I think that one of the most misunderstood things in American society might be Wildlife Conservation. I was having a conversation with a really good-hearted lady the other day, who loves animals, and didn’t know that without hunters and their money we would not have many of those animals. It is hunters and fishermen who demanded Conservation. It’s their money through the Pittman-Robertson Act of 1937 who primarily pay for it too. At one point, areas of the country didn’t even have a turkey or a deer left to watch or photograph. Reintroduction of turkey’s started in the 1950’s and wasn’t even complete until the 1990’s. How does this work? The American Wildlife Conservation model works on a couple of principles. Those who care the most about a thing, fund it. Anytime someone purchases a gun, ammunition, or archery equipment, they are paying an additional tax that goes directly to Conservation. The other principle is scientific management. Modern game laws use science to evaluate population levels and determine how many animals can be removed from a population without damaging the overall numbers of the population. That’s why it’s hunters, not animal activists, who detest poachers the most. Hunters are also the ones who rebalance the ecosystem. Anywhere humans live, prey animals such as deer tend to outbreed sustainable population numbers. It’s because their natural predators aren’t omnipresent to keep the numbers in check. This leads to mass starvation in winter and disease running rampant through populations. If you want to save the deer herds, you literally must do the job of the wolf. Nature doesn’t just “balance itself out”, all of earth is a garden. Anytime numbers get out of balance, catastrophes happen to reset it. The goal of modern conservation is to prevent catastrophic rebalancing. The natives who lived on this continent before it became America knew that. They used to set wildfires and let everything burn. Nowadays conservation departments in some areas do the same thing through controlled burns. These burns remove built up deadfall and undergrowth, allowing certain tree species that require fire to thrive and protecting human infrastructure. The Pittman-Robertson Act also makes it Law that State hunting and fishing license fees cannot be diverted to other pots of money in a State. This isn’t like when a State charges tolls on a road and then uses that money for something else besides fixing a road. If you love animals and hate hunting or fishing, the most effective investment to protect wildlife that you can possibly make would be to purchase licenses for both and then just stay home. In a similar manner to how you can’t just confiscate the wealth of the top 1% of billionaires and run the country for more than a couple of days, there is no group of rich anti-hunting animal rights activists that could collectively pool their money and replace the dollars that each and every sportsman contributes. We are the ones who ensure fish are restocked, rare species such as the Hellbender salamander are protected, deer and elk graze the prairies and yes, that wolves roam their natural habitat. Protected species and endangered species are also primarily determined and supported through these exact same efforts.