Sunday hunting has been banned in some way in North Carolina since 1869. It wasn't until 2015 when changes were made to the law that allowed some sort of Sunday hunting with regulations that almost kept the ban in place.
During a most recent change to the law in 2017 when additional changes were made, a survey was supposed to be held concerning alleviating the Sunday hunting ban on Public Lands, these results were to be presented to the Speaker House of Representatives of North Carolina for further evaluation.
Being public information, I wanted to see the survey result since I couldn’t find it anywhere on the North Carolina Wildlife Website. After a long wait and repeated follow-ups on where this was, an acquaintance of mine on the inside managed to push my request to the right people and have the survey emailed to me.
I had seen some unofficial numbers but never the actual survey results.
What I had heard was that the results were in favor of allowing Sunday hunting to occur on public land however its opponents complained that the survey was biased because it surveyed hunters and anglers via the Wildlife Resource Commission and not the general public. These opposition groups then held their own surveys and the results showed an overwhelming opposition to allowing Sunday hunting on public land. I don’t know of any fair survey held by a group that is in opposition to the matter at hand.
So, with the survey in hand I want to review what the numbers were and see if we can make sense of the reasons stated in opposition for Sunday Hunting on Public Land.
First let’s start off with the questions on the survey other than name, contact, county they live in, etc.:
Q4 - Which of the following game lands do you use (please check all that apply)?
Q5 - In which of these activities do you participate on game lands (please check all options that apply)? This allowed a free entry if the selection of choices wasn’t enough for the individual’s use.
Q6 - Which days of the week do you participate in the activities selected in Question 5?
Q7 - Do you support or oppose Sunday hunting on game lands?
Q8 - Why do you oppose Sunday hunting on the game lands (please check all that
apply)? This allowed a free entry if the selection of choices wasn’t enough for the individual’s reason.
With the questions laid out, let’s look at the responses and whether the answers are truly sound reasons to oppose hunters from using land that is supported mostly by firearms related excise taxes and licensing.
Question 4 lists 63 choices from North Carolina’s list of game lands which also included “other” and “none” at the end. Of the 23545 selections Pisgah (8%), Uharrie (7%) and Natahala (5%) take a majority of the choices at around 20% of respondents. I will include a copy of this report at the end for you to cruise the other 60 choices including people that said they don’t use Game Lands (600 people, 2.55%). If they don’t use them, why would they be completing the survey?
Question 5 asked what activities are performed by the survey participant. The big three are hunting (20%), hiking (16%) and fishing (14%). Other more popular answers were bird watching (10%), camping (10%) and boating of some sort (9%). I do find it strange that geocaching is listed here as an actual choice since there is a fine line between geocaching and littering. I understand most people won’t see it that way. I have always been told to take everything out of the woods that I brought in.
In the user input section of this answer there are a few answers that state the use of OHV’s and ATV’s. It is important to note that NC Gamelands specifically state that the use of OHV and ATV’s are prohibited. If you want to ride, here are a list of places that allow this in NC.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/activity/nfsnc/recreation/ohv/?recid=48112&actid=93
You will also find photography, rock climbing, botanizing, painting and other activities that are perfect uses of public land.
Some of the strange responses were:
XXX - Not sure what they meant, not sure I want to know.
I hate hunters – Hmmm, sounds like a broad statement against hunters, maybe this person should ask how the land they are on is supported.
Have sex with my wife – Um, is this the only time? I guess this is okay as long as no one sees you and as I stated above with geocaching, PLEASE you take everything out of the woods that you brought in!
Question 6 asked what days they use the game lands. Of the 24366 answers, Saturday took the largest chunk of the use at 22.5%, followed not far off by Sunday and Friday, both being around 15%. Although when I am on game land on Sunday, usually scouting or cleaning up camp and leaving, I rarely see many people back where I am or even on my drive out so part of me thinks that the portion of these “Sunday” answers were selected just to pad the Sunday use by the opposition, of course this is my opinion.
Now down to Question 7, Do you support or oppose Sunday hunting on game land? Of the 5885 answers, 53.19% support Sunday Hunting on game lands and 46.81% oppose. Of the 46.81% that opposed, they could comment on why they opposed.
