We could use a lot more of the abundance mindset in the hunting community.I wouldn't know these guys if they walked into my house and sat on my couch. So, your guess is wrong. Yeah, it took me less than five minutes to determine their efforts were worth my donation.
I'd be curious as to what this "Conservation Industrial Complex" is? I've volunteered for most of the national groups and many of the state-based groups. I'm a Life Member of at least a dozen of them. Every single one of them do good work. Everyone of them rely on committed volunteers to get that good work done. None of those volunteers view themselves as part of an "Industrial Complex."
Your statements, which I'll take as a reflection of your opinion, doesn't show much appreciation for the many volunteers who make up the backbone of these organizations. In my opinion, it's a kick in the crotch to these volunteers and that will get a reaction from me, which you view as "outsized."
You write that the work of these groups is "almost always to the detriment of the NR hunter." The best thing a non-resident could do is to support groups that are helping put more critters in the landscape in states where we are non-residents. Us NRs the first to get cut in a state like Wyoming, as it should be, and we have the most to benefit if we can keep herds at higher numbers.
Mule deer numbers have dropped by 50% in Wyoming in the last 25 years. That's at least a 50% drop in NR tags for us. In most instances it is more, as the tag cuts resulting from lower herd numbers is disproportionately in the NR allocation to keep resident opportunity in tact. The pattern for pronghorn populations is very similar, as are the tag cuts.
Imagine how much easier it would be for us NRs to draw mule deer or pronghorn tags if we had twice as many animals on the landscape, as we had 25 years ago. It would be way easier. I'll support any group that is trying to change the trends and put more animals on the land, which is more tags for Rs and NRs.
If we are to ever get headed back that direction of higher herd numbers, it is going to be because residents of Wyoming, and groups they volunteer for, do the things necessary to protect and improve habitat. Habitat degradation being the biggest reason for these declines.
We as non-residents are not going to sway their politicians or their elected/appointed officials. We're pretty much relegated to helping with our pocketbooks, our support of orgs that are doing that good work, and advocating for Federal land policies that give more accommodation to wildlife where much of this wildlife lives. Seeing Wyoming residents as enemy and fearing/distrusting Wyoming folks who work to increase herd numbers is a logic that is lost on me.
I get it, the world is divided into scarcity thinkers and abundant thinkers. The volunteers who are trying to put more wildlife on the landscape to the benefit of everyone are the abundance thinkers.
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