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Show Rights, privileges can be kept if hunters curtail problems With several major hunting seasons just around the corner in southern Utah, we would like to repeat some of the words of the Utah Wildlife Federation concerning the rights and privileges of this popular sport. Every year the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources hears from private land owners complaining com-plaining about hunters shooting too near occupied buildings, littering, trespassing, knocking fences down, destroying posting signs and leaving gates open or locks removed. The National Shooting Sports Foundation, in a recent news release, had some things to say about these problems experienced by landowners across the nation. According to the NSSF, "hunting is a right," as declared by some pretty vocal segments of the hunting fraternity and, in a certain sense, they have it straight. "No," say others, "hunting is a privilege," and, in a certain sense, they, too, have it straight. So, how can that be? How can hunting in the United States be both a right and a privilege? It seems contradictory. It isn't though, if you look at it this way: Yes, Americans have the right to hunt, but to do so on someone else's land is a privilege one extended by the landowner. In a recent study done for the NSSF, it was disclosed that 69 percent of the landowners surveyed sur-veyed were aware of the problems landowners had with hunters. This doesn't mean that 69 percent had had a problem themselves, but it means that some had experienced a personal problem and the rest knew of a neighbor's or acquaintance's problem. The result, sad to relate, is that more than 50 percent of those surveyed across the country have closed their land to hunting; posted it, in other words. But here is where the privilege part comes in. More than one third of those posting their property said they would allow hunting on their land if only the hunter would ask permission. Now, let's all remember that, to exercise our right to hunt, we have to have someone extend to us the privilege of being on private land. |