Hunters and conservation

In a conversation with Dr. BRUCE STEIN: who has spent much of his career on the topic of wildlife biodiversity and endangered species, I brought up the topic of possible overhunting of game species like wild turkeys. “I will say that one of the great conservation success stories in America is that overhunting is rarely a problem anymore. A century ago, overhunting was a huge issue. It's one of the things that led to the extinction of the passenger pigeon. It was leading to declines of waterbirds like egrets and herons because they were being hunted for their feathers to put in ladies fancy hats. But over the last 50 hundred years, with the establishment of professional fish and wildlife agencies at the state and federal level, with the passage of strong wildlife protection laws, hunting is actually no longer one of the big threatening factors for most of our wildlife species. In fact, and in other parts of the world, hunting still is a big issue in Africa unregulated bushmeat hunting in parts of the Caribbean, unregulated harvest of sea turtle eggs, things of that sort. But for the most part, here in America, hunting is not a problem. And in fact, it's really one of the things that is financing the conservation of many of our game species.”