The Role of Hunters In Conservation in the 21st Century (Part 1)

Look for a new installment every week!

I am writing from the perspective of a hunter and a wildlife conservationist with a deep and abiding passion for wild things and wild places. I will make an assumption that you may share this passion whether or not you choose to hunt. I think too often, we – hunters and anglers and people who love wildlife - lose sight of our own history. Sometimes, we are just plain ignorant of it. Other times, we get so caught up in how good we’ve had it that we forget how close we came to losing it. Or how close we could be right now…

We live in wonderful times for hunters and anglers. It was not always like this in Wyoming. The history of wildlife conservation in Wyoming dates back to our territorial years. A number of attempts, mostly ineffective, were made to stem the tide of market hunting and unregulated exploitation of fish and wildlife. The last wild bison in Wyoming Territory was killed in 1889. In the 1890s, elk had been driven from lower elevations in the western part of the state to the more remote areas of Jackson Hole and the upper reaches of the Green and Gros Ventre Rivers. Antelope were all but gone. Fish were being netted, speared, poisoned and dynamited without regard for the future. Obviously, this could not continue…

And thank God, it did not. Hunters and anglers in Wyoming, indeed all over America, had seen enough. The conservationists of the early 1900s created the North American model of wildlife conservation, based on two elemental principles:

-Fish and wildlife are reserved for the non-commercial use of individual hunters and anglers; and
-Fish and wildlife are to be managed so that their populations will be sustained forever.

What’s more they created, refined and modified over time what my old friend Valerius Geist, professor emeritus of environmental science at the University of Calgary calls the Seven Sisters – the pillars of wildlife conservation in North America:

-Wildlife belongs to us all, not just a privileged minority;
-Wildlife should not be bought and sold;
-Allocation by law;
-All law abiding people should be able to hunt;
-Wildlife should be killed only for legitimate purposes;
-Wild animals cross political boundaries, and should be managed with this in mind; and
-Wildlife conservation works best when it’s based on science.

It’s hard to overstate the success of this model. With some steps to set aside vast public tracts of land and some basic game laws, miracles began to happen. Beaver returned, after near-extirpation from the streams of the west. Antelope, rare to my own grandfather in SW Wyoming in 1915, returned by the thousands. Elk were restored to levels not seen since European people came to the west. The list goes on and on: Grizzly bears, wolves, wild turkeys, Canada geese, Bonneville cutthroats, Colorado River cutthroats, sage grouse, and sharp-tailed grouse…literally hundreds of species. And let us not be deceived. This was not and is not simply about creating more targets for the gun.

Walt Gasson
Executive Director, Wyoming Wildlife Federation