Saturday, September 25, 2021, is National Hunting and Fishing (NHF) Day, when state wildlife conservation departments across the United States encourage sportsmen and women to celebrate their hunting and fishing heritage with numerous events and special opportunities. The day serves to remind all outdoor lovers that hunters, anglers and recreational shooters are leaders in conservation, raising more than $57 billion in excise taxes for wildlife and habitat restoration since 1957 through the Pittman-Robertson Act. It’s also a day to introduce a friend or family member to the great outdoors. Safari Club International (SCI) encourages all hunters to head to the woods this weekend for NHF Day and to make a stand for our hunting traditions by joining SCI’s advocacy efforts.
Congress made NHF Day a federally recognized holiday in 1971, and later President Nixon signed a proclamation on May 2, 1972, writing, “I urge all citizens to join with outdoor sportsmen in the wise use of our natural resources and in insuring their proper management for the benefit of future generations.” Forty-nine years later, NHF Day is the greatest national effort to promote outdoor sports and conservation of habitat and wildlife. But while NHF Day takes place once a year on the fourth Saturday of September, anti-hunters work every day to end the very traditions that National Hunting and Fishing Day is designed to celebrate. SCI asks all hunters to help defend hunting year-round by becoming members and/or by referring hunting friends and family to become members.
What has SCI done to defend hunting? In the first nine months of 2021 alone, SCI has advocated for hunting in more than a dozen separate situations. Currently, SCI is working to remove an effective trophy import ban from the Interior Appropriations Bill, which would be considered by the 50-50 split Senate. Another law has been proposed to stop the movement of all hunted game animals between states. SCI is currently fighting these efforts and is also intervening in lawsuits by anti-hunters challenging the gray wolf delisting and attempts to shut down newly opened wolf hunts.
Early this year, SCI was closely involved in stopping efforts to ban bear hunting and the importation of hunting trophies from Africa in California, as well as defeating an animal breeding bill that would have negatively impacted hunting dog breeders. More recently, SCI successfully challenged the closure of 40 million acres to hunting in Alaska, helped squash a gun law that would have prevented hunters from borrowing or loaning hunting rifles and opposed the release of personal information on importers of hunting trophies. SCI has opposed the closure of black bear hunting in New Jersey, and successfully supported the passage of expanded Sunday hunting regulations in various states. SCI supported Missouri’s new black bear hunting season, the inclusion of wildlife corridors in America’s Transportation Infrastructure Act, and a Texas bill allowing hunters to donate legally harvested game meat to nonprofit foodbanks.
This NHF Day, hunters can best contribute to our hunting heritage by taking a friend to hunt and introducing them to SCI. Now is a great time to join and to refer new members. SCI’s new Rewards Program awards members who refer their friends and family to SCI and also rewards new members for joining. Members can select from a variety of rewards. Learn more about the benefits of SCI membership and join SCI today. Click here.