Question 8 then asked why the survey participant opposed Sunday Hunting on game lands. This is how 7049 choices were made:
Safety Concerns (29.15%)
Conflicts with other user/users (27.24%)
Quality of outdoor experience will be diminished (26.42%)
Religious beliefs (11.07%)
Other (6.13%)
The “other” was a free entry section for their reason to oppose. What I am going to attempt to do here is narrow down the reasons into certain categories and present a valid counter argument on why this shouldn’t be considered when making scientific or logical decisions. Many of the “other” comments fit within the 4 choices they already had so I will not single them out. Anything outside of these 4 worth mentioning will be addressed.
Safety Concerns
Yes, guns are a dangerous tool when handled improperly or when irresponsibly fired at a target that the shooter is not 100% of what they are shooting. Just last year a pastor was killed in North Carolina while coyote hunting by another hunter on private land. It is a terrible thing that can happen and I wish this on no one.
https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article201266914.html
To battle this, we need hammer home the importance of making clean ethical shots when we KNOW what we are aiming at. Under no circumstance should anyone make a shot at what “looks” like an animal behind brush, trees or grass.
North Carolina Wildlife has performed studies on hunting related accidents and the results show that these percentages of accidents and fatalities are going down. In 2014-15 there were 570,495 licensed hunters in North Carolina and only 4 fatalities were recorded, 2 were firearm related. Many times, these accidents are self-inflicted injuries while hunters are navigating difficult terrain or climbing in and out of a tree. I will provide a link to this study for your own review.
http://digital.ncdcr.gov/cdm/ref/collection/p16062coll9/id/143077
If you do an internet search for fatalities on game lands, the most recent I can find within a reasonable amount of time, was in 2013 when a duck hunter was shot by another hunter that mistook him for a deer. Multiple pages deep with different word search patterns, searching for NC game land hunters accidentally killing another hunter or innocent bystander, the results don’t offer much to build a massive level of fear.
https://www.wral.com/lee-authorities-seek-man-truck-in-fatal-shooting-of-hunter/11956406/
If safety is a concern, game lands are a relatively safe place to be with the number of deaths by firearm in North Carolina being on a steady rise. According the CDC, 2016 showed almost 600 total deaths by firearms in North Carolina. Of those 600, there were 2 firearm hunting related fatalities, both of these were self-inflicted. No information was available if these occurred on public game lands or private land.
Accidents do happen, they always will but we must do all we can to reduce the numbers.
⦁ Be fully familiar with the firearm you are using.
⦁ Unchamber rounds when you are not ready to discharge the weapon, especially when climbing, jumping or traversing difficult terrain.
⦁ Never shoot at something you have not fully identified. If you only get a glimpse, let it go.
⦁ Never point the barrel, unloaded or loaded in a direction you wouldn’t fire the gun safely.
⦁ Point out unsafe actions by others through positive criticism while welcoming ways suggested by others to improve your own safety practices.
I could point out all the many ways someone could die that are far higher probabilities that we participate in daily but I won’t. For me, I am more uneasy in areas where there is congesting and frustration than areas where people are few and far between.
Conflicts with other User/Users
While trying to find evidence of news worthy conflicts between Hunters and other groups on public land I came up mostly empty handed. The only conflict I could come up with was arguments over rules that occur online, specifically this one.
This gets down to ethics and acceptance of equal use on public lands. Keeping conflict to a minimum should be your goal. Accepting the fact that someone could be in the spot you scouted as your prime choice will reduce your frustration. Acknowledging that a hiker, a bird watcher or a plant seeker can walk right through your hunting area (as long as it isn’t hunter harassment) can happen and there is nothing that can be done about it.
This is a two-way street. Non-hunters and hunters need to make efforts to reduce disturbing one another and if it happens, it happens. Be polite, ask for a reasonable buffer and take note as to why the overlap happened.
I once was hunting a section of NC disabled hunter game lands. I walked up the trail that a disabled hunter could drive and found a spot to sit for the evening. As I sat there, I eventually could hear a vehicle travelling up the gravelly road. I thought that it may be a wildlife officer since my vehicle was parked at the bottom of the mountain but I was wrong. I hear the vehicle stop nearby, a door close and then a trunk shut. Soon enough, I see a man walking into the area I was in with a hatchet. I quietly got his attention and let him know I was there for the evening. He graciously apologized asked me if I was hunting there any other days so he could set up a spot for himself and then quietly backed out. This was a good experience and I am glad he was reasonable. If I had negatively snapped at him when I saw him, it may not have been as calm of an interaction.
