Young Hunters

[J.B. Books]

As farms go so goes hunting.

As open land goes so goes hunting.

As hunting becomes more inconvenient, (as a youth I could walk to good hunting areas from my house) and longer drives needed, so goes hunting.

As guns are demonized in the media and schools aka Ft. Hood, VA Tech, Columbine etc. so goes sporting use of firearms and with it hunting.

As hunting license sales decline each year (fewer mentors available), so declines the number of youth participating. (In the last 30 years we have gone from over 10,000 duck hunters in NH to under 2000, yet population of NH is up 33%)

As hunting continues to be made more complex (and in some cases more expensive i.e non tox shot) by increasing regulations, so goes hunting.

As the number of single parents raising children increases, so goes hunting.

As wildlife agencies make chicken little announcements such as lead fragments in venison being possible threat to health (when later studies said no), so goes hunting.

As Walt Disney and others create talking animals with a full range of human emotions and portray hunters as evil, Bambi, Lion King etc, so goes hunting.

Thanks to ticks, Lyme disease, skeeters with West Nile Virus and EEE in the Northeast, the woods and fields are a less friendly playground.

An almost insurmountable witches stew ain't it?