Why Conservative Hunters Are Giving Up On The Environment

It used to be that conservative Republicans had more respect for the environment and public lands because they enjoyed hunting on them. Now when it comes to protecting those lands and the ecosystems they hold from exploitation by corporations, they side with the ones doing the exploiting.

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Image Credit, Maslowski Steve, USFWS

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Caller: I wanted to talk about Matt Walsh's segment about ivory-billed woodpeckers going extinct. You guys covered yesterday. and like I'm an avid bowhunter and like sorry i'm a little bit nervous.

Sam: What kind of bow? Is it like the one with the pulleys?

Caller: Yeah, I use a compound bow.

Caller: Okay so did you ever use a recurve or a different type or you just went right to the compound bow?

Caller: So I started doing archery like I don't know how interesting this is for the audience but Emma: it's interesting for Sam.

Sam: It's interesting. Yeah, I don't care what they say.

Caller: And then eventually when I got into hunting like maybe five or six years ago is when I switched over to the compound bow.

Sam: Right just because it was and do you hunt like at 495. Like where do you go, where do you hunt, do you go like to New Hampshire or something.

Caller: Yeah well so kind of all over the place I do a lot of my hunting down in Holliston and then in Haverhill too. And just some of these more like you know kind of old farm communities. they have like you know good amounts of public land and stuff that you can hunt on.

Sam: So you're hunting deer, is that it?

Caller: Yeah hunting gear in turkey. all right, because I got into it like I tried to be like my wife and I tried to stop eating meat maybe like five or six years ago. and just because we couldn't really, I don't know, I didn't feel good about buying meat from the grocery store. so we tried to go vegetarian and i couldn't hack it. I think we went vegetarian for maybe six or seven months and I didn't really feel that great. okay like just because I do some activities, some sports and stuff and I didn't feel good.

Sam: So a lot of athletes do.

Caller: yeah okay but all right go ahead so yeah yeah so we were just like well if i'm gonna eat meat i have to kind of take some responsibility for the process and just go get it myself so. You know, fortunately, we haven't had to buy meat from the grocery store for like a little since last year because I got two deer.

Sam: Okay all right, good enough. all right so what do you got so your bowhunter.

Caller: Well it's just say that again.

Sam: Well and yeah and you're talking about the bird.

Caller: Well it's not just the bird it's kind of like his you know I'm kind of like a hunting you know advocate. And there's this really weird cognitive dissonance and like the hunting community because there's a lot of conservatives that are hunting.

Sam: Right they're conservative and some of them are conservationists.

Caller: Not necessarily environmentalists but conservationists, yeah but there's like this kind of like you'll go out into these you go into this hunting community you'll talk about conservation and like this story about classifying this woodpecker as extinct has been like really contentious in some of like the hunting communities that I'm a part of. because they're these hunters that want to preserve these animals for hunting in the future yet at the same time they don't really want to do anything and support any policies that protect the habitats that the animals that you know we enjoy hunting live in. and you had mentioned something yesterday about introducing wolves in montana. I can't remember what state you referenced. but there's like there's different initiatives to introduce wolf populations back into the wild montana wyoming and now and colorado. and there's this weird like juxtaposition where these hunters want to you know they they want to advocate for management by scientists and not not do wildlife management by regulation or by legislation.