It’s Survival of the Weak and Scrawny

Sounds like someone didnt have any luck hunting this year......

I believe that the credibility of this article is undermined from the outset when the author misidentifies the animals in the photograph as kudu, when they are actually eland. Nice try Ms. Huang. This article is beyond ridiculous and borders on the absurd. True evolution occurs over thousdands of years, not 30. The causative factor at play is not hunting, its the infiltration of man into the animals' doman and the destruction of their environment.

Where to begin? First of all, the "horns" displayed in the Roosevelt photo are from Lord Derby Eland, not kudu. This is one of many "factually challenged" statements made by the article. The truth is, there are more whitetail deer and wild turkeys in the USA now than when the Pilgrims landed. The reason is the money put in to habitat conservation by sport hunters. This is just one example. While it is true that the elphant population has been decimated in parts of Africa, it was becasue of bush wars and commerical poaching and not sport hunting. Again, funds provided by hunters through conservation organizations have helped to restore the elephant populations in portions of Africa. In fact, elephants are currently overpopulated in countires like Botswana and Zimbabwe. It is really a shame that the two sides of the "hunting arguement" cannot seem to have a rationale conversation about hunting based on facts. The topic always get skewed over to the emotional side, and the facts get lost. I dare say SCI (Safari Club International) would tell a very different slant on this story than the one presented. As far as trophies go, let me submit that for the ethical and mature hunter, the trophy is the hunt itself, and not what might hang on a wall some day. Go to Africa - live the experience - and you will see what I mean. Your life will be forever changed. The mature cape buffalo I harveted in Zimbabwe in June fed a local village of 20 families for 3 days, and 60% of the money I paid for the experience went to the local tribe and for habitat preservation. If evolution is heading towards reversal, it will be at the hands of the ignorant and apathetic, and not today's sport hunter.

I think the scarriest thing about this article is how many people will read it and believe it as truth. I wish newsweek would atleast try. I know there is a large portion of society that doesn't understand hunting, but atleast get some facts before you start writing articles.

Why in the world would MSN even have such a biased uninformed article? Surely there are much better researched and thought out authors and their articles to have published on the front page!
SAD!!! More deer, elk, etc in North America than ever before with many more "trophy" animals with huge antlers being harvested than ever before. Bighorn sheep? Do you know how almost non existant and exhorbitantly high a license is to receive? Research that. No one is killing off all the trophy antlers animals and leaving the culls to breed. How ludicrous!
Not worth saying any more. Animals are threatened by human encroachment ie: subdivisions much much more than hunting can ever do. The threat is from removing their habitat for the almighty greedy dollar----same thing that has ruined the world wide ecomony. Give me a break.

Hypocracy is rampant. It is evil to hunt and harvest an animal. But these same people see no problem with permanently removing thousands of acres of habitat without which wildlife cannot exist EVER to build a disney theme park for yuppies and their kiddies.
Hmmm which seems most evil? Harvesting a sustained wildlife habitat insuring the continuation of the species or permanently removing the habitat and eliminating all possibility of a species existing???

To many spin doctors and too many people ignorant of the truth.

It is a shame what individual gov'ts do to the wildlife. Here in NM it is big business. Out-of-stater's pay big bucks for a chance at a trophy animal. Many times, locals have stumbled upon carcasses with the antlers removed so that they could be mounted in some absurd way that represents power of some sort. Law enforcement is a joke when they seem to question the locals who know about conservation of their resources and pay no mind to the destruction that is unfolding in our forests. It is running rampant here in NM and it is sad to see.

This is the type of arcticles written bye left wing extremists that proves most reporters aren't able to do an arctcile on facts. They would much pick a topic they want to discuss or in this case bash and then go find some type of BS research to show they are right. Its funny how the total number of hunters in the sheep unit that is refered to isnt mentioned. Its a proven fact that if an area is over hunted the total number of quality animals will be reduced. Or it could be that the game managers aren't manging for quality animals just quanity. Maybe for the reason that they don't want these poor little sheep to starve to death because of over grazing. Its funny how a person with a BS degree gets called a reporter just because they work for a magazine. I guess I was a pilot then because I served in the airforce.

Wow, are you required to do any research for your articles, or do you just write whatever you think is truth? This is one of the most unreal, unresearched, ridiculous articles I have ever read. As an avid hunter, and one of very few females in the sport, I have a very strong opinion opposing this article, but what I think really doesn't matter. Truth, is what matters. This is not truth. With growing herds, hunting is the only way to keep the size of the herds manageable. Why are you so completely opposed to hunting? Have you ever thought about what might happen if the stopped hunting all together? The herds would go unmanaged, and our states would be overrun with big game animals. They made it illegal to hunt Cougars with dogs(nearly impossible to see the stealthly animals without the aid of scent sensitive hunting dogs), but then what happened? The number of dangerous, territorial, cougars in the state of Washington skyrocketed and all of a sudden the number of incidents of humans being attacked by Cougars jumps drasctically. I wonder why?
Hunting is important, and I find it absolutely offensive that you think that we only go hunting to shoot the largest bull elk we can find. How completely and entirely untrue. I spent two weeks hiking around some of the most grueling elk country in Washington state this year looking for a bull elk. O, but I must add that I wasn't looking for a beautiful, trophy, branch bull.....no I took time off of work, three months intense hiking, scouting, and herd watching to shoot a beautiful, 1x2. Now for you Lily Huang, who knows nothing about hunting, a 1x2 is a spike. A bull elk that is young. I filled my tag with a young bull so that the older bulls would have first chance at the ladies next year. Herd managment is important, and by allowing a few young bulls to be taken every year, we allow the older mature bulls to pass on their genes. Do some research before you write again, please.

