Don’t take small steps.
Take the big steps that others are afraid to take.
You gave the world conservation. You gave it at a time of the greatest wildlife and resource depletion crisis in the history of your nation, 110 years ago.
And out of a nation that was denuding its forests, despoiling its waterways, destroying its naturalist fish runs, eliminating shorebirds and wading birds, and destroying the bison, and moving all kinds of animals to the edge and beyond the edge of extinction.
You had eliminated beavers east of the Rocky Mountains, they were extinct, beavers.
Every single species, they would all be on the endangered species list if you had one. Thank your lucky stars that you didn’t.
They’d probably still be on it.
That Legacy was substantially built on what the hunters and anglers and their families gave back to this country.
We were the thing that never gave in, never broke the tradition, never stopped giving.
And in all that time, the hunting community never once said “we pay the freight, so it’s ours.”
Not once.
The Hunting Community said “we will pay the freight, we will do the right thing, and it is for everyone.”
This is American idealism, it’s not just hunting.
Don’t take small steps. Take the big steps that others are afraid to take.See the previous two installments