FIELD AND STREAM
January 02, 2014
By Scott Bestul
I’m accustomed to seeing deer on magazine covers, but I snapped-to a couple weeks ago in the grocery-stole aisle when I spotted a whitetail doe on the cover of Time, with the headline: “America’s Pest Problem: Why the rules of hunting are about to change.” I tossed the magazine in my cart and read it as soon as I got home.
If hunting usually takes it on the chin in the mainstream media, the Time feature was a notable exception. Fairly and thoroughly reported, the story took a nation-wide view of wildlife populations, particularly in suburban areas. Author David Von Drehle interviewed biologists, community leaders, and citizens and came to the conclusion that, in most cases, hunting is indeed the most effective, cheap, and humane method for dealing with critters when they become pests.
This is old news to us, of course. We’ve been explaining to the non-hunting public that we are the game managers for a very long time. But when the same argument is made in a non-hunting magazine as widely read as Time, it’s bound to have more traction with the non-hunting public. And that’s good.