Most significant threat to hunting?

[William Tell Not]

Originally posted by Ray Hammond:


The same reason we are about to become the newest socialist state on the planet

Not in my life time

[vermonster13]

Too much focusing on what's wrong and not enough of promoting what's right.

[Day Dreamer]

Man

[rascal]

Wow, I could likely launch into a diatribe that would bore every reader here to tears concerning this seemingly innocent queery.  (Dont worry Ill refrain)

In my opinion the single biggest threat to our hunting heritage is detatchment.  Dont get me wrong its like saying the reason the bucket is wet inside is because of a drop of water.  However true it may be, that single drop of water is joined by countless other drops to cause the bucket to be fully wet.  There are indeed countless causes attributing the decline in the hunter numbers and hunting's popularity but simply put as a society we have become detatched from the lifestyle that promoted outdoor sports in general.

I bow my head and raise my hands that I have been lucky enough to have been raised in a family that knew where its meat, eggs and produce came from (you might guess that wasnt the mega-super-giganto-mart).  We planted and harvested, we hatched, raised and butchered, we birthed, fed and slaughtered or milked, we collected eggs, we hunted and we fished.  There was no shame in what we did, everyone did it where I grew up.  No remorse for the rooster who was raised to be butchered, no guilt for the butcher.  Hunting served a purpose there was no shame in setting out for a day afield, no malicious intent on the part of the hunter.  Contrary to what some may think the farmer does not hate the rooster, the hunter does not loathe the hunted.

Today.....

As far as the majority of society is concerned drumsticks come from a drumstick bush, hand picked at the peak of ripeness when the celophane stretches tight over the pink styrofoam tray.  Those wonderful steaks pumped out of a Steak-O-Rator 9000 high speed, high volume, fully automated, production quality machine nestled in a pristine valley bathed in constant sunshine and gentle breezes.  Honestly people cant even relate to their daily meals how can you expect the same people to understand the primal nature of hunting.  They dont understand animals or farming and they certianly have no connection to nature.  They have in fact become "detatched" from the lifestyle and from the land.  

For better or worse hunters and hunting have been driven to the point of being little more than a niche group participating in a niche activity.  I wont point fingers at conservation groups or televised hunting or leases..... (insert typical divisional rhetoric here) all of them are simply attempts by, for the most part,  good people to preserve their hunting heritage.  Even if some are misguided at times.

I would like to, at the risk or launching into the afore mentioned diatribe, point out that the second biggest threat to our hunting heritage in my opinion is division.  I may not always agree with the way other people hunt but so long as it is within the confines of the law I will support their right to do so.  I may not choose to hunt with them or around them but I support their choice to hunt they way they do.  I refuse to be divided from my fellow hunters, trappers, fishermen and outdoorsmen.  What they loose is what we loose. I will not stand against them even if they stand against me in some misguided attempt to better their own position.  Next time you pass a "Wheelie Guy" or a "Gun Hunter" do not turn your nose up at them, tip you hat instead and bid them good hunting.  Who knows the trend could catch on.

Well thats probably my $.02 and some change to boot.

[jcar315]

As others have said "we are" the biggest threat. The anti hunters are a small minority and like most issues the vast majority fall somewhere in the "indifferent" middle ground. Any time a "hunter" shoots a cow, someones house / dog / goat and the local paper runs a front page story about it the "silent majority" has another exposure to "hunting" and what "hunters" are all about. Also, how many of us go out of our way to invite someone who we know doesn't hunt / or maybe hasn't hunted in years along to go hunting with us? Lots of small things we could do to expose people to what hunting is really about. But most people just don't get it and probbably never will and that's ok too. We just don't want them turning into an "anti-hunting voting block!"

[Sam McMichael]

I think the media, the anti-hunting groups, and generally liberal trends in modern America have subtly made the concept of hunting to be less attractive and "natural" than it was in my younger years. Moreover, it is just not considered to be politically correct. Add to that the tendency to be less active due to television and computer games.  In short, more and more people are just plain scared to get out of sight of the pavement. There is just less interest overall in doing "outdoor stuff".

