Quit Expecting Every Hunter to Be So Hardcore. We Need Casual Hunters, Too

[NMSbowhunter]

Maybe you could incentivize large corporate out of state landowners into opening land to recreational use by resident state taxpayers by taxing them if they don't. Then allocate the revenue generated from those taxes to buy land for recreational use and put that land into trusts so it cannot ever be sold off or developed. For those landowners who did open the land to recreational use, the state should indemnify them against lawsuits that might arise out of people injuring themselves while enjoying that land.

 

[Chimney7]

I’ve been following this thread since the beginning. It is the opposite of casual.

All joking aside, there have been some very well thought out and articulate responses, which is the opposite of the internet.

 

[BTaylor]

Another thought that I hope doesn't break no-politics or derail a good discussion too hard.

No matter which party you support, I think we have to force a reality where candidates can't expect to hold town halls if they can't talk about conservation. In my state they all know they're going to get questions on Medicare and Medicaid, their Second Amendment feelings, whether or not they support the police, their stance on the abortion/women's healthcare issue, gay marriage...all the culture war hot topics. I've seen the deer-in-the-headlamps look when folks asked them what their stance was on Alabama Power leaving several million tons of toxic goal ash yards from a river in a floodplain. One of my senate candidates has sent me spam calls, texts, and emails to two different accounts in the last week asking me what I think about Venezuela, but you cannot find a single thing on his website or online media where he even has a stance on coal ash, mud dumping, fish toxics, PFAS, data centers, etc. Much less public access and public lands.

I broach the topic because this is a problem beyond the scope of individuals and small groups. It took citizen prompted government action to create public lands and environmental regulations. Go to your town halls, join your local special interest groups, and vote in your primaries, folks.

This is a partial answer to the questions I was hitting at. 100% agree with you here about asking these questions in a town hall settings. And maybe that is where some momentum could be built with the non-consumptive voters. At least the ones that show up at such events. Just need a way to grow it beyond that.

 

[pioneer_jaw]

Guys I laid awake last night and thought of some things we could do.
- X initiative: get every hunter to @ Elon Musk petitioning him to buy every tract of raw land in USA and put it in a conservation trust.
- have all hunters buy lottery tickets to accomplish same as above. Eventually one of us wins big and helps us all.
- have hunters set up fraudulent daycares, etc and defraud state government funds, directing them to conservation efforts. If we can defraud each state by 9 billion, that’s 450 billion dollars for conservation efforts!

It’s a start, right?

 

[pioneer_jaw]

Re: state level conservation, my sense is the Deep South remains among the worst in the nation. In LA, the state government has seemingly chosen to trash the water and land in order to run what amounts to a jobs programs for people who barely graduate high school. Hence why we host more chemical and oil refineries than almost any other state and have very lax regulations.

I do not think all states operate so brazenly. My sis works in environmental engineering in KY and speaks positively about the state conservation and restoration efforts overall.

 

[raisins]

Good analogy! I think it translates to this article like Gyms and supplement companies saying "we need more causal bodybuilders" when what they mean is we need more people buying supplements and joining gyms (on auto draft) whether or not they actually go to the gym or consume the supplements or not.

Good angle, never thought of it that way. But I agree.

 

[Jammintree]

Guys I laid awake last night and thought of some things we could do.
- X initiative: get every hunter to @ Elon Musk petitioning him to buy every tract of raw land in USA and put it in a conservation trust.
- have all hunters buy lottery tickets to accomplish same as above. Eventually one of us wins big and helps us all.
- have hunters set up fraudulent daycares, etc and defraud state government funds, directing them to conservation efforts. If we can defraud each state by 9 billion, that’s 450 billion dollars for conservation efforts!

It’s a start, right?

What if we as hunters just pool our dollars and start a hunters land trust?

