LETTER: Wildlife Commission allows killing contests

With grueling regularity, the Nevada Wildlife Commission has again demonstrated just how out of touch with reality, public safety and good wildlife governance practices it is with a Nov. 5 decision to continue wildlife killing contests.

These mass slaughters of wildlife for money and other prizes operate without any oversight. They pose a huge risk to public safety when participants are speeding across the landscape and discharging lethal weapons in a zealous quest to kill as many animals as possible in the least amount of time. Errant bullets and the harm they cause are just collateral damage to be dismissed as inconsequential.

We can expect few constructive decisions from this commission after members repeatedly reauthorize a trophy bear hunt, require few restrictions on the placement of lethal traps in wilderness areas heavily used by humans and their companion animals, and establish hunting seasons that care little about declining numbers of a given species.

The Wildlife Commission and the county advisory boards to manage wildlife are akin to buggy whip makers and hoop skirt manufacturers … producers of decisions that have no relevance in today’s world where most rational people choose to co-exist with wildlife rather than obliterate it at every conceivable opportunity.

As pointless government institutions, the Wildlife Commission and their echo chambers at the county advisory boards deserve to be fully abolished by the governor and Legislature, with the state Wildlife Department assuming full responsibility. The failure of the commission’s and the boards to do the jobs they are statutorily required to do is embarrassing. Protecting and managing the state’s wildlife for all Nevadans should consistently supersede killing opportunities as the dominant objective.