Originally posted by Des The wildlife gets "managed" by or for the "sportsmen". Similar euphemisms are used here too. One minute the beautiful, gentle, Australian wood duck is quietly going about its business in a conservation reserve for native fauna; then suddenly, one day in March, it's "game" and liable to be shot for "sport". Then in June, if it survives, it's a protected native bird again. During that period public "reserves" are reserved not for the wildlife or those who value them but for the "sportsmen" (and it always is men); they are no-go war zones for everyone else..
I used to tell students in my ecology class that the operative term for all human interaction with nature is "management." Busy little monkeys that we are, we cannot keep our hands off anything. Arrogant as we are, once thinking that we were at the center of all creation and that everything was made for us, we assume that although wildlife got along for over 500 million years without our help, we can "manage" it better.
I have mixed feelings about "sportsmen." On the one hand, throughout the majority of the USA hunting is an archaic pastime that is little more than an excuse to kill something and that has no excuse to be perpetuated. On the other hand, hunters, fishermen etc. contribute far, far more money to conservation, land preservation etc. than nature lovers, hikers, bird watchers etc. So we have that wildlife area pretty much free of human predators for ten months plus Sundays. I don't mind ceding it to the hunters six days a week for two months because without them it would probably become a tract housing development, maybe with a McDonald's or Burger King. Live and let kill.