Does DNR cater more to farmers than hunters/fishermen?

[giles]

Alaska did the same thing, it was up to YOU to know exactly what was going on in the area YOU were in. They'd close a season in the middle of the day, and come out writing tickets. It was an outstanding program that was all about the wildlife. No politics involved.

 

[Jackalope]

Maybe if DNR coincided sunflower maturity with the hunting dates, it would be more effective? Maybe that's why there are so few resident doves in Ohio anymore...at least where I live...because the dates are all wrong. And, yes...I've seen doves fly out of standing sunflowers and corn, but the ground beneath it was always mostly bare, unlike the sunflower fields I've seen here. I've lived in Missouri...in Oregon...In North and South Dakota...and most of those states never had issues like Ohio does, and were much more adaptable to season dates based on climate and crop maturity. I may not know a lot about how wildlife in Ohio I guess...you're right...but I know plenty about it in other places...and in my opinion, Ohio is one of the worst managed states that I've ever seen. Surprisingly...Oregon is almost as bad, yet neighboring Washington state is very good. People like to talk about smaller government and states rights, as we've seen in the news with the ranchers in Oregon lately...but it doesn't always work out when states like Ohio don't have enough money to do what is right. The farmers and gas industries who are making millions off of energy should be supporting things like this in my opinion. DNR should be more adaptable...and this year/season is a perfect example of why with the weird climate patterns we've been experiencing. How many resident species populations have been seriously damaged by the fact that DNR kept seasons open that should have probably been cut in half? When I fished the Columbia River Basin in the northwest...seasons fluctuated mid-season all the time based on changing patterns, that never seems to happen here. One day you could be fishing for salmon, the next day you were cut off, and you had to be aware of these regulation changes all the time. They didn't care if the gun/ammo/fishing industry took a hit, it was all about the species and habitat, not money in a few peoples wallets. When you become a person, you have lost.

In some regards you do have very valid points about farmers in ohio getting away with ecological murder with not so much as a cross word from the DNR. . They rip out miles of fence row habitat with impunity, spray everything they don't like with roundup, put drain tiles in fields to runoff nitrate and pesticide infused water into the creeks and rivers. There's a reason that Pheasants, quail, snipe and other species have largely disappeared after once flourishing. I hear these guys saying farmers that plant public land have to leave a certain amount of crops; however in my experience when I used to hunt deer creek they never left a single corn stalk or bean plant standing.

With all that said the Ag industry in Ohio owns this state and the politicians that run it. Not much we can do about that.

 

[Bigcountry40]

I haven't read any of the responses other than the first post or start to the thread, all I will say is where I am from and all the state land I have ever hunted, the food plots/leased crop fields are located extremely close to the road, are easy access and every swing dick has stomped through it by second week of oct. Once they release pheasants, you can forget get it every row of every field is walked, because of this I have naturally never paid much attention to them.

 

[CritterGitterToo]

Well first off, I had assumed that most animals didn't eat the soybeans...but since I don't really pay any attention to deer, maybe I missed that, my bad...and like GoetsTalon said, who the heck would want to eat any animal that consumed that Monsanto crap exclusively anyways? You know the cafeteria at Monsanto is all organic food, right? They won't even eat their own poison! I sure try not to eat any of that in my food at home, but it seems to make its way into more and more foods as time goes by now. And I definitely am not knocking any of the other crops like corn, wheat, sunflowers, and all the other prairie seed type grasses/millet, etc. Although...the way they manage even those prairie-type plants is pretty pathetic. The sunflowers should be burned, and the ground disced clean...but they never are, for instance. No dove wants to land on 6 inch tall grass and fish its way through it to find a sunflower seed that isn't very easy to open, all the while trying to keep an eye out for hawks and other predators that have become overpopulated. I guess it all boils down to the fact that more lands in wildlife areas are not planted with the best available crops, or managed in the best possible way because DNR does not have the funding that they need to do that properly, so they lease land to farmers to try to make up a portion of it....but obviously don't get enough. I still think farmers should pay some kind of ecological tax (cue the Conservative's screaming.)

You don't pay any attention to deer. Yet, you made this thread in the "General Deer Hunting" category. Interesting.

 

[jlane]

soybeans, tell us one living animal that don;t eat em,i would dare say that animals eat more soybeans and corn than anything else,i;d rather hunt a productive acorn ridge, then second choice would be corn or soybean field, briar beds, then a green field,