From time to time, I hear it said that the Sierra Club is pro-hunting.

For the record, here is what the Sierra Club New Jersey Chapter had to say in reaction to an announcement—long awaited by hunters—that New Jersey has finally approved a bear management plan that includes a hunting season.

“The state has eliminated funds for education, programs that deal with garbage, bear aversion therapy, bear wardens, conservation officers, and other non-lethal methods of management.

“The Sierra Club opposes the bear hunt and will continue to fight for a strong bear management plan that actually works."

The full press release is here.

Call me crazy but that does not sound pro-hunting. And I do not think that educational information about bear-proofing your garbage needs any significant funding. It’s all over the Internet, or you could even pick up the phone and call the game and fish department.

And the conservation officers New Jersey already has don’t have time to be conservation officers because they—and the police—are too busy answering bear nuisance complaints, coaxing bears off porches and away from schoolbus stops, and dragging road-killed bears off the highways.

As for management plans “that actually work,” Sierra Club NJ might do well look at nearby states like New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia – all of which have bear hunting seasons-- and compare the number of bear nuisance complaints, not to mention the overall health of the bear populations in those states. Hunting in those states has kept bears within their carrying capacity, whereas in New Jersey, bears are fast outpacing theirs.

There are many sources of lead in the environment, and NRA is on the record as raising serious questions about studies claiming that condors are dying in great numbers because of lead bullet fragements they supposedly pick up in gut piles left by hunters. But citing just such concerns, Utah is instituting a voluntary non-lead ammunition program for deer and elk hunters in the southwestern part of the state.

Utah’s 2010 Big Game regulations (page 35) announce that the Utah Division of Wildlife and Utah Wildlife in Need joined together to offer coupons for one free box of lead-free ammunition for deer and elk hunters in certain parts of southwestern Utah.

Arizona has had a similar program for several years, and the word "voluntary" has helped achieve a compliance record of about 90 percent.

Both states may be more concerned about lawsuits filed by radical environmental groups than about any widespread danger to condors. But whatever the motivation, let's make sure this program stays "voluntary."

OK, now I’ve heard everything.

Scientists at Carnegie Institution for Science are arguing that “overhunting” of wooly mammoths 15,000 years ago led to a small but measurable change in the planet’s weather.

Their reasoning is as follows: When the last Ice Age ended 15,000 years ago, the warming temperatures started die-offs among mammoths, which were more suited to frigid weather. Human hunters then decreased the mammoth population “far more rapidly than would have occurred otherwise,” according to the scientists.

As mammoth populations dropped, one of their favored foods—birch trees—was allowed to grow and spread freely. According to the study, the trees grew “more than enough to blot out the sun from the grass below. The trees actually darkened the color of the landscape, increasing the amount of sunlight absorbed and heating up the area.”

(Personally, I thought such a condition was called “shade.” Shows you how smart I am.)

So, as mammoths died off, birch trees spread uncontrollably, and a vicious cycle of warming ensured. Researchers did find that the amount of birch pollen in northern areas increased dramatically, coinciding with the arrival of human hunters and drops in mammoth populations.

I confess I have not read the complete report, but I suspect the scientists did not suggest what human beings 15,000 years ago were supposed to do for food other than hunt.

Should you want to know another perspective on climate change, read Beyond Seasons’ End. The single biggest problem I have in grappling with the whole issue is simply knowing who to believe. Beyond Seasons’ End was written by a group of people I actually trust—hunters. Habitat experts from Ducks Unlimited, Pheasants Forever, Boone and Crockett and other conservation groups all contributed. I don’t pretend to accept all of it, but hunting is too important to me not to consider all perspectives of a complicated issue.