by Brandi Borland

Created on: September 19, 2007   Last Updated: October 26, 2010

I am an active hunter and farmer. I own quite a few acres of land that I hunt, but also place my crops and raise my cattle. I feel that the money I worked hard for to purchase my land gives me the right to decide how I use it and who else is permitted to use it. A few years back I would let friends, family members, family of friends and so on to hunt my acreage. With this came tire ruts in my crop land, animals shot dead and left to lie or seriously wounded animals that would later develop rotting of the extremity that was wounded. A lot of animals were shot that were not in-season, and a lot of the in-season game were taken even though the hunter had already made his/her bag limit. The trash and pollution left by hunters, in my fence rows and creeks, became a major problem. I dealt with many of these and other problems each year. I finally decided to close the land off to just myself and my household.

My fences are not high enough (nor low enough to the ground) to trap game in, as deer can easily clear the barriers I use to keep my cows in with. The deer are free to roam my land, my neighbors land, and if the experts are right on their study of deer movement- the land 100 miles from here. I do have wildlife food plots on my land which are intended to feed the game. With this I am also feeding many of my neighbor's deer, their neighbor's deer and so on.

Conservation Departments purchase land with one of their main interests being to provide free hunting land for those that do not own their own land. Then there is always the option of paying a ranch to hunt for your game. Yes, it is expensive sometimes, but you have to consider the work and care it takes to keep that land up, not to mention the price they shelled out to own that land. If you think about it, they have to pay somebody to pick up all the trash and fill in all the ruts left by hunters, that takes money that has to come from somewhere. It should be considered an honor privilege that they are even opening that land of their's up to other hunters.

It is nice to bag a "trophy", but my main interest in hunting is the beauty of wildlife and the tradition of hunting in itself. I own this land, and I hunt it. I'm teaching my children the great sport of the hunt and one day I will pass this land, some of it that has been in my family for over 100 years, on to my children so that they may cherish it as much as I do. It's not an easy job to work the land I own, my crops are expensive and my cows are pricey too, but I make my living off of this, so I keep at it. I don't deserve the problems that allowing-the-public-to-hunt brings.

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