Organization Will Be The Voice Of

Sporting Dog Owners Nationwide

 

The American Sporting Dog Alliance (ASDA) was launched in December to help owners and professionals involved with all sporting breeds to speak with one voice in the battle to save field trials, hunting with dogs, private kennels and the right to private ownership of dogs.

 

“We are in a fight for our lives,” ASDA Director John Yates of Oil City, PA, said. “Animal rights groups and anti-hunting groups have launched a nationwide offensive to try to destroy the traditions we love. If we don’t fight back effectively, we will face a steady stream of defeats in the face of this well-funded and choreographed effort.”

 

Yates said there are many fine organizations that fight for the rights of hunters, gun owners and dog owners in general. However, he said, none of the existing organizations has succeeded in bringing together large numbers of people who work with the sporting breeds, and who also are in the bullseye of both animal rights and anti-hunting activism.

 

“The sporting breeds are in the crosshairs of both animal rights and anti-hunting groups,” he said. “To survive, we must defend ourselves. We cannot depend on anyone else to fight for our traditions.”

 

Yates said many people involved with the sporting breeds – pointing dogs, beagles, retrievers, hounds, hunting terriers and flushing dogs – consistently underestimate their own strength.

 

“We see ourselves as a relatively small and politically insignificant group, but nothing could be farther from the truth,” Yates said. “The problem is that we are very fragmented, into various breeds, different kinds of hunting, and different venues of competition. If red setter enthusiasts, as an example, see themselves only as a small group, they also need to see the potential of uniting with many other small groups to become a potent force. Then, if you factor in hunters who own dogs, our actual numbers are huge.”

 

Yates said there are, quite literally, millions of Americans who hunt with dogs, own dogs of the sporting breeds, are active within their own breed and venue, or who used to own hunting dogs or plan to do so in the future. To that, he said, one can add empathetic members of the general public, farmers (who face very similar challenges), the timber industry, businesses that are based on hunting, and a large segment of the American general business economy.

 

“We also must capitalize on our economic clout,” he said. “The sporting dog world includes hundreds of small businesses that help to revitalize local economies in the form of kennels, trainers, breeders, handlers, hunting guides, shooting preserves, Internet-based businesses, and suppliers. We also form a major part of the economies of veterinary medicine, transportation, building supplies, publishing, communications, tourism, pet foods and agriculture.”

He continued: “For example, I have a relatively small training and breeding kennel with a modest income, but every year I pump almost $50,000 into the economy simply to operate and maintain my business. I also provide part-time jobs to two or three people a year. If you consider my kennel as average, imagine the combined economic impact of a couple of thousand other kennels that work with the sporting breeds. My small kennel also has about 100 customers a year, and imagine the impact of the money they spend on dogs, supplies, sporting goods, travel and hunting, and then multiply that impact by a half a million people each year who buy puppies and dogs of the sporting breeds, raise their own dogs, and spend money on hunting and field trials.”

 

There are millions of hunters in America, and each of them is a potential ally of sporting dog owners, because they know that their own traditions are being endangered, too, Yates added. His own state of Pennsylvania has almost a million licensed hunters.

 

“Too often, we get caught up in negative thinking,” he said. “We see the annual declines in hunting, we hear about the $400 million war chest of the Humane Society of the United States, we read CNN news stories that only 20 percent of Americans hunt. What we too often fail to see that a million hunters in Pennsylvania outnumber anti-hunters 10-to-one, and animal rights extremists by 1,000-to-one. The ‘antis’ succeed only because they are very well organized, know how to raise money, are very vocal, and manipulate the general public and use them to accomplish a hidden agenda. We can combat this with a very simple weapon: The truth.”

 

Yates said that the general public is being manipulated by sensationalized issues, such as alleged “puppy mills,” and are not being told the real agenda of the groups supporting those laws. In Pennsylvania and Oklahoma, as examples, proposed laws and regulations will impact every kennel, and not just large commercial breeders, who already are fully regulated by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

 

“The real goal of those laws is to make it impossible for anyone to own a kennel, which will have the impact of reducing the number of dogs and puppies available to the general public,” he said. “This translates directly into a dramatic reduction in the private ownership of dogs. That is the real agenda!” Animal rights groups believe that it is wrong for people to own animals of any kind, and claim that anyone who makes a living from raising animals is exploiting them. Many of these groups also are staunch advocates of vegetarianism, and seek to use the law to impose their beliefs on the rest of us.

 

ASDA has identified five issues for its initial focus, and plans to expand as the organization grows, becomes better organized and develops funding sources. The Oklahoma and Pennsylvania kennel laws will be two areas of initial focus, as will be a bill pending in California to mandate spaying and neutering of all dogs except from a handful of specially licensed breeding kennels.

