Shane Mahoney, CEO of Conservation Visions, speaks at the 2017 Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation National Convention. Learn more about Shane at http://conservationvisions.com 

Follow Shane on Facebook at http://facebook.com/shanemahoneyconservationist and on Instagram http://instagram.com/conservation_visions 

"There can be no doubt, that we live in a constantly changing world now.

A world that seems to bring unending challenge to things that we hold dear and to the values that we cherish. The world is becoming an incredibly different place.

We are seeing massive changes in the way the land is used. Massive movements of people away from the rural lifestyles that were part and parcel of nourishing the hunting tradition in our countries.

We are 4.5% of the people in this nation who hunt. In some states it is 1.5%. We know, that if we become too few, we will become irrelevant.

Yet despite these problems, I am now incredibly optimistic.

It is because those social trends that were moving people away from hunting, away from the lifestyle we believe in, away from the values that we cherish, they like all social trends eventually bend back on themselves.

And now what we have, in our cities, in our suburbs, in the very places we thought where it was lost, we have people that want to be locavores. They want organic food. They want a lifestyle that will have them live forever.

One of the things they are realizing, is that our tradition, our lifestyle, our venturing out onto those lands, and pushing ourselves in these hunting experiences. In harvesting those animals that have lived wild and free their entire existence. In harvesting them for food and sharing them with friends and family, they are coming to understand, that this is something valuable.

This is something precious." - Shane Mahoney 

Shane Mahoney, CEO of Conservation Visions, speaks in front of a group in Missouri about the critical conservation challenges we face. He discusses the rising empathy for wildlife, how conservation groups need to respond, and how we all need to realize this is more complex than simply trying to label it coming from one particular outlier group. Conservation is a global effort and Shane stresses we all need to find ways to speak about conservation issues on levels everyone can understand. 

Thank you for listening. Learn more about Conservation Visions at http://conservationvisions.com