ABSTRACT
Contemporary hunters assert that shooting wildlife is beneficial, even essential, for wilderness, ecosystems and wildlife populations; no one wants Bambi to die a slow and painful death from starvation. Despite the requirement that public lands be "held in trust for the American people by the federal government", hunter interests hold sway. It is a breach of trust for federal agencies to exploit, manipulate, or damage public lands, or ecosystems and wildlife on public lands, on behalf of a tiny special interest group. Perhaps federal and state government wildlife agency oversight personnel are unaware that, with the drastic decline in hunters, hunter-friendly policies can no longer be considered management "in trust for the American people". Government "management" policies for public lands are locked into the mindset of Americans who lived a century ago, when the majority of citizen's hunted and public lands were perhaps rightly preserved for hunter interests, assuming hunter interests formed the majority.
