A.G. Gancarski
The effort to get Florida voters to affirm fishing and hunting rights is ramping up now that it will officially be Amendment 2 in November, after just one member of the Florida Senate opposed putting it on the ballot last Session.
On Tuesday, “YES ON 2” rolled out a coalition of hunters, anglers, and conservationists. The goal is to make the case that these rights are elemental.
“Fishing and hunting are a way of life in Florida, and we need to protect it for future generations,” said Yes on 2 Campaign Chair Joshua Kellam, a former Commissioner at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and President/CEO of The Garcia Companies.
“The best way to protect our traditions is through conservation programs that anglers and hunters in Florida support every day. By protecting fishing and hunting for generations to come, we’re protecting Florida wildlife and their habitats,” Kellam contended.
“The traditions, conservation practices, outdoor lifestyle and economic opportunities that fishing and hunting bring to the people of our state are on the ballot in November,” said Rodney Barreto, chair of the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.
“It’s hard to imagine a more common sense, quintessentially Florida thing to fight for,” Barreto added.
Luke Hilgemann, Executive Director for the International Order of T. Roosevelt and Yes on 2 National Chair, added, “Anglers and hunters are the greatest conservationists in the world. They fund billions of dollars in conservation programs to protect our traditions for the next generation. The formation of this committee will help support Florida’s efforts to protect anglers and hunters from radical animal rights activists who want to ban hunting and fishing.”
The language, which would have to be approved by at least 60% of voters, proposes to “preserve forever fishing and hunting, including by the use of traditional methods, as a public right and preferred means of responsibly managing and controlling fish and wildlife.”
10 comments
Larry Gillis, Libertarian (Cape Coral)
April 30, 2024 at 9:01 am
The legislature has treated with contempt earlier-enacted Amendments on felon voting rights and on marijuana. So far, they have gotten away with it.
The language of this present proposed Amendment is so vague as to be meaningless. I anticipate that the legislature will look like seals playing with a beachball as they pass enabling legislation on this one.
Dont Say FLA
April 30, 2024 at 1:03 pm
Are hunting and fishing under threat in Florida? LOLS. What a sad attempt at manipulating the outcome of other ballot items this November. As always, G0P accusations are confessions.
The goal of this proposed constitutional amendment is simply bringing out the G0P base in an attempt to counteract the two other amendments on the ballot that are on topics that are in fact under threat and/or illegal in Florida.
Where is Assley’s lawsuit about recklessly amending the Constitution when there’s zero need to do that, and the amendment is nothing more than a political ploy, attempting to change the outcome of other items on the ballot?
If Assley isn’t challenging this one, and I am 100% certain she is not, she needs to resign. How corrupted can somebody possibly be? She sued attempting to interfere with the election for the abortion and weed amendments, and did NOT sue about the amendment that is so very obviously on the ballot purely to interfere with the electoral outcome of the abortion question. And she probably assumes this will interfere with weed initiative too, but I think hunters and fishers would be delighted to have their weed be legal, so that one might actualy backfire on Assley but maybe she figure it’s worth it to force some folks to have some babies they don’t want.
Ron Forrest Ron
April 30, 2024 at 1:12 pm
That ballot language self-contradicts.
It first says it’s going to forever protect hunting and fishing as a right enumerated in the state constitution.
But then it says it’s for “responsibly” managing and controlling fish and wildlife.
How does the state intend to “responsibly manage and control” people exercising a constitutionally enumerated, protected right to hunt and fish?
The fish and wildlife LEO will say somebody has too many fish and too many Key Deer, and that person will respond, “You can go EFF yourself. The Florida State Constitution says i can hunt and fish to my heart’s desire. Will see you in court!” And then protected species such as Key Deer will be ruled legal to hunt, as hunting’s protection overrules Key Deer protection since humans hunt but Key Deer are just deer. And then everybody with a .22 rifle who is sick and tired of Key Deer getting into their garbage cans will say “Praise the Lord I can finally solve the problem of these large, deer looking raccoons getting into my garbage cans and making a giant mess every time I put a bag of garbage into my garbage can”
Paradise Lost
April 30, 2024 at 3:03 pm
They just won’t stop until there’s nothing left. In less than a generation, Florida will be unrecognizable, a maze of strip malls, congested highways, polluted water, and no wildlife except the bugs. Luckily soon there will be nothing for them to fish except algae blooms and to hunt except each other,. DEP just approved oil drilling in apalachicola, the state’s largest and most important river and water source and listed as a critical biosphere area for the whole world. (Those profits will go back to Louisiana minus some hefty political contributions.) Then the new blue ocean initiative will promote more overbuilding, privatization and takeover of public spaces, elimination of state parks and wildlife areas, with more overdevelopment on coastlines, which will destroy what remains of those ecosystems and make affording insurance impossible for anyone in the state but the very wealthy. Paradise Lost.
rick whitaker
May 1, 2024 at 9:33 pm
PARADISE LOST, i left florida years ago when i looked at it with open eyes. i made the right choice.
Protect It
May 1, 2024 at 2:26 pm
“Fishing and hunting are a way of life in Florida, and we need to protect it.”
Protect it? From what, exactly?
Oh… Protect it from generic “radical animal rights activists” who are apparently such a threat that they haven’t even named themselves, preferred instead to remain a theoretical.
Therefore, based only on a theoretical, which some might call a hoax, let’s …. Amend the Constitution!
Another brilliant move from “small government” Republicans, complicating the state Constitution for no apparent reason.
Monday news
May 1, 2024 at 5:28 pm
Sounds like 30 million to hunt and fish on one square acre
Let’s keep the old days alive when Florida only had 50,000 in population and extinction was not in vocabulary
tom palmer
May 1, 2024 at 5:33 pm
The right to hunt and fish is already guaranteed in Florida law. This is campaign organized by the NRA and has some potential for mischief, such as overruling FWC’s hunting and fishing regs on species like black bears, restrictions on take of some marine fisheries populations etc. etc.
As usual, the Florida Politics stenographer didn’t talk to any of the folks from NoTo2.org
Coalition Ramps Up
May 6, 2024 at 11:28 am
If this coalition is just now ramping up, how exactly did this proposed constitutional amendment already worm its way onto this November’s ballot?
Other amendment initiatives ramped up more than a year ago to get onto November’s ballot.
Something’s fishy here. And, let’s see, hunty.
My Take
May 6, 2024 at 12:19 pm
Open hunting in state parks?* County parks? Squirrel hunting in playgrounds? Shooting from vehicles?
You know how this stuff gets misused.
*State forests, sure.
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