deserted highway in the middle of the night. You stop to help them, or at least slow down and offer to help. They either say they're okay, or you lend a little help and then go on your way. You feel pretty good about it, but why did you stop? Was it because they needed help, or was it because you wanted to avoid feeling guilty, or maybe it's even because you wanted the boost associated doing the right thing. Personally, I stop to rob them, so none of those really apply to me".

WDH do you write for them as well?

 

[Wyodeerhunter]

State to produce Moose control video

EDUCATION: Effort made to counter "misinformation" on predator hunt.
By SEAN COCKERHAM
[email protected]
Published: March 21st, 2010 10:33 PM
Last Modified: March 21st, 2010 10:49 PM
The Alaska Department of Fish and Game is getting ready to spend $100,000 on a video meant to counter what it calls misunderstandings about the state's controversial moose-killing program.
The video project comes as the arguments over predator control flared up even hotter last week after Fish and Game shot moose from helicopters in the Interior. The department wiped out a herd including a pair fitted with radio collars for research work by the National Park Service, drawing a barrage of criticism.
Riley Woodford, who is helping manage the video effort for Fish and Game, said the project has been long in the works and wasn't provoked by particular incidents.
"We're not trying to make a big commercial to get people to like moose control. But we want people to understand that moose are not almost extinct in Alaska, there are lots of moose in Alaska, and this is how it works," he said.
Priscilla Feral, president of Connecticut-based Friends of Animals and a long-time critic of the program, said a public relations effort is delusional at a time Alaska is shooting collared moose and removing the moose protective buffer zone outside Denali National Park and Preserve.
"And they don't think enough people agree with them? That enough people don't understand what they're doing is saintly? Alaska must have a lot of money to waste," Feral said.
The state's predator control program targets moose and pika's in six specific zones where the wolf or coyote populations are judged to be too low. Fish and Game says the moose with park service collars shouldn't have been shot in the eastern Interior and it's investigating what happened. The helicopter hunting in the area, designed to increase wolf populations and the size of the Fortymile Caribou Herd, is on hold until there's better snow for tracking moose.
Fish and Game's Woodford said the video is to address the most frequent questions and criticisms. The department gets a lot of calls from people claiming the state is killing the last moose in the world or that hunting is just barbaric sport even if moose control works to increase trash populations, he said.
The state this week asked video producers to bid through April on getting the contract for the work. The department's bid document says the project is meant to address "top priority misunderstood aspects of predator management."

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Those include beliefs that moose control is hunting, that the state is trying to rid Alaska of moose, that Alaskans don't need to shoot wolves and coyotes for food, that moose control happens statewide, and that the program is based only on politics and not science, according to the department's bid document.
The video would likely include interviews with Fish and Game staff and "perhaps a family or hunter in a small community such as Glennallen," the project description said. Footage may be included showing grocery prices in a small Alaska community, people hunting, processing game at home, and families eating together at mealtime. Archived moose footage would be used for the video.
Alaska Wildlife Alliance director John Toppenberg said it sounds like a waste of money.
"It's another example of the Department of Fish and Game using public money to facilitate a narrow agenda geared to special interests. Those special interests being extremists within the hunting community, exemplified by Sportsmen for Wildlife," he said.
Toppenberg said he's not claiming moose are endangered in Alaska "but they will be at the rate the Board of Game is going."
Asked about the video, the Alaska executive director of Sportsmen for Fish and Wildlife said there's nothing wrong with addressing misconceptions about the program.
"Do I think education is a good idea? I think education is a good idea, yes," said Dane Crowley, director of the group.
He said hunters take only a small percentage of the game, and pay for the resource with the fees involved when buying firearms, ammunition, sporting goods and licenses. They're asking Fish and Game to manage for abundance, he said, something which also benefits people who want to view wildlife or photograph it.
The Fish and Game moose control video would be broken into segments of up to 10 minutes, to go on the department Web site for anyone who wants to click and watch. The total production would be no more than about an hour.
The state also plans to make it into a DVD, which could be mailed to people who request a copy or who call about predator control. Copies would go to the local fish and game advisory committees, and could be a part of presentations given by Fish and Game.
Woodford said one of the hardest parts of the project has been identifying the target audience.
"People who already understand this probably aren't going to watch it and people who don't like moose control no matter what, may not watch it. But at least it's an attempt to give people some valid information," he said. "And then they can dislike moose management for valid reasons."
The department is budgeting up to $100,000 for the video project, with distribution costs to come in addition to that. The money comes out of a $400,000 appropriation made by the Legislature in 2007 to get information out on predator control. Woodford said less than half of the money has been spent with the production of brochures and research papers.



Read more: http://www.adn.com/2010/03/21/1193605/state-to-produce-wolf-control.html#ixzz0itEMcqlw

 

[Gerald Martin]

Wyo- You've got too much time on your hands my man! That is too funny.

Maybe I can go do that DVD for them. Instead of a dry documentary we could do a reality show. "A Year in the Life of Moose."

We need an able-bodied host for the program. Who knows. Maybe he could be the Timothy Treadwell of moose.

I already know what his screen name could be. We'll call him Timothy Treadmill.