Irrational Nature Lovers
This is a pretty big generalization coming from a wildlife professional:
Most Americans know very little about wildlife and nature, and this affects their ability to make intelligent, rational, and well-considered decisions.
Also, I don’t think that intelligence + knowledge of nature necessarily = “rational, well-considered decisions.” In Boulder, Colorado, where I just spent a year, people are highly intelligent but let the deer roam wild because they like having Bambi in their midst. That attracts the mountain lions. I wouldn’t call this behavior on the part of the Boulder residents “rational” or “well-considered.”
The Bambi Syndrome is a great example of the lack of public knowledge about the impacts of deer overpopulation on native ecosystems. Too many deer results in the loss of forest understory, normal forest sucession, the loss of insect populations, and the subsequent loss of small mammals and migratory birds. You’ve just made my point for me! Thanks.
It’s reasonable for people to be suspicious of the enthusiastic rationalizations of hunting advocates, in particular since there’s a big overlap with wise-users.
Hunting and angling have paid the bills for conservation for the past 80 years. The North American Model of Wildlife Conservation has been built on the financial support that hunters and anglers provide for conservation efforts, including habitat acquisition for both game and non-game wildlife. The Wildlife Society and many other scientific and conservation organizations, such as Ducks Unlimited, the Issak Walton League, the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, the Native American Fish and Wildlife Society, the American Fisheries Society, and the National Wildlife Federation, support legal, ethical, sustainable hunting and angling, while also supporting endangered species and habitat conservation. Those who began this nation’s conservation movement, including Theodore Roosevelt, Also Leopold and many others, were vitually all hunters and anglers.
Clarification: *Some* hunting advocates.