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Encouraging people to hunt

Talk about a great job…Keith Warnke has one; he is the Hunting and Shooting Sport Coordinator for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources. “I get paid to recruit people to participate in hunting and shooting sports.” The fact is the number of hunters is declining across the United States so a number of states have decided to take action. Warnke says as more people move into cities, they are further removed from hunting and hunting areas. The economy is another factor cutting into spendable income, money used for hunting plus high gasoline prices don’t help. Age is another factor as younger people are not as likely to hunt as their parents or their grandparents.

In an effort to generate more interest in hunting, the DNR has developed a number of strategies like a mentor program which allows children age 10 or older to go out with a mentor to gain some hunting experience. Warnke says a majority of hunters have taken the natural path of following their parents but there are a large number of adults who missed out on that opportunity for one reason or another. “To address that we are taking learn-to-hunt programs into colleges, into these folks who want to live sustainably, locally, free-range, there’s all kinds of organizations and networks.” He cites the Badger Hunting Club on the U.W. Madison campus as an example of that effort.

Why promote hunting? Warnke says for one thing, “Hunters are a very large source of funding for conservation.” License fees go toward the funding for wetlands, prairie restoration, savannahs and recreation areas where people can view wildlife. He says hunters also have a “solid connection with the landscape, the land, the natural resources and an understanding of conservation.” There is also the tourism aspect, while Wisconsin doesn’t have the draw of the big game like the western states, “we still get hunters from all 50 states and several foreign countries every year.”

AUDIO:Warnke talks about promoting hunting 9:30 mp3

Learn more about hunting in Wisconsin here: