Hunting, Conservation, and Recreation

Hunting has been one of my passions since I can remember.  I hunt pheasants,duck,geese,deer, and other small game.  I believe hunting is a very important part of our culture.  Teaching life lessons such as appreciation for the wild and safe responsible behavior.  The amount of hunters has been dropping every single year simply because the youth are not introduced to the multiple adventures hunting offers.  There are multiple things to blame for the fall of hunters, one big part mentioned more in depth later is conservation.  If there is no land for people to hunt on there is going to be less hunters.  In my opinion the reason that the population of hunters is decreasing at such a steep rate is because of the new generation of parents.  Parents do not take there kids out hunting, camping, or hiking like they use to.  The new generation is so obsessed with technology and other forms of indoor entertainment that they completely neglect what the outdoors has to offer.  Sometimes getting away from everything, from work, and from the daily stresses that our economy puts on our society.  The pure beauty of a nature hike or the quite hours sitting in a deer stand is no competition for any other entertainment that we have provided.

With this being said conservation becomes the most important goals of those hunters out there.  Conserving what we have and improving habitat so that we are even able to hunt and enjoy the outdoors in the future is crucial.  There use to be a CRP program which encourage the planting of several types of grasses that encouraged the conservation of the wild and also the conservation of the soil.  The soil benefits from these programs and with the price of corn going through the roof farmers are being blinded by greed.  Taking out their fields of CRP to plant overpriced corn so they can make a dollar, this unfortunately is largely due to the fact that congress did not renew the CRP program.  Our country is so far in debt that we have cut conservation programs that are there for the well being of our wildlife and the well being of our land/resources.

Recreation, the last part of my rant is something that has been lost among the society.  The practices of camping and hiking are some of the most memorable activities our world has to offer.  Taking the time to go out and appreciate what we are given is a lost habit.  Our society is stuck indoors and they don't want to take the time to see what there is to see.  Living life in this manner only results in a shadowed life, a life in which people do not grow to a full potential.  Technology, although we would not be where we are without it has almost hindered out ability to appreciate the planet we live on.  I am much to blame as anyone, there are many times where I could be outside enjoying the day but I stay inside to watch TV.  Sometimes I wonder if we have grown to far away from "outside"