Stay cool, keep the news away from conflicts in the woods by doing what you can to keep tensions low and the opposition won’t have any valid examples to fall back on to support their cause.
Quality of outdoor experience will be diminished
I am confused at this reason and need more information. What diminishes the quality of the outdoor experience? Is it just knowing that there are people hunting on the game lands, is the because of the mostly unsubstantiated safety concerns that have the opposition on alert?
My guess is that is that they just don’t want hunting occurring in the woods because they imagine a continual massacre or animals happening every time they see a hunter. By using that thought process they should be uneasy walking into a grocery store or sitting in a drive-thru at a fast-food restaurant. Far more killing occurs to supply the masses with all the flesh they consume without the work to get it in the fridge or freezer.
We cannot do anything to combat the views of an individual with a narrow mind. A predetermined view that a hunter is only out for the kill will always exist. We have to combat this view by staying educated on the natural world and by giving more to it that we take away.
Social media is a double edge sword when combating the negative hunter stereotypes. On one hand it can help bring like minded hunters together with goals from nose to tail harvesting to habitat conservation and on the other it opens up criticism from non-hunters that jump to conclusions when they see a grip and grin or a photo with blood in it. Fight this by taking time to make sure public postings of potentially sensitive information or photos are as tastefully done. Honor your prey, honor their surroundings and champion their intrinsic value.
Religious Beliefs
I am not sure why this is a relevant opposition reason. I haven’t been able to find much information about not hunting on the Sabbath, in fact, the Sabbath seems to be a controversial day itself. Is it Saturday, is it Sunday? All depends on your own interpretation. There are a number of statements in the Christian bible that refer to what the sabbath is for but I haven’t been able to pinpoint hunting or harvesting an animal as a forbidden activity. Those familiar with the texts, please, lite me up! But please, include clear references.
The bottom line here is that religious views vary from person to person and shouldn’t shape the use of the public’s actions on public property.
OTHER
The other 432 reasons mostly can be grouped together with a few reasons being in groups of their own. I will point a few of these groups out. You will be able to cruise the report yourself later, some may make you laugh.
One reason that hunting was opposed on Sunday was because the survey takers thought that the animals needed a day of rest from hunters. There are two issues with the thoughts behind this reason, one; most hunters are at work Monday through Friday so hunting pressure is super low during this time, two; any human presence is pressure on animals whether you are carrying a bow, rifle or a Raggedy Ann doll. Animals just see humans as danger no matter what their activity.
A reason was given that hunting was bad in general and that animals should be able to live out their lives in peace. The problem with that is that statistically, a wild animal’s life usually ends through predation or sickness. Animals rarely get to live out a life where they die peacefully in their bed with their closest companions around them. They get sick, they get preyed upon and get ripped apart often while still alive. A kill from a hunter, if a shot is placed well, is quick and most likely painless. Deer I have shot have either dropped them almost immediately in their tracks or they have only managed to bolt about 30 to 40 yards.
There was mention of public tax dollars used to pay for the game lands. Of course, most hunters know that the Pittman-Robertson Act uses excise taxes on guns, ammunition and other hunting related items, along with funds from hunting licenses to support public hunting lands, conservation areas and other natural places that everyone enjoys. This funding cannot be used for anything else and is a major reason wildlife has rebounded and the areas they are in are around for everyone to enjoy.
So, I leave you with the survey. Cruise it for yourself and extract the information that seems to be unfounded in truth and most likely fueled by incorrect stereotypes and mis-information. Once extracted and reasonable objections are left, do they hold weight in the fight to obstruct the NC Wildlife Commission from removing the Sunday hunting regulations from the rule books.
I hope the Commission viewed this survey as I have reviewed it. Recently this issue has been pushed back for any changes for two more years and public hearings are supposed to be held this fall (2019) with no dates set as of September 1, 2019. When these hearings are scheduled, do what you can to make your voice heard if you agree with my views and maybe, after a long 150 years, Sunday hunting will be just like any other hunting day.
