Damn Hunters.. anyway..

[danr55]

Sometimes Startrek had it right.. sometimes evolution needs some help. Darwin wasn't always right.. but usually...??

 

[VAspeedgoat]

I wish I was surprised.

 

[katqanna]

This has been a bad "hunting" morning in the media. Yesterday there was the Ricky Gervais tweet about a female hunter that had taken a smiling photo lying next to the giraffe she killed, which has gone wild, including death threats to her and other female hunters. Then there was the game hunter Ian Gibson trampled by an elephant while guiding an American on a hunt.

That one came up on the World News subreddit (over 8 million subscribers) and I spent time reading through tons of comments, mostly anti-hunting. Rarely, you would see someone make a logical comment, even bring up hunting conservation, the money generated by these limited hunts to protect the majority, or even the countering dialogues to the people that buy meat in the stores, that hunting provides food and is more humane. There were over 4000 comments in 10 hours. The top comment being, "Hero Elephant kills serial murderer in self defense".

Yesterday I read an article on an archeology paper on documenting the change in ornamentation between hunter/gathers and the growing agrarians at the end of the Neo-lithic period - from animal part ornaments like teeth or parts of antlers to man made beads. Dont farm on me: Northern Europeans to Neo-lithic interlopers. Sometimes I miss all that research. The past is easier for people to see than the present, or worse, the future.

Which brings me to an article I was reading this morning before the bad media news - Are Wildlife Recreationists Conservationists? Linking Hunting, Birdwatching, and Pro-Environmental Behavior.

We found wildlife recreationists—both hunters and birdwatchers—were 4–5 times more likely than non-recreationists to engage in conservation behaviors, which included a suite of activities such as donating to support local conservation efforts, enhancing wildlife habitat on public lands, advocating for wildlife recreation, and participating in local environmental groups. Moreover, effects were additive; hunter–birdwatchers had the greatest likelihood of engaging in all types of conservation behaviors. On the other hand, engagement in environmental lifestyle behaviors such as recycling, energy conservation, and green purchasing were roughly comparable among all types of wildlife recreationists and non-recreationists. Our findings of elevated rates of conservation behaviors among hunters and birdwatchers despite different demographic attributes and environmental beliefs highlight the similar conservation potential associated with different types of wildlife recreation. Diversified strategies that include programs to encourage both hunting and birdwatching are likely to bring about long-term gains for conservation.

As concerns regarding low levels of public adoption of PEB— and conservation behaviors specifically—escalate, scholars attempting to identify interventions that effectively encourage PEB have uncovered a range of useful strategies including education, marketing, incentives, and other approaches aimed at building enduring commitment and self-efficacy. Our data suggest that the promotion of wildlife-based recreation activities such as birdwatching and hunting could be an additional strategy.

With anti-hunting positions being reinforced in movies, this is a difficult to strategically promote when there is so much land disconnect with the majority of the population and the threat to our public lands growing. A big bloody Catch 22.