Tag Archives: minnimum hunting age

UPDATE: Wis. Assembly eliminates minimum hunting age

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http://www.weau.com/content/news/Bill-would-allow-hunting-at-any-age-in-Wisconsin-454784313.html

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The state Assembly has passed a bill that would eliminate Wisconsin’s minimum hunting age.

The Assembly passed the Republican measure 57-32 on Thursday, sending the bill to the Senate despite complaints from Democrats that the move would put both children and other hunters in danger.

Right now someone must be at least 12 years old to purchase a license or hunt with a gun unless they’re participating in a mentored hunt. Children as young as 10 can hunt under that program.

The Republican bill would allow anyone of any age to participate in a mentored hunt, effectively letting anyone of any age hunt. The measure also would do away with the requirement that a hunter and mentor have only one weapon between them.

The bill goes next to the state Senate.

EAU CLAIRE, Wis. (WEAU) — There may soon be more young hunters out in the woods in the state of Wisconsin.

The State Assembly is considering a bill letting hunters of any age participate in a mentored hunt.

Right now hunters must be at least 12 years old to purchase a license or hunt with a gun while 10 year olds are allowed to hunt only if they’re participating in a mentored hunt.

“As far as carrying a gun, older is better,” remarked manager of General Coin and Gun Luke Weyers.
Republicans chair of the 3rd congressional district Brian Westrate says the bill will allow parents to determine when their children are able to handle the responsibility of hunting.

Westrate said, “This notion that we have to have the state determine for the parents when their kids are both physically and mentally capable of becoming a hunter just doesn’t make any sense to me.”

However Eau Claire Democratic Party Chair Beverly Wickstrom argues the current regulations are there to protect children and other hunters.

Wickstrom said, “People don’t understand the gravity of life and death until a much older age and that’s the reason you’ve got a mentor with someone who is age 10 right now because it’s so important to keep everyone safe.”

The measure would also wipe out the requirement that only allows one weapon between a hunter and mentor which Wickstrom says could be hazardous and even fatal.

But, Westrate says the law will actually give parents opportunities to begin educating their children on gun safety earlier which could in turn prevent tragic accidents.

“The more kids that understand how guns work, understand how to safely handle them, how to safely check them to make sure they’re unloaded, then the less likely an accident is going to happen when that same gun is sitting on the table at home,” he said.

Westrate does say responsible parents are needed to ensure their kids become responsible hunters and that guns should never be left unlocked and unattended.

12 Year Old Montana Girl Murders Her First Mountain Lion

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[The oh boy, happy day reporting is about as hard to take as the photo of the dead cougar. Here’s the headline the mainstream paper gave this vile act of murder: ]

“Darby girl bags her first mountain lion”

                                                                               
 2014-03-03   Two weeks after her 12th birthday, Darby girl bags her first mountain lion                         missoulian.com
March 02, 2014 6:00 pm  •
DARBY – Taylor Wohlers was 3 years old when she experienced her first mountain lion hunt.

It was something she never forgot.

The excitement of the chase through snow, over rocks and up steep mountains. The sound of the dogs baying at the base of the tree. And then finally, the sight of a snarling mountain lion high up in the tree.

From that first hunt seen from a backpack carried by her father, Wohlers has been on well over 20 mountain lion hunts in the past decade.

All through those years, she counted the days until she would actually be old enough to have a hunting license.

She turned 12 on Feb. 12 and bought her first license that very day.

Montana state law required that she wait another five days to actually use her mountain lion tag. By then, the state-set quota for mountain lions in the southern Bitterroot was down to one female.

Her dad, Ben Wohlers, was determined to do his best to help his daughter fill her first tag.

On Wednesday – exactly two weeks after she turned 12 – Taylor was called into the school office and told to grab her snow gear.

Her dad had found a mountain lion near Sula.

“It had come down and crossed in my tire tracks,” Ben Wohlers said. “I knew it was close. When I turned the dogs out, they were on it right away. She’s been on a lot longer chases than this one.”

The longest chase the father and daughter enjoyed covered close to 11 miles as they walked from the lookout tower at Gird Creek to the bottom of the mountain.

*****

After the much shorter hike Wednesday, Taylor remembers seeing the lion snarling up in the tree.

“I stood there and looked at it for a little while,” Taylor said. “And then I used my dad as a rest to take aim.”

Her father sat down on the ground and she placed the barrel of the AR-15 .223-caliber rifle across his shoulder.

A short time later, the mountain lion hunting season in the Bitterroot officially came to an end.

“Ideally, we would have looked for a big tom, but that part of the season was closed,” Ben Wohlers said. “This was the last one in the valley for this year.”

