When many people hear that someone like myself is an avid hunter and angler they are shocked to find out that I am also a Biology major. They think that it is impossible for someone who studies the world around them to be the one who is also bringing harm to those species they study. This is where proper education to our society is a must. Many people think that those of us who hunt and fish are those who just want to kill Bambi and eat Nemo. But sadly they are mistaken and uneducated about what role someone like myself actually has in our ecosystems.
Without hunters and anglers many speices would be over populated and interbred, and without allowing only the fitest to survive we can cause harm to each species gene pool. But on the other hand if these sports are not done correctly they can cause serious harm to our ecosystems. This is why there has been the need for so many laws to be inforced. Some often find these laws as an inconvience rather then a need and these are the people whose intesion for the ecosystem is not as it should be.
Being that I love the outdoors more then anything I have found that we need to repect our environment while we enjoy all that it has to offer. Sadly this hasn't been done and some of our species are suffering. As we know one person can spoil the image for the rest of us and in the past I have realized that there are two different types of people that hunt and fish. There are those who do it for the love of the outdoors and to feed their families, while the others do it just for the fun and for the wall mount. Sadly those who partisipate in these type of sports for the wrong reasons are usually those who have money to just thow around or those who are not concerned about conservation. These are the people who pay thousand to go to africa and hunt zerbras or wart hogs just for the fun of it or just for the mount. This is when hunting begins to be viewed in a bad light.
Those who hunt or fish should be doing it for the right reasons and not waist what they capture if it is a legal catch. Our law enforcement do all that they can to protect those species that cannot protect themselves. Sadly this is all of the legal help that those species hunted and fished have, so they need to be respected. Yeah it does suck to catch a 17 inch Redfish and have to throw it back because it is not 18 inches, but we have to rememebr that all of this is for a reason. This reason is to insure that this same speices that we love to fish for will still be around in our future. Many of us just think about here and now and think that taking one over sized fish won't hurt, but what is all of us thought like that. We need to be concerned about what the future has instore and we need to realize that the surival of all species is in our hands.
