Mind your own business . Everything dies . Get over it . Except they won ’ t get over it . No , they ’ ll cry and push and legislate until they shut down hunters and hunting . That ’ s the frightening part .
Not only are cancel-culture attacks baseless , but many are also faceless as anti-hunters hide behind social media handles .
Hunters , in response , say they ’ ve had enough . Enough of limiting our freedom of expression , our right to hunt legally and ethically and share our joy and successes . Just as our forefathers had done as far back as the painting of the cave walls at Lascaux . Enough of trying to make us feel inferior , evil , heartless or whatever it is you assume we might be . To heck with your bleeding-heart virtue signaling . This is life .
HUNTERS SAVE WILDLIFE Without heartless hunters pouring their hearts and dollars into wildlife management programs , all wild plants and animals will lose . We see this in nation after nation that has outlawed regulated sport hunting . With no sport hunters to stand guard , poachers move in . Goats , cattle and woodcutters strip the land . Wildlife is devalued , shot unrestrainedly for meat , poisoned as vermin and soon wiped out . ( Never mind that sport hunting is not a frivolous “ sport .” It ’ s identified as “ sport hunting ” to differentiate it from market hunting and poaching and because , like all organized sports , it has boundaries and rules , all designed to protect and sustain the hunted as well as the hunters .)
There are good reasons bison and elk and pronghorns and whitetails and turkeys and black bears and cougars and wolves have bounced back from the ragged edge of extinction to become common to abundant to pest-like ( seen any Canada geese lately ?). It ’ s because sport hunters made it happen . Sport hunters rallied against market hunting . Sport hunters initiated closed seasons , bag limits , licenses and tags . Sport hunters pushed for excise taxes on their guns and ammunition . Sport hunters demanded and paid for game wardens , disease research , habitat restoration , transplants and re-introductions .
While non-hunters and anti-hunters enjoyed their tea and dreamed of bluebirds dancing with foxes , hunters were slinging mud , digging dirt , planting trees . Hunters were rebuilding wetlands , buying grasslands , capturing and releasing sheep and elk and grouse and ferrets . Sport hunters were hiring biologists and game wardens and lobbying Congress and raising hundreds of millions of dollars annually to protect , restore and replenish the wilds .
I ’ m sorry if that doesn ’ t tug at your heartstrings and bring a tear to your eye , but the millions of animals produced and saved by hunters ’ conservation efforts far , far outstrips the number eaten by them . The number of lions saved from poachers ’ snares and poisons by the professional hunters who patrol the gritty backlands of Africa considerably surpasses the handful of senescent old males shot by sport hunters each year . Call it blood money , but blood money — paid generously by legal hunters — funds the habitat and protection of these animals and ecosystems . Trophy hunters ’ dollars ensure not only a sustainable population of lions , but vultures and sable and duikers and kudu and dik-dik and elephants and lilac-breasted rollers .
Hunters want and need wild lands and wild habitats and are willing to pay for them . Drive those hunters out and farmers , cattlemen , lumbermen and poachers move in . Within a few years the wild is gone . The wildlife is gone .
But anti-hunters back in the city are happy . Ignorant , but happy .
The simple reality is that nature is right . She / he / it / God established a biotic community on this planet that has for millions of years been swimming in blood and gore and fecundity . Every living thing stays that way by feeding on
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