Enviros and hook-n-bullet set form unlikely alliance
Posted: Thu May 01, 2008 7:46 am
Enviros and hook-n-bullet set form unlikely alliance
Tom Stienstra, SF Chronicle Outdoors Writer
Thursday, May 1, 2008
(04-30) 21:48 PDT -- Maybe the lion will lay down with the lamb, after all.
In this case, the lion is the nation's hunters and anglers. The lamb is the hard-core environmentalists who make up the base of the 600,000-member Sierra Club.
With a Web site launched last week, sierrasportsmen.org, the Sierra Club is appealing directly to the passions and issues that engage hunters and anglers. In the process, the Sierra Club is embracing outdoorsmen as partners in a shared mission to protect habitat for fish and wildlife.
But you might ask: "What about the anti-hunters in the Sierra Club?" The answer is that 20 percent of Sierra Club members hunt or fish, about 118,000, according to the Sierra Club's Jon Schwedler, who runs Sierra Sportsmen, and that the organization supports hunting and fishing as part of its national platform.
"Sportsmen were some of the first conservationists, and have always been an important part of the Sierra Club," Schwedler said. "Our founder, John Muir, worked closely with Teddy Roosevelt to protect America's wild legacy."
It's true that the Sierra Club has its roots in the alliance of Muir, the environmentalist, and Roosevelt, the hunter. Their historic campout in Yosemite led to the symbol of the hunter/conservationist who protected the nation's wildlands and wildlife habitat. Somehow along the way, the groups occasionally have been polarized, like when a few local chapters opposed some hunts.
To bridge past differences, the Sierra Club is recognizing on its Web site that the quality of habitat, not legal fishing and hunting, determines the populations of fish and wildlife.
In Northern California, an example of how this partnership could work might be with the local Water4Fish.org, a group of Bay Area-based fishermen fighting to restore salmon, striped bass and sturgeon. They have collected 50,000 signatures this year in a mission to reduce water diversions from the delta to points south and increase flows into San Francisco Bay, and in the process, restore habitat and fish populations. With the Sierra Club integrating its support with Water4Fish, the impact could be profound for both organizations in the Bay Area.
"We're hoping that the network SierraSportsmen.org will help connect sportsmen across state lines on conservation issues," said Kristina Johnson at Sierra Club headquarters in San Francisco.
Hunters and environmentalists have joined forces with the National Wildlife Refuge system. It was founded to protect habitat, which both groups support. The refuges are paid for by hunters, primarily through the federal duck stamp, allowing hunting for a handful of waterfowl and upland game species, and yet protecting wetlands for 800 species of migratory birds.
"It's crucial that sportsmen and environmentalists work together more closely so we can help save the forests, plains, lakes, rivers and streams we all enjoy," Schwedler said.
E-mail Tom Stienstra at tstienstra@sfchronicle.com.
This article appeared on page D - 7 of the San Francisco Chronicle