Where Hunting Happens, Conservation Happens™
Those of us who care about hunting can no longer afford to dismiss the fact that some of the images we share and post on social media are, at a minimum, having a negative effect on the public image of hunting, if not providing animal rights and anti-hunting groups ample cannon fodder with which to fire back at us.
Our hunting and our images used to be contained to our magazines, photo albums, camps and gatherings. Now they are on television and posted everywhere with no story and no context. Blaming the Internet for this misfortune is like blaming a fork for our expanding waistline.
We’re hunters. We get it. Animals die in hunting. But to a global audience of non-hunters who may gain access to our photos, hunting images have proven offensive. Then there are the anti-hunting trolls just looking for anything they can use to turn people against hunting.
The reality today is ethical hunting encompasses more; it now extends to what we do on social media. Another old saying applies here: Look before you leap.
Here are some helpful tips for not getting bloodied and personally attacked on social media from posting images and stories about your hunting adventures online:
As hunters, we need never apologize for all that we do and what sportsmen have done for wildlife and wildlife habitat conservation. We do however have an obligation to demonstrate respect for the hunted and the sensitivity of others who also care about wildlife.
"The wildlife and its habitat cannot speak. So we must and we will."
-Theodore Roosevelt