Dying Breed of American

I hunt and I am proud to be a hunter. I hunt because I descend from a long generation of hunters, from the beginning of time, human beings have hunted. We hunt for food, and we hunt for sport, mostly however I hunt because I am a hunter. That is part of who I am. It is a tremendous side of my life, I plan trips, dedicate many hours in planning, scouting, target practice and actually hunting. And I do so proudly.

Quite frankly I am sick and tired of the radical conservationist who see hunting as exploitation and do not see uncontrolled development as such. It has been proven time and again that the greatest conservationist are hunters. We realize that we must protect our game animals or we will have nothing to hunt in future years. We understand that it takes money and we willingly pay fees, and tazes to support our heritage. When the media displays hunters as blood thirsty killers it angers me, Sure there are radicals out there that give us a bad name, every sport has them. We do not protest sprinting because one sprinter dopes. We do not see people chaining theselves to dugouts when baseball players use steroids. We do not see then dragging behind crab boats in the bearing sea to protest crabbing.

Sadly, we are loosing hunters in America at an alarming rate. Fewer and fewer young people are bing intorddiced to this wonderful sport. And it is a sport. As Larry Weishun says, there are only two sports, hunting and fishing the rest are games. To lead young people into a sportsman's sportswoman's life we must introduce them to these sports. We must teach tehm woodsmanship, we must teach them the thrill of out smarting a wild animal on their own turf. We must instill in them the joy of nature and spending time out of doors. It is up to us, hunters to take them with us, to show them, to teach them the safety, and responsibility they have to their game animal to do it correctly and ethically.

I am a hunter, and my son's hunt, and I hope my daughters will become hunters, we hunt because we are hunters and we do so proudly.