I think when it comes down to it, what we have a problem with is the government telling us, as grown men what and what not to do, with a few simple feathers that we find on the road. But if we're really gonna complain about the gov't telling us what to do, we should complain about a whole lot of other things first. For example, how the government can force me to wear a seatbelt in my truck, supposedly for my own safety, but then the guy that pulls up beside me riding a Harley that weighs 1/4 as much, doesn't even have a helmet on, much less a seatbelt. It comes down to cowardess and theft. The gov't knows that they can pull over the average car or truck with no problem, but as soon as they try to pull over the Hell's Angels and tell them to get off the Harley because it's not safe to ride since it doesn't have a seatbelt, they're likely to get shot in the face by one of the other 20 or 30 riders in the gang. They leave them alone and go after us individuals. I don't want to jack the thread Im just giving an example.
But in this case, I think the government has a reason for putting this law in place. to possess a raptor feather is to value it, and to value it is to make use of it whenever you can, which means constantly being on the look out for some. And as usual, a few idiots ruin it for everyone. Example: What would stop someone from seeing a buzzard or other large bird, on the road, and being slower to take flight and perhaps preoccupied with eating their roadkill, speed up and cream it, just to get the feathers? Basically, if you possess a raptor feather, there's no way of proving if you did or did not kill the bird to get it, in whatever way. And I think that's where it comes from.
But we'll each do whatever we do when the time presents itself. Hopefully we can all find a supplier of wild turkey feathers and get enough that way to where we don't have to resort to picking up feathers with maggots crawling through them anyway.