[Arachnodisiac]

It's an intensely complicated issue, and this is one aspect of a much larger one referred often to ecological goods and services.

Landowners with native, unbroken ground province the province with countless services of high value. One of those services is allowing hunters to access private land for the purpose of securing food. Another service is keeping healthy land with strong biodiversity provides habitat and continual pollen and nectar sources for wild bees. Those wild bees in turn provide pollination for crop farmers who otherwise would not have the diversity needed to sustain the hives necessary for pollination. There are others such as sequestering carbon, watershed improvement, etc.

The trouble is that these landowners frequently see their own bottom lines impacted by the demands of providing these eco services. Right now, cattle prices are high, but when they drop, this is when we see ground broken and lost forever. Manitoba has less than one per cent of its native grasslands remaining, and what is left is in a park. Manitoba used to have burrowing owls, (more) mule deer, plains grizzly, and pronghorn. Now they hardly even have any badgers to speak of. (I'm missing a bunch of species they've lost too, but it's late and I'm tired.)

Anyway, it's really important to remember that this is one part of a much longer discussion. At some point, there will likely be some kind of compensation model developed for eco services, but I very much doubt it will come directly out of the pockets of hunters as an upfront cost.

It is worth noting that hunters do fund the compensation offered for livestock predation.