After seeing a comment by Jay Leno a few nights back about shooting deer with contraceptive darts I went and researched it.
It turns out it is far from a joke and is actualy in place many places.
Here is a paragraph I ran across:
I also read about how the number of women using contraceptives in the United States has been having an effect on some wildlife down stream from sewage.
The contraceptives are passed in the urine and are essentialy putting some animals on birth control unintentionaly.
So I imagine that could be an unintended effect this program could have as well with some contraceptives. Putting animals other than the deer in the environment of the deer on contraceptives. Since the deer urinate, live and die in the environment, many animals would come into contact with both thier urine and thier carcasses.
Some people are so opposed to hunting that they wish to use contraceptives to reduce the number of animals rather than issue more tags or reduce the price of tags so more can afford to hunt.
This is not just firearms, they are opposed to bow hunting as well. It is weapons or killing they are opposed to which of course has an anti gun sentiment attached. I wonder how many of them support slaughterhouses by purchasing meat?
I think this is important to all gun owners as hunting is still an important way of bringing some people into the RKBA fight. This program will reduce that avenue by reducing hunting opportunities.
Hunting also seems to be the purpose anti gunners feel is legitimate as you see some like John Kerry hunting for the camera, and hear many comments about "you don't need _____ or ______ guns to hunt." While that has nothing to do with the 2nd which protects gun rights for use as weapons against people, I mention it because it shows even they acknowledge hunting is acceptable.
This seems like a new and indirect attack on firearm traditions in America, and effects us all, not just hunters.
Here is a few year old article when it was in the trial stages:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13311-2004Aug18.html
Here is one from the viewpoint of hunting opponents:
http://outdoorlife.blogs.com/newshound/2007/08/deer-contracept.html
A notable paragraph:
"DiNicola’s company now charges up to $300 to dart a single deer with a contraceptive cocktail. He estimated that to locate, mark and inoculate free-ranging deer on an annual basis would cost municipalities up to $1,000 per animal."
So rather than create revenue through hunting permits, or even reducing the price of deer tags or bag limits they charge the tax payers to dart deer. A source of revenue turns into a financial burden.
A further concern is these are serious long lasting contraceptives that are not subject to the type of quality control and study of those used by people. Yet it is imaginable that they could be abused for that use.
I have little doubt some of these drugs will make it to human women. Controlling fertility with hormones like currently done is much safer than turning the playing with the immune system. I wonder what the long term effects could be.
It turns out it is far from a joke and is actualy in place many places.
Here is a paragraph I ran across:
Wow."The goal is a one-shot deer contraceptive that would offer those in charge of managing deer populations a realistic alternative to killing.
Deer populations have boomed in the past century, causing communities across the country to find ways to shrink the size of herds. In most cases, officials have used hunters or sharpshooters to cull deer, but animal rights activists and others have called for the development of a deer contraceptive."
"It's kind of the Holy Grail of [deer contraception]: to come up with something that you could inject once and have it work for five years or so," said Michael E. Newman, a spokesman for the National Institute of Standards and Technology.
I also read about how the number of women using contraceptives in the United States has been having an effect on some wildlife down stream from sewage.
The contraceptives are passed in the urine and are essentialy putting some animals on birth control unintentionaly.
So I imagine that could be an unintended effect this program could have as well with some contraceptives. Putting animals other than the deer in the environment of the deer on contraceptives. Since the deer urinate, live and die in the environment, many animals would come into contact with both thier urine and thier carcasses.
Some people are so opposed to hunting that they wish to use contraceptives to reduce the number of animals rather than issue more tags or reduce the price of tags so more can afford to hunt.
This is not just firearms, they are opposed to bow hunting as well. It is weapons or killing they are opposed to which of course has an anti gun sentiment attached. I wonder how many of them support slaughterhouses by purchasing meat?
I think this is important to all gun owners as hunting is still an important way of bringing some people into the RKBA fight. This program will reduce that avenue by reducing hunting opportunities.
Hunting also seems to be the purpose anti gunners feel is legitimate as you see some like John Kerry hunting for the camera, and hear many comments about "you don't need _____ or ______ guns to hunt." While that has nothing to do with the 2nd which protects gun rights for use as weapons against people, I mention it because it shows even they acknowledge hunting is acceptable.
This seems like a new and indirect attack on firearm traditions in America, and effects us all, not just hunters.
Here is a few year old article when it was in the trial stages:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A13311-2004Aug18.html
Here is one from the viewpoint of hunting opponents:
http://outdoorlife.blogs.com/newshound/2007/08/deer-contracept.html
A notable paragraph:
"DiNicola’s company now charges up to $300 to dart a single deer with a contraceptive cocktail. He estimated that to locate, mark and inoculate free-ranging deer on an annual basis would cost municipalities up to $1,000 per animal."
So rather than create revenue through hunting permits, or even reducing the price of deer tags or bag limits they charge the tax payers to dart deer. A source of revenue turns into a financial burden.
A further concern is these are serious long lasting contraceptives that are not subject to the type of quality control and study of those used by people. Yet it is imaginable that they could be abused for that use.
Turning the immune system against part of the reproductive system sounds like a very bad idea. Some immunities are passed from mother to offspring. The potential for new auto immune diseases stemming from this is pretty big.That vaccine uses a protein from pigs to generate antibodies that render the eggs of the female deer impervious to sperm. One disadvantage is that the vaccine requires annual booster shots.
I have little doubt some of these drugs will make it to human women. Controlling fertility with hormones like currently done is much safer than turning the playing with the immune system. I wonder what the long term effects could be.