Biil to Andy about Mute swans

[HOUNDS77]

http://www.syracuse.com/outdoors/index.ssf/2014/12/bill_that_save_mute_swans_awaits_gov_cuomos_signature.html#incart_river

Edited December 9, 2014 by HOUNDS77

[mike rossi]

I delivered NYDH's petition to the governor. Thanks to all that signed it. ELMO, you signed it twice, nice try, but when you sign it without your name displayed it doesn't show to the public, but it does show on the list... 

 

I should show you the email I got about this from the author of this article, Dave Figeroa. He is on our contact list and we have mailed him and others for 5 months about this. He finally asked what I was talking about. He never signed it nor promoted it, but he had enough time to write an article to promote one of his friends, I assume. Are these outdoor writers all alike? I don't remember it that way in the 70s and 80s...

 

Anyway, enough criticism. Sorry Davey... You are a great outdoor writer.

 

I do encourage anyone who has not yet signed a petition or wrote to the governor to do so right away. This last flurry of protest along with the DEC's insistence might very well persuade the governor in the right direction. If you want "talking points" to construct your letter, I already posted many, here, on face book, and on the NYDH website.

[HOUNDS77]

I know I signed it. Trappers were behind it.

[mike rossi]

I know I signed it. Trappers were behind it.

 

Thanks for signing and posting this. We are aware many of the trappers signed on, including the NY TA president and the NYTA Lobbyist,

 

This petition is a gauge of our reach, and its not big enough. I would like to get your regular email address so that I can add you to our list so that you could forward and/or post our material on trapping / hound forums. If we can delegate more people in charge of contacting specific groups than we could all do more, plus people are more engaged if different people are contacting them instead of the same few. You and anyone else who can do this are asked to send me a PM or face book message. We just do not have enough people working with us and unfortunately we must use paid advertising at some point, and that will require that we solicit donations. We want to grow our reach as large as possible without paid advertising first. Let me know.

 

By the way, the assembly sponsor of this bill, Cyronwitz, is telling supporters of the bill to contact the governor and ask him to sign it. The comments below the article you posted include one that they launched a petition yesterday morning and by 8 hours later got 1,000 signatures. All I can say is we informed on this issue for a solid 5 months and our petition is on the governor's desk right next to the bill(s)...

[Curmudgeon]

Thanks Mike for your work on this. It has caused some deep divisions among environmental groups.

[HOUNDS77]

John Rockwood and Dave Miller presented it very well

[mike rossi]

HOUNDS: Rockwood and Miller did in fact sign, and I believe Rockwood answered a question about it on the trapper's forum and thereby compelled more people to sign on. We do not have them or any trappers on our email list however. We had to post on the site and field questions, as with any forum, some of the questions were only to stir things up rather than being serious inquiries. Multiply that times 100 and that's what we did on the forum end alone. its way too much and plus most people we are reaching will not pay attention unless it is someone they know or at least know online - again we cant do it by ourselves. Please let me know if you will let me add you to our email list or ask those guys if they will do it.

 

CURM: As far as a divide among "environmental groups" that is interesting. The DEC never did public educational outreach. Just like among the hunting community we have differing levels of interest and awareness, so does the conservation community. Some individuals or even chapters have disagreed with their organizations pro-dec stance on this issue. It goes with the territory, some people concerned about conservation are anti-hunters, anti lethal control of anything. Some organizations did indeed back off or at least limit their involvement because a significant percentage of their membership constituency "was not ready". Off course, many of them will never be ready...

 

In General: Another thing that comes to mind: If anyone plans to contact the governor, they need to do it NOW. Remember, Cuomo has had absolutely NOTHING to do with this legislation and the purpose of contacting him is to make a request, so do not be rude or sarcastic. Sportsmen have a habit of asking rhetorical questions when they try to persuade, and this is being sarcastic. The Syracuse article contains a letter written that contains the following quote:

 

"What would be next, the protection of Eurasian boar and snakehead fish to appease some other self-appointed species protective group?"

 

Avoid asking sarcastic questions and also avoid this line of reasoning. The purpose of eradicating mute swans IS to protect other species. There is more than a single group opposing this and they have a right to under the philosophy of public trust doctrine and the North American Conservation Model. Plus, the legislature hands the parameters of the law down to the DEC and the legislature follows the public majority.