 

[pioneer_jaw]

What if we as hunters just pool our dollars and start a hunters land trust?

this is my ignorant break down but...

imagine there was a co-op where members (or for co ops, is it technically owners? I’m gonna say members here) had the right to access the specific parcels that the co-op owned. if 500,000 hunters contributed $150 annually, the co-op would raise $75million annually.

let's say the initial buy-in for the co-op is a one-time $500 fee, then $150 annually. Now the co-op has $250 million and raises $75million annually. imagine the $250m is designated as an endowment of sorts and invested - ten years in a 10% apy ETF w/o any additional revenue and the co-op now has $1billion...

idk. it seems like not a terrible idea? just glancing at listing on Land&Farm, even if $50m were allotted annually for land purchases, numerous thousand-acre properties could be purchased; the initial buy for one year could easily total in the 20k+ acres. that's assuming the coop only has annual dues and no returns from timber, CRP, crop leases, etc. also not factoring improvements or taxes. Maybe states would offer tax breaks because of the conservation benefits…

Still, the reality is that there would have to be a long period of vestment on behalf of many until enough acreage across the US could be owned to make it useable to the majority of members. Initally, sure, the coop could buy some tens of thousands in acres in MO, IL, MS, KY, PA etc. Idk, where ever. the numbers I’m citing only work with almost a third of all hunters buying in, but until the co op owned 500,000+ acres, in theory anyway, there’s less than one acre of land per owner. Sure, it’s not a huge sum of money annually, but many guys would simply say - I’ll buy my own land, or save my money and hunt the public land.

So I wrote all this to think through this ide, and I don’t think it’s a bad idea…. Maybe some decentralized local co-ops would do better since everyone could more readily make use of the land bought.

But also consider, this hypothetical group - Deer Unlimited - would be among the largest conservation groups in the USA (taking my hypothetical numbers) That means a seat at the table with government policy and statewide efforts.

It’s an idea anyway. $500 up front and $150/yr for 40yrs is only $6,500. You can’t buy an acre anywhere for that. That’s honestly even cheaper than leasing for more than a few years.

 

[BTaylor]

this is my ignorant break down but...

imagine there was a co-op where members (or for co ops, is it technically owners? I’m gonna say members here) had the right to access the specific parcels that the co-op owned. if 500,000 hunters contributed $150 annually, the co-op would raise $75million annually.

let's say the initial buy-in for the co-op is a one-time $500 fee, then $150 annually. Now the co-op has $250 million and raises $75million annually. imagine the $250m is designated as an endowment of sorts and invested - ten years in a 10% apy ETF w/o any additional revenue and the co-op now has $1billion...

idk. it seems like not a terrible idea? just glancing at listing on Land&Farm, even if $50m were allotted annually for land purchases, numerous thousand-acre properties could be purchased; the initial buy for one year could easily total in the 20k+ acres. that's assuming the coop only has annual dues and no returns from timber, CRP, crop leases, etc. also not factoring improvements or taxes. Maybe states would offer tax breaks because of the conservation benefits…

Still, the reality is that there would have to be a long period of vestment on behalf of many until enough acreage across the US could be owned to make it useable to the majority of members. Initally, sure, the coop could buy some tens of thousands in acres in MO, IL, MS, KY, PA etc. Idk, where ever. the numbers I’m citing only work with almost a third of all hunters buying in, but until the co op owned 500,000+ acres, in theory anyway, there’s less than one acre of land per owner. Sure, it’s not a huge sum of money annually, but many guys would simply say - I’ll buy my own land, or save my money and hunt the public land.

So I wrote all this to think through this ide, and I don’t think it’s a bad idea…. Maybe some decentralized local co-ops would do better since everyone could more readily make use of the land bought.

But also consider, this hypothetical group - Deer Unlimited - would be among the largest conservation groups in the USA (taking my hypothetical numbers) That means a seat at the table with government policy and statewide efforts.

It’s an idea anyway. $500 up front and $150/yr for 40yrs is only $6,500. You can’t buy an acre anywhere for that. That’s honestly even cheaper than leasing for more than a few years.

In theory it's a good idea, in practice, you would have to hold your nose. The biggest issue would be dealing with the people, esp. if we are talking about ownership stakes. A large percentage of clubs are a complete crap show with all the drama and that is almost always on lease ground. Keep in mind also clubs are miniscule numbers of folks compared to what you are talking about. Who gets to decide where land is purchased, who determines the hunting rules outside of the game regs for the state, can you take a guest, etc.?

 

[NMSbowhunter]

I think it is a great idea too, but it could be problematic for all the reasons BTaylor outlined. Maybe, instead of the focus of this group and money buying properties outright, focus that money and influence onto the politicians at the local, state, and national level and influence them into having the respective states purchase additional public lands and enact laws, rules, regulations and ensure state DNRs work for the hunters, not be weaponized against them. History has proven one thing, and that is that politicians listen to special interest groups with deep pockets.

