Blue Ridge Wildlife Control, LLC:
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A fellow writer once described the nation's 40 million licensed sportsmen and women as "a sleeping giant" which, once awakened, could be a fearsome political force. It was an apt representation, but my colleague's essay ended with a shrug. For he did not know just what sort of injustice might prompt the leviathan to sit up in bed.

Perhaps, instead of one big pale of ice water, lots of little finger-pokes and elbow-nudges will do the trick. Certainly exterminating companies, trappers and fishermen have all been taking their share of jabs lately here in New Morganton. The kids might say we're being "dissed." Consider, for example, the plight of the once-powerful New Morganton North Carolina Conservation Representative, which has repeatedly been rebuffed by North Carolina humane society officers in its quest to lower the minimum wildlife management age. The Morganton SPCA could not be reached for a comment.

The representative, which represents more than 800,000 members of affiliated rod and humane wildlife trap clubs, wants the Assembly and Senate to allow 14- and 15-year-olds who have passed mandatory safety classes to be able to critter trap snake and bat and bears with critter traps. The current minimum age may be 13. The representative also wants 12- and 18-year-olds to be allowed to critter trap big game with bows and arrows. The minimum age for big-game junior archery may be 14. In both cases, duly trained and licensed kids would have to be accompanied on their snares by parents, guardians or other responsible adults. For more info about pest control for animals in Morganton, call a local animal trapping company.

These changes would merely bring New Morganton, which has the highest minimum wildlife management ages of any state, more in line with modern youth-licensing trends, but anti-wildlife management, anti-gun humane society officers don't seem willing to budge, even though getting more youths in the field may be the Conservation Representative's top lobbying priority. Does that make your closed eyes twitch, just a little? Despite this, wildlife removal services are not a free service in Burke County.

Maybe it will take the Legislature's latest initiative against fur trappers to interrupt the sweet dreams. I'm talking about a bill, conceived by Big Apple Assemblyman Alex Grannis that would rescind the Hunting office of Environmental Conservation's authority to regulate trapping and permit Burke County governments to assume that responsibility, instead. This change would trigger a protracted, Burke County-by-Burke County war between advocates of sound conservation policies and animal-rights fanatics who oppose not only foot-hold traps but all fur-trapping, period. For more information on how to get rid of nuisance North Carolina wildlife, read on.