guymonmd Wrote:
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> John Cole Wrote:
> ==================================================
> =====
> > Without someone local to oversee the units, it
> > will get trashed and turned into 'RAT CENTRAL'
> > like the Sublett section house. That and
> > vandalized by hunters.
>
>
> As a person who had enjoyed hunting in the past I
> take offence to that comment. I have never known
> a hunter who wantonly vandalized anything.
> There are individuals who do vandalize and some
> who use guns to do so, but those individuals are
> rarely if ever hunters. They are usually juvenile
> delinquents who are not hunting, but just out to
> destroy things. If they do shoot an animal they
> are poaching. The vast majority of hunters I have
> ever associated with have a deep respect for the
> environment and while they may complain about
> private property owner's actions they have a
> respect for the rights of private property owners
> and would never destroy private or public
> property. Hunters buy licences, and obey the
> rules. Hunters provide a large portion of the
> funds to maintain public lands with their license
> fees.
I consider myself a hunter as well and I believe all of what you said as basically true, unfortunatly there is always the elements of jerks in any hobby that give the rest of us a bad name. Over at my home museum at OERM we did a track removal project years ago and went into a safety briefing with our supervisor from the railroad he automatically assumed that we were like the same railfans that give them so many problems caused by their stupid behaviour. He threaten us with 'kicking us off the railroad if we did anything unsafe or stupid' we assured him that we were not like his railfan and we would prove it to him. He watched us like a hawk the first day, and after he was satified we were working safetly, we would only see him at the morning safety meeting and each afternoon to check everything was cleaned up for the next seven weekends.
It is disheartning to see projects that you or someone you know work so hard on for years get shot up and destroyed by someone with a gun. They are just vandals who have no regard for anything but their own stuff. (Could you imagine how they would react if someone shot up their car or truck?)
Example, the Friends have restored all 7 of the old phone booths along the ROW, in the last 7 years about 3 of them have had the doors torn off, and one even had a side kicked out of it or some other form of vandalism. We NEVER lock them so anyone who wishes can look inside to see there is nothing there.
When I suggested to the planning comittee years ago about putting a small generator at Sublette years ago, it was rejected because of previous problem with thing getting shot up and stolen as there is no one there to watch over things.