The propensity for large horns skulls and antlers comes from three things alone- good quality feed, genetics, and the specimen having enough time to grow them.

A ram that grows big horns has already passed his genes along to future generations prior to growing the monster rack of antlers or horns. If youreview the record books animals with larger and larger antlers and horns are being taken all the time. The world record for yellowstone elk has been broken so many times in recent years it borders on silly.

To say that hunters are reversing evolution smacks of a writer with an agenda more than any scientific conclusion.

The propensity for large horns skulls and antlers comes from three things alone- good quality feed, genetics, and the specimen having enough time to grow them.

A ram that grows big horns has already passed his genes along to future generations prior to growing the monster rack of antlers or horns. If youreview the record books animals with larger and larger antlers and horns are being taken all the time. The world record for yellowstone elk has been broken so many times in recent years it borders on silly.

To say that hunters are reversing evolution smacks of a writer with an agenda more than any scientific conclusion.

It's not reversing evolution. It all boils down to good herd management. Many people will shoot anything that walks when they hunt. If you don't have good herd management, reverse evolution doesn't happen, it just means the differents in a great trophy herd and a weak herd. For instance, a well versed deer hunter is looking to kill a very mature buck that is closed to the end of his life. He might not have the biggest set of antlers, but he's been smart enough to make it this long and it's a better death than being taken down by a coyote or other predator. No reverse evolution, only bad herd management. You really don't know what you're talking about and you need to do more homework before you write a column like this.

You've got to be kidding me. To try and blame all the wildlife issues on hunting is ridiculas. I was looking for any reference in the article to predator affects on elk or deer for example. Why no mention on how many deer a single cougar will kill each week? Or how about the number of elk a wolf pak will go through in a year? Since that information is readily available I was disgusted to see no mention of it -even from the wildlife biologist from Montana. I wonder what the agenda is of the writer....wait a minute on second thought I don't wonder. Get the facts straight!

this author is bogus

Wow! Talk about defensive! This article is an article about the science of Natural Selection, and you guys turn this into a political attack on your group. The author doesn't discuss whitetail deer in North America in our present time. During the turn of the 20th Century, there were no conservation efforts and the whitetail deer population was nearly wiped out in Roosevelt's time. The whitetail repopulated in Pennsylvania because of changes in the hunting laws and other conservation efforts.

This is simply an article that discusses how always hunting (or poaching) the STRONGEST ANIMALS leads to a weakening of the herd because only the WEAKER ANIMALS are left to reproduce. There are very few people who will pass up shooting at a 6-point buck because they're hoping to get an 8-point. Her main argument is regarding the elephant population. There is nothing in this article that says hunting is wrong. Nothing.

This entire article is a lie. The author is an Anti-hunter with absolutely no knowledge of what she speaks. By the way, only one of those is a kudu Roosevelt is holding up there, the other two are eland... shows what she knows. She cant even identify an animal that she speaks about. Besides it is healthy to take dominant animals out of the gene pool, otherwise you encourage inbreeding of he heard. Mature animals have already passed on their genetics, and it is the natural process for younger males with new genes to take over the role of heard bull. By doing this, you ensure genetically superior animals with less disease. Get your facts straight before you write this kind of garbage.

Dave

With a little research you would find out that this article is written by someone that didn't do their homework. There is a lot of untrue facts in this article. The fish and wildlife is doing their job and making sure that this doesn't happen.

SO the selective harvesting that people do on big ranches in the central parts of the USA where they only harvest only mature and older deer doesn't prove anything. These ranches or farms only harvest 4 1/2 to 5 1/2 year old deer every year. By doing this they allow the deer to reach mature age. These places are finding that they actually have more mature and older deer roaming there farms on a yearly basis rather then having lesser more imature deer. This type of practice is very commen practice and is a very proven practice. So if it works on a small scale of 100-500 acre ranches why wouldn't this idea transfer on to public land which is where most of the elk hunting and sheep hunting takes place that this arcticle refer's to? For those of you that don't know any better it does work. The problem isn't with the harvesting of the more mature animals it's with the over harvesting of these animals. Maybe tag limits should be more critisized rather then then the actual mature animal harvesting. Reduction in the number of hunters would generally help more then anything.