Re: Breaking news ... Grizzly bear hunt demise
There is an argument that all hunters, resident and foreign, must band together and must also band together with certain businesses in order to preserve our rights to hunt. Not everyone shares that argument, but it exists.
However, there is also a good (and obvious) argument to be made that trophy hunting rich Americans and lobbying efforts by groups like SCI are detrimental to resident hunters' fight to preserve hunting rights. Not everyone shares that argument, but it exists.
It's also worth differentiating a couple of goals that get conflated. Some of us want to preserve our rights to hunt, period. Others want a sustainable and diverse wild landscape and wildlife population with easy and democratic access for all users, including hunters.
The first is a sub-category of the second, but those who focus on the first will be much more easily marginalized and occasionally shown to be more of a special interest group than a public interest group.
Here's a quick example of what I mean:
If GOABC and SCI lobby against the new grizzly policy its very easy to paint them as a self-interested group that wants to promote business that satisfies the demand of foreign money with public BC resources. I think we can all see how an anti-hunting for profit group posing as a public interest group could pull that off. It's unbelievably easy to make that sale. Don't believe me? Look at the policy we're currently talking about. It's the political pay off that results from demonizing trophy hunting.
On the other hand, if a group of resident citizens can demonstrate that they work hard on conservation of all species (not just huntable ones), that they work to include non-hunters as well as hunters on access issues, that they have the backing of scientists, and that they do not have a profit motive involved its much harder to attack them. The same groups will try (they already are) and none of us are responding too effectively, but it's an easier defense to mount.
If we want to be united against a bigger, more important and more threatening opponent we need to be honest about the fact that not all of our interests align, and we need to decide where we want to compromise with each other. So far we're registering a big fail on that issue.
Rob Chipman
"The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders" - Ed Abbey
"Grown men do not need leaders" - also Ed Abbey