Wildlife for All — Thanks to the Hunting & Shooting Sports Community

By: Todd Roggenkamp
Assistant Director of Education for Safari Club International Foundation

With the rapid technology advancements in the 21st century there has been a shift in the US population’s life experiences.  We’ve gone from a time when manual labor was required for almost every aspect of life to one of an automated and interconnected world.  We no longer have to rely as much on fulfilling basic human needs for food and survival. This in turn has impacted societal values on how animals, including wildlife, are viewed.

Historically, most people held “traditionalist” or “utilitarian” values for wildlife, based on the belief that animals were a commodity for the benefit of people – primarily as a food source.  Nowadays, most of our food is farmed, and we have fast-food joints on every corner or order food from an app. We’ve largely lost the connection we used to have with wildlife as a critical element of our own survival.

That loss of connection extends into our wild “places” too, where the habitat necessary for wildlife to thrive has been replaced by structures and manicured parks, and fewer people have access to the truly wild places in our country. That pushes wildlife even further away and widens the disconnection.

A recent study America’s Wildlife Values Project is the first of its kind to describe how US residents within all 50 states think about wildlife. The study showed that in just the last 12-14 years there has been a shift in wildlife values, reflecting an increase in people viewing wildlife as part of their extended social network.  They view wildlife as their extended family or friends, deserving caring and rights like humans. This is in contrast with a decrease in traditional utilitarian values where wildlife is utilized for the benefit of humans

The good news is that common ground does emerge from these disparate views, and that common ground is “conservation.”  We all want to see wildlife thriving today and in the future, and the hunting community plays a vital role in that.

Most people don’t know that since the late 19^th century hunting has made substantial contributions to conservation, including bringing species back from the brink of extinction and reintroducing them to their native areas — like the reintroduction of wood bison in Alaska. Hunters have and continue to put wildlife first by supporting the overwhelming financial burden of conservation work. Important vehicles to financially support conservation like the Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act (Pittman Robertson Act), the Federal Duck Stamp program, licenses, permits, tags and hunting-focused conservation organizations like Safari Club International Foundation (SCIF) are committed to spending dollars supporting conservation.

As an example, nearly $25 billion has been collected to use in conservation efforts since the inception of the Pittman Robertson Act weas passed in 1937. The Federal Duck Stamp program has provided an additional $800 million to directly support the purchase of more than six million acres for the National Wildlife Refuge System. Although this does not encompass all the funds that are raised for conservation, it does give a good picture of how much conservation efforts are supported through hunting.

Past efforts to educate the public on these successes have focused on creating awareness of how conservation funding has helped increase wildlife populations and habitat. However, knowing that the perspective of the public’s value of wildlife has changed, it is important to recognize the role of  past and present conservation funding to a variety of other conservation needs — and help ensure wildlife and wild places can be enjoyed and shared by all.

Public education should focus on topics such as how hunting provides funding for wildlife research, restoring ailing wildlife species and improving their habitat, benefiting non-game species and assisting wildlife biologists in fighting wildlife diseases. Each one of these topics is an example of the passion for wildlife shared by hunters who are committed to making sure our environment is bio-diverse, sustainable and available for all lovers of wildlife to enjoy and value into the future.

Beyond public education about how hunting provides the funding critical to wildlife and conservation, it should also focus on the commitment hunters make to fair chase, ethical hunting and safety, especially when it comes to the handling and storage of firearms at home, in the field or in vehicles.  The non-hunting public has been misled by tired stereotypes of who hunters are, and it’s up to us as the hunting community to model and advocate for firearm safety and responsibility.  As a first step, I invite you to check out and share the hunting safety resources from NSSF’s Project ChildSafe.

Moving the needle on how the US population views the role of hunting in conservation as well as safety in hunting will be important to help ensure conservation funding into the future. Doing so will illustrate that hunters are indeed first for wildlife, committed to responsible and ethical hunting, and dedicated to making sure there is wildlife for all future generations.

Todd Roggenkamp is the Assistant Director of Education for Safari Club International Foundation. He has spent the last 25 years helping develop and provide programs that focus on the importance of the role hunting plays in conservation. An avid hunter, trapper and angler, he is dedicated to helping educate the public about the importance of conservation, sustainability and being a good steward of our environment.