Originally posted by bwanamrm:
quote:
Damn, Russell, you have succeeded in depressing me.
I wanted to make two points and probably didn't do them justice.
2. Just because our generation doesn't Facebook, Instagram, Tweet, etc. doesn't mean we should not use it to get our message out. It is how our kids communicate and learn... for better or worse. So by ignoring it we give ground to those who will use it to their advantage.
I am all for the message of hunting being about conservation, but to reach the young people of today it needs to be more than that... think environment, think action travel, think cultural experiences you can't get from a "normal" vacation. These kids invented extreme sports... or think they did. Hiking up a mountain in three feet of snow to hunt elk or across a white hot savannah after a LDE is pretty damn extreme! Let's be sure when we post that it is not just hero shots with dead animals. There is so much more to our sport than that. If we focus instead on the landscapes, people, cultures and difficulties we encounter while we hunted, perhaps the narrative changes. We lived a true adventure and hunting was just a part of it.
When the trophy is the be all, end all, then we lose so much of what we really accomplished. Just another 40 or 50 something posing with a dead animal. Boring. Outdated. Unevolved.
Just my thoughts... it is up to us to recruit and work to change minds. It is up to us to use whatever medium we are comfortable with to change the narrative.
It's not easy, it is not quick. It is a long struggle. But think how long the antis have been struggling to stop us... we can sit by and bitch at each other or we can try and make a difference.
I prefer to try...