telling us that the recreational patterns of adults are formed in their 

 childhood years. To this I added the one-man, one-vote concept and 

 the attitude of the flower children on taking life. And to be honest, 

 the future of hunting looked a little bleak. 



As a matter of fact, there was only one viable alternative open to 

 anyone who believed in hunting as a management tool. Adopt the 

 philosophy of this cartoon character: Yea though I walk through the 

 valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil cause I'm the meanest 

 son-of-a-bitch in the valley and by damned there's going to be hunting 

 around in 50 years and that has to be the approach taken. Well I got 

 by with this ten years ago. As you know, however, due to the 

 changes that have been made in the last ten years, there's been a few 

 neighbors move into this valley who believe they are also pretty mean. 

 And on an occasion or two, they've even proven this point. But if we 

 don't take this alternative, what else have we got? We certainly cannot 

 rely on the majority vote to save us. I used to lose a considerable 

 amount of sleep worrying about the numbers in the hunting fraternity. 

 Actually it's about eight percent. But then I found out that in Europe 

 they've maintained hunting over a lot longer years than we have and 

 they have about four-tenths of one percent of people hunting. Now the 

 adversary, of course, is the dedicated anti-hunter. But I don't believe 

 that they can win unless we beat ourselves. Many of you won't agree, 

 but much of the trouble is in our own camp. We get the anti-hunter all 

 mixed up with the non-hunter, or any other group who does not share 

 our own philosophy about 110 percent. Let's not kid ourselves. We're 

 in a high-stake poker game. The cards had better be played to 

 perfection. 



Let's take a look at three objectives and reationalize what the 

 accomplishment of them would do for our cause. First, what if we 

 could improve the hunters image? Second, what if we could prevent 

 non-hunters from becoming non-hunters. And third, we need to obtain 

 the rural landowners' support of public hunting. As mentioned, we are 

 in a poker game so I'm gonna deal you a hand that addresses these 

 points. And as you play them, consider all the advice that Kenny 

 Rogers suggested in his song 'The Gambler' cause your gonna need it. 



The first card is a ten of spades and this would be a mandatory 

 training program for all first-time hunting license buyers. This would 

 inlcude a minimum 80-hour course covering ecology, respect of 

 landowners' property, principles of wildlife management, gun safety and 

 mandatory reading of Aldo Leopold's San d Count y Almana c. 



The next card is the jack of spades and this would be a state 

 wildlife program that includes equal attention for all critters, whether 

 they be hunted or not. As we just saw in the movie, that's what 

 Montana's talking about. 



The third card is a queen of spades which would include a 

 fool-proof system to adequately finance this improved wildlife program 

 of the state. And for openers I would suggest something like Missouri's 

 program. They seem to get a lot of money and they have a lot of 

 public support in that state. 



