Hunter Green

When I found out this was to be the “green” issue of the magazine I admit to rolling my eyes. The green movement uses terms like renewable, organic, sustainable, and locavore. You won’t find the word “locavore” in your Webster’s dictionary. This catchphrase means those who prefer to eat locally grown and produced food. A broader term that better describes being green is “conservation,” which by definition is the preservation and management of the environment and natural resources.

Many of us sportsmen and women have been living an environmentally conscious lifestyle with concern for the planet well before this movement became in vogue. We have been putting our green dollars toward conservation quietly and consistently for decades.

The modern conservation movement began with a sportsman and hunter named Theodore Roosevelt. He viewed firsthand the decimation of the buffalo and other wild game due to market hunting in the late 1800s, and decided to do something about it. By the time he left the U. S. presidency in 1909, he had designated 230 million acres of public forests, wildlife refuges, bird preserves, parks, national monuments, and game ranges. This was also the era when unregulated hunting, fishing, and trapping ended—and wildlife management began with the establishment of licenses, game limits and seasons.

Despite these efforts, most wild game populations remained dismally low into the 1930s and were struggling to come back. What did sportsmen do? They created the Pittman-Robertson Act that required an 11% tax on sporting firearms and ammunition and a 10% tax on handguns all to support wildlife conservation. In the 70-plus years since it was enacted, over $5 billion has been raised for conservation. Sportsmen weren’t made to pay these taxes; they asked for it! The result is we all now celebrate more deer, turkey, wildfowl, elk, buffalo, cougars, moose, eagles, and bears than in over 150 years.

Waterfowl were particularly hard hit, so once again sportsmen stepped up and enacted the Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamp Act. This requires waterfowl hunters to purchase a federal hunting stamp known as the duck stamp. Since its inception in 1934, over $700 million has been generated toward the purchase of 5.2 million acres of habitat for the National Wildlife Refuge system. Efforts such as this don’t just benefit the target species but ensure habitat for a wide range of nongame species as well—all the more important as humans gobble up land for development.

The birth of the modern conservation movement spawned a plethora of sportsmen’s groups like the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, the Rocky Elk Foundation, Pheasants Forever, the Ruffed Grouse Society, Trout Unlimited, Wild Turkey Federation, Ducks Unlimited, Atlantic Salmon Federation, and the list goes on. These groups’ main objective is to conserve the habitat and ensure the future of game species and their ecosystems.

I can understand some may be reading this with a jaundiced eye. You may be thinking all these efforts are self-serving, implemented so there are more animals to hunt and fish to catch. It would be hypocritical to suggest there isn’t some truth to that, but ultimately I think the motivation is based on an intrinsic stewardship sportsmen have or evolve toward for all animals, land, water, air—the environment.

Today the line has been blurred between what are traditionally known as sportsmen’s groups and conservation groups like the Nature Conservancy and the Sierra Club. The stakes are too high for these groups to be at odds when their wildlife conservation and environmental concerns are so much the same. The good news is that although they don’t agree on everything, these factions are starting to work together toward common goals. Whether or not someone is a hunter, fisherman, bird watcher, or hiker, they all reap the benefits of a clean environment with more open land to explore and animals of all kinds to enjoy.

Although my innate cynicism won’t allow me to completely embrace this renaissance in conservation dressed up in green, I can speak from personal experience that you can’t be much more of a locavore or more organic than sitting down at the dinner table enjoying wild game you procured within walking distance of your house and vegetables grown in your own garden.

Brad Eden is an artist, writer, Registered Maine Master Guide, and owner/editor of the online magazine www.uplandjournal.com.