6 Ways to Restore Our Hunting and Fishing Reputation

One of the hardest parts of being a parent of teenagers is listening to all the ways that they’re right and you’re wrong. A favorite debate strategy of this population—and I say this from experience as the father of three former teens—is doubling down on those few and fleeting instances when a parent admits their teen is right about something. I cringe to say this, but I think our hunting and angling community is increasingly acting like truculent, tone-deaf teenagers. All we want to hear are different variations on the self-validating theme that we saved America’s wildlife, or how our fees fund wildlife conservation in America, or how hunters and anglers deserve special treatment because of all the sacrifices we make for wildlife.

Meanwhile, our standing in American society is tanking. The number of nonhunters is growing at twice the rate of hunters, and the trend is similar for anglers. A recent report showed declining nationwide support for hunters partly because public support for firearm ownership and use is declining. The number of Americans who personally know a hunter has never been lower.

I maintain we have a new conservation crisis, but it’s not in the woods and waters of America. It’s in classrooms and polling stations and social-media feeds, where the reputation of hunters and anglers as self-sacrificing champions of wildlife is being replaced with a public image of us as self-serving, opportunistic anachronisms.

Just as uncomfortable conversations with my teens were sometimes necessary to get my point across, and to lift them from the fog of self-certainty to see a larger perspective, this column is intentionally provocative. I worry that all our hard-won conservation successes in this country, carried across generations, are at risk because we haven’t taken on the largest conservation issue of our time: elevating our well-earned reputation as the stewards of America’s fish, wildlife and wild places.

In order to slow this reputational decline—reversing it may be a heavier lift—we need to have a hard conversation about things that damage our public image. Why does it matter? I can hear plenty of readers saying that we need to carry on exactly as we are, that nonhunters will never support us, and that we need to stand together to fight external forces. You’ve probably heard this: If you’re not for every form of hunting, angling and trapping, then you’re part of the forces that are trying to end hunting, fishing and trapping in America.

I agree that we are stronger together, but that’s a message for our community. I’m more worried about the way we portray ourselves outside our community, to people who will vote for or against wildlife-management ballot initiatives or state laws, and who might raise their children to believe that hunters are simply killers and that anglers torture fish for their own enjoyment. We’ve gotten by in America with a majority of voters who don’t feel strongly either way about hunting and shooting. What happens when the number who strongly object to both becomes the majority?

Happily, we can control some of the perceptions that are influencing our collective reputation. Following are six steps we can take to restore our image as the original champions of wildlife and wild places—and the best conservers of them for future generations.

1. CLEAN UP SOCIAL MEDIA

We can start by stopping all the social media images that show hunters and anglers negatively. All those piles of dead waterfowl that spell out the body count at the feet of high-fiving hunters? Those need to stay off Instagram. That video of a wounded whitetail waiting to be finished off? Don’t post that.

But beyond exercising good sense in our own behavior, we should also call out members of our community who are posting images that seemingly confirm the worst to people who want to stop hunting and fishing. Commenting on social posts that depict wildlife being abused or disrespected isn’t undermining our community, it’s ensuring that those images don’t get shared with those who might use them to shut down our opportunity or to confirm their own uninformed bias.

Social media can be a powerful conduit to show our respect for wildlife. Let’s use our feeds to highlight special places where wildlife thrive, demonstrate how we feed our families with wild protein or show how fishing connects us across generations and traditions.

2. STOP ACTING ENTITLED

Modern hunters and anglers who have only experienced abundance can’t recall when every deer or bass or duck was a gift. We have come to expect every season to be at least as good as the past, and we act like entitled teens when opportunity is restricted by things like chronic wasting disease or avian flu or fishing regulation changes. Instead of demanding more, we need to reset our expectations to trends of abundance and decline, celebrating those seasons of abundance instead of just griping about those seasons of depletion.

3. STOP PERSECUTING PREDATORS

There’s no more polarizing element of wildlife conservation than how we consider predators. Nonhunters embrace predators as the face of wildlife (and sometimes the name; remember “Cecil the Lion”). Meanwhile, hunters increasingly demonize wolves, bears and cougars as vermin. We’ve somehow lost the cultural memory of predators as indicators of healthy habitats and as cherished members of the wildlife community that should be managed—to include regulated hunting—just as we manage prey species. As long as our community engages in predator eradication campaigns, we will lose the public’s support for all hunting.

4. SUPPORT HABITAT PROTECTION

Just as the best argument for not selling land is because “they’re not making any more of it,” the best argument for conserving wildlife habitat is because it’s way easier (and cheaper) to save what we have than to try to obtain it later. Hunters and anglers need to become more active participants in conservation organizations not only by signing up as members, but also by volunteering for habitat projects, outreach programs and advocacy campaigns.

A 30,000-foot view of America isn’t very rosy for wildlife. Across the interior West, we are developing valley and foothills habitat at an accelerated clip. Nationwide, suburbs are expanding into farmland, replacing fields and woodlots with houses and franchise stores. The push for national “energy dominance” is stripping protections from critical wildlife habitat.

Intact wildlife habitat doesn’t only benefit wildlife. Conserved landscapes generally have trails and campgrounds and backcountry that enable everyone—hunters, nonhunters, anglers, swimmers—to enjoy the outdoors. The more positive experiences nonhunters have outdoors, the more aware and appreciative they are of the role that hunters and anglers play in protecting habitats and landscapes.

5. SHARE OUR HARVEST

The wild fish and game we catch and kill and feed to our families is one of the best gifts we can offer nonhunters and nonanglers. Share a meal. Give your bounty to a neighbor. Explain how you procured it, the skills and knowledge you needed to bring it to hand, where it came from and how that meat connects you to special places. This gifting of a wild meal is a small gesture, but it can have outsize impacts on the way your neighbors—and everyone they tell about it—considers you and your role as a hunter and angler.

6. SPEAK UP

Lastly, instead of preaching to a choir of likeminded hunters, anglers and trappers, we need to reach out and respectfully educate the public on the ways we contribute to the conservation of all wildlife. We must speak up. Recognize your role in reclaiming our reputation as the stewards of wildlife and as a sort of American original: common citizens who walk taller and prouder and cast a long shadow because we speak for the animals that give us so much in return. If we don’t speak up, and if we don’t actively reclaim our reputation, then we have only ourselves to blame for declines in our national standing, and for laws and policies that further erode our hard-won traditions.

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• This article was featured in the May 2025 issue of Game & Fish magazine. Click to subscribe

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