 

We promulgated many different talking points which can be used to construct an email to the governor. I do not plan on going over this again, at this stage of the game, but its online, its on this site too. If you must make an analogy, be polite about it and choose something close to the governors home, and he sees all the time;  like European starlings, Norway rats, Pigeons (rock doves), house or English sparrows. Another good example is the wild turkey flock on Staten Island which hybridized with domestic turkeys making them unsuitable for relocation. But I wouldn't go into swine or snakeheads, this is just more bravado and Cuomo isn't stupid, he graduated from a high ranked law school and served as the NY Attorney General for years. That would be the boss of all the state attorneys in NY. He will see right through "bravado".  Residing and working in NYC he is familiar with the species, all non native except the turkeys, remind him of that.... This would be more tangible to him.

[Curmudgeon]

I like the argument that biologists should be making wildlife management decisions. Urge the Governor to continue to allow DEC biologists to manage invasive species.

 

Mike - If you want more details on my experience with other groups and this issue, PM me.

[mike rossi]

I like the argument that biologists should be making wildlife management decisions. Urge the Governor to continue to allow DEC biologists to manage invasive species.

 

Mike - If you want more details on my experience with other groups and this issue, PM me.

 

Off course I want those details, why wouldn't I? Send them along, PM or otherwise.

[Curmudgeon]

Congrats to Mike and others who fought the swan bill. According to the NY Outdoor News, Cuomo vetoed it.

 

It would not hurt to call and thank him. 1-518-474-8390

 

 

Edited January 8, 2015 by Curmudgeon

[Jennifer]

 

Congrats to Mike and others who fought the swan bill. According to the NY Outdoor News, Cuomo vetoed it.

 

It would not hurt to call and thank him. 1-518-474-8390

 

 

 

Glad to hear this.

 

[HOUNDS77]

This is great news. We need to get a grip on these invasive species so they do not destroy the native wild and plant life. My hats of to Mike for the hard work on this and to every person and group who signed the petition in support of it.

[mike rossi]

I hope that this has been a learning experience for the sporting community. We might do a "lessons learned' type of article about it in the near future, but that might be perceived as a lecture and therefore be off putting.

 

Never the less the DEC will again open a revised mute swan strategy for public review over a 45 day period. The antis will again flood them with mostly the same tired arguments. They have began to introduce a new claim, incorrectly asserting, that mute swan populations are "stable" "especially around NYC". Not true , mute swan populations are growing in both size (13% annually) and distribution. By distribution, it means they are spreading across the state and outside of the state...

 

Interestingly, they seem to have modeled that misconception over premises we made that distinguished the ring necked pheasant from an "invasive species". We clarified what qualifies as an invasive species and why, and indicated that , among other reasons, the pheasant is not increasing in population size and distribution, but rather decreasing in both. These type of logic flawed arguments by anti hunters have been used for decades to conflate and confuse. They seem to either be inept at fact interpretation and/or do this intentionally, as sort of a ploy that they think they can make facts backfire or make us inhibited about using certain ones. Wildlife agencies all over the USA spend millions of dollars each year clarifying facts, those dollars your license fees and PR funds displaced from better uses. 

 

As far as the revised plan, although we want the sporting community to participate, as this is part of the "lessons learned, however we caution everyone to be relevant. The DEC may restrict comments to certain aspects of the plan that have been revised or have not been in the original draft. The review might call for some opinions on largely technical things, rather than social desires or philosophical ideology. Irrelevant rants from either side are likely to be disregarded, especially at this stage in the game. 

 

Even though a recapitulation of lessons learned might be useful; we did indeed succeed in this campaign. The mission statement of NY Dove Hunting is to inform policy makers and stakeholders (hunters, officers of hunting organizations,members of various advisory boards). We did that. Hopefully, moving forward, we have earned their trust and we will not have to work nearly as hard to get them to pay attention to what we are saying. The media is not yet facilitating that. A quick google search will dredge up over 50 recent articles by "outdoor writers" and general news people. We are pleased some of them have resonated with much we have said, and are actually pleased that they are giving kudos to various members of the sporting community for their effort. However, although we dont want "credit" for this, (the LAST thing we want is to further the idea that others and/or organizations can do it alone) it would be helpful to funnel stakeholders to NYDH for information. The existing modus operanti of writers is to center the topic around certain people. This is good because it rewards and encourages participation. But it isnt conducive to helping others to understand the issue and engage themselves. To not mention NYDH is hard to reconcile but we are open to explanations... It is up to you guys to post NYDH's articles and/or extract certain sound bites from our website to increase our reach. Context is important, and we try to construct how things are written so that the context cannot be misapplied, however, since that isnt 100% foolproof, some care must be taken. 

