Like so many good ideas, Howl for Wildlife was born out of frustration. It was January 2021, and state Sen. Scott Wiener of California had introduced a bill to ban bear hunting in his state. Army veteran Charles Whitwam, a Bay Area entrepreneur, ...
Opinion & Essay
Opinion: Unfollowing Hunting Social Media Will Make Hunting Better
If this content looks familiar, it’s because we posted this Matt Rinella op-ed two weeks ahead of time. Our intention was to drop it timed to the MeatEater podcast, embedded below, where Matt and Steve get into the value of social media in hunting. ...
A Loss for Bear Hunters in Washington State
Some say there is no evidence of a slow erosion of hunting in the United States. I’ve heard that sentiment on several occasions — from hunters. But if you look state-by-state, you can see how a thousand tiny cuts add up to reduced hunting ...
The John Oliver Duck Stamps Segment is Good News for Hunters
Love him or hate him, John Oliver just did something amazing for wildlife conservation with a segment about duck stamps and a message that absolutely deserves to be shouted from the rooftops. Through his television show, Last Week Tonight with John ...
To Trail Camera or Not to Trail Camera: What AZ Ban Means for Hunters
On June 11, 2021, the Arizona Game and Fish Commissioners enacted a hunting trail camera ban with a 5-0 vote. This will likely be remembered as the most controversial decision to face the hunting community in 2021. The commissioners amended ...
The critical importance of being uncomfortable
For three days I averaged only a few miserable hours of sleep a night while camped out on the prairie. I alternated time between trying to get comfortable on my thin and far-too-narrow sleeping mat, scratching dozens of fresh mosquito bites, and ...
Numb Decisions: An Essay on Ice Climbing
My fingertips have just regained feeling. The screaming nerves claw at my skin and burn the last half-hour of ice climbing into my brain. Below the belay I hear THWACK, THWACK — each placement of a tool cutting and holding ice 200 feet up this ...
How the Hunter Recruitment Project Recruits New (Adult) Hunters
Have you wanted to get into hunting but didn’t have anyone to take you growing up? Did you hunt a few times in your early years with friends and family but became overwhelmed by the unending number of questions, such as What camouflage do I buy? Do I ...
Photo Essay: Elk Hunting Sucks, or The Life of an OTC Archery Hunter
For the last four years, I have been archery hunting Colorado’s over-the-counter, or OTC, units for bull elk — with mixed results. OTC means the elk tags are sold to the general public literally over the counter, anywhere you can buy a Colorado ...
Noodling: My First Time Hillbilly Hand-Fishing for Alabama Lake Monsters
noodling (verb) A slightly deranged person holds their breath, submerges themselves under water, shoves their entire arm into a muddy hole, and then uses their hand as bait in order to lure a giant catfish into biting them so ...
Island Peak: How 2 Spec Ops Vets Found Healing in the Himalayas
Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars, And say "These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.” After I left the military in 2011, I wandered for months, crisscrossing India and Nepal. I studied Buddhism in the misty ...
I Survived a Mexican Ambush in a Van Named Falcor
Have you ever fucked up so bad that time stops, giving some great ethereal fist the opportunity to slip past your teeth, punch down your throat, and choke stop the conversion of oxygen in your lungs’ alveoli? That’s how bad I messed up on my first ...
