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Transcription
In this episode of Engaging U!, Drew Neff discusses global engagement through hunting. He addresses the misconception of trophy hunting and highlights the ethical hunters who connect with nature and use every part of the animal for sustenance. Karina Clark, a freshman, shares her perspective on hunting, acknowledging its cultural significance but expressing her personal disinterest. Drew emphasizes the importance of open-minded conversation between hunters and non-hunters. He also discusses the decline in hunting and its impact on conservation efforts. Welcome to this episode of Engaging U! from GU. My name is Drew Neff, and today we'll be talking about global engagement through the lens of English 101 writing, Section 10. I'll be talking today with Karina Clark from our class, so let's get into it. To open up today, I want to introduce my background a little bit and where I come from. I grew up hunting in Arizona and New Mexico with my dad and my grandfathers and my friends. Hunting to me was always something that has been a part of my family and been in my family, and it's super important and plays a big role of how I bond with those closest to me. I want to break down something really fast. The stereotype of trophy hunter, I think, is something that a lot of non-hunters label a lot of hunters or label some hunters, and I think it's just a misconception that I would like to talk about a little bit. So when I think of trophy hunters as a hunter, I think of somebody who pays a lot of money to go to a ranch, a private ranch that has high fences and big animals, and they'll pay $20,000 or $30,000 or $40,000 for a trophy elk tag, and they know that they're going to shoot a big bull because the bull is on this private ranch. And they're really just into it for the mount or for the pelt or whatever. That's what I think when I think of trophy hunting. But I don't think that a lot of ethical hunters really subscribe to that. I think that that is a small subset of people who like to go out and do that, but at least me and my father and everybody in my family and a lot of the ethical hunters that I've talked to, we share the same perspective that we use hunting to connect us with Mother Nature. For me, I connect with God in the way that I hunt. I hunt ethically. I try to provide the animal that I'm hunting with a quick and painless death, and I use every bit of that animal that I can to provide food for my family, for my friends, things like that. So that's my take on a trophy hunter, and I think it's easy to get into that mindset of everybody nowadays, because you can just get meat at the store, just hunts for fun or hunts for the trophy. But I think that there's still a lot of us out there that do it because of the love for the game, the love for the animal, and the love for providing for ourselves and our families. Everybody has communities. We've talked about that a lot in this class. Some have sports teams. Others have different parts of their culture, and I think to me, hunting is like that. It's a tool that I have in my toolbox to relate to other people around the world through our shared experiences and how we interact with Mother Nature. It's something that we've shared as people on this earth for eons, and it's something that I think and I hope is always going to be around. So diving into the heart of this podcast, I'm going to jump now in a minute to an interview I had with Karina Clark, who's a freshman at Gonzaga, about her thoughts and feelings regarding hunting. And an excerpt from that interview will follow this right now. Okay, who am I here with today? Karina Clark. Okay, Karina Clark. First question. Okay. What does hunting mean to you in 2024? I mean, honestly, I don't think it means very much to me, just because – I mean, I know that people partake in it, but especially where I'm from, it's not like something that's a huge deal. My grandpa and my dad used to do it, and my grandpa used to take my mom to do it, but it wasn't – when I was growing up, it was never something that was like, oh, let's go out and hunt pheasants or deer or anything. It was never a thing in my family. Okay. I mean, I know that it exists, and I acknowledge that, but I'm not partaking in it. Yeah. You just didn't grow up with that being a part of your family. No. Yeah. I think if it was a part of my family or if it was something that my friends did and we would talk about it, I think I would be a little bit more warmed up to the idea, but it wasn't even ever something we ever talked about. But I also live in a pretty – I live in a pretty urban area, so. Yeah. So would you classify yourself as an anti-hunter or just a non-hunter? Oh, it's so hard because, like, I don't want to – like, everyone has their own beliefs and, like, you're entitled to your own opinion. I just, like – I understand hunting – like, my concept of it is, like, you, like, hunt animals that you need to eat because you need food. And any other reason for doing it, I just don't really understand. Like, in our society today, like, why do we need to kill animals to eat? Like, you can go to the store and buy them, but I understand that it's part of people's culture, so I don't want to, like, disrespect that. I just, like – also, like, the emotional side of it, I just don't know if I could ever do that. I don't know how people do it. Yeah. So it's more – you're not, like, against it. You're just, like, it's not something that you, like, describe to necessarily. Yeah. And I wouldn't necessarily be, like, oh, yeah, like, I'm