 

[gcr0003]

I’m not sharing any land with a bunch of saddlehunters, lord knows yall walk all over the place and scout right in the middle of the season and muck everything up lol

 

[NMSbowhunter]

I’m not sharing any land with a bunch of saddlehunters, lord knows yall walk all over the place and scout right in the middle of the season and muck everything up lol

Will you send us some money if we promise to stay out of your spots, monthy on autodraft, lol? You will of course have to give us the GPS coordinates of all those spots so we can publish them to our 500,000 members however, lol.

 

[Nutterbuster]

this is my ignorant break down but...

imagine there was a co-op where members (or for co ops, is it technically owners? I’m gonna say members here) had the right to access the specific parcels that the co-op owned. if 500,000 hunters contributed $150 annually, the co-op would raise $75million annually.

let's say the initial buy-in for the co-op is a one-time $500 fee, then $150 annually. Now the co-op has $250 million and raises $75million annually. imagine the $250m is designated as an endowment of sorts and invested - ten years in a 10% apy ETF w/o any additional revenue and the co-op now has $1billion...

idk. it seems like not a terrible idea? just glancing at listing on Land&Farm, even if $50m were allotted annually for land purchases, numerous thousand-acre properties could be purchased; the initial buy for one year could easily total in the 20k+ acres. that's assuming the coop only has annual dues and no returns from timber, CRP, crop leases, etc. also not factoring improvements or taxes. Maybe states would offer tax breaks because of the conservation benefits…

Still, the reality is that there would have to be a long period of vestment on behalf of many until enough acreage across the US could be owned to make it useable to the majority of members. Initally, sure, the coop could buy some tens of thousands in acres in MO, IL, MS, KY, PA etc. Idk, where ever. the numbers I’m citing only work with almost a third of all hunters buying in, but until the co op owned 500,000+ acres, in theory anyway, there’s less than one acre of land per owner. Sure, it’s not a huge sum of money annually, but many guys would simply say - I’ll buy my own land, or save my money and hunt the public land.

So I wrote all this to think through this ide, and I don’t think it’s a bad idea…. Maybe some decentralized local co-ops would do better since everyone could more readily make use of the land bought.

But also consider, this hypothetical group - Deer Unlimited - would be among the largest conservation groups in the USA (taking my hypothetical numbers) That means a seat at the table with government policy and statewide efforts.

It’s an idea anyway. $500 up front and $150/yr for 40yrs is only $6,500. You can’t buy an acre anywhere for that. That’s honestly even cheaper than leasing for more than a few years.

Kindly reminds me of the old College Humor skit where Brennan Mulligan plays the CEO of GoFundMe, who is making a commercial begging people to start "fun" GoFundMes instead of the platform just being a way for American's to get out od medical debt.

At the end, he says he's not suggesting something radical like single payer Healthcare, but spitballs having one big GoFundMe every year that collects money for all the people who might get sick or hurt.

An aide offscreen says, "That's...singe payer healthcare."

Sounds like reinventing the public lands system.

 

[pioneer_jaw]

the advantage to a private, non-governmental system would be that the members would manage the revenue and holdings, as opposed to the entire populace of USA or respective states. so the threat of land sales would be decreased. the country did, however, show the broad support for public lands recently, so maybe there's no problem to solve.

i have no idea about management and all that - i'm just crunching numbers and imagining what might be possible.

reality check: if we defrauded even one state by $9 billion, we'd have more in a single instance than the whole scheme I outlined. kinda beggars belief the scope of money at play...

 

[Jammintree]

Why would it need to be an exclusive club? Why not just use the land trust model? I think you’d get a lot more support from non hunters.

 

[pioneer_jaw]

well the cool thing is that since it's nothing and doesn't exist, it doesn't have to be anything and could be anything!

 

[-CRASH]

I think it is a great idea too, but it could be problematic for all the reasons BTaylor outlined. Maybe, instead of the focus of this group and money buying properties outright, focus that money and influence onto the politicians at the local, state, and national level and influence them into having the respective states purchase additional public lands and enact laws, rules, regulations and ensure state DNRs work for the hunters, not be weaponized against them. History has proven one thing, and that is that politicians listen to special interest groups with deep pockets.

Yes, but then these special interests groups get corrupted too.
Anything to do with politics gets dirty quick. No matter what side. Not trying stir anything up. Nor negate your thinking. Just relaying my thoughts as well.