[mwmwmb]

First and foremost, to the question at hand, the threat to hunting is and has always been hunters. For many reasons, be it the negative images stereotypical poachers, kill at all cost types or devisive infighting or many of the other topics discussed. BUT THE BOTTOM LINE IS IF MORE HUNTERS PASSED THIS TRADITION ON, NOT JUST TO YOUR OWN KIDS, there would not be a problem. the reality is many people are disconnected, is this their fault if no one took the time to take them hunting and teach them the love of the outdoors.

And Second, This is not a LIBERAL vs CONSERVATIVE issue. this is a RURAL vs URBAN issue. I WILL REMIMD YOU THAT SOME OF THESE THREATS COME FROM REPUBLICANS FROM ILLINOIS.

So get involved. take a youth hunting and/or fishing.  your future depends on it .

[Dryrot]

Apathy.
That and too many of US fall prey to the divide and conquer agenda and methods of the anti-hunters.

[-Achilles-]

b.glass has a good point

[KSdan]

I address this everyday in my life work.  

It is a world view (philosophical idea about all of life) that is based in the beginning premise that all that exists is matter, "something comes from nothing."  This ends in relativism.  This leads to ideologies such as socialism and naturalism. In the end, there is not only a loss of truth and the sanctity of human beings, but animals are elevated to a position higher than man.  Oppression has ALWAYS been the result. (200,000,000 people exterminated in the last century alone due to this wrongful idea). It is predictable, and I fear, already upon us unless people change their fundamental understanding about the origin of man, destiny, morality, and purpose.

Animals rights, loss of good land use, loss of tradition, etc. are ALL the result of this issue.  Anything else is simply dealing with the symptom, not the source.

Dan in KS

[Llyr]

Originally posted by mwmwmb:
This is not a LIBERAL vs CONSERVATIVE issue.

Indeed.  It's a peculiarity of our two-party system that everything has to be sorted on one side or the other (I forget, is cake or pie conservative?  'Cause you know they have to be one or the other.), even though those long lists of things often have nothing to do with each other.

I'm not a liberal, I'm a leftist - for some of my reasons, see my post earlier in this thread.  I hunt every year.  My wife is a liberal, and while she doesn't hunt (she'd rather not see anything suffering), she thinks it's the moral way to get meat, and she'll go out of her way to do what she can to help.  Her cousin, a liberal and an environmental scientist, hunts every year.  Her best friend's husband, a lefty and a math teacher, hunts every year.

I've let it be known to all my "lefty" friends that anytime they want to discuss my hunting, I'd be happy to.  I've had plenty of conversations, and all of them went well.  A few of the moral vegetarians disagree with me, and I accept that, because they have their ethical code and are living by it, and the world could probably use more compassion in it and not less.  The rest of them are completely fine with my hunting and fishing, and relish it when I bring them a backsteak or two.  A few of them are even making noises about joining me next year.

I'm not perfect, God knows, and I could do more.  But that's one way to start turning things around.  Pointing fingers, demonizing other people, and waxing poetic about the evils of liberalism or whatever does no one any good.  It's lazy thinking.

My two sawbucks.

[wolfamongdogs]

1)Ignorant/arrogant people

2)loss of habitat ( see #1)

[Wary Buck]

Kids growing up without any connection to the outdoors, farming, etc.  This has dire consequences for us hunters and us as a society.  Today, a parent has to make a major effort to go to a shooting range to intro his kids to guns or bows.  He has to take his kids to a zoo or a farm to show them animals or livestock.

Back in the day, more of us grew up on farms or atleast could walk down the road a bit to hunt rabbits or ride horses or go fishing or snoop around in a marsh.  We grew up around animals and knew that meat came from livestock.  THAT is not within reach of most kids today and we are surely losing something because of it.

[jonsimoneau]

I think overall it is overpopulation by humans.  In essence, not enough land to support everyone who wants to hunt.

[WestTnMan]

NINTENDO............the kids that ought to be outside now and tagging along with us won't get off the nintendo games. Heck, I am 48 and in the summer I'm the only kid outside. My boys did alright on that until they caught their first whiffs of perfume and gas. Sure hope they come back someday.

[Roadkill]

first ammo, then firearms-how far behind can we be?

