As someone that came to hunting late in life, someone that wasn’t raised understanding the intricacies and nuance of the North American conservation model or how our wildlife resources are allocated and ultimately utilized, Daniel was very impressed with the scope and breadth of our opportunities here in the United States as he started to take advantage of them. The more he participated, the more clearly he saw just how blessed we are here to have the ability to participate in this imperfect but extremely functional system.
While it can always and should always be improved upon, when we hunt we do so with the knowledge that biological, ecological, and even social concerns have been addressed and that the system is, for the most part, sound.
State and Federal wildlife management ensures that population dynamics are strong amongst game species, that there is sufficient opportunity for everyone to participate, and that science is conducted rigorously so that the hunt can be pursued in perpetuity.
But what about our right to hunt and fish. Do we really have one? One that is enshrined at the constitutional level? Well, no, not really. At least, not in the way that, say, the 1st amendment protects free speech and peaceable assembly or that the 2nd amendment guarantees citizens the right to keep and bear arms. But can our right to hunt and fish be protected in similar ways? At least at the State Constitutional level?
Our guest today is Ellary TuckerWilliams, from the Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation — and they are working on that very thing. They’re at it around the clock, behind the scenes, protecting our ability to hunt and fish in ways that we’d not heard about before, but now that we have, seem indispensable. They work at the political level, not only to enshrine our rights but also to protect the heritage of hunting against what is a constant onslaught from groups that would, if they could, slowly erode our legal ability to hunt until nothing remains.
For the most part, we at WildFed are simply interacting at the resource level, so we're glad to know folks like Ellary are out there — communicating with people in our Federal and State Governments, educating them on the issues that matter to those of us who utilize the resources on our landscape. We need that kind of representation in those places that most nature lovers won’t or don’t go. Namely, into the halls of government.
So big thanks to Ellary and the Congressional Sportsmen's Foundation — many of us have benefited greatly from the work they do, likely, without ever knowing it.
View full show notes, including links to resources from this episode here: https://www.wild-fed.com/podcast/167