This is an idea and a plan to make wildlife visible and for everyone. Not to be gatekeeped by institutions,museums and the government agencies. As well as improve habitat and create more parks in urban,suburban and rural areas.
I believe this is an idea that everyone can agree on. Both sides of the aisle.
Currently under the migratory bird treaty act. And endangered species act. A regular citizen may not possess a dead, or taxidermy mount of a bird species . Every day hundreds of thousands of birds are killed by highways,windows ,planes, powerlines windmills etc. legally right now nobody may touch them or possess them. If one bird is found dead that falls under those acts. Such as a red tailed hawk ,which isn’t endangered anymore ,but cannot legally hunt them . If one of those was found dead,a regular citizen cannot pick it up and get it mounted or turned into a study skin . It must stay on the road and rot or get eaten by possums etc. unless a game warden or educational institution wants it to add to their collections. Which very very very rarely happens. And when it does In the case of many animals they go into storage and people don’t get to see them up close. They go into a storage facility for many years ,maybe for one month they get taken out by some college kids to look at and see how evolution of the species changed over 50 years. But other than that they never get seen.
United States citizens have a right to it’s wildlife. In most states if a deer gets hit by a car you can call the sheriff and get a permit to keep the meat and skin. Same with a bobcat you can get a permit to get it mounted . As long as it clearly wasn’t poached. Seeing animals rot on the side of the road is a disgrace to the animal and the people that can put it to use for future generations to see and appreciate. Plus with my plan it would be a great way to bring more growth in many areas to the environment.
For example if a person finds a red tailed hawk or any other protected species .dead along the road. What they can do is take it to a game warden and get it checked out for diseases and make sure it wasn’t poached . Or a federally licensed taxidermist and that taxidermist can do a zoom video call with either a game warden or USFWS warden and show it wasn’t poached. We have the infrastructure already . Any taxidermist that does birds needs to be federally licensed . And most people can video zoom calls. Then the person who found the bird can buy a permit for the bird ,let’s say for a larger more sought after bird they charge 100 bucks for a red tailed hawk. Then the taxidermist gets the work to mount the birds and the citizen gets to keep the bird and the children of America get to appreciate it and want to conserve the species.
Now that 100 dollar permit that the person just got . We take that money and give 20 bucks to the agency who checked to make sure it wasn’t poached then the rest of the money goes to a fund a government organization to buy land in buffer zones and edge habitats which is crucial to migratory birds and wildlife. Look at a place like outside Philly or Jersey crucial areas which birds need to stop on the migration. Outside cities to where the public can go to these parks and the land that the funds buy the lands to have walking trails,maybe have little bodies of water or wetlands which is crucial for birds.
It’s a win win every where.
The bird got hit by a car or found dead somewhere. Which isn’t great . The finder wants it mounted . The finder pays a permit fee to keep it. They get to have the bird and puts wildlife in people’s houses. Then the money raised goes to by land and creates parks in crucial areas where people need a place to walk and decompress and spend time in nature.
Imagine creating new parks and places for people in cities to go to with it being self funded.
I’m a world champion taxidermist who does alot of work for educational facilities and government agencies . In particular protected species. And when I drive around where I live almost everytime I see a dead bird that’s protected that legally has to rot and cannot be possessed.
In Canada the same thing goes on and they can possess most all species using the same process. It would boost the economy and give places for people to go. I’m not saying the funding would be able to buy humongous large pieces of land like yellow stone . But every week I get phone calls of people finding dead birds and I have to tell them they can’t have them and it has to rot .
The trouble is legally both of those treaties are outdated and have to be changed ,we have the infrastructure to have the game warden be able to tell if it’s poached or not and if it died of disease or not. There is not a single downside to this . In the United Kingdom they are allowed to possess all birds. There’s alot of folks that would love this. You could contact me at Taxidermy by Cam llc in Julian PA.
I hope this idea catches some lawmakers eye and we can get things to happen