Northeast Michigan is a bastion of hunting and fishing, and nobody knows better than hunters and anglers the value of wild places to pass our important leisure time. Some of those wild places disappear every day, though we fight to keep them through state and federal public lands protections, as well as private voluntary conservation programs. It’s a balancing act our government has gone through seemingly forever, a balancing act that acknowledges both economic realities and the personal well-being of its constituencies.

I am especially proud of the public land available to us in this country.

As a female hunter and angler, I am stricken by the total disregard that Donald Trump has for the environment, and especially the wild places that are our legacy. His choices for the agencies that not only protect our public lands, but our air and water have been abysmal. These are truly foxes in charge of the henhouse.

There is nothing he could say or do that would erase the harm he has done to hunters and fishermen through his choices of both personnel and public policies. I am an avid hunter and angler, have fished since I was big enough to hold a fishing rod, and have hunted for more than 40 years. My hunting and fishing experiences have taught me that we must support conservation programs with our dollars, our personal commitment, and our votes in order to have fishing and hunting for our children and grandchildren.

That is why I will vote for Joe Biden in this presidential election. I simply cannot vote for someone who will consistently put his and his cronies’ financial largesse ahead of the rest of us, the people and land he has sworn to protect.

VIRGINIA PIERCE,

Michigan Sportsmen and

Sportswomen for Biden