If I've poo-pooed hunting pressure and crowding concerns, that was not my intent. I don't think I've said that hunting pressure hasn't increased, but then again, I say so many things it's hard to keep track...
What I have said, repeatedly, is that the increase in hunting pressure isn't because there's more bacon in the skillet, it's because the bacon is in a smaller skillet. Fewer hunters but on even fewer viable acres.
We're not just losing acres, but we're losing productive acres as habitat is fragmented and degraded. Agree with you though on the almost complete erosion of small game hunting. Current habitat just doesn't support viable populations of rabbits, snipe, woodcock, quail, etc., at least not within driving distance of me. And it's hard to find enough property to run dogs on, which is a big part of small game. Bird and rabbit hunters have been forced into either quitting hunting or sidestepping into deer hunting, because deer can survive in interspersed woodlots in suburbs or on wooded fencerows in the middle of millions of acres of ag.
I think there are two courses of action. One, we have to walk back our obsession with profit and property and progress, and rebuild the conservation/environmental ethos we used to have more of. We need pride-of-place in the sense that me and my neighbors have a sense of shared values and belonging because we are People of the Lower Coastal Plain, of black water rivers and longleaf pines and yaupon hollies and white sands carried by rivers from the foothills of the Appalachians. The common natural environment we live in, I think, could be the glue that holds a diverse people together. Again, I've seen this work. Rich or poor, black or white, red or blue, everybody in my community agrees their lives are better if they can enjoy the recreational opportunities provided by the bay, the gulf, the delta, and the various riverways. Even if they're not particularly outdoorsy, they've at least watched a sunset or remember a relative taking them swimming/fishing.
If you build that, and shift the framing from leftist environmentalists vs conservative conservationists to people who care about the world around them vs people who don't, I think you've won. Think about yourself and your immediate friend circle. How many rabid anti-hunters do you know who are so devoted to the cause that they would refuse to go to a town hall because the guy fighting back against a new data center, or advocating for PFAS regulation, shot deer? How many hunters do you know who wouldn't agree at some point if a tree-hugging non-hunter had stances against trophy hunting, high-fence preserves, shooting hogs out of helicopters, night vision, high-capacity magazines being used for hunting, etc? Even in the fringe, you have common ground, and most of the world isn't fringe. We ALL generally eat more or less meat, have some level of concern for how that meat is sourced, think that it's cool to see a deer or otter or eagle close to where you live, and dislike the types of people who use wealth and connections to go in and ruin a neighborhood they don't have to live in for the sake of a buck.
That may be a little broad for your question. If you want to specifically know how to get hunters to care about other hunters/anglers, that's easier. You shift from specialist to generalist culture. I am an outdoorsman. Not a duck hunter, or a bass angler, or a public land big buck chaser. I appreciate all of those things. If I get invited to private land, I'll go. If we strike up conversation on fishing and you mention that you've never tried a fly rod, I'll lend you mine. So while I am a southern duck hunter, who loves riverbottom and swamps and potholes and beaver dams, I'm also a trout angler, who has played in the Smokeys and can find a little time to sign a petition to help another trout angler out west who says there's a mountain stream threatened by mining.
