Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

To the Editor:

Your July 8 editorial “Elk Hunting in the Badlands,” claiming that conducting a public elk hunt in Theodore Roosevelt National Park violates common sense violates common sense itself.

First, the proscription against hunting in national parks is a significant factor in the current overpopulation. Second, hunters do not mostly shoot bull elk, as you claim. They shoot whatever they have a tag for, whether bull or cow. The ratio is decided by game managers, not hunters. And how can a public hunt, for which tag fees can be charged, cost more than hiring sharpshooters?

The “sound science” for which you claim a need is already there. The park is overpopulated with elk, and the numbers need to be thinned, period. Your apparent prejudice against hunting is not sound science.

Which of these solutions—hired sharpshooters or private hunters who can use the meat—do you think Theodore Roosevelt would have preferred?

Jonathan Hanson
Tucson, July 8, 2009

Note from KBJ: The letter writer has just learned an important lesson. Progressives assign no intrinsic value to science. It is a means to an end, nothing more. If science supports progressive causes, then science is a wonderful thing. If science does not support progressive causes, then it's not really science but conservative ideology in disguise. Heads I win; tails you lose.