 

The California legislation is a perfect example of the animal rights agenda, Yates said. The ostensible goal of the law is to reduce the number of unwanted dogs and puppies. But, Yates said, the real goal is to reduce the number of dogs owned by private individuals, and to virtually eliminate private breeding of dogs through draconian regulations and endless paperwork. Using his own 50-dog kennel as an example, Yates said the Pennsylvania proposal would require him to complete 300 pages of paperwork every day, plus hire two full-time employees to individually exercise dogs. Not one of Pennsylvania’s 1,500 licensed kennels would be in compliance with the new regulations, he said, and most kennels would have to spend at least $20,000 on physical facilities. Many kennels cannot meet the requirements because of zoning prohibitions and limited land size, and virtually none would be able to survive the bureaucratic requirements that have nothing to do with the actual care of dogs.

 

In California, the regulations would even be more damaging. Only breeders who met burdensome licensing requirements would be allowed to raise puppies, and it would be illegal to breed any dog that is not registered by the American Kennel Club (AKC). That means that no one could breed dogs that are registered by the Field Dog Stud Book, the United Kennel Club, the National Kennel Club, or various rare breed registries. It also means that no one could develop new breeds of dogs, such as occurred with the recent creation of Muensterlanders, or work with unrecognized breeds. There are clear constitutional issues in the California legislation, as equal protection under the law is being denied to thousands of people, private property rights are being usurped by government, and dog owners are being denied due process under the law.

 

Moreover, Yates said, the licensing requirements would eliminate the vast majority of field trial and hunting dogs bred every year by small-scale owners who have only an occasional litter. Probably more great hunting dogs and field trial champions are produced by small home breeders than by any other kind of kennel, he said.

 

The California law also illustrates the “divide and conquer” tactics that are used by the animal rights groups, by giving protection to the powerful AKC, in order to soften their opposition, while denying protection to all of the smaller groups and registries, he said.

 

ASDA’s fourth focus will be to work to help derail nationwide pet ownership legislation that is nicknamed “PAWS 2.”  This legislation is expected to be reintroduced in Congress next year, and it is the highest priority of the Humane Society of the United States, which has a thinly veiled animal rights agenda.

 

The fifth initial focus of ASDA will be on land management practices and policies on public lands that negatively affect field trials and hunting.

 

“In plain English,” Yates said, “the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) is violating the law in its policy to eliminate field trials on public lands funded through the Pittman-Robertson Act, and also in regard to the way those lands are managed: Or, more accurately, non-managed. The U.S. Forest Service also is in clear violation of the federal Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act in its current policy of discouraging grouse trials and refusing to manage public lands for optimum sustainable resources and recreation. We plan to take both of these federal agencies to court, and also to call for formal congressional investigations into their actions.”

 

The state of Ohio plans to eliminate field trials from two famed areas in Ohio (Kildeer Plains and Indian Creek) this coming spring, citing its policy that money from the Pittman-Robertson Act is to be used only to benefit hunting. The same policy was used to ban field trials from public land in Illinois and Indiana a few years ago, and Michigan is the next expected target. The USFWS policy alleges that field trials are not hunting, and thus are not permissible uses of this land.

 

Yates said this policy is in flagrant violation of the Pittman-Robertson Act which, in Section 2, Article 5, of the Act, clearly gives equal weight to hunting and field trials as recreational beneficiaries of the funding. The Act says:

 

“(5) the term ‘wildlife-associated recreation’ means projects

intended to meet the demand for outdoor activities associated

with wildlife including, but not limited to, hunting and fishing,

wildlife observation and photography, such projects as construction

or restoration of wildlife viewing areas, observation

towers, blinds, platforms, land and water trails, water access,

field trialing, trail heads, and access for such projects;”

 

 

Ideology has become the key point in USFWS and Forest Service land management policy, and opinions based on this ideology are being inaccurately portrayed as scientific fact. Hunters and field trialers are being substantially misled by these federal agencies, Yates said.

 

In Ohio, for example, the official plans of Kildeer Plains and Indian Creek call for management as prairie grasslands, to benefit wildlife of all kinds that require this specialized ecological niche. But the USFWS favors non-management, to allow the land to revert to brush and mixed forest. Why?

 

The reason is an ideology called biodiversity conservation, which has become the philosophical underpinning of many state and federal wildlife agencies, Yates said. Major tenets of biodiversity conservation are that non-native species are to be eliminated, and that only natural forces should determine the character of the land. In terms of specifics, he said, this means that breeding populations of non-native species like the ring-necked pheasant are to be eliminated, and proactive wildlife management by humans is to be minimized or eliminated.

