KingOfTagSoup
Well-known member
- Joined
- Nov 29, 2022
- Messages
- 154
An interesting take for sure. However, it may be worth considering, when Randy talks about finding ways to "create a bigger pie?" One the ways we do that, is to improve access.@antlerradar throwing out some wisdom.
As someone who has spent 20 years in that field, I wonder this all the time. I do believe that citizens working together without the involvement of politicians or the agency (at least on the first, critical stages) is crucial to any conservation effort to work. Attending Gov't meetings is a big part of the conservation success story. When our grandfathers and great-grandfathers & mothers fought to restore wildlife in the first few decades of the 20th century, they did so with out much thought of what they get out of it. It was a mission to right a wrong.
Now we tend to deal with issues of abundance in wildlife species that we've put the lion's share of our conservation ethic into (game species). We (hunters) left behind nongame species because we didn't see much value in them.
I do think that social media is watering down what Conservation truly is. When we have slogans about stuff rather than actually promoting the work being done to increase the public estate to ensure better outcomes for wildlife, when we work with landowners to find better solutions for problematic species like wolves, bears, and yes, elk, we are following the edicts of Roosevelt and Leopold. Randy is the only one I've seen in this business who sticks his neck out routinely for real conservation efforts, rather than reverting to slogans. People want to know why Randy has such rabid friends and followers? Because he puts his money, time and efforts where his mouth is, and he doesn't grandstand about it. Humility and grace are weaknesses in so much of modern hunting. The new model is to elevate the hyper-partisan approach in politics to declare enemies and allies, rather than neighbors and cousins.
Humans have evolved to value the dopamine hit of social media malarkey, and now there's a 21 page thread about the issue. If that's not "Case in point," I don't know what is.
To that end - are the influencers dumbing us down? By and large, I do think so. I don't want Cam to give away a Raptor, I want him to sit down with guys who think differently than he does, and then be the leader he claims he is.
Corner crossing isn't conservation. It's access. There is a big difference here, especially when you consider the other perspective and what we could gain and/or lose by "winning" on corner crossing.
Also, just want to say that there has probably been more wisdom expressed in this thread than in any commission meeting in any state.....ever