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Stakeholder Advisory Committee

Emmett Edmonds, Animal Control Officer

I am a lifelong resident of Virginia from a family of fourteen. I always lived in a rural area where people fish and hunt as a way of life. Hunting was used as a form of recreation for all. Later in life, I was blessed with two sons and wanted them to experience the pleasure nature had to offer. So got two beagles and raised a pack of ten. We hunted deer and rabbit. But they, like myself, enjoyed rabbit hunting best. I think it was mainly because the chase was much shorter. We would often load up the dogs and take them to my grandfather's seventy-eight acre farm and just listen to them run. I found this to be a bonding experience with my sons. Sometimes we would just sit in the woods and talk and find out what was going on in their life at school and what they were thinking about. I also used this time to teach them to respect the property of others, the hounds in which they hunted with, the outdoors, and the proper use and safety of firearms.

In the mid-eighties I was appointed Senior Animal Control Officer of Halifax County. So I hear first hand a lot of landowner's issues concerning hunting. I hear it from both sides: the hound owners and the landowners.

I currently serve as a board member for the Virginia Animal Control Association (VACA). One of my duties as a VACA board member is a liaison for fifteen counties in Virginia. I coached Dixie Youth Baseball for eighteen years before being elected District Director. As District Director of Dixie Youth Baseball I oversee league operations and insure that all children that want to play baseball have the opportunity to play. My district covers four counties and nine leagues. This position oversees operations and schedule tournament games.

My main interest in the SAC is to close the gap between landowners and hound hunters. Try to come up with a compromise that at the end of the day everyone can walk away knowing they got something out the deal. Also to ensure that hunting in Virginia is long lived and conducted in a manner that is respected by landowners and hunters.