How skyrocketing gun sales are helping to conserve butterflies

The Karner blue butterfly is a tiny thing, with colorful wings that extend just an inch across and a life that rarely wanders more than 600 feet from where it began. Its caterpillars can only eat wild lupines — a flower that’s become less abundant in the wild because of development and habitat fragmentation. As a result, the Karner was named an endangered species in 1992. But Karner blues are getting help from an unlikely source: gun sales.

The Nature Conservancy has a project in the works near Saratoga, New York, that will preserve an area that’s already home to these lupines and butterflies, and much of the program’s funding comes from the sales of guns and ammunition. For that, Karner conservationists can thank the Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act.
Passed by Congress in 1937 and commonly referred to as the Pittman-Robertson Act, it sets an excise tax of 10 to 11 percent on the sale of guns and ammunition, paid by manufacturers at the wholesale level. Prior to the law’s passage, guns and ammunition were already subject to taxes, but the Act ensured that the money was set aside to protect game species and their habitats. The law has helped bring deer and elk back from the brink in areas in the East, but it’s also given refuge to many non-game species, like the Karner blue butterfly. At another project in New York, Pittman-Robertson money is helping to protect 5,000 acres of grouse, turkey and deer habitat, and all the snowy owls and other birds of prey that come with it.

http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/how-skyrocketing-gun-sales-are-helping-to-conserve-butterflies/


Nice lie about the number of hunters being "flat".
From the same source the author cites...

 "The major growth of spending by hunters is good news for businesses throughout the country, particularly small businesses in rural areas," said NSSF President and CEO Steve Sanetti. "It also is gratifying to see the nine percent increase in hunting participation. Not only is the traditional male hunter going afield more often, but more women and novices are going hunting as well, demonstrating the widespread appeal of this great outdoors tradition.

http://nssf.org/newsroom/releases/show.cfm?PR=011713_SHOT_CSF-NSSF.cfm&path=2013

I bet she would be screaming if her retirement or investment account lost 9%,and she sure as hell wouldn't say her account activity was "flat".

Animal "rights" whackos and enviro-nazis always-without fail use lies,half-truths,and obfuscation to push their agendas.
They think if they keep telling the idiots who believe the horsepucky they spew that they will believe it,and they will gain even more support for their anti-gun anti-hunting efforts,and it will help their reach their objective of banning all guns and all hunting.