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-- Yet another example of how anti's turn things around... (http://forums.ukcdogs.com/showthread.php?threadid=928425105)

Yet another example of how anti's turn things around...

I have lived on the Chesapeake Bay 51 of my 53 years. Ever since I can remember there has been concern about the condition of the bay regarding pollution, water quality, etc. Testing and pretty serious efforts to correct the water quality has been ongoing at least all of my adult life. The states of Pa., Md. and Va. have spent billions of dollars over the years trying to get the bay back on track. One thing everyone agrees on is that one of the most important "cleaners" of the bay's water is what they call SAV, submerged aquatic vegetation.
The bay is currently overpopulated with the American Cownosed Ray...local hillbillies, like me, refer to them as skates or stingrays. Whatever you call them they are hard on SAV and severely devastate it because of the way they feed. They only have one predator and that is sharks. Years ago several foreign fish companies were allowed to come over here and decimate the shark population. Sharks don't reproduce very quickly, so the skates have taken over. The state of Maryland considers them a "trash fish" and they are not regulated.
In the last several years the sport of bowfishing has gotten pretty big in the bay, probably because there are so many rays. They started having tournaments, they were taking a lot of the surplus rays out of the bay and it's tributaries but really don't seem to be making a big dent in the ray population.
Then along comes the anti's. Videos are posted of tournament bowfishers shooting skates and bringing them in the boat. The entire state it seems is up in arms because of the inhumane way in which the rays are being handled....yet before this issue went viral all these same peoples big agenda was "oh my god, we gotta clean up the bay!!!"
Does't it seem like these people just go around and look for something they can turn into a problem??? This is one of the reasons we as hunters and houndsmen have to be careful what we post.

I used to see them all the time on the shore where I'm from. We'd go swimmin and they'd just circle us

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