Below are the words of Chris Kubik who authored the Hunting is Conservation department in the May-June 2017 issue of Bugle magazine.
In 2013, a Colorado public relations campaign focused on raising awareness of hunters’ contributions to conservation. This yielded very positive results. After the campaign, 87 percent of non-hunters said they were not opposed to hunting, and 76 percent said they would not vote to further restrict hunting.
The key to good public relations is to understand the public’s point of view and to address their concerns. This is exactly why the Colorado campaign was successful.
The Colorado campaign determined, perhaps surprisingly, that the public doesn’t really want to know why we hunt. What they care about is how hunting and fishing pay for wildlife management. So what did the campaign focus on? How hunting and fishing pay for wildlife management. Instant success!
How we contribute to conservation, through dollars and volunteering, is very important. But when the big question of why we hunt comes up—consider explaining how hunters are critical to maintaining balance in wildlife populations. This concerns the public.
Chris Kubik grew up in rural Nebraska and spent three decades in the Army.