Why hunting is important

The return of elk to Nebraska is due to the tolerance of landowners and the work of biologists subsidized by hunters , but also to the endeavors of hunters themselves and hunting organizations such as the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. Hunting is part of our rich heritage. We are all descendants of hunters. The rich and varied hunting heritage of Nebraska dates back to the old stories and diaries of grandfathers, settlers, frontiersmen, mountain men, and early explorers.

It goes further back to the Native American tribes — the Omaha, Lakota, and Pawnee — who followed the bison as the seasons turned. It goes even further back to prehistoric people who, according to archaeological evidence, were the first hunters in Nebraska who killed big game animals for food well over 10, years ago. Hunting controls conflicts between humans and wildlife. Animals can become habituated to humans, resulting in an increase in property damage and sometimes harmful encounters.

For instance, hunting does limit deer browse in agricultural areas, but helps to curb deer-motor vehicle collisions as well. Hunting may assist your vegetable or flower garden from getting entirely eaten by deer, too.

Hunting has dedicated participants. Hunters play a critical role by providing key survey information from the field that wildlife managers and biologists need to determine the health of ecosystems. Hunters count wildlife, fill out questionnaires, stop at big game check stations and provide biological samples from harvested game animals. Hunting helps feed the hungry, homeless and others.

Laws are in place for an individual hunter to donate his or her legally taken game to another person with proper documentation. Hunting provides a unique opportunity to harvest and consume locally grown, free-ranging meat. Hunting fits directly into the locavore food movement affording an alternative that lets people have local, free-range, wholesome meat for their families.

Wild game meat is really as pure as it gets: no growth stimulants hormones , no feed additives, no fences, no dyes, and no Styrofoam and cellophane under the fluorescent lights of the supermarket. Hunting combats the nature deficit disorder and is good for overall wellness. Hunting offers fitness and fresh air for the body and mind. In fact, studies show that safe hunting under the guidance and training of mentors actually produces a holistic experience that creates less violence in young people.

Hunting allows us humans to go afield to get re-acquainted with the sights and sounds of nature and get off the grid to escape technology as well as the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Survey after survey shows that the top reason hunters hunt is to get outdoors and connect with nature.

The basic instinct links up with the spiritual, and the result is that we become married to nature. Additionally, hunting is also about creating indelible images.

Base camp, early fall mornings, the smell of decaying leaves, sunrise on the duck marsh, sunset in the deer woods, trekking through freshly fallen snow, and those three prairie grouse you missed, HA!

Hunting contributes greatly to the economy. Hunting is good for the economy! They stay at motels and resorts. They eat at cafes and restaurants. They buy hunting clothes and fun souvenirs. They financially bolster communities, large and small. There is an imbalance in the environment because the number of animals which are being killed is more than the number of animals produced. Even though animals are used for many purposes, there are many alternatives available. Instead of harming animals, we can just use stones which are provided by the natural environment stones.

There are numerous animals being killed which affect the food chain. Rather than hurting and killing animals for our advantage we can used alternative and save our environment and animals live. The worst occupation that a person can follow is hunting — it shows that man has lost his precious value of kindness.

To hunt poor and defenseless animals is a cruel act. It also shows that man can do anything for his personal interest. Different people hunt animals. Some do it for fun whereas others kill to increase their income. Hunting should be banned as it disturbs the functioning of our ecosystem. Various animals have gone extinct and some are on the verge of extinction. The after effects of hunting are destructive as seen in various parts of India and other countries like Pakistan where pests have increased due to death of frogs.

Numerous countries have established laws regarding a ban on hunting but all are ineffective. Hunting leads to destruction of ecosystem and an increase in the population of a particular species of animals. It also leads to an increase in various microorganisms such as fungi, algae etc. Which decompose the dead bodies of plants and animals.

Hunting affects many things, including our own environment. Although generally most of the affects are negative, there are some positive effects to the environment.

The positive effects include population control. Hunters kill animals that have large population, and this can cause those animals to die out due to the lack of food. Hunting these animals will help with population control Having said that, there are also many negative affects to hunting, which complete overshadow the positive effects. Hunting affects the biosphere, which is where the living organisms exist, it affects the biosphere because wildlife is directly related to the biosphere and hunting disrupts natural order.

In that case, hunting is good for environment because the hunting community ensure that wildlife population of game species is sustainable from one generation to the next.

This requires that a diversity of natural habitats. Europe responded to the pressures on game by arrogating to the landed aristocracy exclusive rights to hunt and exporting that regime to their colonies. In recent decades, Western European countries have opened access but with licensing restrictions that are daunting, to say the least, to all but the most determined and affluent. While participation in hunting hovers around historic lows, a majority of Americans more men than women approve of hunting.