View the SUNDAY HUNTING SURVEY HERE
Free North Carolina from Sunday Hunting Regulations!
During a most recent change to the law in 2017 when additional changes were made, a survey was supposed to be held concerning alleviating the Sunday hunting ban on Public Lands, these results were to be presented to the Speaker House of Representatives of North Carolina for further evaluation.
Being public information, I wanted to see the survey result since I couldn’t find it anywhere on the North Carolina Wildlife Website. After a long wait and repeated follow-ups on where this was, an acquaintance of mine on the inside managed to push my request to the right people and have the survey emailed to me.
I had seen some unofficial numbers but never the actual survey results.
What I had heard was that the results were in favor of allowing Sunday hunting to occur on public land however its opponents complained that the survey was biased because it surveyed hunters and anglers via the Wildlife Resource Commission and not the general public. These opposition groups then held their own surveys and the results showed an overwhelming opposition to allowing Sunday hunting on public land. I don’t know of any fair survey held by a group that is in opposition to the matter at hand.
So, with the survey in hand I want to review what the numbers were and see if we can make sense of the reasons stated in opposition for Sunday Hunting on Public Land.
First let’s start off with the questions on the survey other than name, contact, county they live in, etc.:
Q4 - Which of the following game lands do you use (please check all that apply)?
Q5 - In which of these activities do you participate on game lands (please check all options that apply)? This allowed a free entry if the selection of choices wasn’t enough for the individual’s use.
Q6 - Which days of the week do you participate in the activities selected in Question 5?
Q7 - Do you support or oppose Sunday hunting on game lands?
Q8 - Why do you oppose Sunday hunting on the game lands (please check all that
apply)? This allowed a free entry if the selection of choices wasn’t enough for the individual’s reason.
With the questions laid out, let’s look at the responses and whether the answers are truly sound reasons to oppose hunters from using land that is supported mostly by firearms related excise taxes and licensing.
Question 4 lists 63 choices from North Carolina’s list of game lands which also included “other” and “none” at the end. Of the 23545 selections Pisgah (8%), Uharrie (7%) and Natahala (5%) take a majority of the choices at around 20% of respondents. I will include a copy of this report at the end for you to cruise the other 60 choices including people that said they don’t use Game Lands (600 people, 2.55%). If they don’t use them, why would they be completing the survey?
Question 5 asked what activities are performed by the survey participant. The big three are hunting (20%), hiking (16%) and fishing (14%). Other more popular answers were bird watching (10%), camping (10%) and boating of some sort (9%). I do find it strange that geocaching is listed here as an actual choice since there is a fine line between geocaching and littering. I understand most people won’t see it that way. I have always been told to take everything out of the woods that I brought in.
In the user input section of this answer there are a few answers that state the use of OHV’s and ATV’s. It is important to note that NC Gamelands specifically state that the use of OHV and ATV’s are prohibited. If you want to ride, here are a list of places that allow this in NC.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/activity/nfsnc/recreation/ohv/?recid=48112&actid=93
You will also find photography, rock climbing, botanizing, painting and other activities that are perfect uses of public land.
Some of the strange responses were:
XXX - Not sure what they meant, not sure I want to know.
I hate hunters – Hmmm, sounds like a broad statement against hunters, maybe this person should ask how the land they are on is supported.
Have sex with my wife – Um, is this the only time? I guess this is okay as long as no one sees you and as I stated above with geocaching, PLEASE you take everything out of the woods that you brought in!
Question 6 asked what days they use the game lands. Of the 24366 answers, Saturday took the largest chunk of the use at 22.5%, followed not far off by Sunday and Friday, both being around 15%. Although when I am on game land on Sunday, usually scouting or cleaning up camp and leaving, I rarely see many people back where I am or even on my drive out so part of me thinks that the portion of these “Sunday” answers were selected just to pad the Sunday use by the opposition, of course this is my opinion.
Now down to Question 7, Do you support or oppose Sunday hunting on game land? Of the 5885 answers, 53.19% support Sunday Hunting on game lands and 46.81% oppose. Of the 46.81% that opposed, they could comment on why they opposed.
