Diverse and divided by John C. Street 

If I were asked to give one word to describe today’s entire Blood Sport community, I would offer the word “diverse.”  

And if were asked to give one word to describe the Blood Sport community’s current state of affairs, I would suggest that word is “divided.” 

The Blood Sport community is no longer generically lumped into descriptive categories like “Hunters” or “Trappers” or “Anglers.”  Today this community is separated into numerous sub-sets that are identified with specific fish or wildlife species or hunting and fishing techniques. By any logical application of the word, the Blood Sports - at the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century - are diverse. 

Unfortunately, though this diversity has led to the ascension of special interests as each of the sub-sets competes for an ever shrinking piece of the fish and wildlife resource. And that in turn has led to division. Consequently, threats that past generations of hunters, trappers and anglers confronted (very successfully, as history reveals) as a cohesive group are, today, left unaddressed.  

In these opening years of the twenty-first century (unlike the opening years of the last) Fish and wildlife management does not take place in a societal vacuum. While the diversity of the Blood Sport community sustains its economic viability, this same diversity has become a heads-in-the-sand blinder to the increasing involvement of other “ideology driven stakeholders” whose objectives are at odds with the ideals that birthed the “conservation and preservation” ethic that, in turn, begat the modern paradigm of the Blood Sports.  

Unfortunately, many modern day Blood Sporters - heretofore unaccustomed to this type of ideological chicanery - have fallen easy prey to the altruistic message of these ideologically driven stakeholders. “Is it not a logical extension,” these new stakeholders ask the Blood Sport community, “that our effort to manage ecosystems for the maximum (bio) diversity is but the next step in what you began over 100 years ago when you committed to ‘preserve and conserve’ our wild life and wild places?” 

And so it is that, without a figurative shot being fired in this literal, ideological war, the image – which is rightfully based on the history and performance - of the Blood Sport community has been co-opted into the ideologically driven stakeholders’ crusade. Without the benefit of a “call for the question” (which would allow the subject to be discussed in open forum) or even a rudimentary roll-call vote, the “diverse and divided” Blood Sport community is unwittingly being used as the “Poster Child” for an ideology movement that is unsubstantiated by science and – unconscionably - unaccountable to those it purportedly represents.  

Adding injury to this grievous insult, the ordained managers of the Blood Sports community’s wild and natural assets have either bought into this charade of science or are so intimidated by the purveyors of this ideology that they are acting as enablers, forgetting – or choosing not to acknowledge – that their legitimacy comes from the historic achievements of the very community they are now debasing with their complicity.  

The Blood Sport community has evolved beyond its hunter-gatherer origin to become an “industry,” a “Bright Star of the American Economy” that, like the proverbial two-edged sword, can either guarantee its safe passage into the future or become a slippery slope to its demise.  

Successful industries must diversify in order to survive and the Blood Sport industry is no exception. The plethora of specialized hunting and fishing techniques extant today is a profound testament to this diversity. Hopefully, this diversity, and the economic engine it fuels, will guarantee safe passage into the future. 

But, again, diversity has also led to divisions as each of the sub-sets of the Blood Sport Community competes for an ever shrinking piece of the fish and wildlife resource. Attuned to take care of their own, members of the sub sets (the Blood Sporters who identify with one specific fish or wildlife species or a particular hunting or fishing technique) have tended to be mute in their defense of others whose preferences differ from theirs. And this in turn has led to a divided community that is unable – or unwilling – to step to the plate when issues that threaten the entire community arise.   

We are diverse and, as an unfortunate consequence, divided. If this diversity causes us to remain mute, we will soon discover that, divided, we will be moot.