It should not be surprising that these four themes echo through the extensive literature of the hunt. Almost all hunters say, in one way or another, that they hunt in order to experience nature directly as a participant, not simply a spectator. Whether or not, on a given outing, a hunter kills a deer or rabbit or pheasant, going afield prepared to kill changes—intensifies—everything. Interestingly, even hunting dogs, especially bird dogs, know the difference between a walk in the woods and hunting.

Dogs are close students of the behavior of their human companions. When my German shorthaired pointer and I go out for exercise, she runs not quite aimlessly but for the pure joy of unconfined running. Right out of the car her movements are purposeful. Instead of running in straight lines, she quarters back and forth ahead of me, head up to catch the slightest whiff of a game bird. A gun makes a difference. Closely related to the desire to be immersed in nature is the pleasure of getting to know places intimately.

Hunters will return to a hallowed place even when it has gone past its prime as habitat for game. The decline, though never welcomed, is nevertheless accepted as an inescapable feature of nature—everything, even the rocks, is cyclical though with our short life spans, rocks seem permanent features. Becoming intimately familiar with places, from first discovery to decline, is an essential feature of being immersed in nature and a reminder of our own temporality.

The decline of a favorite cover is one thing. A number of recent cultural shifts have fueled this interest in hunting: growing discomfort with industrial farming and food safety growth hormones, antibiotics ; the locavore and organic farm movement; and a desire to take a direct hand in putting food on the table.

No doubt there are many more consumers who recoil at food that does not come wrapped in plastic film than there are people who prefer to shoot or catch at least a portion of their annual consumption of meat and fish. But the latter group is not to be ignored, not least because they are bolstering the ranks of hunters. Finally, another personal reason that draws men and women to hunting is the need to acknowledge that we are, after all, also animals with a long history of predation, a history long enough to have been encoded in our genes.

To be sure, our capacity to create cultures with rituals, norms, and ethical restraints makes us distinct from the other creatures with whom we share the planet, but to deny that part of us that is wild is, as Florence Shepard insists, to deny what it is to be fully human. Just as it is important for us to be reminded of the wildness we share with animals, it is also equally important to keep the Wild wild. Until recently, the challenge was to protect wildlife and the habitats it depends upon from unsustainable exploitation.

Habitat protection turned out to be the more difficult challenge. The game laws mentioned above have resulted in remarkable recoveries of most game species. But we have been steadily encroaching upon the habitats of wildlife—converting land to crops and pasture and, worse, carving out subdivisions connected by spider webs of highways that have brought humans and wild animals in close proximity. Jim Sterba suggests that more of us live in close proximity to deer, bear, turkeys, and geese, not to mention moose and mountain lions, than at any other time in history not least because there are many more of us, but also because there are lots more wild animals, and we are sharing steadily shrinking lebensraum.

In fact, the eastern cougar was recently declared extinct. Part of why we need hunting is because we lack predators. Finally, if the major funding source for conservation programs comes from hunting, then a decrease in hunting enthusiasm means those very departments are in trouble.

Here is a quote from the Arizona Game and Fish Department:. But given the rate of population growth, particularly in Western states, the percentage of people participating in hunting and fishing is actually decreasing. There is no alternative funding system in place to replace the potential lost funds for conservation.

If hunting ends, funding for wildlife conservation is in peril. It does seem a bit backwards that we should now encourage hunting for the sake of keeping our agencies funded.

In the past, almost everyone hunted. We used hunting to fuel conservation so that we could all hunt and enjoy the wildlife. Things are changing, and it seems like the model will adapt and change with it. Our model in North America works so conservation of lands and hunting can coexist. Hunting in tandem with good science can help conserve all species if done right.

No matter what you love about nature, surely you want to protect it. As a hunter, you can do your part. Recently, I went out to a small reserve in southern Georgia to talk about ways to communicate how valuable our wild places really are.

While out there discussing we did a half-day quail hunt. From footage on that trip I made this. Rob is an ecologist from the University of Hawaii. He is the co-creator and director of Untamed Science. His goal is to create videos and content that are entertaining, accurate, and educational. When he's not making science content, he races whitewater kayaks and works on Stone Age Man. Can Hunting Be Conservation? Is Hunting Something Really Conserving it? What Does Conservation Mean? A Reality Check What would things be like if nobody hunted?

Here are the basic principles: 1 — Wildlife as a Public Trust Essentially, no individual owns the wildlife of the land. In Summary In short, these seven basic principles act as guidelines for the government to manage fish and wildlife populations at optimum levels for eternity.

Here is how: What Does Hunting do for Conservation? For example, here is the breakdown of where funding comes from in Idaho: Hunters do fund just over half of the Department of Fish and Wildlife. Some of the Problems I live in a forested area of NC with 1, acres abutting my property. An Example of How Hunting Can Be Conservation Recently, I went out to a small reserve in southern Georgia to talk about ways to communicate how valuable our wild places really are.

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