Question 8 then asked why the survey participant opposed Sunday Hunting on game lands. This is how 7049 choices were made:
Safety Concerns (29.15%)
Conflicts with other user/users (27.24%)
Quality of outdoor experience will be diminished (26.42%)
Religious beliefs (11.07%)
Other (6.13%)
The “other” was a free entry section for their reason to oppose. What I am going to attempt to do here is narrow down the reasons into certain categories and present a valid counter argument on why this shouldn’t be considered when making scientific or logical decisions. Many of the “other” comments fit within the 4 choices they already had so I will not single them out. Anything outside of these 4 worth mentioning will be addressed.
Safety Concerns
Yes, guns are a dangerous tool when handled improperly or when irresponsibly fired at a target that the shooter is not 100% of what they are shooting. Just last year a pastor was killed in North Carolina while coyote hunting by another hunter on private land. It is a terrible thing that can happen and I wish this on no one.
https://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/article201266914.html
To battle this, we need hammer home the importance of making clean ethical shots when we KNOW what we are aiming at. Under no circumstance should anyone make a shot at what “looks” like an animal behind brush, trees or grass.
North Carolina Wildlife has performed studies on hunting related accidents and the results show that these percentages of accidents and fatalities are going down. In 2014-15 there were 570,495 licensed hunters in North Carolina and only 4 fatalities were recorded, 2 were firearm related. Many times, these accidents are self-inflicted injuries while hunters are navigating difficult terrain or climbing in and out of a tree. I will provide a link to this study for your own review.
http://digital.ncdcr.gov/cdm/ref/collection/p16062coll9/id/143077
If you do an internet search for fatalities on game lands, the most recent I can find within a reasonable amount of time, was in 2013 when a duck hunter was shot by another hunter that mistook him for a deer. Multiple pages deep with different word search patterns, searching for NC game land hunters accidentally killing another hunter or innocent bystander, the results don’t offer much to build a massive level of fear.
https://www.wral.com/lee-authorities-seek-man-truck-in-fatal-shooting-of-hunter/11956406/
If safety is a concern, game lands are a relatively safe place to be with the number of deaths by firearm in North Carolina being on a steady rise. According the CDC, 2016 showed almost 600 total deaths by firearms in North Carolina. Of those 600, there were 2 firearm hunting related fatalities, both of these were self-inflicted. No information was available if these occurred on public game lands or private land.
Accidents do happen, they always will but we must do all we can to reduce the numbers.
⦁ Be fully familiar with the firearm you are using.
⦁ Unchamber rounds when you are not ready to discharge the weapon, especially when climbing, jumping or traversing difficult terrain.
⦁ Never shoot at something you have not fully identified. If you only get a glimpse, let it go.
⦁ Never point the barrel, unloaded or loaded in a direction you wouldn’t fire the gun safely.
⦁ Point out unsafe actions by others through positive criticism while welcoming ways suggested by others to improve your own safety practices.
I could point out all the many ways someone could die that are far higher probabilities that we participate in daily but I won’t. For me, I am more uneasy in areas where there is congesting and frustration than areas where people are few and far between.
Conflicts with other User/Users
While trying to find evidence of news worthy conflicts between Hunters and other groups on public land I came up mostly empty handed. The only conflict I could come up with was arguments over rules that occur online, specifically this one.
This gets down to ethics and acceptance of equal use on public lands. Keeping conflict to a minimum should be your goal. Accepting the fact that someone could be in the spot you scouted as your prime choice will reduce your frustration. Acknowledging that a hiker, a bird watcher or a plant seeker can walk right through your hunting area (as long as it isn’t hunter harassment) can happen and there is nothing that can be done about it.
This is a two-way street. Non-hunters and hunters need to make efforts to reduce disturbing one another and if it happens, it happens. Be polite, ask for a reasonable buffer and take note as to why the overlap happened.
I once was hunting a section of NC disabled hunter game lands. I walked up the trail that a disabled hunter could drive and found a spot to sit for the evening. As I sat there, I eventually could hear a vehicle travelling up the gravelly road. I thought that it may be a wildlife officer since my vehicle was parked at the bottom of the mountain but I was wrong. I hear the vehicle stop nearby, a door close and then a trunk shut. Soon enough, I see a man walking into the area I was in with a hatchet. I quietly got his attention and let him know I was there for the evening. He graciously apologized asked me if I was hunting there any other days so he could set up a spot for himself and then quietly backed out. This was a good experience and I am glad he was reasonable. If I had negatively snapped at him when I saw him, it may not have been as calm of an interaction.
