According to ABCNews.Com, The Fund for Animal has filed a lawsuit against the Interior Department asking the department to ban hunters from 39 areas in federal wildlife refuges that have recently begun to allow hunting.
The lawsuit alleges that the decision to open up the 39 areas in the refuges has been made “without analyzing or disclosing the potential direct, indirect and cumulative environment impacts.” Hunting is currently allowed in more than half of the 540 federal wildlife refuges according to ABC News.
Fund for Animals president Michael Markarian told ABC,
We believe it is obscene that refuges should be turned into killing fields. There’s plenty of public land in this country where hunters can hunt. Unfortunately there’s a lot of political pressure to allow hunting on refuges.
U.S. Fish and Wildlife spokesman Mitch Snow derided the lawsuit saying,
It’s completely historically inaccurate and intellectually dishonest. The refuges were never created to be sanctuaries where no hunting would be allowed. Ever since the inception of the refuge system, hunting has been allowed, largely because hunting is good for conservation — hunters contribute enormously to conservation. Without hunting, we couldn’t do what we do.
Another Fish and Wildlife spokesman, Nicholas Throckmorton, noted that the federal duck stamp program — initiated in 1934 — has raised $622 million since its creation in 1934 (though it needs to be noted that while hunters must buy a federal duck stamp before hunting waterfowl, nonhunters can also purchase the stamp).
Source:
Conservation Group Cries Foul Over Growing Hunting in Wildlife Refuges. Dean Schabner, ABCNews.Com, March 18, 2003.