Please enjoy a view of the places that inspire, enlighten and bring balance to me...
All words and images are a copyright of Craig Raleigh
"Conservationist may be the most overused and misunderstood word in our repertoire. If we hunt to kill, how are conserving anything?"
"The question is, does the hunter only want more of an animal to exist so that he can hunt it with more impunity; so that he can never truly ‘run out’ of that which he considers his favorite game? The answer is a resounding yes he does, so he can have a sustainable population to hunt without ever having to consider its demise due to his lack of effort in restoring or revitalizing its numbers!"
Conservation in hunting means the lack of limitation towards identifying the ways and means of a species to thrive with human help, knowing that people are at the forefront of understanding that which creates a viable and healthy population of animals, and hunting is a part of that.
Particularly knowing when it's time to back off: "Strength in numbers is not only a platitude, but a virtue of the hunting community."
I have spent most of the last forty-five years of my life outdoors trying to find that elusive Holy Grail, that unimagined reality of hunting where pleasure combines with practice to exceed our wildest expectations.