So what do you guys think about the "SHARE ACT"?
For the past several years, special interest groups have been trying to push through a harmful piece of federal legislation – the so-called “Sportsmen’s Heritage and Recreational Enhancement Act” or “SHARE Act.” Although similar bills have been introduced in previous years, the current version of the SHARE Act (H.R. 2406) contains the most devastating language for wildlife yet. Despite its misleading title, the SHARE Act contains very few measures that would actually benefit typical rank-and-file sportsmen and instead caters to trophy hunters, poachers and trappers.
Touting the (false) need to expand access to land for trophy hunting, fishing, and shooting, the bill mandates that federal agencies automatically keep nearly all federal public land “open unless closed” to these activities – with zero regard for the millions of Americans that visit these lands to watch, rather than kill, wildlife. The bill goes on to, for the first time in a federal statute, include trapping in the definition of “hunting.” This means that the SHARE Act would open up untold millions of acres of public lands to trapping
The SHARE Act would also grant a bailout to trophy hunters who have been petitioning Congress for nearly a decade to allow them to import the heads and hides of 41 sport-hunted polar bears they shot in Canada. These wealthy and elite individuals flew to Canada and dropped a cool $40,000 to shoot an animal they knew was on the cusp of gaining federal protections under the Endangered Species Act.
The SHARE Act is basically a smorgasbord of helpful goodies for trophy hunters and poachers, whether it’s through attacks against polar bears, elephants, or wolves. By catering to a small subset of the population, the SHARE Act would roll back longstanding federal environmental and public land laws, eliminating important protections that have been in place for decades
For the past several years, special interest groups have been trying to push through a harmful piece of federal legislation – the so-called “Sportsmen’s Heritage and Recreational Enhancement Act” or “SHARE Act.” Although similar bills have been introduced in previous years, the current version of the SHARE Act (H.R. 2406) contains the most devastating language for wildlife yet. Despite its misleading title, the SHARE Act contains very few measures that would actually benefit typical rank-and-file sportsmen and instead caters to trophy hunters, poachers and trappers.
Touting the (false) need to expand access to land for trophy hunting, fishing, and shooting, the bill mandates that federal agencies automatically keep nearly all federal public land “open unless closed” to these activities – with zero regard for the millions of Americans that visit these lands to watch, rather than kill, wildlife. The bill goes on to, for the first time in a federal statute, include trapping in the definition of “hunting.” This means that the SHARE Act would open up untold millions of acres of public lands to trapping
The SHARE Act would also grant a bailout to trophy hunters who have been petitioning Congress for nearly a decade to allow them to import the heads and hides of 41 sport-hunted polar bears they shot in Canada. These wealthy and elite individuals flew to Canada and dropped a cool $40,000 to shoot an animal they knew was on the cusp of gaining federal protections under the Endangered Species Act.
The SHARE Act is basically a smorgasbord of helpful goodies for trophy hunters and poachers, whether it’s through attacks against polar bears, elephants, or wolves. By catering to a small subset of the population, the SHARE Act would roll back longstanding federal environmental and public land laws, eliminating important protections that have been in place for decades