Thursday, October 08, 2009
Bill Cochran's Outdoors: Candidates embrace Sunday hunting
Bill Cochran is a Roanoke Times outdoors columnist.
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Following a period of dormancy, the Sunday hunting issue resurfaced last week in, of all places, the Virginia gubernatorial race. Both candidates said they would back a partial lifting of the ban that for decades has kept hunters out of the woods on Sundays.
Democrat Creigh Deeds announced he would give localities an opportunity to decide for themselves through a referendum. Republican Bob McDonnell upped the ante with a statement that he would support Sunday hunting on private land.
This added a bit of drama to a race that has failed to stimulate much excitement among outdoor sportsmen. But neither candidate is about to get a landside of votes from the issue. Hunters, themselves, are sharply divided on Sunday hunting, and rural landowners, who own the property where the hunting would take place, like it even less.
The latest survey on the subject that I am aware of was done in February by the Virginia Deer Hunters Association. It asked its members: “Would you support Sunday hunting for the entire season?”
The response was 38 percent, yes; 62 percent, no. Follow-up questions on limited Sunday hunting, such as allowing it after the noon hour only, scored slightly higher but remained below the 50 percent level. Be mindful: these are avid hunters responding to the questions.
Most Sunday hunting surveys the past couple of decades have reaped similar results, but there has been one major exception. A Department of Game and Inland Fisheries’ survey in 2006 yielded statistics that were almost the exact opposite of the recent Virginia Deer Hunters Association research. DGIF found that 62 percent of the licensed hunters it polled favored removing the ban while 34-percent opposed. But DGIF never pressed the issue.
What all this means, I’m not sure, other than Sunday hunting is a polarizing, often controversial, hunter-against-hunter subject that gubernatorial candidates often are forced to embrace even when they don’t want to.
That was the case for Deeds and his handlers, who arrived in Roanoke last week to launch his sportsmen coalition. The idea was to highlight his support of outdoor sports and gun rights while some high-profile outdoorsmen backed him. But The Roanoke Times reported that Deeds was “egged on” by a Sunday hunting advocate to make a statement on that issue. The headlines that followed were all about Sunday hunting.
Deeds’ endorsement was about as weak as they come. It was a politician’s response to a difficult question. A local option would put the decision on the backs of others, creating a patchwork of nasty battles across the state that can’t be good for hunting and a nightmare of conflicting hunting regulations.
McDonnell’s idea was a better one, if you happen to favor Sunday hunting. But even most Sunday hunting advocates are opposed to a piecemeal approach.
In reality, what a governor thinks about Sunday hunting really doesn’t count for much. The issue will be decided by members of the General Assembly, and that won’t occur until sportsmen get behind it big time, which they haven’t, and show no indication o f doing.
Most every year, one to three bills embracing Sunday hunting are introduced in the General Assembly. The majority are so unpopular they don’t make it out of committee. The movement has lacked a face, an organization, a budget, a lobbyist, even people who know what the heck they are doing.
Advocates of Sunday hunting would do well to look past the governor’s race to the 100 delegates who are running. It is going to take a huge grassroots effort to swing open the gates to hunting on Sundays. The endorsement of the two generational candidates isn’t anything to hang hopes on. It is politics.
