Make Hunting Great Again
By W. Laird Hamberlin, SCI/SCIF CEO
Originally published in the 2025 March/April issue of Safari Magazine.
It has been said that change is the only constant, and that is so true. Change is our friend. SCI views change as an opportunity. We welcome it. We embrace it.
Change has been good for SCI. The change in our Convention from Reno and Las Vegas to Nashville has been extremely successful. Witness the record-breaking Convention a couple of months ago.
As hunters, we change hunting seasons with changes in weather and geography. For example, we change from hunting deer and ducks in the fall-winter to hunting wild turkeys in the spring. And then we change again when safari season in the Southern Hemisphere kicks into high gear during the late spring and summer months.
Similarly, we change from the Convention season in the first part of the year to the local Chapter banquet season a little later, leading to the Board of Directors meeting in May. The point is that we routinely change as we go along our life journeys (the word “safari” means journey), so it’s not a mystery or anything to cause fear.
Rather, it offers opportunities to become stronger, spread our influence further and live our mission to protect the freedom to hunt and promote sustainable use wildlife conservation worldwide.
As much as some change takes us to new and uncharted territory, other changes can take us back to the future.
For example, SCI’s expansionary efforts over the past few years are foundations to Make Hunting Great Again. Historically, hunters were revered in societies around the world because we literally put food on the table.
Hunting was widely considered a noble pursuit through time, only to become vilified by anti-hunters in recent decades. It’s time to change that and return to the social realization that hunters are effective stewards of nature and that we are the good guys.
Change is in the air globally, especially in the U.S., following the election of Donald Trump in his second term.
As much as he realigns the way government interacts with people and institutions, we must realign the way hunting is viewed by the masses of non-hunters.
We may never change the minds of the hardcore anti-hunters, but we can change the understanding of those who are neither for nor against hunting — the vast majority of people around the globe.
We are changing the hearts and minds of hunters and the population at large through our effective communications efforts that are coupled with our associations and cooperation with government agencies around the world.
Sporting Conservation International was formed as an umbrella organization with numerous groups under it. SCI continues to grow quickly and widely.
Part of this overall expansionary initiative is to enter into various kinds of partnerships and other arrangements that will result in SCI serving as a hub around which the entire hunting world revolves.
This means changing things consistently and broadly. Hunting is one of the world’s oldest activities, and it is time for us to reclaim our rightful place.
We will do that by engaging the world at large with our message of hope and accomplishment and by assuring that there are huntable levels of wildlife in wild places forever.
That’s how we Make Hunting Great Again.