By Dennis Smith –
With the first 14 years of the 21st century under our belts, some of us hunting and fishing types are wondering what the future might bring. In the course of the last hundred years, we witnessed the phenomenal recovery from near extinction of almost all our big-game species, waterfowl and game bird flocks, as well as the big predators and migratory salmon runs that were lost to market hunting, commercial exploitation, habitat losses to energy and housing development or various kinds of industrial pollution.
Thank hunters and conservation organizations, such as the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, for the restoration of our game herds and flocks.
All of us can thank the hundreds of national hunter- and angler-sponsored conservation organizations and our state fish and game departments for those incredibly successful wildlife restorations. But then, for at least the first half of the 20th century, we were still largely a rural and agrarian society; a lot more of us grew up closer to the land farming, ranching or living in small agricultural communities whose livelihoods and businesses were dependent on those farms and ranches. We understood where our food came from and how it was produced and brought to market. As a whole, the nation had a more intimate relationship with the land and its wild and domestic animals. Many of us learned to hunt, fish and process our own food simply as a matter of course; it was the natural order of things.
But things might not be so rosy for hunters or wildlife in the coming years. Nationally, fishermen numbers are up and our fisheries are doing well, all things considered. But it’s the revenue from hunting licenses that pays the bills for the vast majority of state-managed wildlife programs and habitat purchases, and hunter numbers have been declining for years. While some of this decline is attributed to population shifts from rural to urban areas, a lot of it is due to massive media misrepresentation of hunting and an outright assault on responsible gun ownership. Though some cable channels are finally promoting hunting and the shooting sports, the major television networks still refuse to portray hunting as the healthy, outdoor family activity it is. Ironically though, they, along with the national film industry, willingly provide our children with an endless stream of violent films and computer games in which people blow each other away with guns and bombs or hack each other up with chain saws, hatchets and sling blades. And that is considered award-winning entertainment? Is it any wonder we have disturbed kids and nut cases acting out the violence they see over and over on the screen? And then, of course, these same network spin doctors evangelize gun control legislation like gospel ministers every time we turn on the television. In between their flow of shoot-’em-ups and blow-’em-ups, they exhort us to turn in our guns — to save our kids. Hypocrites.
Look at it this way: In a society where the media won’t show the hunting of ducks and deer in prime time, but consider it perfectly all right to glorify the murder and mutilation of human beings day in and day out, it’s difficult to predict the future of any outdoor recreation that involves guns. If hunters are taken out of the wildlife loop in the coming century, it may just undo all the good we accomplished in the last one. That’s not something anyone should be looking forward to. Photo caption: Thank hunters and conservation organizations, such as the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, for the restoration of our game herds and flocks.