A resolution: Teach a child about the outdoors
A lot of resolutions are for ourselves, but those can be the hardest to keep. After a few weeks, it’s shockingly easy to think that it wouldn’t be that bad if we missed just one day. Before you know it, we’re back to our old ways.
Could I suggest a more doable New Year’s Resolution? It’s a resolution with built-in motivation. It will benefit a young person for the rest of their life as well as California’s wildlife and natural places.
Conservationists and wildlife agencies have long been concerned about the declining numbers of active outdoorsmen and women, as well as the conservation funding declines resulting from fewer license sales.
The outdoors community has spent considerable sums studying and defining causes leading to the decline in the outdoors lifestyle. Answers range from lack of places to hunt and fish to competition for entertainment dollars and energy, and so on.
Meanwhile, the outdoor industry continues to set records for expenditures, economic impacts, and activity all while broadcasting an artificial outdoor experience influenced by television shows.
As a result, sportsmenconservationists now argue the economic impacts of hunting and fishing to justify conservation rather than make the case for “why” conservation is critically important to our human existence. Make no mistake, the economic impacts are important, but are they the most important aspect of our outdoors experience?
The conservationists among us embrace the efforts to stem the tide of dwindling brothers and sisters in our movement. Yet we miss a very simple and basic point.
The best way to ensure
Conservationists and wildlife agencies have long been concerned about the declining numbers of active outdoorsmen and women, as well as the conservation funding declines resulting from fewer license sales.
there will be future hunters and fishermen is to take a child outdoors. It’s a simple solution. It’s proven to work. But, we aren’t doing it enough.
Every hunter or angler among us knows a child who yearns to learn more about hunting, fishing, shooting, and camping but needs the opportunity. Perhaps this child is found by reaching out to the single parent who might not have the time needed to go hunting any more. Or perhaps there’s a child who’s expressed interest in fishing but his or her parents aren’t anglers themselves. Yes, we may have our own kids and tell ourselves the demands of our family are more pressing. But I bet each of us, if we tried, could reach a youngster, share our knowledge of the great outdoors, and invite them with us as we go—or as we take our own children—outdoors, and in turn have a positive impact.
So as we begin the new year, let’s make a simple resolution to take at least one child out and teach them about our woods and waters. It may cost you a weekend or two, but it is a lifetime investment.
Here’s to 2021? May we truly get back to “normal!
Thanks for reading and remember to keep it reel! Don = 4REEL Fishin.’