Unbeknownst to anyone, COVID-19 has essentially implemented a hunting ban across the world. International travel is cancelled and thus hunts are cancelled. As you read this, you may be one of those impacted. Even before this global pandemic, the hunting community has been and will continue to come under attack from individuals and organizations in this world that believe that hunting is detrimental to wildlife populations, results in species extinctions, and is overall an unhealthy strategy for ecosystem health.
Unfortunately, everything the anti-hunting establishment has ever wanted to happen is happening right now as a result of COVID-19. Just one look at certain anti-hunting Facebook groups will highlight the veritable glee that the anti-hunting community is currently floating in as the hunting ban that they have been calling for is occurring right now without them having to do anything. COVID-19 has essentially shut down state, national, and global travel, specifically global travel in a time of the year where thousands of Northern Hemisphere hunters are trekking south to Argentina, South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand, as well as people starting to travel for spring bear seasons to Canada, Yukon, and Alaska to start their hunting seasons for the year.
All of it has come to a grinding halt. No travel means no hunters. No hunters means hunt postponement maybe later in the year or maybe to next year. However, just like any seasonal endeavor, hunting operations can’t just shut the doors and open when things settle down. The single reason for that is that every hunting operation is a steward of the environment. By definition, a steward is a guardian of something, a protector, a caretaker. For hunting outfits, the animals are economic assets, and as such, they want them to prosper and grow. For others, they have had to shell out thousands of dollars already for concessions, quotas, and camp. Without hunter dollars coming into these operations, who will fund anti-poaching patrols? Who will continue to pay the salaries of game scouts, chefs, cooks, skinners, trackers, maids? You will not see one of those individuals on the anti-hunting page send a single penny to any hunting outfit to help save wildlife because when you get to the root cause of the matter they aren’t interested in saving wildlife, they just don’t want people hunting. They have no other solution.