kidoggy,
You would make your point much better if you drop the "granola" crap in your posts.
It gets old for one, and two non-hunters outnumber hunters by a wide margin. Your broad brush once again makes no distinction between a non-hunter and an anti-hunter. Finally most game laws are not passed by the non-hunters, but are self-imposed by the minority of a given States population that buy hunting licenses.
That said, I don't think its ridiculous to regulate the sale of antlers attached to a skull. Shed antlers are different, the animal didn't die.
The trouble with selling dead heads and trophies that were killed...how does the buyer know the animal was legally taken? The elk posted by the OP, nobody knows whether it was legally killed or poached for sure. Not many people that poach an animal with the intent of selling it are going to say, "yeah I poached this" to a potential buyer. They will drum up some story of how they found it dead or how grandpa shot it 30 years ago...etc. etc.
Poaching is a huge problem, for a variety of reasons as pointed out by NE69, and the pressure on the top animals is where its the worst. Whether its the value of the trophy in dollars, ego driven, or the potential income that can be derived from endorsements (think Darner, Rampola, etc.)...there are always going to be those that steal our wildlife for personal gain.
Knowing that to be a solid fact, I don't find it ridiculous at all, that some states would take steps to either further regulate the sale of antlers, horns, trophies, etc. or even make the practice illegal altogether. There simply is no way that a buyer knows if a trophy, dead head, etc. was legally taken or poached...no way.
What's really too bad is that the sport has become commercialized to the point that we even have to discuss these kinds of issues. On the other hand, to bury our collective heads in the sand and pretend its not a problem is not a viable solution either.
Poaching is a huge problem...way worse than most realize.