[Plumber]

sometimes we have to ask ourselves what are we doing to premote youth hunting ? my wife is a teacher and I told her right away my sons will miss school to go hunting at frist she said like hell they will.It was then I unleashed a flurry of reasons why they WILL miss school for this event.she now thinks schools should be closed for atleast 1-day.hunter safty-3-d shoots are a few ways of showing our youth the way.If every hunter took 1 kid hunting we would nothave this problem

[SELFBOW19953]

Delaware, State Employee

I buy/protect land for wildlife habitat and public hunting.  The protected land is still privately owned, but it can never grow houses.  Most of the purchased land is open to public hunting.

My sister-in-law is a PETA person.  To her I'm a a murderer because I hunt.  She cannot, or will not, accept that I am a nature lover or that I only kill animals that are legal game and eat what I shoot (my wife also eats whatever I drag home).  I catch snakes and relocate them where they aren't scaring my wife, I feed the birds and squirrels and I love to photograph nature.  She can't comprehend that one can love nature and still hunt.

Our problems as I see them:

1. underutilization of public hunting lands.  a fair amount of our land gets little use.  Our legislators see this and question why we need to protect any more since what we own isn't being used.  Some have even proposed selling public lands.  Many of us hunt only on leased land.  
2.  slob hunters/dirt-bags.  There are still too many "hunters" who trespass, shoot from roads, shoot out of season or at night, dump carcasses beside the road or on "unowned" land.  Turn them in when you see them.
3.  positive hunter's image.  We need to be sure we present a positive image to the non-hunter, those people who aren't for or against hunting.  The anti-hunters will never agree with us anymore than we'll ever agree with them, we can't convert PETA types.
4.  our physical appearance.  Don't go into the store for a drink if you're bloody from a field dressing job.  Don't go into the liquor store/bar with your hunting clothes on (the hunters=drunks syndrome).  Camo isn't a fashion statement.  There are lots of non-hunting people we don't want to be lumped with who wear camo.
5.  youth involvement.  Try to get schools involved in the National Archery in the Schools Program (they have a website).  The program calls for wheelie bows (fingers, no sights, no letoff), but the kids learn archery fundamentals, proper form, and it should be an easy migration to traditional.
6.  state hunting agencies.  Learn about them, try to help them, support them.  They have a tough job.  The legislators who control the purse strings also have constituents who are anti-hunters.  Politicians are more interested in votes than science.  They will support the largest voter pool (my sister-in-law's HSUS group endorsed Obama simply because he vowed to get a dog from a shelter and supported a few of their programs, no other reason).
7.  horn hunting exclusively.  Most states have a deer population problem.  Horn hunting doesn't reduce the population.  Shoot at least one anterless deer for each set of horns you take.  
8.  be open minded.  Not every stick and string shooter is a tradionalist and not every gun or wheelie bow hunter is a non-traditionalist.  sometimes the biggest difference in us is our choice of weapon. They may have never been exposed to a a longbow.  Many of them are ripe for the converting.

[Schultzy]

Originally posted by Ray Hammond:
us.

I've been telling people for 20 years that our fate as hunters rests not with the anti's, but with the vast pool of people in the middle that neither hunt nor care for the rhetoric of the "save the whales nuke the Republicans no nukes don't wear fur down with hunting fishing hurts eat tofu" crowd- and if we don't win them over we're doomed.

Winning them over means we have to show them we are more than beer drinking' rebel flag toting night shining over the limit kill at all costs yahoos. Not sure that's possible any more.

100 yard shots at elk with a bow trumps all the good a bunch of people can do. A picture in the paper of a goose with a field point tipped arrow sticking out of its neck is worth 10,000 guys doing it the hard way. A guy on TV saying "I do it the hard way" and then proceeding to take 40 yard running shots at caribou works out to about a million hours of "good efforts" by the rest of hunters...so I'm not sure it can happen.

Couldn't agree more!! I've said this for a long time myself.

[Schultzy]

Originally posted by Wary Buck:
Kids growing up without any connection to the outdoors, farming, etc.  This has dire consequences for us hunters and us as a society.  Today, a parent has to make a major effort to go to a shooting range to intro his kids to guns or bows.  He has to take his kids to a zoo or a farm to show them animals or livestock.

Back in the day, more of us grew up on farms or at least could walk down the road a bit to hunt rabbits or ride horses or go fishing or snoop around in a marsh.  We grew up around animals and knew that meat came from livestock.  THAT is not within reach of most kids today and we are surely losing something because of it.

Another excellent post!!