Ted Nugent isn't the only guy in America who's not afraid to say hunting is good for the country. Frank Miniter -- the award-winning editor of American Hunter magazine who's stalked game on five continents -- has written "The Politically Incorrect Guide to Hunting." The latest in Regnery Publishing's "PIG" series, it defends hunting from its know-nothing media critics in the big cities and spells out how it benefits conservation, cuts crop damage and saves human lives.
Q: What's your book about and why did you write it?
A: I've been reporting on these things for more than a decade. I worked for Outdoor Life Magazine and now American Hunter magazine, and after digging into what hunting actually does, I found all these facts that the mainstream media are not telling. I see hunting as the conservative environmental movement, actually. When you get really deep into it, that's what hunters really are. They're doing so much good, but that word just isn't getting out there. I thought this should be in a book and it should be out there for people to completely grasp, so I went to Regnery with the idea and it worked.
Q: Is there any one major thing that the general population isn't told about hunting that every American citizen should know?
A: When you talk to people against hunting, their ideas are usually based on an emotional side. They think that hunters want to go out there and kill for pleasure. That's not true at all. You're in Pennsylvania, and you're around that culture a lot. You've got a million hunters there. But when you talk to people in these real urban centers, they don't know that hunters are nature lovers. I tell them facts like, "Did you know that every animal in this country that has a hunting season on it has increased in number after a hunting season is placed on it?" They don't get that. I say, "Look, once you put a hunting season on an animal, you actually end up with a constituency of hunters fighting for that wildlife species." This has happened with elk and deer and turkey and all these other game animals.
Q: Is hunting an endangered pastime? The number of hunters has dropped from 19 million in 1975 to 12.5 million last year.
A: It's a fading pastime because we're becoming more of an urban nation than ever before. Even the rural states -- you go into the red states and those people move out to get the jobs in places like where I am now, Fairfax, Virginia. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service survey numbers have been slowly going down, though there are some bright spots. The number of women is up 72 percent in the last five years. ... Some of the youth programs now just coming on are bearing fruit. I see that as an important thing. When I talk to a hunter, he usually knows about the ecosystem he's hunting in. he knows where the deer are, and where the grouse are, and what the turkey are doing and this kind of stuff . I think he cares about that resource because he's involved in it so much. When you talk to a non-hunter, they may have a real compassion for wildlife but they don't often understand what the wildlife need, what they eat, what they're doing.
Q: What are three top reasons hunting is good for America? Continued... |