{"id":11343,"date":"2016-04-04T07:26:00","date_gmt":"2016-04-04T13:26:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=11343"},"modified":"2016-04-04T07:29:06","modified_gmt":"2016-04-04T13:29:06","slug":"montana-ethic-project-leading-the-way-on-conservation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2016\/04\/montana-ethic-project-leading-the-way-on-conservation\/","title":{"rendered":"Montana Ethic Project: How we led the way on conservation"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Posewitz\"<\/a>

Joey and Libbie Early<\/p>

Jim Posewitz, a retired Fish, Wildlife & Parks biologist, speaks on “Montana Sportsmen and the Hunter’s Ethic.”<\/p><\/div>\n

This is the fifth\u00a0chapter of the 32-part video series \u201cThe Montana Ethic Project.\u201d This chapter features Jim Posewitz speaking on “Montana Sportsmen and the Hunter’s Ethic.” \u00a0Posewitz is the founder of Orion-The Hunter\u2019s Institute<\/a>, in Helena, considered\u00a0the leading hunter ethics organization in North America. You can watch the whole video below. Here is how this chapter opens:<\/em><\/p>\n

“When asked by a stranger to describe Montana, where does your mind go?<\/p>\n

“For most of us our mind goes to the things we value most and we try to communicate that to whoever\u00a0poses the question to us. For most of us, it\u2019s places that are wild. We go to the Bob (the Bob Marshall\u00a0Wilderness), where the grizzly and elk have survived now and are prospering. Or we go to the\u00a0Yellowstone River, where we have 600-plus miles of free flowing river, undammed\u2014the longest in the\u00a0lower 48 states. And so, we tend to describe Montana by bringing forth the things that we value.<\/p>\n

“The problem is, for the most part we don\u2019t know how those values were passed into our custody.”<\/p>\n

Here is another, edited excerpt from Posewitz’s\u00a0presentation<\/em>:<\/p>\n

“Franklin Roosevelt calls the first\u00a0North American Wildlife Conference. And it was a conference of Rod and Gun Clubs and hunters and\u00a0anglers from all across America. Seven Montanans went to that conference and they were all hunters\u00a0and anglers. That conference was in 1936. In that year they formed the National Wildlife Federation.<\/p>\n

“And those seven Montana guys started the Montana Wildlife Federation. They held their first meeting in\u00a0Helena\u2019s Placer Hotel and at that meeting Governor Elmer Holt came to give them comments. And his\u00a0comment was, \u201cI\u2019m surprised to see all you hunters here from Eastern Montana. Because we know\u00a0there\u2019s no game out there.\u201d Of course, that was true in 1936.<\/p>\n

“So today, 75 years or so out from that event we have deer in our cities, bears in our\u00a0orchards, and goose\u00a0dung on every golf shoe in Montana.”<\/p>\n