It is always easy to paint those who oppose more restrictive wildlife regulations as against conservation rather than wanting criminalization of basic liberties to be based on science, and by science, I mean the case needs to be made in public by publicly available data, rather than by citing scientists. I felt it was useful to discuss more broadly based topics to illustrate that the small gov't view is often differentiated from the big gov't view by some subtleties:
1. The small gov't view maintains that the burden of scientific proof rests on the gov't or on the proponents of restricting liberties. Big gov't often shifts this burden by pretending users of natural resources are guilty of unsustainable or destructive practices until they prove themselves innocent.
2. Scientific proof means sound reasoning based on published data. Global warming, red snapper management, and the Gulf of Mexico's purported "dead zone" are three cases where those arguing for restrictive public policies have changed "scientific proof" to mean "viewpoints of scientists" rather than clear interpretations of published data.
3. In most states, the law requires wildlife be managed with the goal of preserving the resource (sustainability) without favoring the desires of one user group over other user groups. Recent management proposals for new and more restrictive regulations to increase availability of trophy animals favor invariably favor one group over others. This is true for QDM, speckled trout, management schemes to produce more trophy bass, etc. Special interest groups (those wanting trophy management) support government growth and intrusiveness through additional regulation when they advocate use of government power to further their goals above other stakeholders.
4. All the data shows that Gulf waters off the LA coast have tremendous numbers of red snapper (almost overpopulation) because LA waters have a much higher carrying capacity than Gulf waters adjacent to other states. The unit stock hypothesis that justifies federal management of the whole Gulf is analogous to making Louisiana a single deer zone and applying the most restrictive hunting regulations designed to preserve the herd in the least populated Parish to the whole state. Federal (rather than state) level management is almost always always a big gov't viewpoint, especially when the data fails to show the need for regulation at the federal level. Small gov't conservationists know that the feds rarely ever relinquish power back to the states once they have usurped it.
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