Maryland Wants More Hunters

Maryland hopes to recruit new hunters — and promote conservation

Natural resources and wildlife officials in Maryland are encouraging hunting of deer, turkeys and other game because they say it’s good for the environment. Though hunting may stir debates about firearms and animal cruelty, these advocates say it thins herds for the good of ecosystems and their human neighbors. It also promotes advocacy for land conservation.

 But there's another, more important reason, can you guess before you move on down?

Most importantly, they say, hunting is a key source of revenue for programs to protect fragile lands and wildlife populations. Federal excise tax revenue on equipment including firearms and fishing poles totaled more than $1 billion last year.

Yep, taxes!

In many families, the tradition has been handed down for generations. But as longtime sportsmen age and children lose interest, conservation advocates say a new approach is needed. Government agencies and nonprofit groups are even launching mentoring programs such as the one that helped Majid get started.

The more urban a state gets, the less hunting is part of the culture and the more likely the populace is to support the various forms of gun control. Urban kids would much rather play video games.

My dad was not a hunter, although we had small guns (BB-guns, pellet guns and eventually .22 rimfires) that we used for plinking. It was only when I moved away from Los Angeles to Oregon that as a poor graduate student with access to our own private land to hunt on, that I bought deer hunting rifles.