[big al hunter]

I will begin with this. No animals have ever gone extinct because of controlled sport hunting. The biologists that determine the hunting seasons and limits set them to preserve the species hunted. The vast majority of hunters in the U.S. are conservation minded and obey all season dates and limits.

Hunting benefits the species as a whole. Taxes on every firearm and ammunition sale are set aside to benefit wildlife. This money pays for the protection of our wildlife and habitat improvements. The taxes and hunting license fees total many millions of dollars a year that go directly to preservation of wildlife.

Hunting restrictions and seasons are set to remove animals from the population that would otherwise starve to death in winter. At the same time the animals being removed makes the surviving animals stronger, because they hauve better food supply during the winter.

Nearly every hunter eats what they kill. Hunting is fun. Killing is not. Killing is not the reason, it is the necessary means to an end.

Until you have pitted yourself against an animal that is keenly aware of its surroundings, has eyes that are better than yours, a nose that can smell you from 500 meters, and ears that can hear a single toothpick size branch break at 100 meters, you just won't understand how thrilling the victory is. Nor will you know the sorrow that you feel that your opponent had to die for you to be successful.

Every specie of big game animal in the U.S. that is hunted has a larger population now than in 1900. Our system as a whole is working towards more animals, not less.