Hunting Advocacy thoughts

[MNElkNut]

Here are a few of my recent thoughts garnered on a recent long drive.

I have been thinking about Matt Rinella's recent thoughts on hunter recruitment. It got me to hunter advocacy vs hunter recruitment. One of the major pushes for hunter recruitment is to create more advocates for hunting. That is a good and noble cause. However, what if we made a concerted push for more advocacy from the hunters we already have? Look at the passion on HT! Could we find more of those folks already in our ranks but not participating?

We all know avid hunters who are not involved in any way with promoting hunting. Could we (by we, I mean the major conservation organizations, industry leaders, and each one of us individually) create programs to draw these hunters out and get them involved? Could we leverage the Madness in Montana this last year to entice them to get involved?

Could we also up our advocacy on the state legislatures? Could we (looking at you big conservation organizations!) raise the money (or redirect it) to hire 1 or 2 or 3 Ben Lambs to lobby every state legislature on our behalf? Talk about a powerful voice! Would that have a more profound impact on hunting than the road we are currently on? I see a lot of great nation-wide conservation (hunting) orgs out there. RMEF, PF, BHA, and others are doing great work from a national perspective. I see chapters of the same orgs and local orgs doing a great job locally. But we have very few state orgs (there are a few) and much of the control of hunting happens at the state level. Do we need to bolster this level of advocacy? Think of MOGA and how they have been able to be a player at the state level. Why don't we, as public land/DIY hunters have that type of lobbying effort?

 

[SAJ-99]

What is your goal? How do you measure "advocacy"?

 

[COEngineer]

In CO, the recent legislative effort to ban bobcat and mountain lion hunting inspired the creation of a new organization, Colorado Wildlife Conservation Project (CWCP) which will be a kind of TRCP for Colorado state issues. The intent is to increase communication and collaboration between conservation orgs in the state, which will increase the efficacy of each member org's advocacy (including lobbying efforts).

 

[Straight Arrow]

What is your goal? How do you measure "advocacy"?

'Sounds like in lobbying presence ($$$) at the legislature and elsewhere.

 

[gouch]

Here in Oregon, we have the "Oregon Hunters Association" that does pretty much what you are talking about. I would imagine there are similar organizations in other states.

 

[lpcoutdoors]

Yes, I think we can create more advocates for hunting without necessarily increasing hunter participation numbers. I can think of a couple of ways. First, in the Texas Youth Hunting Program, the majority of first time hunters that come on a hunt are not going to become lifelong do it themselves hunters. They are going to have the experience a few times and then move on. I used to think this was bad but I came to see it as good for the advocacy reasons, evidence has been showing they stay advocates for hunting even if they themselves, generally for some logistical reason, do not continue to hunt. This often creates hunting supporters at least, if not advocates, out of their parents, family, and friends as well, as they often see the mental health benefits to the participant, in say their self confidence or some such.

Another way to create advocate for hunting is by way of something I read recently in Inherit the Hunt by Jim Posewitz, I don't have the great quote right here in front of me, but it was along the line of when we tell stories of deep, heartfelt meaning about our hunts, rather than stories oriented towards tangible accomplishment in terms of quality or quantity numbers, we can create advocates for hunting, or again at least supporters, when they see the effects of our hunting on our wellbeing.

Though as I say these things I realize, how do these supporters, as I'm calling them, become advocates in some, as another reply asked, in some measurable way? In some skillful way? In some impactful way?

 

[MNElkNut]

What is your goal? How do you measure "advocacy"?

My goal is to not feel like we are fighting with one arm behind our back at the state(s) level. It is also to get additional players on the field, without the overcrowding that could come with legions of additional hunters.

 

[SAJ-99]

My goal is to not feel like we are fighting with one arm behind our back at the state(s) level. It is also to get additional players on the field, without the overcrowding that could come with legions of additional hunters.

The short answer is find a group in the state you hunt and send them a check. The difficult part is that hunters are not a homogeneous group, while HT'ers tend to at least tilt toward a certain direction. There are a LOT of hunters that benefit from some of the changes proposed in Montana. And they have $$$.

 

[Ben Lamb]

Most states already have the framework to do this work, what they are lacking is general support dollars to get it done, train new people, and most importantly retain qualified staff.

The kind of advocacy you are talking about is expensive. There's no two ways about it. Long time lobbyists who have spent decades building relationships charge according to the market rate as well as the difficulty of task. No different than a welder who's got 20 years experience and can command a premium price for their work. Developing outreach programs designed to turn current $35 dollar members into actual advocates takes tons of staff time and computer programs to help identify and target those individuals based on past efforts. Then you have the paid promotional efforts on social media, google ads, etc, and then there is the live event portion of all of this - those things take up huge swaths of time and money in order to make a little bit back, while hopefully increasing advocacy.

