Does love of money put wildlife at risk?

On a long-ago hunt with my dad, I saw my first framed $1 bill in a Caswell County country store. Above the bill was written: “In God we trust. All others pay cash.”

The sign piqued my curiosity. If I’d had $1, I’d have spent it on  baseball cards. I wondered why anyone loved money so much they’d frame a dollar. Today, I know the more money some people have, the more they want. That’s why we have holdup artists, burglars and politicians. Fortunately, most of us take the working-honestly route.

So the question becomes, why would North Carolina residents who raise cervids — deer and elk  —  who deal in animals and antlers worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, care so little about the health of  our wild whitetails that they’d willingly risk our hunting heritage to make a few dollars more?

The portion of the proposed 2014 state budget bill that would put the N.C. Department of Agriculture in charge of cervids instead of the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission — thereby creating less border security that could allow Chronic Wasting Disease into the state — makes no sense, unless you follow the money.

The N.C. Department of Agriculture does a great job, but big-game animals aren’t in its purview. On the other hand, the Commission has managed all cervids for 11 years. Result? No CWD in penned cervids or wild whitetails in North Carolina.

A cross between AIDS and cancer, the disease causes horrible deaths in affected animals. According to a University of Oklahoma study, it’s transmitted by “environmental passages” at “scrapes, rubs, mineral licks, wintering areas and captive facilities” and has killed thousands of deer and elk in midwestern and western states.

But the N.C. Deer/Elk Farmers Association, led by Tom Smith, the former CEO of Food Lion, tried unsuccessfully five years ago to get the Commission to loosen rules on importing deer.  With state government now in Republican hands, Smith has taken a different route. He “contributed” cash to Gov. Pat McCrory and key North Carolina legislators. The budget hasn’t been approved at this writing, so we may — or may not — have opened our borders to CWD. If the legislature voted no, it certainly won’t be the last attempt to purchase favor in Raleigh.

I figure the Caswell store owner framed his first dollar to jog his memory of that event, lest he forget. But I suspect most North Carolina sportsmen’s fondest recollections have to do with things money can’t buy nor erase — a first squirrel, wingshot quail or whitetail buck.

Those are my memories, and they’ve lasted more than 50 years. I don’t need a sign on a wall to remind me.

And as Andy Griffith often said, I wouldn’t take a dollar and a quarter for that.