quote:

Originally posted by mrlexma:
Joe,

You have been give a great opportunity, as you know, to advance our cause. And you have been given great advice by all of the above posters as to how to make the most of it.

I will add only a few thoughts.

First, tell the kids that only rarely does any prey animal, and only rarely, too, does any predator, ever die of old age. Eventually all are brought down by others. Old antelopes, and even old buffalo, among the mightiest of earthly herbivores, are killed by lions before age catches them short. And even old lions are killed by hyenas before a cruel nature takes them, too, in its course.

Every animal on earth, in tame and wild places alike, exists in a hierarchical relationship with every other animal. Many animals are equals, more or less. But most, even among the equals, are the prey of a select number of the others, and those others are the predators, the carnivores, the fewest of them all. We humans, in our cities and with our supermarkets, often lose sight of that ultimate truth. We humans, owing to our superior intellect, and our use of tools, are fortunate to be among the best and most efficient of all of the predators on our planet. We are at the peak of the predatory pyramid, or as some would say, at the top of the food chain.

Tell the kids that there are only predators and prey, hunters and hunted. Nothing else.

And they should also know, so you must tell them, that owing to our superior intellect, and our enlightened sense of stewardship, we no longer (although we once did) hunt animals until they are threatened or endangered, or until they are on the brink of extinction.

Today, hunters are the heart and soul of conservation efforts world wide. And there is a key difference between conservation and so-called preservation. Conservation is based on the principle of sustainable use, of the treatment of our game animals as a renewable natural resource. We hunters give value to our game animals, and we are therefore able to persuade people all over the world to value them, and maintain them in safe havens and in renewable numbers.

If it were not for hunters, and the value that we place on game and its conservation, the game would vanish. Were it not for hunters, conflicts beteen large game and humans, and more particularly with the things that humans value, such as life and property, would cause people all over the world to kill all of the large fauna in every ecosystem where such conflicts occur, legally or illegally, and sooner rather than later.

We hunters exist in a profound relationship with our quarry. To be sure, we hunt and kill them. But we love and respect the game we hunt. It is we hunters, through the finance we pour into habitat preservation, game conservation and anti-poaching efforts, who are at the forefront of worldwide conservation.

We willingly limit ourselves to specific hunting seasons, and to the hunting of only those animals, old males generally, but sometimes dry females (without young) as well, that will ensure the long term survival of the species. We also limit ourselves in many other ways, such as, for example, by limiting the kinds of weapons we can use and the hours during which we can hunt, so as to ensure that we and our quarry are fairly matched, and to maintain, and even guarantee, that game animals will survive in ample numbers all over the world.

And finally, as for our trophies, well, tell the kids that they are everlasting memorials to the glory of the game we have taken. Tell them that, instead of leaving behind only a rotted carcass, a fly-ridden pile of scraps and bones and a tattered hide, as all other predators do, each of the animals we have killed and preserved as a trophy will endure as a lasting testament to the beauty and power, the blood pounding strength and majesty, of the creature as he was in life.