so happy that you're doing that. Like, I understand that people do it, and I'm not going to, like, be, like, oh, you can't do that. But I just don't really – I think if I understood more about the culture, then I would, like, be more equipped to, you know. Yeah. All right. Well, that was awesome to hear from Karina, and now I want to jump in a little more to tying in this idea of hunting and talking with other people about hunting and conversing around this topic is relevant to global engagement. So right now the landscape of hunting media is mostly dominated by older people, typically older white men, and young voices of hunters is one that has become quickly overlooked. Hunting to me as a young person is super important because it's how I engage with my friends. It's how, you know, I have experience with Mother Nature. It's how I come to respect that. But I understand that there's also a lot of downsides to hunting, and I want to address those. There are people who are non-ethical hunters, and that paints a bad picture to all of us who really do care about hunting ethically, to those of us who care about the animal, to those of us who care about the land. And things like that, you know, it paints a bad picture. It's a downside, and I want you guys to understand that I'm not coming from a place of, well, I hunt, and hunting's the best, and there's nothing wrong with hunting. I don't believe that. I understand that there are problematic parts of this world, but for me, you know, the important thing is talking about that and talking through it with other people who think differently than me. So I spoke to my dad a little bit about this because he is somebody that introduced me to hunting, and I wanted to get his take on hunting back in the day and hunting now. So I asked him how long he's been hunting, and he said since I was about eight years old, it's about 50 years, and it was more of a bigger deal for him recreationally with his friends and his older brother. I asked him how hunting is different now versus when he was my age, and he said you have to drive to more specific hunting locations now than when I was your age. We used to just be able to drive out of town, and you could hunt dove and quail about 15 minutes into the desert because there weren't houses all over the place. I asked him how these differences have affected hunting now, and he said it's made it a lot harder for people to access land where you can hunt and shoot safely. It's become more expensive. It's become more of an involved trip. It's not just, hey, let's meet tomorrow morning and go out like it used to be. It's not as spontaneous, I guess, is what he said. I want to dive in again to voices of young people. I think that if young people were given more of an avenue to talk about this and understand the differences that hunters and non-hunters have, it would be mutually beneficial to us. I think that we're in a place right now sometimes in our country where we don't really want to talk to people who have different ideas because we've either painted them as the enemy or we don't want to hear what they have to say or we think we're right. I know that I'm flawed, and I know that there's other ways of thinking about our world. I think that it's important that we continue to go through life with an open mind and be ready to hear other people out, and that's what I want to do with this podcast. I want to make a space available for young people to talk with other young people about hunting, people who don't hunt. I want them to have a chance to talk to people who do hunt and vice versa. I think that a big part for me of hunting is conservation, and I hope that that's something that people can come to understand. This is a quote from the Washington Post. Americans' interest in hunting is on the decline, cutting into funding for conservation, which stems largely from hunting licenses, permits, and taxes on firearms, bows, and other equipment. So conservation, a large part of it comes from, like what that quote from the Washington Post said, comes from hunting licenses, the money, the revenue that's generated from taxes on firearms, and I think that, you know, I didn't realize that that was as big of a part of conservation, you know, as it is before I started to do that research. So I think that that's another thing that contributes to, you know, people understanding our life more, you know, non-hunters understanding the life of a hunter a little more, understanding that we're conservationalists just as much as the next guy, even if you don't hunt. Another quote from that article reads, even as more people are engaging in outdoor activities, hunting license sales have fallen from a peak of about 17 million in the early 80s to 15 million last year, according to U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service data. So I think that from this we can tell that, you know, there's a decline in hunting in young people, but I think that if younger people knew more about it, if they had more experiences, if hunting became more streamlined again, the numbers of hunters could rise and this would help in turn with our funding for conservation projects. So to close this out, hunting is always and will always continue to be a central part of my life, and I think it's important that we continue to provide a space for those who want to learn about it and have meaningful conversations with each other around this shared tradition that we've had as humans for thousands and thousands of years. So thank you for listening, and we'll see you guys next time. Peace out. ♪♪♪
