ORIGINAL: HAZCON7
Fellas - we always hear how "we need to give bowhunting a shot in the arm"or "broaden the reach of our sport."
The WHA promises to give hunting a boost.
This seems to be a blanket argument for many changes in our community.
So my question is, Why? Seriously, I can't figure out why we need to give hunting a boost. I can't come up with a single good reason other than the almighty dollar. We already have an overpopulation of hunters on public land and dwindling areas to hunt otherwise due tooutfitters buying up as much land as they can get to.
I am not whinning and am open to suggestion - perhaps I am overlooking something very obvious.
I definately see a need to PRESERVE our traditions and hunting heritage. But isn't this best accomplished on a personal level where morals and ethics are taught one-on-one, in person?
The only reasons I can see for giving archery, hunting,or bowhunting a "shot in the arm" is to sell more equipment, videos, and magazines. How can any of that be good for our community when there is already too much of it... think Jimmy Houstonin a high fence enclosure with a drugged deer in order to get a "good shot" on video.
No Sir, I DON'T think our sport needs to be advanced. I suspect that is only an excuse to do our community harm.
But... I am open to suggestion.
Check out this article and it may answer some of your questions:
http://www.nraila.org/Issues/Articles/Read.aspx?ID=171
"As the number of hunters drops and their average age advances, fewer and fewer of them appear to be passing along that heritage to their children.
According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service`s National Survey of Hunting, Fishing and Wildlife-Associated Recreation, on average, just one out of every four children from a hunting household actively participates in hunting.
One way to assess the health of hunting in America is to use the same models biologists use to gauge the health of wildlife populations.
For a wildlife population to be stable, every individual of a species lost to disease, predation or old age must be replaced by another of that species, in a 1-to-1 ratio, through a process known as "recruitment."
If you look at the recruitment rates of American hunters, you see we already may be endangered.
Since most hunters are introduced to the sport as youngsters, and since few adults take up hunting if they weren`t exposed to it in their youth, common sense suggests that having a stable population of hunters requires that the percentage of youth hunters should match the percentage of adult hunters. But it doesn`t. Not even close.
Indeed, nationally, if you compare the percentage of the population between the ages of six and 16 that hunts, with the percentage of the population over age 16 that hunts, instead of getting the 1-to-1 ratio needed to maintain current levels, you get just 0.69-to-1.
Stated simply, we may be about 31 percent below keeping our heads above water.
Putting Logic into the Laws "Fifty years ago, most kids started hunting at an early age as a form of family recreation and to help put food on the table," said Dawson Hobbs, NRA-ILA manager of hunting policy. "Today, with 160 satellite tv channels, video games and everything else, young people have never had so many activities competing for their attention. If we don`t involve them early on, we`ll lose them to those other activities."
continued....
"What would happen if hunting died off in America?
Each year, American hunters spend more than $700 million on hunting licenses, permits, tags and stamps. Without these monies, who would fund the state and federal conservation programs that keep wildlife populations healthy and in balance?
On top of that $700 million, American hunters spend another $20 billion on hunting equipment, transportation, lodging and the like--more than Americans spend on coffee.
How many American jobs would be lost without that $20 billion boost to our economy?
Yet, compared to the long-term consequences for freedom, those costs could be trivial.
Since most hunters are introduced to the sport by their parents, one generation is all it would take to cut off hunting at its knees."