Increasing advocacy is something that most organizations want to do, but they are fighting budgets that don't necessarily allow them to do so, or they are funded to do other work that can outcompete the state-level advocacy that needs to be done in order to build up better advocates. There aren't a lot of sugar daddies out there looking to increase public wildlife advocates as their are public land funding groups who want more inclusive efforts beyond hook & bullet issues.

If I could wave a magic wand, it would be so that state level groups get big checks from funding organizations for just general support grants. No strings, no deliverables that take steam away from building real power, no qualifications on wokeness, etc. Just send the damned check and let people get to work.

 

[COEngineer]

The short answer is find a group in the state you hunt and send them a check. The difficult part is that hunters are not a homogeneous group, while HT'ers tend to at least tilt toward a certain direction. There are a LOT of hunters that benefit from some of the changes proposed in Montana. And they have $$$.

This is a good point. There are definitely some people who have a lot of money that could support conservation/hunting, but would rather spend that money on a big (bigger) ranch so they don't have to worry about crowding, etc, and actually end up on the 'opposite' side of the public land (hunting) advocates on certain issues. I'm not saying they are making a bad decision, it's just something to keep in mind - as soon as you start splitting the hunters into different segments (public/private, archery/rifle, trapper/hunter) you start seeing a lot less cohesion on all manner of issues.

 

[MNElkNut]

I think this needs to be talked about more and brought out front. Advocacy on the state level is critical and the topic of this post. However, advocacy at any level is just so hard with so many competing interests. I am involved with 3 organizations and trying to get more like-minded people to row the boat is tough. Yet, we have all kinds of people who are avid users. If anybody has any great tricks up there sleeve, share them! We did have some success with a Pint Night recently.

 

[one ate E grain]

Although it does take some money to run an issue advocacy campaign it's a lot more effective if you teach someone to fish, rather than giving them the fish, and that should be the job of paid staffers, to leverage their advocacy.

It wouldn't take much of an effort to have an outsized effect. Not many people are organised and motivated to stop hunting, but they do have a lot of money. The grass roots as it's called is by definition up from the bottom up, not top down.

One group I worked with organised a "go to your congressman's office". Online they had a sign up sheet for half hour intervals throughout the day. So every half hour someone new was coming into the office asking to tell a staffer how much they supported a particular piece of legislation. Politely, respectfully, but there. You better believe the congressman heard about it.

After going there you would go back online, and make a two word comment about how it went, or if you actually made it there at all, because not everyone carries through.

Another time it was call each senator's office in DC and your congressman, all planned for the same day. Thirty people call on the same issue on the same day, , staffers notice, and tell the congressman. All quantified on the web site. Soon you started noticing some lady named Marcia M made over 1,000 phone calls, (to numbers fed her online complete with places to enter info about the call).

All that advocacy for the price of a good website.

There was a way to organise with 4 or 5 like minded folks in your area to get together for coffee, and also to get together to go to a congressman's townhall and pose questions or maybe say hi and state your goals. And go back online and say who went and how it went.

The townhall times and venue all researched and posted for any interested party by the paid staffer. 50 self motivated volunteers working under the direction of one paid staffer have greater impact than 3 paid staffers, who begin to look and sound like paid staffers to elected officials.

Politicians are attuned to grass root efforts. For every grass root volunteer there might be 500 like minded people who might be influenced to vote a certain way. Elections are won and lost by a few votes. "click here to send a message to your congressman" doesn't do anything close to what showing up at a town hall or a meet and greet does.

I've only seen one paid lobbyist in Colorado. I think he works for the Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation. Knows every state senator and representative and all the legislation backwards and forwards. Probably did a lot to stop that anti cat hunting thing.

 

[hossblur]

In the early 90's in Utah there was a feeling that the average sportsman was being overlooked by the DWR. Our deer herds we're struggling.

A grass roots group started up, supporting itself with gun raffles and donations. It threw it's weight behind a very popular law, and things started to look great.

Then..........as was stated earlier, hunters arent homologous and money talks.

SFW.

After that, in my state, I doubt highly you'll ever get buy in on a state lobbying group representing hunters as a whole

 

[BuzzH]

Here are a few of my recent thoughts garnered on a recent long drive.

I have been thinking about Matt Rinella's recent thoughts on hunter recruitment. It got me to hunter advocacy vs hunter recruitment. One of the major pushes for hunter recruitment is to create more advocates for hunting. That is a good and noble cause. However, what if we made a concerted push for more advocacy from the hunters we already have? Look at the passion on HT! Could we find more of those folks already in our ranks but not participating?