Taylor had only been legally old enough to hunt in Montana for two weeks.

This wasn’t the first time that she’s hunted. In the summer of 2012, she traveled to Alaska to shoot a black bear while being filmed by the Skull Bound TV production company.

She used a .300 Winchester Magnum to kill the bear at 168 yards.

Her dad took her to Canada last year in search of a mountain lion, but they couldn’t find the right one there.

Last week’s hunt was one that neither father nor daughter will ever forget.

“I want a life-size mount,” Taylor told her dad inside his taxidermy shop filled with life-size mounts of a wide variety of critters.

Wohlers looked at his daughter and smiled.

“That’s probably what we’ll do then,” he said. “We’ll probably do a life-size mount for you.”

Idaho Lowering Big Game Hunting Age to 10?

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[Next they’ll be wanting to kill more wolves so 10 year olds will have a better chance of “getting their elk.”

http://guardianlv.com/2014/02/idaho-lowering-big-game-hunting-age-to-10/

by Heather Pilkinton on February 4, 2014.
This is neither the website of, nor affiliated in any way with, Guardian News and Media.

Hunting is a way of life for many in Idaho, but a new proposal has some questioning how young is too young to huntsafe_image big game. Idaho lawmakers are considering a proposal which would lower the current age to hunt big game, such as elk, from 12 to 10.

Right now in the state, children as young as 10 are able to hunt small game like duck and rabbit, as long as they have completed a hunter’s education program and are accompanied by a licensed adult. However, the type of gun needed to hunt big game is different than small game, which leads to the question as to whether a 10-year-old is capable of handling that level of firearm.

Currently those 12 and over are able to hunt without an accompanying adult as long as they have completed a hunter’s education program. As per Idaho law, anyone born after January 1, 1975, must complete a hunter’s education program, or show proof of a valid license from another state in order to purchase a license.

Part of the reason for the idea of lowering the hunting age is to boost stagnant hunting and fishing license sales in the state, which have hovered around the 330,000. Wildlife regulators hope that by lowering the age, hunting can be promoted as a family activity, especially in this age of electronic entertainment. They are hoping that lowering the hunting age will bring families with kids back to Mother Nature.

Sharon Kiefer, the Idaho Fish and Game Deputy Director, has stated that more women are getting into hunting, but admits that not all parents are keen on the idea of younger children being out in the field with a high powered firearm. One former conservation officer and hunter education instructor, Tony Latham, worries about a 10-year-old handling a rifle, even a scaled down model, that can shoot a bullet for miles when hunting big game.

This is not the first time that Idaho’s hunting practices have come into question in the past year. In December, 2013, the Wolf and Coyote Derby held in Salmon brought a lot of unwanted attention to the state from animal rights activists, from both inside and out of the state, who sought to stop the derby. This derby is one of a few derbies in Idaho; the annual Hannah Bates Memorial Rock Chuck Derby in Bliss serves as a fundraiser for cancer research and other charity programs.

Idaho is also under scrutiny for another piece of legislation not related to hunting. Republican lawmaker Lynn Luker recently introduced two bills that would make it legal for professionals to refuse service to individuals based on characteristics such as sexual orientation, if that individual was “contrary” to the professional’s sincerely held religious belief. This would mean that a teacher could refuse to teach a child who is gay, or a medical professional could refuse to accept a single mother as a patient if items such as birth control violates that medical professional’s religious teaching.

The idea to lower the big game hunting age from 12 to 10 also comes at a time when gun violence as a whole is a pressing issue throughout the United States. The number of school shootings has raised the question as to how young is too young to handle a gun? This is brought to the forefront even more as gun manufacturers are making “youth” firearms, which are scaled down models of those used by adults.

However, many will say that education plays a big part in firearm safety and that younger hunters will benefit not just by Hunter’s Education, but by being mentored by experienced, adult hunters. Kiefer believes this and this sentiment is echoed by Jim Toynbee, who has taught hunter’s education for nearly 40 years, though Toynbee admits a lower hunter age would not be possible without the smaller sized rifles. He said his main concern is that a young hunter might get too excited and not make a clean shot. This means an animal might be unnecessarily wounded, where an experienced hunter would harvest the animal with a clean kill.

If the hunting age is lowered in Idaho from 12 to 10 for big game, it will not be the only state with a minimum age of 10; Maine and Nebraska both have that same minimum age with adult accompaniment. Those states who do have minimum ages often require adults to be with minor hunters. However, considering the type of firearms used and the controversy around children and firearms in general, the question is how young is too young to hunt big game in Idaho?

By Heather Pilkinton