Conservation Force
A Force for Wildlife Conservation

Uahekua Herunga, Minister of Environment and Tourism of Namibia

“We see hunting as an integral part of our conservation strategy and the broader economy... Without hunting, wildlife will not remain a viable form of land use in rural Namibia, and may be replaced by other forms of land uses more damaging to our ecosystems.”

___________________________________________________________________________
 

Shane Mahoney

“Wildlife and wild places no longer exist by accident or without the intervention of those that truly and deeply care.”

___________________________________________________________________________

Professor Craig Packer

“The lion needs the hunter as much as the hunter needs the lion.”

___________________________________________________________________________

John J. Jackson, III - President, Conservation Force

“There can be no stewardship without stewards.”

___________________________________________________________________________

President Theodore Roosevelt, 1905

"In a civilized and cultivated country wild animals only continue to exist at all when preserved by sportsmen.  the excellent people who protest against all hunting, and consider sportsmen as enemies of wild life, are ignorant of the fact that in reality the genuine sportsman is by all odds the most important factor in keeping the larger and more valuable wild creatures from total extermination."

___________________________________________________________________________

Sarel van der Merwe
Chair: African Lion Working Group
Affiliated With: IUCN/SSC Cat and Conservation  Breeding Specialist Groups

"I do regard it necessary to extend a hand of friendship to our colleagues who find themselves knee-deep in the hunting world. The true hunter is a special kind of person, someone whom we should cherish amongst us. And we should express our concurrence with those who still hold ethics close to them bosom. Simultaneously, we should recognize the constructive way in which hunters participate in community upliftment in Africa, because in many cases that is true."

___________________________________________________________________________

Sonia Hendrick, Host of Bullets & Broadheads

“I don't hunt because I have something to prove as a woman. I hunt because I feel spiritually and genetically drawn to the outdoors; it's part of my hardwiring. I strive for success in the field and chase down goals because I'm driven. I don't think anyone hunts or pursues anything they're passionate about with aspirations for mediocrity.”

___________________________________________________________________________

Rosie Cooney, IUCN

“There's only two places on earth where wildlife at a large scale has actually increased in the 20th century, and those are North America and southern Africa.  Both of those models of conservation were built around hunting."

___________________________________________________________________________

Bill Bennett, Minister of Tourism, Culture and the Arts, British Columbia, Canada

“[H]unters do more for wildlife than anyone.”

___________________________________________________________________________

Dr. Jon Hutton, Executive Director of UNEP-WCMC; 60th CIC General Assembly, 26 April 2013, Budapest

        "Hunting is not part of conservation, it is conservation."

___________________________________________________________________________


Greg Simons, President, Texas Wildlife Association

“[F]or many decades, whitetails have not only been considered the most popular game animal in North America, but they have long been considered the most economically important wildlife species to grace the landscape....Further, when you consider that funds from hunting have been the chief financier for conservation and management of all terrestrial wildlife in the U.S. for over 100 years, and combine this with the cornerstone role that whitetails have played in this funding equation, the gravity of the impact that whitetails have on our economics and on wildlife sustainability becomes apparent. ”

___________________________________________________________________________

 

Former U.S. Department of Interior Secretary Gale Norton.

“Dating back to Teddy Roosevelt, hunters have been the pillar of conservation in America, doing more than anyone to conserve wildlife and its habitat.”

  ___________________________________________________________________________

 

  Justice Alito in U.S. v. Stevens, April 20, 2010; U.S. Supreme Court

"While there are certainly those who find hunting objectionable, the predominant view in this country has long been that hunting serves many important values, and it is clear that Congress shares that view. Since 1972, when Congress called upon the President to designate a National Hunting and Fishing Day, see S. J. Res. 117, 92d Cong., 2d Sess. (1972), 86Stat. 133, Presidents have regularly issued proclamations extolling the values served by hunting. See Presidential Proclamation No. 8421, 74 Fed. Reg. 49305 (Pres. Obama2009) (hunting and fishing are “ageless pursuits” that promote “the conservation and restoration of numerous species and their natural habitats”); Presidential Proclamation No. 8295, 73 Fed. Reg. 57233 (Pres. Bush 2008) (hunters and anglers “add to our heritage and keep our wildlife populations healthy and strong,” and “are among our foremost conservationists”); Presidential Proclamation No. 7822, 69 Fed. Reg. 59539 (Pres. Bush 2004) (hunting and fishing are “an important part of our Nation’s heritage,” and “America’s hunters and anglers represent the great spirit of our country”); Presidential Proclamation No.4682, 44 Fed. Reg. 53149 (Pres. Carter 1979) (hunting promotes conservation and an appreciation of “healthyrecreation, peaceful solitude and closeness to nature”); Presidential Proclamation No. 4318, 39 Fed. Reg. 35315 (Pres. Ford 1974) (hunting furthers “appreciation and respect for nature” and preservation of the environment). Thus, it is widely thought that hunting has “scientific” value in that it promotes conservation, “historical” value in that it provides a link to past times when hunting played a critical role in daily life, and “educational” value in that it furthers the understanding and appreciation of nature and our country’s past and instills valuable character traits. And if hunting itself is widely thought to serve these values, then it takes but a small additional step to conclude that depictions of hunting make a non-trivial contribution to the exchange of ideas....Hunting enhances the environment and brings joy to those who use the outdoors and should therefore be encouraged."

___________________________________________________________________________

Archibald Rutledge, An American Hunter, 1937

"It has always seemed to me that any man is a better man for being a hunter. This sport confers a certain constant alertness, and develops a certain ruggedness of character....Moreover, it allies us to the pioneer past. In a deep sense, this great land of ours was won for us by hunters."

___________________________________________________________________________

John Madison, Out Home, 1979

"Through almost all of human existence, huntable land and huntable wildlife have preceded the hunter. They caused the hunter. But in the future this must be reversed. It is the hunter who must cause huntable land and wildlife, and a world worth being young in."

___________________________________________________________________________

Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac, 1949

"There is value in any experience that exercises those ethical restraints collectively called sportsmanship."

___________________________________________________________________________

Justin Spring of Boone and Crockett Club

"We score trophies, but every hunt is to some extent a way of measuring ourselves."

___________________________________________________________________________

Valerius Geist, Ph.D., from Legendary Deer Camps by Robert Wegner, 2001

"Curing environmental ills requires not a stance outside nature, but a stance within nature, a role not as onlooker without, but as an actor within."

___________________________________________________________________________

L.C. Weaver, et al., from The Catalytic Role and Contributions of Sustainable Wildlife Use to the Namibia CBNRM Programme

"Trophy hunting contributes around 34% of the total benefits to communities of Namibia's Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) programme, which supports the livelihoods of around 240,000 of Namibia's poorest people."

___________________________________________________________________________

Dale Hall, Chief Executive Officer of Ducks Unlimited and Past Director of USF&WS

"(H)unters...pioneered wildlife conservation and still pay for the management of important habitats and the species that depend on them."