 

We did publish an article about this around the time the Governor vetoed the law. I also posted a link to it on this forum. It seems that many on here have missed it. perhaps because mobile devices will not load our page? If so, let us know. I am going to paste the entire article below:

 

http://nydovehunting.weebly.com/governor-cuomo-vetoes-anti-dec-mute-swan-proposal.html

 

The governor did indeed veto the mute swan proposal.  On December 17, 2014; senate bill 06589 and assembly bill 08790a were VETOED and “tabled”. 

About the same time this legislation was introduced, the DEC had already agreed to compromise with anti-hunters, however. This does not mean that the DEC will necessarily revoke the voluntary compromise; however, at least it does not bind them by law. It is not uncommon for wildlife agencies to modify conservation plans to be consistent with the input during the public review phase. It is not common, however, for an agency to afford protection to an invasive species. Someone, on either side of the issue, or within the DEC might reconcile this with an analogy which compares stocking brown trout and ring necked pheasant to satisfy the sportsmen. That wouldn't really be equitable comparisons and is not really accurate, but that is beyond the scope of this topic and we are not going to expand on that right now. We suggest, however, that sportsmen make a mental reservation about this, because it is likely to come up in the future. Also very similar, but off topic, is other legislation currently pending in NY at the time of this writing, which will protect another invasive bird, the monk parakeet which is also known as the Quaker parrot.  The monk parakeet is currently unprotected and can be taken year round. This legislation would reclassify the monk parakeet as a fully protected bird and as such the DEC would not even be able to set a hunting season for it. This is the direct opposite of the efforts of sportsmen who have been trying to reclassify the mourning dove to a game bird. As in the case of mute swans; the Quaker parrot issue is important on its own merit; however it also has far – reaching effects on precedent and particularly the movement to establish a mourning dove hunting season in the last eight lower states which still do not allow hunting.

It doesn't end there and that is not all! To sum it up; if mourning doves are not classified as game it can be an obstacle to managing non-native doves. The vice versa is also true, if non-native doves are not classified as either game or unprotected wildlife, that may be an obstacle to establishing a mourning dove hunting season. The expanded explanation of why is as follows: Two species of non-native doves are spreading across the USA. Although the impact on native wildlife is unclear, since they are not classified as neither game, nor unprotected wildlife, they are by default “protected birds”. As such, the DEC would require legislative approval to allow hunting of them. Even if the legislature agreed to control non-native doves, since they are larger, but similar in appearance and behavior to mourning doves, an argument by the antis can be made that hunters will misidentify their targets and harvest mourning doves.

If these negative hypothetical scenarios do play out, the antis would hedge their bet that the resolve of the sporting community is insufficient in matters pertaining to small game. Success in influencing ANY DEC policy, however, leverages their total influence on ALL conservation policies, including whitetail deer. Such influence may manifest in non-lethal population control methods and a variety of other non-traditional policies.

For further reading see: 

http://nydovehunting.weebly.com/the-common-denominator.html

http://nydovehunting.weebly.com/non-native-doves-reported-in-new-york.html

http://nydovehunting.weebly.com/eurasian-collared-dove-hunting-ndash-endless-opportunity.html

[Jennifer]

All very interesting and concerning. It is unfortunate and "apples to oranges" to compare mute swans with ringneck pheasants. Mute swans are invasive and actively destructive to both habitat and native species; if they were a plant they would be labeled as "noxious". Based on studies I have read and personal observation, ringnecks pose no such destructive and invasive properties. I try to approach these issues with as little personal bias as possible and I still can't understand the comparison.

 

[Curmudgeon]

I try to approach these issues with as little personal bias as possible...........................

 

If only everyone did the same.

[mike rossi]

Some more to drive the point home...

 

http://nydovehunting.weebly.com/using-hindsight-and-foresight.html