WIHA is the definition of a subsidy. Public money paid to the private sector to keep the price of goods and services artificially low. And it is absolutely unsustainable without out-of-state money, just like the roads we drive on to go hunting in Kansas, the electrical grid we use to charge our phones and all those weird devices pointing dog people have to carry around for their dogs that beep and buzz, the cell and internet infrastructure that we use to tell use where we are and what bars are open near Leoti at 9 pm on Wednesday, even the farms that the birds eat the grain from are almost all subsidized in one form or another by people who don't live in Kansas. Kansas is a net-debtor state, that takes more in federal taxes every year than it contributes, for God's sakes. The entire place is a giant welfare state, paid for by Oregon and California and New York and Texas.
I say it's worth it. Lot's of those Californians and Oregonian disagree. Hopefully they don't find out how Kansans feel about the few people who do visit Kansas each year...
But that's not really the issue we're discussing...which is whether or not it would even be effective to limit big, bad, out-of-staters (who apparently are better shots than Kansans, hunt harder, and find more birds) from marauding and pillaging all the stuff Kansans "deserve" to have all to themselves. It wouldn't. Because hunting, as practiced today, doesn't really affect bird populations. Habitat does. Out of state hunters aren't killing all the birds. Kansas farmers are. And if you don't do something about that, the out-of-state bird hunter problem will correct itself soon enough. Ask Iowans.