We all know avid hunters who are not involved in any way with promoting hunting. Could we (by we, I mean the major conservation organizations, industry leaders, and each one of us individually) create programs to draw these hunters out and get them involved? Could we leverage the Madness in Montana this last year to entice them to get involved?

Could we also up our advocacy on the state legislatures? Could we (looking at you big conservation organizations!) raise the money (or redirect it) to hire 1 or 2 or 3 Ben Lambs to lobby every state legislature on our behalf? Talk about a powerful voice! Would that have a more profound impact on hunting than the road we are currently on? I see a lot of great nation-wide conservation (hunting) orgs out there. RMEF, PF, BHA, and others are doing great work from a national perspective. I see chapters of the same orgs and local orgs doing a great job locally. But we have very few state orgs (there are a few) and much of the control of hunting happens at the state level. Do we need to bolster this level of advocacy? Think of MOGA and how they have been able to be a player at the state level. Why don't we, as public land/DIY hunters have that type of lobbying effort?

I think there a couple issues as to the "why don't avid hunters get involved"?.

For starters, at least in my experience, the best hunters I know are pretty much introverted. They like to hunt, usually alone and the reason they hunt is to get away from the BS of normal life and having to deal with other people. The last thing they feel like doing is talking with a bunch of people they have no use for when they could be out doing what they like...hunting, fishing, trapping, etc.

Another problem with those avid hunters, is that they've refined their skills to a level most never will and as such, they are pretty well set in their ways. They don't, and won't, compromise on much. At times, that can be a very good thing, other times a detriment when talking with decision makers.

Also, they may not even possess the skill set to be good advocates. Not that they can't be trained up, or learn, but not everyone, including avid hunters, are cut out to advocate. Lets be honest, its not really comfortable to stand in front of a microphone and talk to a bunch of decision makers. In particular when they don't even hold the same values as you do as an avid hunter. Decision makers who, at best, might be casual hunters, but more likely than not, have never hunted, fished or trapped. Try as we might, its pretty impossible IME, to convey how big a part of your life the outdoors is or how important it is to you, to a person that never gets outside. That's super frustrating and I think many avid hunters just don't think its worth it.

Finding someone that spends a bunch of time outdoors, that is an out-going person, with a persuasive personality with the skills/training to advocate is a rare bird indeed.

 

[Shangobango]

Finding someone that spends a bunch of time outdoors, that is an out-going person, with a persuasive personality with the skills/training to advocate is a rare bird indeed.

I can imagine.

Add in having to make the time and have resources to make it all happen and wow.

 

[BuzzH]

Probably unfair to describe the problem with avid hunters not being willing to advocate without offering up a solution. I hate just having people tell me the problem without a solution.

IMO, I think one way to draw the avid hunters out, is to find a very good advocate with people skills (AKA a good Lobbyist). Have those avid hunters spend a lot of time with the lobbyist, conveying their message to that person. That way the avid hunters in the shadows only have to talk with ONE other person, only convince one other person. The lobbyist will get the feel for why hunting, fishing, habitat, trapping, wildlife is so important to those avid outdoors types. Let the lobbyist also try to work with, perhaps even train up some of those introverted hunters to be a bit more out-going. Both will be better for that relationship.

Let the lobbyist do their thing, while at times seeking council from those hard core outdoorsmen and maybe asking them to testify/tell their stories when the timing is right.

I just think that if hunters want to compete with other interests legislatively, we need professionals to get the job done right.

 

[MNElkNut]

Pretty much what I meant when I said, "Could we (looking at you big conservation organizations!) raise the money (or redirect it) to hire 1 or 2 or 3 Ben Lambs to lobby every state legislature on our behalf?" What organization is best suited to do something like this? Existing? Would they be open to redirecting some of their money this way? A new organization? That seems like a lot of work! But imagine a national organization with state chapters!

Someone mentioned the varied interests within the hunter ranks. That is a valid concern. Where would this group fall on polarizing issues like scopes on muzzleloaders? Doesn't matter which side, they would alienate some hunters.

 

[hossblur]

Thought about this more, because it's a good question.

Personally, I don't do social well. I detest small talk and glad handing.

But I do a fair bit of driving.

I get the legislative interns phone numbers each year, and I use them as I'm driving from job to job.

But that's not sexy. You don't get seen, an no one knows who you are.

That's not discounting guys are are seen, but I think too many of us who dread meetings, don't do just little things like drop a call.

And even the most avid guys, drive.

But I don't think they really think about just small things like calls make a difference