[TN-Bird] Can TWRA license you to look and when to look ?
- From: "Wallace Coffey" <jwcoffey@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Tennessee Birds" <tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 14 Dec 2010 14:54:57 -0500
A basic freedom will hold that the state wildlife agency
cannot tell you what you can look at and when you can look.
Just imagine how you would ever define what birding is. Is
it looking at birds in your backyard ? Noticing an eagle
perched in a big tree near the road ? Watching a flock of
cranes flying over a city park, or looking at them from the
road in a farmer's field ? Are you watching birds if you are
sitting in your house, in your car or standing on a public
right-of-way ? What about looking from a boat ?
Is it different if you look at a field of cranes without binoculars
or with binoculars or with a scope ? What about families
who simply stop to show their children the big birds or seniors
out for a ride and happen to notice the birds. Will there have
to be teenage licenses to bird ? Will you have to take a
birding safety course from TWRA at a nearby recreation
center so they can further justify their operations ?
Will there be a different fee for looking at an eagle than looking
at a vireo or woodpecker ? Will you have to have a permit to
put out birdfeedrs or host a wintering hummingbird ?
All of this sounds silly but it has to do with where it begins and
end and if it begins or ends with your ability to look and see
God's creations. If so, then that is tragic and more freedom
is at risk. Is there an agency that can charge you watch the
sunset ? If one of them can figure a way to do so, you will
have to have a heartbeat in a minute.
Republicans harp about wanting less government. Turning
your birding life over to TWRA is not less government. They
talk about less taxes. Buying a license or paying a tax to
TWAR is not less government.
The only reason we would buy a hunting license and such is
so we can give the state some money because we want the
influence to have them give us some money back ? I fear
there is sort of a mentality that TWRA is becomoing the
wildlife monetary bank ? Everyone makes a deposit but a few
are willing to draw on deposits. I don't ask TWRA to give
me grants or any other kinds of money. I have given them
thousands over the years. They have mostly spent wildlife
money on what benefits them. If I were going to the wildlife
bank to ask for a handout to benefit projects I am interested
in, then I would want to impress them that I give when the
offering plate is being passed. Or when they are making
a hunting regulation I don't agree with.
We don't need to hold up a hunting liscense in order to prove
that we have a right to remind them that they are charged by
law to manage the wildlife and fisheries resources of the state.
They already have their hands in my pockets everytime I
buy a pair of binoculars and for everyone who owns a pair
for no other reason than to simply watch boats pass by their home
and see who is on their lands. They have no more rights to
want dollars from the sale of birding field guides than they should
to want taxes from every vehicle that drives on the public
highway. They get that in some states and they would love
every penny of it in Tennessee ?
Should you have to buy an out-of-state birding permit if you
go across the bridge to Arkansas, or Georgia, Kentucky, into
North Carolina at Roan Mountain or the Smokies or even on
the Bristol Christmas Bird Count in Virginia at South Holston
Lake ? Should we pay for a license depending on what state
we are in when we are looking ? At Musick's Campground on
South Holston Lake, we are on private property and a significant
number of the birds we see are in Virginia ? Are we not allowed
to look over in Virginia from Tennessee without paying for a
permit in Tennessee ? Just things we don't think about when we
get too ambitious about giving TWRA the right to a licenses
for birding.
I have told TWRA, that if they want to have an entry fee and
a window sticker to drive into a state-owned wildlife management
area OK. Everyone with a picnic, jogging, taking photos and
birding or playomg cards will be required to pay the same fee. The
first thing they will want to do is declare the 600,000 acres of
the Cherokee National Forest as needing one of their birding
permits, claiming that is a wildlife management area with the
US Forest Service. They do not spend a a quarter an acre
on anything that has to do with songbirds in the National Forest.
Most of what they spend money on is some college faculty
who want monies from them for whatever they may be doing.
TWRA pays some faculty people a ton of money simply to
teach their wildlife officers how to look at birds. Who did you pay ?
Then TVA will want a big ole permit but they have trouble keeping
their roads open, toilets operating and gates unlocked to the
general public as it is.
Most of the volks in East Tennessee have an very significant
amount of public lands and right-of-ways for birding. That is
not true in much of the rest of the state. TWRA would require
you to buy your gas at one of their state-owened gas pumps
at a major inflated price before you could drive into these vast
areas, if they could figure a way to get their hands on our
monies.
I understand why some people on this list will want more access
and why some will want more handouts in the form of dollars
from TWRA. But most of the birders of this state are not in
need of either.
Wallace Coffey
Bristol, TN
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Moderator: Wallace Coffey, Bristol, TN
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Cleveland, OH
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Rosedale, VA
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Clarksville, TN
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