Magazine Articles

The hunting community needs to demonstrate its commitment to conservation and to do so by directly speaking to and engaging the general public. Our safe ledges, from which hunters look down on the uncertainty of public discourse, can keep us for only a little longer. Social, economic, and ecological realities leave hunters absolutely no choice. Hunters must either convince society of hunting’s modern relevance and value, or perish.

Over long and now misted millennia the rhythm of our human existence was the same. Pursuing our sacred and relentless desire to survive, we hunted and gathered the living things that miraculously suited our physical needs for food and warmth. Across endless wild environments we perfected the one great arc of our existence, the first great act of globalization. We marched slowly out of Africa and encircled our world, driven by need and curiosity and fuelled by the death of wild others. Perfecting weapons within, we fashioned stone, honed bone and wood, and hunted our way to modernity.

A third revolution of wildlife conservation must occur or society will watch the miracle of wildlife recovery die. This third revolution must engender a massive mobilization of intellect and passion for the cause, but it must begin with an all-out effort to bring conservation history to the citizenry of Canada and the USA. In the absence of this, all other efforts will fail. 

Wildlife does not exist by accident. It thrives today in North America because of a wondrous network of policies, laws and financial support structures largely put in place and maintained by the small percentage of us who hunt and fish. Perhaps in some distant future society at large will pay for what we have carried for a century or more; but even if this were true would not the history of our achievement be worth telling? The reality is that no feasible alternative model for wildlife conservation is yet within our reach, and may never be.

The late nineteenth century witnessed a transformation in how we in North America viewed and cared for wildlife, and since that time, the hunter-conservationist movement has provided critical leadership for what is now a global phenomenon. It must be hunters who point out that this complex of viewpoints created a revolution in how we cared for wildlife and set forth a movement sufficiently relevant that it could be embraced by all of North American society, not just hunters, who then, as now, were in the minority.

The great transformation that marked the rise of conservationist thinking in North America was fashioned by individuals who cared deeply about the natural resources of their sovereign countries, Canada and the U.S. Their efforts, launched against improbable odds, led to the system of laws, policies and conventions and institutions we recognize today as the North American System (Model) of Wildlife Conservation. From the beginning it was joined by a much wider coalition of interests that included legions of non-hunters as well.

What if the first decision we make, even before the hunt begins, before we even rise to a new day, is to shoot our quarry only at long distances - very long distances? Where does this place the hunter and the hunted? The issue of long-range shooting has become an important one for all hunters. The question looms as to whether this new activity so alters our relationship with the hunted to demand some nomenclature of its own.

The hunting community often focuses upon its financial contributions towards conservation. However, in the author's view paying a tax established in 1937 on a rifle or ammunition today does not make anyone a conservationist, regardless of whether they hunt or not. So what does make someone a conservationist and how would you know if you met one? If hunters want to be known as conservationists, shouldn't the community be able to articulate what it means by the term?

Wolves have figured prominently in the lives and the imaginations of men seemingly forever. In both the Great Lakes region and the Northern Rocky Mountains, wolves have been increasing in numbers and expanding their range. Maintaining the big carnivores has been one of the great achievements of North America's hunter-led conservation movement. There will need to be a balancing act to maintain some equilibrium between wolf numbers and the prey that both wolves and men seek. Hunters must be the champion of the wolf, the champion of the elk and the champion of sustainable use for them all.

Unfortunately the wild abundance of America today is often taken for granted. Citizens of Canada and the United States have come to expect wildlife diversity as part of their cultural experience and remain largely uninformed of the heroic efforts that led to this priceless wild legacy and the complex infrastructure that ensures its continued presence in our lives. Addressing this lack of awareness by North American society is beyond question one of the great social responsibilities for the conservation movement in this 21st century.