Making wildlife relevant to people outside of the outdoor sports

[Ben Lamb]

With an increasingly urban population not only in the United States but throughout the world, and the ever increasing demand on our natural resources and wild lands, it's important to find ways to make wildlife relate to people.

We can fight for wild land, public land, open spaces and that's important. But in order to make it relevant, people need to see why the land is critical. That's why so many of the campaigns to protect public lands have large components dedicated to the critters that live on those lands. It's why shows like National Geographic feature wildlife more than the habitats that animals live in, and it's why I'm a huge supporter of educational television that reaches out beyond the typical outdoors-person and hits segments of society that are otherwise detached from the natural world that we all need to survive.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_iMFbaCclMY&index=11&list=RDe-7UbU45a1U&nohtml5=False

 

[Schaaf]

You could put Snoop Dogg and Shane Mahoney in the same room. That will get your conservation juices flowing.

 

[Southern Elk]

Funny stuff. I have seen those videos posted on Facebook a lot lately. I'm not sure the average Joe is making any kind of connection with conservation though.

I agree with you on educational television. My kids love the children shows about animals on PBS, even though they've grown up on a farm and in a hunting and fishing family. I can see how that programing would be some of the only information about nature that kids in an urban environment would see.

 

[JDH]

This is a bit of a side note but I laughed when I read the article below. For her it was noteworthy that she saw a deer. Here if I don't see one driving home from work it's noteworthy. People are too busy to realize they have these resources just a short drive away.
http://www.latimes.com/health/la-he-1031-getting-out-accidental-hike-20151031-story.html

 

[BrokenWing]

This is a bit of a side note but I laughed when I read the article below. For her it was noteworthy that she saw a deer. Here if I don't see one driving home from work it's noteworthy. People are too busy to realize they have these resources just a short drive away.
http://www.latimes.com/health/la-he-1031-getting-out-accidental-hike-20151031-story.html

These musings kinda scare me.

 

[Hunting Wife]

There are a lot of conservation dollars going towards urban outreach and connecting children with nature initiatives lately. As Ben said, most of our populace now resides in urban/suburban centers, and fewer people have a connection (via friends or relatives) through which to experience nature. This is bad news for the future of conservation, because people don't support or protect what they don't understand.

If you really care about public lands and wildlife, one of the best things you can do is to help someone experience those things who otherwise wouldn't. Sad, but there are startlingly large numbers of people who have never been outside of a city. Now THAT scares me!