Stay cool, keep the news away from conflicts in the woods by doing what you can to keep tensions low and the opposition won’t have any valid examples to fall back on to support their cause.
Quality of outdoor experience will be diminished
I am confused at this reason and need more information. What diminishes the quality of the outdoor experience? Is it just knowing that there are people hunting on the game lands, is the because of the mostly unsubstantiated safety concerns that have the opposition on alert?
My guess is that is that they just don’t want hunting occurring in the woods because they imagine a continual massacre or animals happening every time they see a hunter. By using that thought process they should be uneasy walking into a grocery store or sitting in a drive-thru at a fast-food restaurant. Far more killing occurs to supply the masses with all the flesh they consume without the work to get it in the fridge or freezer.
We cannot do anything to combat the views of an individual with a narrow mind. A predetermined view that a hunter is only out for the kill will always exist. We have to combat this view by staying educated on the natural world and by giving more to it that we take away.
Social media is a double edge sword when combating the negative hunter stereotypes. On one hand it can help bring like minded hunters together with goals from nose to tail harvesting to habitat conservation and on the other it opens up criticism from non-hunters that jump to conclusions when they see a grip and grin or a photo with blood in it. Fight this by taking time to make sure public postings of potentially sensitive information or photos are as tastefully done. Honor your prey, honor their surroundings and champion their intrinsic value.
Religious Beliefs
I am not sure why this is a relevant opposition reason. I haven’t been able to find much information about not hunting on the Sabbath, in fact, the Sabbath seems to be a controversial day itself. Is it Saturday, is it Sunday? All depends on your own interpretation. There are a number of statements in the Christian bible that refer to what the sabbath is for but I haven’t been able to pinpoint hunting or harvesting an animal as a forbidden activity. Those familiar with the texts, please, lite me up! But please, include clear references.
The bottom line here is that religious views vary from person to person and shouldn’t shape the use of the public’s actions on public property.
OTHER
The other 432 reasons mostly can be grouped together with a few reasons being in groups of their own. I will point a few of these groups out. You will be able to cruise the report yourself later, some may make you laugh.
One reason that hunting was opposed on Sunday was because the survey takers thought that the animals needed a day of rest from hunters. There are two issues with the thoughts behind this reason, one; most hunters are at work Monday through Friday so hunting pressure is super low during this time, two; any human presence is pressure on animals whether you are carrying a bow, rifle or a Raggedy Ann doll. Animals just see humans as danger no matter what their activity.
A reason was given that hunting was bad in general and that animals should be able to live out their lives in peace. The problem with that is that statistically, a wild animal’s life usually ends through predation or sickness. Animals rarely get to live out a life where they die peacefully in their bed with their closest companions around them. They get sick, they get preyed upon and get ripped apart often while still alive. A kill from a hunter, if a shot is placed well, is quick and most likely painless. Deer I have shot have either dropped them almost immediately in their tracks or they have only managed to bolt about 30 to 40 yards.
There was mention of public tax dollars used to pay for the game lands. Of course, most hunters know that the Pittman-Robertson Act uses excise taxes on guns, ammunition and other hunting related items, along with funds from hunting licenses to support public hunting lands, conservation areas and other natural places that everyone enjoys. This funding cannot be used for anything else and is a major reason wildlife has rebounded and the areas they are in are around for everyone to enjoy.
So, I leave you with the survey. Cruise it for yourself and extract the information that seems to be unfounded in truth and most likely fueled by incorrect stereotypes and mis-information. Once extracted and reasonable objections are left, do they hold weight in the fight to obstruct the NC Wildlife Commission from removing the Sunday hunting regulations from the rule books.
I hope the Commission viewed this survey as I have reviewed it. Recently this issue has been pushed back for any changes for two more years and public hearings are supposed to be held this fall (2019) with no dates set as of September 1, 2019. When these hearings are scheduled, do what you can to make your voice heard if you agree with my views and maybe, after a long 150 years, Sunday hunting will be just like any other hunting day.
View the SUNDAY HUNTING SURVEY HERE
Free North Carolina from Sunday Hunting Regulations!
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