ARTICLES
The
Economics Of Hunting
November
27, 2007
©
By
Othmar Vohringer
It
is my
opinion that if we want our heritage to
survive into a prosperous future we must educate the average man, women
and
child on the street, in the schools and in their homes via the media.
It is
these people, the majority, which have no opinion on hunting and could
become
our biggest allies on the ballot box.
Recently
I came upon some information about the
economic impact hunting has in North America and decided that I should
write
about it so that other hunters can see too what good we hunters do for
our
countries economy and wildlife conservation in general.
With
the ongoing bashing of our hunting tradition
by politically motivated radical groups and organizations that portray
hunters
as beer-swigging redneck slobs and trigger happy morons that are just
as
capable of killing a human as they are an animal it might be time to
set the
record straight and provide some heavy weight ammunition, no pun
intended, to
combat the slanderous comments the antis loudly proclaim.
Here
are some interesting figures published by the
Congressional Sportsman's Foundation:
34
million
Americans hunt and, or fish. Together these sportsmen and women pour 76
billion
dollars annually into the economy and give 1.6 million people jobs.
Eight out
of ten voters in America are hunting and/or fishing. This is a
significant
number of people that could produce a significant political clout on
the ballot
box provided they make use of their right to vote during the
presidential election
and make their voices heard at the local level on hunting and fishing
issues.
Do
you think that tennis and skiing are popular?
Yes they are but hunting and fishing are more popular; more people hunt
and
fish than play tennis or ski. If all the hunters in America would
decide to
move to New York and Los Angeles, everyone else in these cities would
have to
move out to make room for all the hunters. Everyone knows that NASCAR
is very
big and popular but not as big and popular as hunting. If all the
hunters and
fishermen in America would attend a NASCAR race they would fill out
every
single seat at the track – not once but 13 times.
According
to the Congressional Sportsman's
Foundation, if we just took the hunters in America and created a
corporation to
receive all the revenue generated from hunting, that corporation would
be
listed in the top twenty of Fortune 500. If the fishers would be added
to that
corporation they would have a financial net-worth of that of Microsoft,
Google,
E-Bay and Yahoo (76 billion versus 73.6 billion) combined. Very
impressive
don’t you think? And that is only America. Add to this Canada
with similar
figures and heck, why not Mexico too, and you are talking about some
serious
money here. Why Canada and Mexico too, you might ask. The hunting
heritage is a
North American tradition that is shared by all hunters in these three
countries
and so are the efforts of wildlife and habitat conservation. Here is
another
bit of good news that came from the same survey: the vast majority of
Americans
support legal hunting and more than 95% support legal fishing. Compare
that to
the minuscule 3% that subscribe to the animal rights agenda. Most of
these 3%
are not consistent in their animal rights beliefs and only a handful of
them
are activists.
But
the hunters financial, material and physical
input does not end with the dollars generated through the purchase of
hunting
goods and license fees. The survey tells us that the vast majority of
hunters
in America are active members of such notable organizations as the
Rocky
Mountain Elk Foundation, National Wild Turkey Federation, Ducks
Unlimited,
Pheasants For Ever, Trout Unlimited plus a long list of equally
important
national and local wildlife conservation organizations and clubs that
generate
additional billions directly earmarked of wildlife and habitat
restoration.
Many hunters and fishers are members in more than one such organization
and
club. Hunters and fishers are also the folks that almost exclusively
donate
their own time and personal efforts in various programs provided by
organizations and wildlife agencies to actively get involved in
wildlife and
nature stewardship.
In
short, the report shows very clearly that no
single person or organization does more for wildlife and habitat than
hunters
and fishers. These efforts can be enjoyed by all people, including the
anti
hunters and animal rights folks. The quote attributed to Winston
Churchill,
“Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so
many to so few.”
seems also very appropriate to what the hunters and fishers do for the
rest of
society. The fact is that if it weren’t for the actions and
dollars of hunters
and fishers the elk, turkey, ducks, geese, salmon and trout would have
gone a
long time ago the way of the Dodo. The same is true for the many state
parks
and other publicly accessible lands; it is the hunters and fishers that
keep
these lands and water bodies open to the public with money and personal
efforts.
So
next time you see a TV show where animal rights
protest against hunting or ridicule hunters in slanderous ways,
remember that
this is not the big picture. Also remember that PETA and the likes
spend less
than 0.2% of the millions they make annually on wildlife and habitat
conservation. Remember that these folks do not speak for the majority
of the
American people even if they make it sound like they do. It’s
also worth
knowing that some jurisdictions that have in the past adopted some of
the
animal rights agenda on wildlife and habitat conservation have had to
regret the
negative consequences it had on wildlife and the environment.
Next
time you see a flock of ducks or geese flying
south thank the hunters. The next time you hear the thunderous gobble
of a
turkey or the bugle of a bull elk remember that hunter’s
dollars and their
personal efforts saved these species from certain extinction and not
the animal
rights groups. Next time you hike in a state park and admire the beauty
of
nature and wildlife thank the hunters whose money makes sure that parks
stay
open to the public and remain safe from developers. If it were not for
hunter
dollars much of the public land we take for granted only could be kept
open
through drastic increases of taxes or making visitors paying an entry
free.
As
you surely have figured out by now the abundant
wildlife that makes North America one of the ecologically richest areas
in the
world is the direct result of our hunting heritage and the
hunter’s active
commitment to wildlife and habitat conservation.
Looking
at the above dollar figures and comparing
them to that of the animal rights movement it amazes me that we seem to
have
such a struggle against the anti hunting lobby. Perhaps we should learn
from
the animal rights groups how to promote our heritage in the media.
Animal
rights groups get heard in the media because they know how to make it
work for
them. To use a quote of Ingrid Newkirk, founder and president of PETA
(People
for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) “We are absolute media
whores.” Indeed,
the animal rights movement spends the lion’s share of their
dollars on
promoting their agenda in the media, the schools and in the communities.
My
suggestion is that our hunting industry and the
various hunter-founded organizations actively go public with their
efforts in
the mainstream media to promote our cause to the communities at large.
While
everybody knows who PETA is you will be hard pressed to find a member
of the
general public that knows anything about the Rocky Mountain Elk
Foundation,
Ducks Unlimited or the National Wild Turkey Federation let alone
knowing what
these and many other fine hunter founded organizations do for our
wildlife and
habitat.
I
am convinced that if the hunting industry and the
large organizations would get together and invest just a comparatively
small
sum of the multi-billion dollars to “advertise” in
the mainstream media and
promote our cause in the schools on a national level we could silence
the
animal rights movement and make their threat to our heritage a thing of
the
past. It is my opinion that if we want our heritage to survive into a
prosperous future we must educate the average man, women and child on
the
street, in the schools and in their homes via the media. It is these
people,
the majority, which have no opinion on hunting and could become our
biggest
allies on the ballot box. Isn’t it about time that the
general public heard the
full truth and not just the lies and deception of the animal rights
activists?
----------------------------------
Please
note
that the content on
this site is protected from plagiarism by Copyscape.
Unauthorized use will be detected. Any
reproduction of this work, in whole
or part, in any media is prohibited unless expressly granted by the
author.
For more
information,
see the copyright
notice.
Contact the Author.
I welcome assignments from hunting
magazines,
newspapers and outdoor product manufactures. Send for queries and
requests by email.
|
