LANDOWNERS Right to Hunt

....courtesy of Connie Hammond

Subject: Small Landowners to lose free right to hunt

With all the furor of election coverage, the MO Department of Conservation is about to hit the small land owners of Missouri with an unwarrented whammy unless somebody intervenes and yells real loud... So here's my voice and I hope you start yelling in their direction immediately too !!! We only have until the end of November to change their minds in our best interests.

In the name of $$$ the MDC wants to hit those of us who own less than 80 acres ( 78,000 by reported accounts) with hunting permit fees to harvest deer and other wildlife on ON OUR OWN LAND starting next year. Yet, they want our co-operation in "thinning the herd"... "taking more does"... "growing more wildlife food plots"... "protecting young bucks" ... "lowering the number of deer/vehicle collisions"... "observing seasonal dates and limits"... and "supporting sales tax % for Conservation" . Several hunters we know ALREADY BUY other tags ( and their visiting family members, too ) for hunting on public lands or their neighbors' land by agreement. This alone negates the MDC claim that this would increase their permit fee-base substantially to aquire more Federal Funds per paid hunter. If anything, they will send a message that allienates a longstanding good will and a thank you for a service well appreciated. Where is the incentive to work WITH the Dept. ? Or why would we want a Life-time Permit to hunt on the very land we bought and feel obligated to take care of ? If the MDC can't budget what has already been entrusted, then they need to move on, tighten their belts, and plan better for rainy days like the rest of us. When the non-hunting public has even higher car insurance or medical bills after bad experiences with wildlife, or poachers get even bolder with their defiance of imposed regulation, the public can blame the system that wants to penalize "the little folks" for their attempts at responsible management of the thousands of privately owned acres across the state. We don't need the urban problems here in the Ozarks from over-population of deer, etc. that already plague areas without adequate harvests. What about all the donated meat to charities the annual hunting season provides? Seems like they shouldn't want to fester up a hunter BOYCOTT !!!

Please be pro-active and make these concerns known however you can through meaningful dialogue. Thank You for your consideration.

-- Connie Hammond, Forsyth, MO in Taney County.

Many have asked how to contact MDC and other agencies via reg. or E-mail in defense of landowners' rights, so here are some places to send YOUR comments because several repeats just get ignored :

a trapping forum that has a lot of posts concerning the MDC latest: http://www.trapboard.com/index.cgi.

Missouri Department of Conservation
c/o Dave Erickson
P.O. Box 180
Jefferson City, MO 65102

MDC Online Comment Form
http://mdc.mo.gov/cgi-bin/comments/comments.cgi?referer=http://www.mdc.mo.gov/

Governor Matt Blunt, Online Contact Form
http://governor.mo.gov/constituentform.htm

Legislator Lookup
http://www.senate.mo.gov/llookup/leg_lookup.aspx

US Representative Jo Ann Emerson, Dist. 8 Contact Form:

http://www.joannemerson.com

Senator Kit Bond, Online Contact Form
http://bond.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=ContactUs.ContactForm

Senator Claire McCaskill, Online Contact Form
http://mccaskill.senate.gov/contact/

Missouri Register - Secretary of the State
http://www.sos.mo.gov/adrules/moreg/moreg.asp

Home addresses of all the MDC Commissioners. You can fill their mailboxes with your complaints about the new rules, regs and price hikes, before they meet again:

Chip McGeehan
1420 Mill Dam Road
Marshfield, MO 65706

Lowell Mohler
4054 Hwy 179
Jefferson City, MO 65109

Becky Plattner
Route 2, Box 10-27
Grand Pass, MO 65339

Don R. Johnson
110 Jackson Terrace
Festus, MO 63028

The Heading for this is "Missouri Political Issues" and has several entries / catagories.

**** THANK YOU for taking a stand with sooooo many others today. -- CJ