 

Looking at Kildeer Plains and Indian Creek as examples, Yates pointed to USFWS criticism of mowing for field trials, creating feed strips, managing for vital edge cover, and making plantings of natural food sources. The agency wants to ban the use of these vital management tools. Ironically, Yates said, those are the very kinds of activities that are mandated by the Pittman-Robertson Act, and also by the official management plans of both areas. The USFWS thus is violating the law in order to propagate the current politically correct ideology.

 

At the same time, he said, the USFWS is refusing to manage the lands proactively to increase the numbers and diversity of all forms of wildlife, or to benefit the varied kinds of recreational uses mandated by the Pittman-Robertson Act, which range from hunting to bird watching to field trials.

 

“It would be hard to find a healthier or more productive environment for wildlife than the Kildeer Plains and Indian Creek lands as they are currently managed, and management to assist field trials also provides the optimum habitat for numerous game and non-game species, and the maximum opportunities for hunters and people who just like to see wildlife,” Yates said. “In contrast, non-management creates uniform habitat that benefits only a few species, and curtails many recreational uses of the land.”

 

Yates also pointed to violations of the Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act on many national forests, and specifically on the Allegheny National Forest in Pennsylvania, which is the home of the famed Marienville grouse trial grounds. The Forest Service now refuses to implement a policy of sustained yield timber harvesting on those grounds, which provides for a succession in forest cover that benefits all species of wildlife, including the ruffed grouse.

 

Sustained yield logging creates forest cover of varying ages and stages of growth, and this meets the needs of all kinds of wildlife for food, shelter and protection, Yates said. There is clear and uncontestable scientific evidence that this kind of land management results in the highest densities, diversity and productivity of wildlife, he said. In contrast, he said, overly mature forests result in the lowest density, diversity and productivity of wildlife. For instance, he said, young forests provide the best food sources and shelter for deer, and there are many more deer on lands managed for sustained yield than on lands managed as mature forest. Also, he said, the deer are larger, healthier, have larger antlers, and much better winter survival rates in a forest managed for succession, as compared to uniform stands of mature forests and pole timber.

 

“As in the case of the USFWS, the Forest Service has succumbed to the ideology of biodiversity conservation, which favors allowing only natural forces like wind, fire and storms to form the character of the land,” Yates said. “In the real world, this doesn’t work for wildlife or for people, and it also is in clear violation of the law.”

 

Yates pointed to the Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act, in which Congress mandated that the Forest Service manage land for the maximum sustained yield of natural resources, including wildlife, and maximum opportunities for recreation, including hunting and field trials. Non-management through the ideology of biodiversity conservation flies in the face of this federal law, he said.

 

Yates said ASDA also plans to cultivate a close relationship with farmers and farm groups. Farmers are very concerned with animal rights issues, benefit from hunting through CRP and other payments to allow public access, and are spared from many wildlife depredation losses by nearby public land that is managed for field trials, Yates said. A healthy and productive environment on public lands keeps wildlife there, and significantly reduces crop losses by nearby farmers, he said.

 

The American Sporting Dog Alliance is seeking membership, support and leadership from the entire sporting dog community. The organization can be reached at 1269 Eaglerock Road, Oil City, PA 16301, or by email at asda@csonline.net. Information about the organization, joining and volunteering can be found online at two web addresses. The organization’s website is at http://www.americansportingdogalliance.org. Through the courtesy of the National Red Setter Field Trial Club, a mirror site is available at http://asda.nrsftc.com/. The National Red Setter Field Trial Club also is hosting a blog for the organization, to keep members informed on news and developments. The blog is accessible through the website.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ASDA will focus on five issues initially, and expand the list as we grow in numbers, get better organized and develop adequate funding. The five issues are:

1. Proposed kennel regulations in Pennsylvania that would put most kennels out of business.

2. Proposed kennel law and accompanying regulations in Oklahoma that will make it impossible to breed dogs.

3. Pending legislation in California that would mandate spaying and neutering all dogs, except for a few select kennels that undergo stringent licensing and breed AKC-registered dogs. Dogs registered by the FDSB, UKC, NKC and other registries could not be bred. Also, people who have only a few dogs could not have an occasional litter.

4. The loss of field trials on public lands in Ohio, because of a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service policy that violates the Pittman-Robertson Act.

5. Management practices on National Forest land that are in violation of the Multiple Use Sustained Yield Act, which requires land management to yield maximun wildlife and recreational resources. The Forest Service is not considering these legally mandated values in preparing management plans and timber harvesting plans.

Please read an accompanying blog entry about ASDA's formation, and vote in the poll.