[This column won a first-place award in the NYS Outdoor Writers 2002
competition in the Opinion Piece Division]



Buffalo News Outdoors Column for 1/27/2002



NEW YORK BOWHUNTER GROUP LEADS OPPOSITION


                       By Will Elliott


Critics continue to take aim at crossbows, and those opposition ranks remain
exclusively fellow archers.

As in previous years, a select group of bow hunters this past session
successfully blocked passage of legislation that would legalize the crossbow
as a hunting device in New York State.

If the opposition came from anti-gun or anti-hunting factions, the cause -
if not the fervor - could be understood. But this anti-crossbow sentiment
has been coming from an otherwise august body of archers that formed in 1991
as the New York Bowhunters. NYB decision makers constantly lobby key state
legislators and relentlessly inform archery club members of crossbow evils.

With NYB leadership ensconce as it is, Ingrid Newkirk, Mary Tyler Moore and
all other anti-hunting figureheads have no need to make a pitch opposing
this device so helpful to beginning shooters and older archers suffering
minor ""itises.'' Who knows, in years to come, PETA, U.S. Humane Society and
other save-our-wildlife advocacy groups just might be presenting awards to
New York Bowhunters for their successful efforts to keep additional hunters
from obtaining licenses and deer hunting in this state.

Before proceeding further with archery facts and stats here, it must be
noted that NYB consists mainly of dedicated, talented, devoted archers
interested in promoting the sport of archery hunting. Yet, NYB, given its
current direction, continues to lose its edge as a group purported to
represent New York bowhunters generally statewide - mainly because of its
obsessive opposition to crossbows at any level of hunting use in New York
State.

ADD

NYB bases its opposition to crossbow use for hunting in New York State on
several factors. NYB cites preference surveys of national bow organizations
and a Cornell University study done in 1985.

Technical data in the Mullaney (cq) Report says a hand drawn and hand held
vertical bow ""... is much more complicated than aiming a fixed set of
ballistics...'' as one does when shooting a crossbow.

NYB also cites the Marlow Report, which concludes ""...the crossbow is
technically superior to the modern hand held bow in almost every category of
comparison.'' This report then adds ""(the crossbow) is closer to being a
firearm than a hand held bow.'' Several area bow club members have pointed
out that a crossbow has a gun-like stock and a trigger similar to a rifle or
shotgun.

END OF ADD

While 44 states have legalized crossbows and the remaining six states have
seen attempts at making them legal, NYB cites five- and 10-year old studies
showing either an apparent unpopularity of this device or the opposition of
organizations devoted exclusively to shooting vertical, hand-drawn bows.

In recent months, the New York State Farm Bureau approved of crossbow use,
44 of 51 counties participating in New York State Conservation Council
proceedings voted in favor of legalizing them. Nonetheless, each time a bill
appears before state legislature members, NYB is right there with a
""Crossbow Alert,'' supplying names of key senators and assembly persons, to
thwart whatever might be proposed.

This barrage of mailing and phone-call appeals has cost NYB in recent years.
Its anti-crossbow - ultimately an anti-hunter - campaign has contributed
directly to a marked decline in NYB membership. In 1995, NYB could boast
card-carrying archer numbers just above 4,000, according to its treasurer
Dale Walburger. Today, that roster lists less than 2,800 members.

Attendance at statewide NYB functions has dropped markedly; a 10th
Anniversary Rendezvous held at LeRoy Sept. 15-16, 2001 drew less than 200 on
Saturday and less than 100 archers on Sunday. All this despite remarkable
work Northwoods Sportsmen's Association members did in providing an
interesting series of seminars, useful displays, a 40-target 3-D shooting
course, great food and pleasant late-summer weather.

What's wrong?

New York's bowhunters tire of seeing most of NYB's efforts aimed at stopping
crossbow hunters from becoming accepted as hunters in this state. While NYB
leaders inveigh against a device, their anti-crossbow efforts ultimately aim
at those very hunters excluded - inadvertently or intentionally - from the
ranks of deer hunters statewide.

NYB assists less than 100 severely handicapped archers each year. Yet
thousands of young archers unable to draw legal-sized vertical bows and
thousands of older archers with minor - but restricting - conditions such as
arthritis, bursitis, and other ""miseries'' could be buying archery licenses
and hunting for deer - if crossbows were legal.

Department of Environmental Conservation harvest and license sales numbers
tell just where archery hunting in particular and deer hunting in general
has headed in recent years. During the period that NYB membership declined
(1996-2001), archery license sales went from 169,514 to 181,362. Today, at
less than 2,800 members, NYB only represents less than 1.7 percent of bow
hunters in this state.

In harvest numbers, archers, while their kill numbers have increased from
22,683 in 1996 to 29,812 in 2000-2001, have a total take of only 10 percent
of the 295,859 deer killed by gun hunters (shotgun, rifle and muzzleloader).
Hence, archers have a relatively minor role in deer kills for management
purposes; none could expect crossbows to magically increase harvests. Gun
hunters outnumber archers almost four to one, with big-game license sales at
665,308 in 2000-2001.

Given all these facts and numbers, one might conclude that archers should
reject this New York Bowhunters organization. On the contrary, as an active
and concerned archer, I would strongly urge that bow shooters recently
dropping membership, those disappointed with current NYB activities and all
bow hunters who have yet to affiliate with a local club or NYB, join and be
heard. Archers are not just vertical bow hunters, not just purists who
believe crossbows are guns, not just primitive shooters or shooters of
unrelieved-string-pull bows.

Archers' greatest source of strength is that they are all hunters - sport
hunters who could either effectively unite or be divided and diminished by
anti-gun and anti-hunting groups statewide and nationally.

NYB now has the ear of Senator Carl Marcellino (R-Oyster Bay) current
chairman of the Senate's Environmental Conservation Committee. Western New
York's Assemblyman Richard Smith (D/C/I-Blasdell) sits on that committee.

Contact these leaders (letters work best) and tell them about those 44
states allowing crossbows, for 25 years in Ohio, for 22 years in Arkansas
and with 22 states allowing crossbows during any season except archery-only.

Write to: Senator Carl Marcellino; 250 Townsend Square; Oyster Bay, NY
11771; Assemblyman Richard Smith; 3812 South Park Ave., Blasdell, NY 14219.

After that, join or renew your NYB membership. Send $15 for a one-year
membership to: New York Bowhunters, P.O. Box 619, Lafayette, NY 13084.

Then, all sportsmen and women will have greater unity - and clout - as
archers and hunters collectively. I just might upgrade my NYB status to Life
Memberbership - but not contribute to its ""Anti-Crossbow Fund''