by Hal Herring

The Conservation Hawks is a new group dedicated to harnessing the power of sportsmen to address climate change. Stop. Before you give in to anger, or to the “conservation fatigue” that can fall upon us like a giant wet carpet whenever climate change is mentioned, consider this: If you can convince Conservation Hawks chairman Todd Tanner that he’s wasting his time, that he does not have to worry about climate change, he will present to you his most prized possession: A Beretta Silver Pigeon 12 gauge over/under that was a gift from his wife, and has been a faithful companion on many a Montana bird hunt. I know the gun, and I’ve hunted and fished with Todd for years. He’s not kidding. You convince him, he’ll give you the gun. 

--Chad Love

Can hunting endangered African species help save them? That's the question the news segment that aired last night on 60 Minutes is asking.

From this story on cbsnews.com:

The scimitar horned oryx . . . the addax . . . the dama gazelle - three elegant desert antelope that you'd hope to see on a journey through Africa, except that their numbers are dwindling there. Which is why Lara Logan went to Texas -- yes, Texas. There, on large grassland ranches, some exotic species that are endangered in the wild have been brought back in large numbers. But there's a catch: a percentage of the herd is hunted every year by hunters who pay big money for a big catch.

by Hal Herring

The sunlight had lost its power. My son Harold and his buddy Austin were overdue by a couple of hours at least. They were supposed to be swimming and fishing their way down a couple of miles of winding creek to the next paved road, where they could walk back into town to Austin’s house. Austin’s father was worried about them, and so was I, so I rode with him in his big flatbed, banging down a two-track that was as close as you get to the creek in a truck.

We yelled for them and honked the horn a couple of times. It was late August, and the big cottonwoods of the creek bottom were just starting to turn yellow. The willows and chokecherries there were a massed wall of green, one of the thickest places I know of, a haunt of whitetails, an occasional black bear, more rarely, a grizzly or two. We headed back to the pavement, parked on the bridge and waited, the cool water of the creek rippling below us, wondering silently how much trouble two boys, 11 and 13, could get into in all that jungled bottomland between here and the next road.

by Bob Marshall

$615 Million Cut from Conservation

Sportsmen got a sneak preview of how much Congress values their issues earlier this week, and it wasn't pretty: House and Senate appropriators agreed to cut $615 million from key fish and wildlife conservation programs that support public hunting and fishing--not to mention the overall quality of human health.

The cuts were contained in the 2012 “minibus” spending bill, so-called because it will only keep the government running another four weeks, rather than a regular "omnibus" spending bill which would have provided funding through the end of the fiscal year. 

Among the drastic cuts announced:

• Wildlife Habitat Incentive Program cut by $35 million.

• Wetlands Reserve Program cut by approximately $200 million.